An extraordinary hush falls upon villages and towns on Christmas morning. Alice opened her curtains and looked across the village green and marvelled at its stillness and quiet. Overnight, a powdery dusting of snow had fallen, and the village had the feeling of suspension, like a snow-globe on a shelf, waiting to be picked up and shaken. Roads and pathways were empty and, for now, the church bells were silent.
As Alice attended to the customary business of the day, choosing clothes, laying the fire with sticks and twists of newspaper, boiling eggs and buttering toast, she was troubled by a persistent, nagging thought. For the last few days it had been there, a ghostly tapping on the door of her mind. It would not cease. She was thinking about John Coxon and whether she would walk to the headland that morning to meet him. She knew the answer, of course. There had been no doubt. Twice during the night, she had got out of bed to check the depth of the falling snow, knowing that if it was too deep her walk might be impossible. As she chose her clothes for the morning, a flowing 1970s forest-green needlecord dress, she considered its practicality. Would it drag in the mud? Could she wear it with wellington boots? Although her conscious mind had spoken resolutely that no, she certainly should not go to the headland, her inner self had always accepted the walk’s inevitability. The last three days had been spent in a state of suspended elation and excitement. Like a child counting to one hundred in a game of hide and seek, she appeared still and steady, but her mind was racing to the pursuit. Her world was small and modest: her classroom, her school, her cottage on the green. The headland represented the outer perimeter of her territory, a wild, shifting place, full of power and light and darkness.
She picked up the gold necklace curled on her dressing table. It was a Christmas present from her mother, who had found it in an antique shop. It was a simple gold chain with a large oval-cut garnet pendant. As ever, her mother had chosen perfectly, had known her tastes better than she knew her own. She fastened it around her neck and admired the dark flash of the blood-red stone against her green dress. She belted her long black coat and loosened her hair from the collar allowing it to spill down her back. She fastened Hetty’s red leather lead and they left the dark, narrow cottage and stepped out into the fresh, sparkling air. On her doorstep, Alice found two heavy glass bottles filled with a dark, syrupy liquid. Each was tied with golden bow. Presents from Mabel Gaunt: her notoriously potent home-brewed ginger wine. It was deliciously warming. Alice would drink it tonight from a tiny, cut-glass liqueur glass. The liquid would sparkle in the firelight, and reflect the lustre of garnet and topaz in the corners the shadowy room. Alice remembered what she’d said to Esther about finding the tiny moments of hope and magic in every day. She hoped the girl would find such moments today; a few bejewelled fragments of her own to hold to close to her heart and treasure.
She left the village under brilliant blue skies just as the church bells began to ring. It was a plaintive moment, imbued with tradition and solemnity. When she reached the dene, Alice unclipped Hetty’s lead and the dog ambled ahead. It was a walk they had taken together hundreds of times over the years. As a young dog, Hetty would chase squirrels and rabbits there, thankfully never catching any. Now she trotted and sniffed sedately under the soaring tangle of silver grey branches. In late Spring and Summer, with the sky and sun exiled behind a canopy of flickering leaves, a walk through the dene was like a journey through an underwater kingdom, full of liquid eddies of apple green light and surging, swirling foliage. In winter, the landscape had a pale and desolate beauty in its costume of grey. Only the ivy, sinuous and serpentine, proffered flashes of glossy malachite green. The morning was still and peaceful. The only sounds were the crackle and crunch of feet and paws on frosted leaves. It was those sounds that told Alice she was walking hurriedly, that her pace was accelerating and she remembered Esther, ‘I always ran to school. I always walked home.’ If anyone could see inside her mind, she imagined they would observe that all of her thoughts were of John. That they nestled inside each other like a set of Matryoshka dolls, each doll concealing and repeating the hope and excitement new beginnings.
She stepped out of the closed seclusion of the dene into the open surging, grassland of the headland. Ahead of her stood the disused Victorian viaduct, its red brick arches soaring against a cornflower sky. Beyond that, the sea roared and crashed on honeycomb cliffs. Hetty, giddy with the vastness of the space and the crystalline freshness of the air, started to bound and prance. A salt wind gusted from the east. As it rushed overhead, the grasses bent their heads and whispered to each other, as if speaking of mysterious secrets carried across the sea. Alice followed Hetty down the crude pathway of flattened grass towards the cliffs, serene in the certainty that John would be there waiting for her.
