There was nothing really between us. There wasn’t a relationship or even the possibility of one.
There was something, Alexander says.
No, she says.
But why should he believe her? There is, after all, a baby: irrefutable evidence.
It’s alright, he says. Everyone has a past. I’d prefer Charlie’s dad to be someone you liked, someone decent.
You’d prefer it, she says.
A small flare of anger. It is not really a question, or a reiteration of his point. She is about to say more, that he doesn’t get to have a preference, that he is not in a position to choose, even theoretically, what kind of man he would like her baby to have been sired by, but she stops herself. He sighs.
Look, I think if you want to tell him, then you should tell him.
I haven’t made up my mind.
OK.
His arm is now stiff about her shoulders, uncomfortable; it should not be there but is stranded. The baby begins to cry, a faint inquisitive wail, quickly escalating. She moves away and gets up.
Do you want me to go to him? Alexander offers.
Not unless you can express.
She sounds like a bitch; she knows. How easily the attitude comes, once the mood is active, even in the face of amelioration, attempts to restore good terms. She looks down at him. He says nothing. His face has firmed, become slab-like. She goes next door, shuts the nursery door, leans over the crib, and picks up Charlie. Her heart is flurrying, the baby feels her unsettlement and struggles in her arms. It seemed unlikely she would ever argue with Alexander. No, not that: she has never really made it past a first argument with a man; argument always signifies her extraction. She has been happy these past months, and to imagine cross words and nastiness would have meant imagining the end.
She comforts the baby. She sits and tries to nurse him, but he screams louder. The wrong smell to her, perhaps — the residue of sex. Or Charles Caine is expanding his repertoire of mysterious complaints. He feels hot, tussles against her chest, spits out the milk. This is what happens, she thinks, when the embargoes are down. Things are said, stupid intimate dissembling things that do more harm than good. Perhaps Alexander will leave, she thinks. Of course he will leave; he is dressing right now, gathering up his phone and watch and wallet. Any moment she will hear the front door slam. Soon she becomes sure she has already heard it.
It’s a long time before the baby will settle. She takes his temperature, changes him, strokes his hair, adjusts the blankets. By the time she’s finished and returns to the bedroom, the desertion fantasy is complete and she is miserable. But Alexander is asleep in the bed. The lamp is still on. His glasses are on the bedside table, his legs splayed. She climbs in next to him. He stirs, turns, and puts an arm around her, the subconscious automatic of affection. She lies rigidly by his side, her hand barely daring to touch him, wanting to. I’m sorry, she thinks. I really am no good at this.
In the morning, Alexander brings her tea, as usual. She lies quiet and unmoving, as if asleep, still troubled, unable to fully embrace the reversal of disaster. Alexander goes to the bathroom to shower. She hears him coughing, blowing his nose clear under the stream of water, singing a few lines of a song — one of Chloe’s favourites, maybe. The baby sleeps on, exhausted by the night’s huge fit. She examines herself. You’re programmed to backstep, she thinks, to make them come forward, then to break fully away. She understands the dance — it has served her well, as it served her mother. But she cannot keep blaming Binny, not for the habits of a lifetime, not when she knows exactly what she is doing.
Alexander comes into the room, dripping wet, towelling his hair. He drops the towel on the floor and begins to dress. His body is familiar now, the vast chest with its dark central cavern, the long legs, and small buttocks. She does not love him. That is, she does not feel love as described by others, the high and low arts, not in relation to the person here in her room. But all that is misnomer, poetry, an unproved chemical; he has survived her tendencies; he releases something in her, if only a feeling of wanting another day, a feeling that the day with him is better than ordinary. She sits up, reaches for the mug of tea, and takes a sip.
Are you coming back later? she asks. After work?
He pauses in the lacing of his shoes and looks at her quizzically.
*
The weather deteriorates. There are days and days of snow, unlike anything the district has seen for decades. The condition feels eternal; in reality it is just three weeks of chaos. There’s a fast fall at the end of January — sticky, dense, a substance perfectly manufactured to mask the fields and fells, to stack against walls, blocking roads, and upholstering buildings. On the roof of the cottage hang precarious cornices that collapse with little warning. The garden is arctic, a lost world. On the estate, tractors cut through the drifts, leaving deep chasms in their wake, still impassable by car. The Penningtons’ helicopter is grounded, flights across the entire nation are grounded, and the Pendolinos south run at half speed, then are cancelled. More snow follows. Thomas misses the second vote on currency union. Supermarkets begin to run out of food. Then, the clouds disperse, the sky is as clear and dangerous as burning oxygen. Plummeting temperatures. The thermometer reaches minus thirteen at night. In the Highlands: minus nineteen. Petrol freezes in tanks. The death rate of pensioners soars; there’s talk of a flu pandemic, a deadly new variety.
In Annerdale, it is too cold even for river fog; the rivers freeze over, the lake begins to solidify — even the Irish Sea crisps at the edges. Pipes in the converted outbuildings of the Hall burst, and the staff, including Huib, decamp to the main building, like evacuees brought into the big house during a war. But they are guests, and are made to feel like guests. Every morning they are served eggs in the giant kitchen, from copper pans. Poached haddock. Fresh bread. Chopped herbs. The larders of Pennington Hall are well stocked. Huib texts Rachel — On holiday, come and join us. But the tyre ruts in the road are now glaciers, the snow is too deep and hard to walk across. She cannot get out of the woods, even for Charlie’s next immunisation appointment.
She takes the baby outside to look at the world. They stand wrapped in coats and scarves. Cumbria is a whiteout, as far as the eye can see. The mountains are brightly coated and seem bigger, amplified. At night, the stars are exceptional, with the lustre of old cracked diamonds. Charlie will remember nothing of it, she knows. She wonders, though, if it is laying something down in him, forming some sensibility? Will he always seek colder places, the beauty of frozen massifs, blue locked into white, the immaculate?
She keeps the heating high — she is not paying the bills and she does not want to risk a plumbing catastrophe. 1847, the date stone of Seldom Seen reads. The place has been upgraded, and well insulated, but gelid air still makes its way around the windows and under the doors, radiates through the walls. Rachel sleeps with the baby in her bed, against the advice, but she does not want to leave him in the bassinet. She tries to get the Saab out again, but the undercarriage scrapes and grinds; the back end swings out. Finally, it beaches itself at an angle and the wheels spin uselessly. The engine protests. She abandons the car in the lane, takes the baby out of the travel seat, and carries him back to the house. That night, another snowfalclass="underline" lesser, but substantial enough to cover the treacherous layer of ice. Michael arrives on a quad bike, clad in woollens, Gore-Tex, and agricultural boots. The lurcher is balanced on the seat behind him, tongue out, its breath steaming in the air. He knocks on the door, says nothing about her car blocking the lane, and asks if she needs anything. A lone woman and a baby cannot be abandoned in such conditions, never mind who they are.