She must be dreaming, otherwise surely that would have shocked her awake – though if she was dreaming, how was she able to rationalise the situation that way? She clenched herself around his icicle of a penis, trying to impart some warmth to it as her body responded drowsily to him. When he came and then shrank, she felt as if the icicle was melting inside her. The sensation was so dreamlike that she fell asleep almost at once.
The next time she wakened, the room was dark. She was lying on her side, facing away from the middle of the bed, her empty arms reaching out beneath the duvet. How much had she dreamed? She turned over and found Ben lying beside her. That was all that mattered. She pressed her face against his neck and drew the quilt over his shoulder, and was asleep.
The children's cries roused her. She was alone in bed. Brightness pressed against her eyelids, making them flinch: daylight between the curtains. As she shielded her eyes with one hand and levered herself out of bed with the other, she heard the children again. They were cheering.
They and Ben were scattered about the furniture in the living-room, watching television. A long-range weather forecast was just ending, and Ben's eyes seemed even brighter than the children's. "Mummy," Johnny cried as his father continued to gaze ahead with an odd smile of which he seemed to be hardly aware, "there's going to be snow everywhere for Christmas."
THIRTY-THREE
Of course Johnny knew he might have to wait. The weather man had said that when the snow came it would start in the far north and mightn't be here for weeks. All the same, that meant the weather man didn't know exactly when it would start, and surely it couldn't do any harm if Johnny just looked at the sky now and then to see if the clouds were here yet. Before long he was doing so partly to irritate Margaret, once he saw that it would make her turn her eyes up and pull her suffering face. She was really as excited as he was, only she was trying to seem grown up. But being grown up didn't mean that you had to act as if you were bored all the time, because Johnny could tell how much his father was looking forward to the snow.
Sometimes Daddy seemed to lock himself away inside himself, especially when he was writing a book, though Johnny's mother never behaved like that when she was painting. At these times Johnny always felt that his father was storing up secrets, getting ready to present them to the family and everyone, and now he could tell that his father had a new one. That morning he'd wakened to see Daddy standing in the bedroom doorway, watching him.
He'd looked to Johnny as if he'd had a surprise for him but had forgotten what it was. When Margaret had come out of her room to say hello, their father had given her a quick hug and plodded downstairs as though he hadn't quite known where he was going. They'd heard him switching on the television and had followed him in time to see the forecast. Johnny was sure that his father had known it was coming – that it was part of the secret he had in store for them.
Did his mother know? Johnny didn't think so; when she had come downstairs she'd seemed to wonder why Daddy was looking so pleased with himself. "Mummy," Johnny had told her, "there's going to be snow everywhere for Christmas."
"That should please some of us. How soon, Ben? How heavy?"
"As heavy as you'll ever see."
Johnny hadn't thought the forecast had been quite so extreme, but Daddy often used words to make things bigger. "Not for a few days, though," Mummy had said as if she was making a wish. "I can do without going into Leeds on a Saturday so close to Christmas."
"You won't have to."
They were referring to a secret the children weren't supposed to know, about Christmas presents which needed to be bought in Leeds. "We'd better start building up our strength for the winter," Mummy had said, heading for the kitchen. "Come and talk to me if you like."
Above the boisterousness of the children's programmes which he and Margaret agreed between themselves to watch, Johnny had heard his mother saying "Were you as lonely as I was? I felt as if a piece of me was missing." He'd squirmed with embarrassment and tried not to listen, until his mother had asked "Where did you get to last night after you came home? Couldn't you bear waiting?"
"I don't mind when 1 know it's worth waiting for."
When the aroma of breakfast had enticed Johnny to the kitchen he'd found his parents holding hands. They'd kept touching each other throughout the meal as if to make sure the other was still there. Rather than giggle, Johnny had gazed at the sky above the swollen forest. "I don't think you'll be seeing it yet," Mummy said eventually, "not out of a clear sky."
He didn't quite know how to describe the sky above the forest. "It isn't clear," he said.
"Neither is your head," Margaret informed him.
"No arguing for the sake of arguing," Mummy told them, "or there'll be no more late nights."
"Only earlier ones," Daddy said.
"You might try to help."
"I'll take them out, shall I?" he said, and asked the children "Where shall we go?"
"Leeds."
"Richmond," Margaret said, "to see what my next year's school looks like."
"Maybe your father would rather not drive after he came so far last night."
Certainly something had just bothered him, and Johnny didn't see how it could have been the mention of next year. "How about a walk somewhere?" Daddy said.
"In the woods," Johnny shouted.
"Margaret?"
"If you like." . "How about you, Ellen? You'd like to see how the forest is now."
"I would, but not today. Too much work. Speaking of which, I scribbled down a few thoughts about our book. They're on the desk."
"Couldn't you find any paper?" He got up at once, as if he couldn't bear to be in the same room with the joke. "Let me see what I think."
Mummy cleared away his plate, having given Johnny the bacon his father hadn't touched. As soon as she heard the workroom door close she said "Go easy on your father today, both of you. I think yesterday took quite a lot out of him."
When they'd helped her clear up after breakfast and their father hadn't reappeared, Johnny wondered if he'd fallen asleep at the desk. Perhaps he had only been taking in what he'd found there, because after a few minutes which made Johnny feel shivery with impatience he came downstairs, so quietly that nobody noticed until he was in the room. "You've far more sense of the book than me," he said. "I've no life to give it, but you have."
Mummy took his hand again, looking so girlish that Johnny made a face at Margaret, who frowned reprovingly at him. "You haven't finished it," Mummy said.
"I already had before I went away. It's your turn now. Keep my name with yours on the story if you want to."
"Of course I want to. But Ben, you're the writer here."
"What do you two think? Should your mother tell her story while she can?"
"Yes," they cried.
"Don't let your imagination go back to sleep," he told her, and gazed at her until she nodded. "Get ready for the cold, you two, and we'll be on our way."
"Bathroom first," Mummy said.
"No need to rush," he called as Johnny raced upstairs. "We've all the time in the world."
Johnny tried to be patient while his sister took ages to brush her hair. He zipped up his fat anorak and dashed out of the house. The sky above the moors was frustratingly clear, and the bright blur above the forest had to be a kind of mist, something to do with all the snow which had stayed on the trees. Johnny squinted at it as he marched ahead of his father and Margaret. It could hide something as big as the forest, he thought, and imagined a huge flock of birds or insects, millions of them with just enough space between their bodies to let them hover. He imagined them exploding out of the mist like a blizzard, and stopped short of imagining what they would look like – not like birds or insects at all. He stumbled on the track and touched the icy skull of a figure as tall as himself, which jolted him out of the daydream.