In The Grip Of Old Winter (3 page)

She shook her head to release
the copper-coloured hair flattened by the hat. “The wretched taxi wouldn’t
drive up the track. I offered him way over the odds.” She pointed at her feet.
“These are ruined.” Purple boots, leather and shaped to fit, now patch-worked
by blotches of damp, didn’t look at all practical for tramping through snow.
“From Rome you know, cost a fortune.”

“You should’ve rung,”
repeated grandma.

“I did.” Almina sounded cross
at such an obvious suggestion. “On my mobile. Your line’s dead. Didn’t you
know?”

“Is it?” Granddad strode into
the kitchen where the phone hung on the wall.

Dad crossed his arms.
“Typical. Guess the snow’s brought the lines down.”

Almina held out her hand.
“Richard, how nice to see you again.” Her wide smile displayed bright white
teeth.

“Anne and Richard arrived
this afternoon,” said grandma. “Just in time, too.”

“How lucky.” Almina kissed
mum first on one cheek and then on the other.

“And you remember Peter?”
Grandma placed her hands on his shoulders and pushed him forward. “He was just
a baby the last time you saw him.”

Almina’s gaze fixed on Peter
and her eyes didn’t blink. “How could I forget? Haven’t you grown.” She held
out her gloved hand. “Charmed young man, I’m sure.” She squeezed his fingers.
“Charmed.”

***

The lights flickered one last
time and went out.

“Oh great,” said dad.

Granddad called from the kitchen.
“Hold on, the torch is just here.”

“Would you believe it?” said
grandma. “I’ve never known anything like it.”

Almina’s voice boomed out of
the dark. “Oh, the joys of rural life. It’s back to the old times this
Christmas. Old times and old habits.”

Peter shifted closer to mum.
He didn’t like Almina, that painted face hid secrets. A look in her eyes hinted
at unspoken thoughts and the extravagant clothes directed the gaze to their
finery and not to the person who wore them.
It’s like hiding, but why does
she do that?

The wound-up feeling in his
stomach subsided to a dull ache. The fear he experienced in The Hall, the
knowledge that someone or something approached the house, made him wonder.
Aunty Almina?

A beam of bright white light
dazzled his eyes.

“Here we are,” said granddad.
He flashed the torch at their feet. “Follow me into the kitchen. Almina’s
right, the phone’s dead.”

“I’ll heat up some soup,”
said grandma. “Would you like that?”

“Anything,” said Almina.

They all followed the light
as grandma hurried ahead. “Thank goodness for the AGA.”

“I’ll fetch some wood from
the barn to keep us stocked up,” said granddad.

Grandma took the torch and
guided herself around the kitchen as she reached for a saucepan. “It’s leek and
potato, is that all right?”

“Anything,” said Almina.

Mum put her arm around
Peter’s shoulders. “We’ll go back by the fire.”

Granddad mumbled. “There are
some candles somewhere.”

Grandma banged the saucepan
onto the AGA. “I’ll find them. You go and fetch the wood.”

“We’re fine,” said mum.
“We’ll find our own way. It’ll be an adventure.”

Grandma propped the torch
beside the AGA, so that’s its beam shone on the saucepan. “I’ll fill us all hot
water bottles after I’ve made this soup. You’d like some bread?”

“Anything,” said Almina.

Granddad opened the kitchen
door and a flurry of large snowflakes flew across the threshold. “I won’t be
long.”

Mum gripped Peter’s
shoulders. “Hold your hands out in front of you and walk slowly.”

The spill from the torchlight
made it easy to find their way out of the kitchen, but beyond, the dark
enveloped them and they shuffled along with tiny steps.

Mum whimpered. “Oooh! It’s so
creepy.”

Peter liked the fun of
feeling his way forward and when his hand brushed against something unexpected,
he jumped with extra fear to make mum jump too. The dark didn’t last long, for
ahead, the door to The Hall stood open and firelight guided their way.

Mum flopped onto the sofa
nearest the hearth. “We made it,” and she embraced Peter in a great big hug.
“What a brave boy you are to look after me.”

Peter hugged her back. “I
wasn’t really frightened.”

Mum kissed his head. “All the
same, I wouldn’t want to do it on my own.”

He snuggled closer. “Who is
Aunty Almina?”

“What do you mean, who is
she? She’s your aunty.”

That didn’t answer his
question. “Yeees, but who is she?”

“Do you mean, how is she
related to you?”

Peter didn’t think this
answered his question either, but he nodded to hear mum’s reply.

“She’s your grandma’s
sister.”

He shifted round to see mum’s
face. “Her sister? But she’s not as old as grandma.”

Mum stroked the hair from his
forehead. “She was born twelve years after grandma.”

“Really? That’s a long time.”

“That happens in families
sometimes.”

Did it?
“Why?”

Mum gave her, ‘I don’t know’
face. “All sorts of reasons.”

“So ...” and this made him
wonder; “I’m eleven and when I’m twelve I might have a brother or sister?”

Mum laughed. “No, darling,”
and she hugged him hard. “You’re my special boy and I don’t want anymore.”

Thank goodness
. The thought of somebody younger that needed looking
after didn’t please him at all. Mum and dad belonged to him, nobody else.
Still, he wanted to make sure. “How special?”

Mum tickled his chest. “As
special as special can be.”

He squirmed and wriggled. He
liked tickles and he liked curling up to escape them. “How special?”

“As special as special can
be.” Her fingers found all the places that tickled him best.

“How special?”

Mum gave a little laugh.
“That’s enough.”

Peter rolled over and sat up.
“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Yes, I did.” She spoke
slowly. “Aunty Almina is grandma’s sister.”

Peter shook his head. “No,
not that. I mean, what is she?”

