Born of Woman (80 page)

He huddled his coat around him, touched the damp wool of his sweater. Jennifer had knitted that—knitted all his jerseys. It was all he had left of her. Her other possessions would be in that squalid Southwark bedsit which he had never dared to visit—the tiny china animals which she had collected since her childhood, her fluffy Angora jumpers which moulted in the wash and left little shreds of her on his darker pants and shirts. His own sweater was baggy now, stained with axle grease. He remembered it growing from her needles like a child, swelling on her lap. She had chosen the wool to match his eyes, scoured twenty shops before she got it right. She had tried it out against her, held it to her chest to measure it. Now it lay against his own chest. He slumped back, closed his eyes.

He had driven her away, lost her through his own fault, rejected her, upset her, made a mess of everything. He was too numb now to battle on, too fagged to force himself. Best simply to give up, accept that he was lost in every sense. He would perish in the cold and his wife wouldn't even know.

He let the snow slam down on his face, cover him like a shroud, heard the tiny cry of the rabbit again, gasping through the night. Other creatures were dying—preyed upon or frozen—sheep plunging into drifts, deer collapsing where they stood. He groped to his feet and listened. Was it just a rabbit? It sounded more like a human cry, muffled and still distant. Yes, there it was again. He
wasn't
lost. Someone was out there, another human being. He lurched towards the voice, dizzy with relief. He suddenly knew he didn't want to die.

‘Haloooo …,' the voice was shouting. ‘Where a-aa-are you?'

It was Edward's voice, Edward who was approaching him—gloveless, witless Edward, striding out in the snow, risking his neck to come and find his enemy in a completely unknown countryside.

‘Over here!' Lyn yelled. Elation made him clumsy. He tripped on a hidden root, measured his length in the snow again, blacked out for a second.

When he opened his eyes, Edward was standing over him, hauling him up, his broad comforting bulk steadying him on his feet. ‘L … Lyn, you're s … safe. Thank God!'

Lyn felt his face crushed against wet cashmere, his chest pinioned in two arms. Edward was embracing him, had used his Christian name for the first time since they'd met.

‘God! Lyn, I was frightened. I thought you might b … be …' The voice stuttered, petered out. Lyn drew away a little. Was Edward frightened for himself, scared to be left alone to starve or perish, or genuinely worried about his only blood relation's life and safety? He sensed the second, longed to thank his rescuer, return his hug.

Instead, he stood rigid and embarrassed. ‘It's OK. I was quite all right, in fact. Just … er … having a bit of a breather.'

‘You were gone an hour, you know. I was imagining the worst.' Edward took his arm and started walking very gingerly, feeling every step.

‘Yes … Well—everything takes longer in this weather.' Lyn stumbled along beside him. ‘I couldn't find the farm, in any case. The snow masks all the landmarks. We ought to get back in the car and stay there.' He assumed Edward knew where the road was, let him act as leader. He himself seemed to have lost his strength as well as his sense of direction. His coat was sopping wet, flapping against his trousers. He was astonished to see the car lights shining like a benediction after only a few yards. So it had been that close, after all! He spurted forward, ran towards the hedge.

‘Thank God for my old banger! There's nothing we can do now except sit tight until the snow plough comes and digs us out in the morning.'

‘But will it come on Boxing Day?' Edward had caught up with him.

‘If we're lucky. It depends how bad the weather gets. It'll come in an emergency, even on Bank Holidays. Thank God we got this far, though. It's only the major roads they bother with.'

‘You call this major?' Edward smiled for the first time since they had left the house. They stumbled to the gate together. Lyn could see more clearly now. The side-lights blazed a welcome. The car was sanctuary and shelter—if not warm, at least dry and protected from the wind.

Edward fumbled for the door handle. ‘Wouldn't it be better if we both got in the back? We can sit closer then and build up a bit of body heat.'

Lyn hesitated. ‘Body heat' sounded somehow far too intimate. And yet it was common sense, survival. Animals huddled together for warmth, curled up side by side.

‘OK. Let's just push the car on the verge, though. I'd prefer to turn the lights off and we don't want a collision if other cars can't see us.'

‘D'you think there will be other cars?'