He stood at the very edge of the cliffs, looking out over the rolling waves. Everything around him was shifting and churning: the sea, the wind, the clouds, the grass. Yet he was startlingly still: a solitary figure in black standing at the end of the world. Alice walked forward. Hetty, though, had spotted her nemesis. The bristly hair along the angular ridge of her spine prickled and she barked manically and leapt from side to side. John turned. In that unguarded moment, it seemed to Alice that she could see the sadness leaking out of him, pooling at his feet like black tar. Then, the moment passed and a smile bloomed, erasing the battered, lined tension carved into his face. He walked towards her.
‘Aye, Hetty, we meet again.’ He looked at Alice. ‘Y’all right flower. I thought you’d never get here.’ He spoke with the wry insouciance she remembered from their first meeting in his shop. Their chatter was casual and fluid, as if he had just left her for a second then returned mid-sentence to continue their conversation.
‘Happy Christmas,’ she said. ‘Hetty remembers you well, I see.’ A low rumbling growl was erupting from the dog who stood defiantly between them.
‘Aye, well. I did think of shaving the beard off to make myself more endearing to her, but I am just too devastatingly handsome with it. You said it yourself when you likened me to Alan Bates, petal. So, I’ve opted for Plan B’
Hetty eyed John suspiciously. She had stopped growling though. Her black nose twitched and she edged closer to him, showing a particular interest in the left pocket of his black overcoat.
‘I am sure I said Peter Sutcliffe, not Alan Bates. You are buying her affection with food, I think.’
‘Why, it works for me, like. There’s not much I wouldn’t do for a home-made corned beef pie. But yes, more ginger snaps.’ He took a half empty packet from his pocket. ‘Bought especially for you, Hetty. Although, I may have eaten a couple on the way. More than a couple, actually.’
The dog sat in front of him and raised her right paw like an imperious duchess greeting a slightly grubby peasant. John knelt down in front of her and crumbled some biscuits on the ground. While she ate, he put his arm around her warm body and scratched her ragged fur. When she’ was finished, she nudged his pocket again with her nose and whined plaintively. ‘Not yet girl. I’m saving some for emergencies. Shall we walk, petal?’
They headed north along the uneven coastal track. The path was narrow, but they walked side by side, Hetty scampered ahead of them, her seething resentment forgotten.
‘It was quite bold of you to ask me out on a date like this, pet. On Christmas day, especially. I mean, I could have had plans.’
Alice supressed a smile, ‘I did not ask you out on a date. My God. I would hate to keep you from any pressing social engagements, Mr Coxon. What could they be, let me think? Oafs Anonymous? Misanthropy for Beginners? Strippers at the Working Men’s Club?’
‘As usual, you are wrong about almost everything, flower. I am way past the beginner stage of misanthropy. You seem to have me pegged as some sort of louche Geordie gigolo. But I have heard the strippers at the Working Men’s Club incorporate tinsel into their routine at Christmas. Not that I’ve seen it, you understand.’
The headland was deserted that morning. Families would be opening presents together in front of glowing coal fires or singing carols in churches strewn with holly, ivy and mistletoe. Since she’d left the village, Alice had not met another soul. Except John, of course. When Alice stumbled on one of the rocks that littered the coastal path, John held out his arm. ‘Here, flower. You’d better hold on.’
Alice flushed indignantly, ‘I can manage, thanks. I’m fine.’
‘Howay, go on. Try it. You might like it.’ She slipped her arm through his and they began to walk together. ‘See, that feels all right, doesn’t it?’
She didn’t reply. But he was right. She could feel the warm physicality of his body next to her and was thrilled by it. The swirling, sparking air between them seemed to crackle with energy. The ground beneath her feet vibrated with its potency.
‘So, as we’ve established my Christmas involves strippers, oafishness and nihilism, tell me what you will be doing today, pet. Shall we sit for a bit?’ he pointed to a fallen tree trunk. They rested together and looked out across the grey sea. Hetty lay down on the mossy grass at their feet and sighed contentedly. This walk is getting to be too much for her, Alice thought. I won’t have her much longer. The thought was agony to her.
‘Howay, petal, what are your plans today?’
‘Well, we’ll walk home and I’ll light the coal fire and some candles. I’ve got a chicken to roast, bread sauce to make, of course. God, I love bread sauce. I’ve set aside a copy of Hercule Poirot’s Christmas for after dinner. My neighbour Mabel has given me two bottles of ginger wine strong enough to fell a brontosaurus. I’ll have a lavender bath and then bed. Perfect.’
‘You’ll be all alone?’ he sounded surprised.
