She meant that for Ben too, and when he rose from among the swollen figures she flung as much snow as she could pick up in one hand at him. He seemed content to watch while she and the children played; even when the children scored hits on him he responded only with a smile so untroubled it looked secretive. Before long Ellen's feet began to ache with cold. "You play with the children for a while, Ben," she said. "I'm going to make something to warm us all up."
She sat on the stairs and pulled off her boots, one of which proved to be leaking. She changed her sodden sock and made for the kitchen. She was expecting to see Ben and the children outside the window when she raised the blind, but they were under the trees. The forest crouched over them, a mass of white poised to draw them into its bony depths, where the treetrunks appeared to shift as whiteness glimmered between them. Ben and the children were each rolling a snowball towards the house, and she turned from the window, telling herself not to be so ridiculously nervous.
When she went to the window to announce breakfast she saw that Ben had piled up the three giant snowballs like a totem-pole. He'd rolled the largest against a group of the smaller figures so that they propped up the construction, and Ellen thought they looked as though they were worshipping it. "It hasn't got a face," Johnny said to his father.
"It will have," Ben said. "I think we're being summoned."
Ellen enjoyed the sight of colour returning to the children's faces while she ate breakfast. "Will you play with us again after?" Johnny asked her.
"I'd like to get some new boots first. Did I just make a joke?"
Ben looked mysteriously amused again, and oddly wistful. He reached across the table and laid his icy hand on her wrist. "1 was thinking how trivia becomes part of us all and how easy it should be to slough it off."
"Is anyone coming with me while the others wash the dishes?"
"Me," the children chorused.
"I don't mind. You won't be going anywhere," Ben said.
She shooed the children to the bathroom, and was ready with anoraks and scarves and gloves and a deaf ear to protests when they ran downstairs. From the front doorstep she saw Ben at the sink, the snow figure towering over him. "Shall I bring you anything back?" she called.
He raised his head but didn't turn it. "Only what you have to."
The white silence seemed to mute the slam of the front door. A bird flew away across the moors, its song chipping at the stillness, and then there was only the frustrated revving of a car engine somewhere in Stargrave. "What did he mean?" Margaret said.
"Ourselves, I suppose."
"Why is he being like that?"
"Because he's a writer, sweetheart. He gets on my nerves sometimes too. He wasn't saying he didn't want us. I'm sure he meant anything but."
"I think he's all right," Johnny said, and Ellen didn't know if he was expressing loyalty or reassurance or a hope. "Race you to the road," he said, nudging Margaret, and skidded away down the track.
"Mind you don't twist your ankles," Ellen called after them, and trudged in pursuit, slowed down by her climbing boots. As she led the children along the muffled dazzling road towards the hushed town, the hard surface under the snow cracked, sinking her heel into a frozen puddle. She imagined the whole of the road being as precarious, undermined by the cold, ready to give way. She was beginning to wish she had left the children with Ben; she might have made more headway on her own. Because the snow was silencing their footsteps, she had to keep glancing back to confirm they were behind her, a tic which only aggravated her reawakened nervousness.
It took her a quarter of an hour, more than twice as long as usual, to reach the first pavement. All the houses were top-heavy with snow. Despite the screech of spades on flagstones as shopkeepers cleared snow from in front of their premises, the town seemed laden with silence. Above the streets full of parked cars sheeted with snow, Ellen heard children playing on the common, their distant voices thin as birdcalls. From the foot of Church Road she saw them, tiny figures dressed in bright colours which kept being obscured by explosions of white. The forest reared above them like a wave about to break, but why should that make her uneasy? "Come on, let's get your poor old ageing mother something to keep off the shivers," she said.
She was sitting on the only chair the cluttered shop in the station building was able to accommodate, and pulling on Wellingtons which tied at the knees, when Sally Quick found her. "For once we could use a few more walkie-talkies," Sally said.
"Surely there can't be anyone out on the moors in this."
"Only the farmers, I hope. I was meaning the phones. The lines must be down somewhere with the snow. We can't even phone across town at the moment. Don't say you were expecting your publishers to call."
That wasn't why Ellen had experienced a twinge of panic. She must be thinking of her parents: if communications weren't restored she and the family wouldn't be able to call them on Christmas Day as usual. "Can anything be done?"
"We'll have to wait for Leeds to fix it, though heaven knows what they can do in this. When Eric from the dairy went to fetch his load this morning he couldn't get more than a few hundred yards past the bridge. The snow was over his wheels out there. We're going to be living off whatever's in our shops and houses until conditions improve."
"I may have something surplus in the freezer if anyone gets desperate."
"Let's hope things don't come to that, but bless you for offering." She picked up Ellen's old boots and followed her to the counter with them. "It'll take more than a bit of snow to spoil Christmas in Stargrave, and I can see it's making Christmas for the kids."
As Ellen came out of the station she heard the children on the common, their cries so tiny they sounded in danger of being wiped out by the silence, but all she could see beyond the roofs was the forest poised above the town. Around her, as her ankles began to ache with the chill of the snow in which she was standing, everyone looked unconcerned: people were depleting the food shops and even the video library, but otherwise the snow seemed hardly to have affected the town. Not yet, she thought, and told herself to stop being so gloomy: was she going to be the only member of the family not to enjoy the season to the full?
She was picking her way across the icy ruts on the road when Kate West emerged from the computer shop. "Cheer up, Ellen," she called. "It may never happen."
Ellen gave her an embarrassed smile. "I don't even know what it is."
"If you're wondering how to keep these two occupied you know they're always welcome. I've just bought a new computer game for when boredom sets in. You and I are lucky to have children who are readers and can make their own entertainment, but I suppose even they'll feel robbed."
"Of what?"
"I take it nobody watches daytime television in your house."
"Not as a rule."
"You'll see nothing but snow if you do – interference, I mean. And the radio seems to have lost its voice as well."
Johnny was watching his toes burrowing in a pile of cleared snow. "Kate, when can we come and play with the new game?"
"Now, if you like," Kate said, winking at Ellen to forestall any rebuke. "We ought to make sure it's popular before the shop shuts for Christmas. I'll have them until whenever you want to collect them after lunch, Ellen."
"You're a life-saver, Kate. Stefan and Ramona must come for lunch soon. Both of you be good until your father or I come for you," Ellen said.
No sooner had she tramped past the shops than she was met by a silence which seemed to extend to the edge of the world. The children on the common were building snow images now. The shadow of the forest crept towards them as the shrouded treetops reached for the low sun. She marched up the track, retracing the trail of her footprints, and let herself into the house.