Lyn could hear the tiny thread of hope in Edward's voice. He was forced to snap it. ‘I doubt it—in this weather and on Christmas night. I suppose there might be the odd Land Rover, but anyone with his head screwed on would stay indoors.'

He and Edward heaved the car across the road and up on the verge, the opposite side from the ditch, then clambered wet and panting into the back, Edward's bulky form swamping all the seat space. Lyn tried to squeeze himself into the corner. His coat was not only drenched, but filthy. He had used it as a ground-sheet during weeks of living rough, wiped oil and grease and blood on it, whereas Edward's cashmere was still reasonably clean and elegant. The whole car was dirty, Edward's feet paddling in torn newspapers and oily cleaning rags. It was Jennifer who kept things clean and tidy. Yet Edward was taking charge now, had switched from passenger to boss. ‘My coat's drier than yours. Why not take yours off and use mine as a sort of … rug for both of us? Come on—otherwise you'll get a chill.'

Lyn grinned—another Jennifer. The two men struggled out of their coats. Lyn slung his on the seat in front, while Edward draped his damp black cashmere over both their laps. Lyn realised suddenly that both of them were wearing sweaters knitted by Jennifer—one slatey-blue, one brown. Edward had taken up his offer back in the house, slipped on his spare jersey underneath his jacket. It made a bond between them. Lyn relaxed a little. It was very cramped—but cosy. Their breath was steaming up the windows, their bodies overlapping. He was reminded of the ox and ass crowding the Bethlehem stable. If Edward was the patient lumbering ox, then he must be the …

‘I'm sorry Christmas Day turned out like this,' he said.

‘Hardly your fault, Lyn.' It still sounded strange to hear Edward use his name. He gave the Lyn great dignity, as if Llewelyn himself was trumpeting through the letters in a blaze of glory.

‘The snow rarely starts this early. White Christmases are rare, in fact, even this far north. January's the worst month. I remember one year we didn't see a blade of grass from New Year to the end of April—and hardly another living soul. It was rather like being besieged.'

‘Yes, this is … battle country, so I'm told.'

Lyn nodded. ‘More castles than any other county in the British Isles.'

‘Even Wales?'

‘Even Wales.'

They were silent for a moment. Llewelyn Powys seemed to have slipped between them, and Llewelyn ap Iorwerth. Two heroes. Lyn started to hum, almost under his breath, a battle-anthem he remembered from his youth. The tune was catchy, cheerful.

‘Shall we sing?' he suggested, suddenly.

‘Sing?' Edward sounded shocked.

‘Why not? To keep our spirits up.'

‘I'm afraid I don't know many songs.'

‘You must know
Mary Malone
, or—how about
Cherry Ripe
?'

‘Neither, I'm afraid.'

‘Danny Boy? The Ashgrove?'

‘No.'

Lyn pulled at the coat to cover their chests. Edward had been more deprived than he had. Hester had sung him songs, taught him verses, even before he could read.

‘How about a hymn, then?' Hester had never gone to church, but she had sung hymns about the house, her voice resounding like an organ, making everything too solemn. ‘
There is a Green Hill Far Away
. Everyone knows that.'

‘Meaning ‘‘even I must''! Yes, I do, in fact.'

Lyn cleared his throat, hummed up and down the scale to find the note, then let his voice leap forward. He rarely sang these days. It felt freeing, jubilant. The words were hot and soaring in his mouth when everything else was cramped and glacial. Edward's powerful baritone was sounding underneath him now, adding harmony and strength. They were perfectly in tune, except the words were wrong for Christmas. It was a hymn for Passiontide, for Easter. Crucifixion, Resurrection. Lyn could feel their voices melting the snow, sweeping away the shivering weeks till April. It had been two cruel Aprils before that, that he and Jennifer had conceived their child—the child he had refused to recognise and which had died because he willed it to.

He stopped suddenly, in the middle of the second verse. Edward's voice went on a moment, the deep, unwavering baritone echoing through the car.

‘Forgotten the words?' he asked, breaking off as well.

Lyn frowned. ‘No. We're in the wrong season. We need a Christmas hymn.' He stared at the windows, thickly furred with snow. ‘Do you know
In the Bleak Mid-winter
?'