Mum frowned. “Do you mean,
what does she do?”

This still didn’t sound
right, but he waited for the reply in case it helped.

“Well,” mum said. “She’s an
actress. She works in the theatre and in films.”

No help at all.
“An actress?”

“Do you remember last
Christmas when we went to see the pantomime?”

He remembered the darkness as
they sat in their seats, the brightness on the strange clothes, the loud music
and the puffs of smoke that happened when he didn’t expect it. “Dick
Whittington?”

“That’s right. Well,” mum
said, “the people up on the stage were actors and actresses and that’s what
Aunty Almina does.”

“Did we see her?”

Mum laughed. “Good gracious,
no. Aunty Almina is a very serious actress. I don’t think she’d ever do
pantomime.”

“Why not?”

Before mum had a chance to
answer, dad appeared holding three candles in brass holders. As he walked, he
sang. “Here comes a candle to light you to bed and here comes a chopper to chop
off...”

Mum interrupted with her
loud, bright voice. “It’s lovely and warm in here and so light with the fire.
Pop the candles onto the table, we shall need them when we go upstairs.”

Dad placed them down with
care.

Mum arranged them into a
straight line. “Is the phone really out?”

Dad flopped onto the opposite
sofa. “Yep.” He reached into a trouser pocket and pulled out his mobile. “Let’s
hope
I’ve
still got a signal.”

Peter dived across the space
to watch. Dad swiped through one page after another as he thumbed across the
screen. He muttered. “Don’t believe it, a single bar that fades in and out,
hardly any reception at all.”

“It’s just in the house, I’m
sure,” mum said. “With these thick old walls. Try outside tomorrow.”

“Suppose somebody needs me
from work?”

Mum curled up on the sofa.
“Darling, it’s Christmas. Nobody will want you. Everyone’s on holiday.”

“If there’s a crisis, they’ll
expect me to be there.”

Mum shook her head. “You’ve
gone away, they know that. They won’t want you to drive all the way back,
especially in this weather.”

Dad’s worried expression
didn’t change. “It won’t look good if I’m not around to handle an emergency.”

Mum’s eyes raised skywards.
“You’re imagining things, Richard. Honestly! Relax. There won’t be an emergency.”

Dad thrust the phone back
into his pocket. “If you say so, fingers crossed you’re right.”

Mum stood and stretched.
“Right Peter, time for bed. You take one candle and I’ll take another.”

Peter kissed dad on the
cheek. “’Night.”

Back in the kitchen, grandma
handed them two hot water bottles. “Tomorrow, we’ll light fires in the
bedrooms. Sleep well my little petal,” and she kissed Peter’s head.

Granddad came in at the back
door with a basket full of logs. Snow covered his cap and shoulders.

“At last,” said grandma.
“Whatever took you so long?”

Granddad huffed and puffed.
“Snow’s coming down thicker than ever.” He lifted the logs one at a time from
the basket and stacked them against the AGA.

When is he going to tell
me about the girl at the window? So much has happened today, but I don’t think
he’s forgotten, because he believes me. And I must tell him that I saw her in
The Hall, too.

Aunty Almina sat at the table
and dunked a thick slab of bread into a large bowl of leek and potato soup. “We
have to get to know each other, Peter. I’m sure there’s plenty we can talk
about. Goodnight, sweet prince.”

Peter didn’t know what to
reply. He didn’t want to reply, for though Almina smiled, her eyes gazed deep
into his and he glanced away, fearful that she might read his mind. “’Night,”
and he followed mum out of the kitchen. The stairs creaked as they climbed to
his bedroom on the first landing.

The house is bigger. In
the dark, it grows. And watches. It knows what happens and waits.

His stomach tightened, but
after his bath, in bed, his body relaxed into the soft mattress. The candle
burned on his bedside table and he fell fast asleep.

***

He woke with a start. The
candle smoked, the flame extinguished. Round the edge of the window there shone
a dull grey light.

Sometimes, he woke after a
bad dream and cried out and sweated and mum came to soothe him. He listened to
his own breathing and stared into the dark, determined to dismiss the thought
that the girl might be in the room. He banged his head against the pillow. That
made it certain that she wasn’t!

He didn’t remember having a
bad dream either, in fact he didn’t remember having any dream at all, although
there flickered, somewhere on the edges of his mind, the memory of his name
being called. His hands didn’t feel sticky from sweat.

No difference in the room,
nothing moved or spoke, though he wished for some matches to re-light the
candle.

Strangest of all, though wide
awake in the dead of night, the fear he experienced at these times didn’t
happen. No desire to call for mum, but instead a building curiosity to look out
of the window. Was it still snowing? Think how deep it might be by morning. If
he looked now, then imagine the excitement tomorrow when he ran outside.

He pushed the blankets away
and climbed out of bed. The large furry rug that covered the floorboards from
his bed to the window tickled between his toes and the air chilled his hands
and face. He parted the curtains just enough to peer through and then he swept
them aside.

The snow still fell, though
the wind had dropped, and reached at least a foot above the windowsill. He
rubbed away at the diamond-shaped panes as they steamed up under his breath. No
bush or shrub showed above the snow’s surface, there might be nothing in the
world but snow, except the shadows between the distant trees.

Just the shadows and - a
light? At first he thought a strange-coloured flake glowed brighter than the
others, except this one didn’t fall. It shimmered as it appeared and then
disappeared behind the tree trunks. A yellow light, that hovered just above the
ground, though sometimes it went higher, yet it never ventured farther than the
tree line. It didn’t look bright enough to see by and yet the way it shifted
from side to side and then up and down suggested that something or somebody
searched. He didn’t believe that granddad still collected logs, not this late
at night.