‘Yes. I would have thought a student of advanced misanthropy would approve of a solitary Christmas. But actually, it was my choice. I was invited to my mother’s. She’d have a gaggle of her female friends over. There would be lots of posh food courtesy of Fenwicks’ Food Hall, lots of wine and lots of noise. I wanted a quiet Christmas. I saw my mum yesterday instead.’ Alice’s hand went automatically to the garnet pendant around her neck. ‘My mother is quite famous, infamous even. A well respected academic and author in the field of feminism. Famous for knocking a policeman’s tooth out at Greenham Common when he asked her what her husband thought about her silly antics. Famous for appearing on BBC Question Time and telling a Tory minister to fuck off, fuck off and then, when you've managed that, fuck off some more.’
‘Cunting hell. She sounds class, like. And your father?’
‘No idea who he was. My mother wanted a daughter, so she had one. That is as much as she will ever say on the subject.’
‘But, what if you’d been a boy?’
Alice adopted her mother’s best gin-addled dowager tone, ‘But my darling. That was NEVER going to happen now, was it?’
‘You see, that is quite something. The only thing my mum is famous for is the ability to make her children feel like losers. Losers who also possess enough power and malevolence to wilfully destroy her entire life. Oh, that and cooking gravy that cannot be categorised by any of the states of matter, it’s not a gas, liquid or solid. I believe the Russians are interested in developing it as a form of chemical warfare.’
‘And, your Christmas?’
‘I shall spend it with my mum. My angry brother is coming around with his angry wife and their two angry kids. My eldest brother, an unemployable genius who has been writing the same book for the last 20 years, will be there in his cardigan of despair. We’ll all get to savour my mother’s monstrous gravy. Those with any sense will be pissed by the time the Yorkshires go in the oven. My ma will have been pissed since Bonfire Night. Bonfire Night 1976. I think you win at Christmas, pet. Hands down. Yours sounds fucking great. I wonder if I should suggest bread sauce to my mother? Maybe not, given that she’s 71 and not yet mastered the fundamentals of gravy.’ John bent down and picked up a smooth grey pebble from the ground. He turned it round and round in his hands as if relishing its quiet regularity. ‘I always pop in to see my mother-in-law on Christmas night, so unfortunately I can’t get too drunk at dinner.’
Over the last few days, Alice had understood that at some point John was going to have to mention the girls. What had happened to his family had been so unspeakable, so beyond the realm of human understanding that she knew broaching the subject must be terrible. Words were just dry, dead sounds, worthless and inadequate in the context of such horror. She thought she could make things easier for him if she brought up the subject herself. She hoped she could, anyway.
‘I wanted to say, that I realised in your shop who you were. I remembered about your little girls. I wanted to tell you that I know about that. I thought it might be difficult for you to mention it. You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted to say that I know. And that I’m sorry.’ Her words seemed pathetic in their inadequacy. John did not speak. He put the grey stone in his pocket and reached out and held Alice’s hand for a second. Then he raised it to his lips and kissed it. ‘Do you like being a teacher, petal?’
She wasn’t disconcerted by the change of topic. She knew that when he was ready, John would speak about his daughters.
‘Most of the time I enjoy it. Yes. I think my mother is disappointed that I haven’t done more with my life, but it’s her own fault really. She read me all those wonderful books about female teachers when I was young. I fell in love with Miss Stacy from Anne of Green Gables. Then there was Jane Eyre, of course.’ She paused. She had a sudden startling vision of Esther sitting in a puddle of sunlight on her classroom floor, hugging her blue notebook to her chest. ‘I met an ex pupil of mine this week, Esther. She was one of the first children I taught after qualifying. When she joined my class, her mother was ill. Dying actually. She died by the end of the school year. I never forgot Esther. It was the kind of situation that teacher training just can’t prepare you for. When I met her again this week, ten years or so later, she told me she was happy at school, even with all of the horror and misery she faced at home. She talked about books we read together and her memories. That is why I am a teacher. I don’t expect I’ll have children of my own. And that’s okay, my life is filled with children anyway.’
She looked at his face. When she spoke to him, he listened carefully. He waited before speaking, as if he was allowing her words to bed down in his mind. As if he were reflecting on each and every one. It is a wonderful thing, she thought, to be listened to. To be properly listened to. Wonderful and rare.
‘I bet you’re a fucking great teacher. How is Esther doing now? Is she okay?’
‘No. Not at all. She’s back from college. She tried to take her own life. She’s still bright and funny and beautiful. But haunted. It is as if she is haunted by the past. I’m going to try to help her though. I am going to try to help her see how amazing she is.’