‘No. Though it sounds appropriate.'

‘It's beautiful. Christina Rossetti wrote it.' Lyn started to recite the words.

‘In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan.
Earth stood hard as iron
Water like a stone …'

Edward shook his head. ‘No—never heard of it. Strange, that. I always went to church at Christmas. And most Sundays. My mother was very religious.'

‘Hester's your mother. You mean Alice Fraser.'

‘Er … yes …'

Silence.

‘Hester liked that hymn. She used to sing it in the middle of summer. When the corn was high and everything green and golden, she'd be booming ‘‘
Snow had fallen, snow on snow
‘'.' Lyn was singing now.

Edward took up the tune. ‘‘‘
Snow on snow, snow on snow
‘'. It's just right for today, isn't it?' He blew on his hands to warm them up. The car was getting fuggy from their breath, but still perishing cold. As the larger man, he was the more uncomfortable—legs cramped, neck and shoulders huddled.

Lyn nodded, finished the verse full-volume, dislodging the coat as he conducted with his hands. It felt strange to be singing at all. His voice was like his sex—something he kept down, mistrusted now. Yet it was somehow right and pleasing to be singing carols on Christmas Day with a relative. He could feel Edward's body shivering into his own. ‘I never forget the next verse. It's my favourite.'

Lyn sang just the last four lines, and almost in a whisper. They were too beautiful to shout.

‘But only his mother
In her maiden bliss
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.'

All his favourite words were in those four short lines—mother, maiden, worship, beloved. As a boy, he had seen pictures of the Madonna, young yet ripe, maiden and mother both. He had fused Mary with Susannah, the Christ-child with himself, imagined himself beloved, worshipped with a kiss, Susannah's long hair and soft blue veil bending over him in the hay. Blasphemy. Bliss.

Later, Jennifer had been maiden and beloved. But never mother. He had killed her baby, stolen her maidenhead. He glanced across at Edward, blur and bulk in the gloom. No mother had welcomed or worshipped
him
. Only foster-mother, foreign mother. Banished, not beloved.

He cleared his throat. ‘Weren't you ever … er … curious to come to England before this—see your native land?'

Edward hesitated. ‘Yes. Yes, I was. I thought about it many times. I was especially keen to visit Wales. I sent for all the brochures, even looked up hotels and worked out routes and … But somehow I never made it. Stupid, isn't it? I think I was a bit … well … worried that it wouldn't quite match up to my expectations. You know how you can build up a place and see it as a sort of fantasy or …'

‘Fairy-tale.'

‘Yes. A country of the mind.'

‘And
were
you disappointed?'

‘Well, I haven't been to Wales. I've …'

‘England, then—in general?'

‘I haven't seen much of England, either—apart from today, of course—and yesterday. The journey up was most impressive. The train stopped at York and I saw the cathedral from the window. It seemed specially beautiful on Christmas Eve, with the snow falling on that splendid roof and … But apart from that'—Edward shrugged—‘I've been in London all the time.'

Lyn was stamping and circling his feet, to try and warm them up. There was no feeling left in them at all. The car was beginning to smell from their fuggy breath and damp clothes. He felt embarrassed by their closeness to each other, the brute animal inadequacies of their two overlapping bodies. He envied the angels in the hymn—Cherubim and Seraphim—souls and wings instead of stinks and pricks. As a boy he had asked the ranger to show him a Seraphim—imagined it a bird like a curlew or a golden plover. He edged closer into his corner. ‘All right—London, then. What d'you think of our capital?'

Edward said nothing for a moment. Lyn tried to imagine London through his eyes. Cold, dirty, inhospitable. No one to welcome him except solicitors. Expensive and impersonal hotels. Streets jammed with Christmas shoppers. Hold-ups on the tube. Strikes. Power-cuts.

‘It's … er … much bigger than expected—a little overpowering, to tell the truth. People seem in such a hurry all the time. And it's cold, of course—very cold. Back home, I'd be in shirt-sleeves now, admiring the blooms of the red pohutukawa and sipping mango juice before supper on the terrace.'

‘Sounds odd for Christmas,' Lyn observed. Surely Christmas should be cold and harsh. Only then could April triumph, limp in pale and convalescent like a Lazarus.