‘Maybe some wounds are too deep, flower,’ his words sounded heavy, as if weighted with rocks.
‘Maybe. She needs someone on her side, that’s all. We all do, surely.’ Alice lifted her face into the raw wind and breathed in its stinging aroma of salt and ozone. ‘Maybe we’ll come here with Hetty. I love how this place affects each of your senses. The sounds of the crashing sea and the gulls. The biting air. The bleached, washed-out shades of grey and blue. How beautiful this place would be, if it hadn’t been ruined by mining. Habitats destroyed. The sea and beach black with coal dust.’
‘It won’t be for much longer, if Thatcher has her way. I’ll give the pit two years at the most. Then every little house you see there,’ he pointed to the north where the red brick terraces nestled under a haze of chimney smoke, ‘every house, every family will be fucked. Mark my words, we’ll be left with nothing. They will hang us out to dry. Payback for the strike.’
‘Oh, I know. I must sound like some over-privileged, middle class National Trust busy-body. But do you think they’d tolerate slag heaps and pit wheels and black beaches in coastal Sussex or Dorset? I don’t think so. Let’s walk back. Hetty’s shivering. And I’m beginning to have thoughts of roast chicken and bread sauce.’
They walked together arm in arm. She sensed that John was about to speak. She glanced at his face. It was dark: dark brown eyes under heavy black brows; a beard streaked with strands of silver. He was untangling his thoughts, pulling at strands to separate and examine them. When he spoke, he did so with a quiet gravity. ‘My daughters were called Caterina and Sylvia. They were nine years old when they were taken. Sometimes, I think that they are still here. That everything around them is changing, ageing, but that they are still with us, still children, still exactly the same little girls. Like something from a fairy tale, they get to keep the loveliness, the bloom of childhood, while we grow old. If they come back, they’ll wonder who this shambolic old bastard is.’
They walked and John spoke of his daughters, their characters and idiosyncrasies, the books they read, their favourite colours and ice creams, Caterina’s love of ponies; Sylvia’s love of painting. Caterina’s boisterous, bossy confidence. Sylvia’s gentle shyness. Alice sensed that he was uncovering memories. Memories that had been gently wrapped in tissue paper and stored away in a box on a shelf. Memories that had been unexamined for many years. Memories that had been in darkness, that morning were brought out and shared in the sparkling aquamarine light.
‘I never talk about them, usually. Never.’ he said simply, when he had finished.
‘Esther said the same about her mum. She says, if you don’t speak of it, you can pretend it didn’t happen. How does it feel, to talk about them?’ Alice asked.
‘A relief. It aches. But it’s a good ache, if you know what I mean. My wife left a year or so after it happened. I don’t blame her. I got up one morning and she’d gone. I got the clichéd envelope on the kitchen table. She went to stay with family in Italy and never came back. We married so young. We were happy, I think. I don’t know. Marriage seemed to me to be a thousand notes on the fridge door, appointments, parents’ nights, picking up kids, dropping off kids. So fucking busy. I think we both lost ourselves in marriage. Maybe that’s the point of marriage. Maybe that’s not even a bad thing. You’ve never married?’
They had reached a fork in the path where Alice would turn to head back through the dene. ‘I never married. Almost. I am glad I didn’t. It wouldn’t have worked out. I don’t think I am suited to marriage. I had an awful relationship once. He was cruel. Controlling. But I think he sensed that I was never going to be his in the way he wanted or expected. I’ve always craved solitude and silence. I’ve discovered that I love living alone. I don’t have to compromise on anything. In a few years, I expect I’ll be one hundred percent crone. A spinster in a shawl in her cottage on the green. Bifocals perched on the end of her nose. A witch. Too many books. Too many animals. Too much ginger wine.’
‘You don’t need anyone?’
‘I am not saying that. I don’t need marriage. I don’t need anyone there all the time. I’d quite like love. Comfort. You know on an Autumn night, when the rain is hitting the windowpane like tiny pebbles and you’re in front of the fire and the lamps are lit. And you know there is no place on earth you have to be. I would like that feeling, with someone. Peace. Comfort. No explaining. Love as sharing, not possessing.’
John took a step towards her and wrapped her in the fabric of his coat. She leant into his warmth and rested her head on his chest. She could feel his heart, muscle, bone, skin all pressed against her. She could smell soap and washing powder and coffee, and feel the heat of his body and the roughness of his jumper against her cheek. He bent down and kissed her softly.
‘Aye, pet. I hear that.’
Deja vue !
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