The Ice Child (21 page)

Crozier stood before them for some time, but he did not give the speech that they had expected. He did not say that, tomorrow, they would try to break the ice again. He did not say that it was only temporary, or that a distant way might yet be seen and attempted. He did not say that they would be here another year, or that, come the summer in twelve months time, there would be no ice to impede them anymore. In short, he neither encouraged them, nor said that it was just as he had feared, and that he had been right, and that Franklin had been wrong.

He said nothing at all, other than issue a double portion of rum and tobacco.

And went below, to his quarters.

Sixteen

The snow was falling in Cambridge.

It began during the night, a thick and softly moving curtain drifting across the country. By the time Jo woke at seven, it had covered the city streets and lined the roofs, and when she went to the window and looked out, it was onto a different landscape from the one she had left the night before. The snow had smothered sound. It was as if the whole world was asleep.

She went to the bathroom, and coming back onto the stairs, she saw that the roof light was almost covered. She could only see a small letter-box shape of the view across the city; far across the fields, the few poplars were frozen, a black network against the growing light, isolated in a white sea. She reached up, holding the banister rail for support, and touched the sloping windowpane, tracing the pattern of the packed snow. Then, wrapping the blanket tightly around her—the cold, out here on the landing, was nipping at her feet—she went back into the bedroom.

It was six months now since she had been living with Doug.

She got back into bed and pressed the length of her body to his, resting her face in the warm depression between his shoulder blades, and wrapping her arms around his body. He murmured in his sleep and stroked her hands.

Six months.

It was almost Christmas now; today was the twenty-second of December. It hardly seemed possible that so much time had passed, or that so much had changed. Six months ago she had been alone in the flat in Fulham that now stood empty, testimony to her indecision. She didn’t know if she should sell or wait; she hardly trusted what had happened to her. She sometimes thought that her whole life with Doug would disintegrate—vaporize and vanish overnight. It would disappear, just as the city had disappeared under the snow. She would find herself back alone, in a single bed.

She shook herself free of the thought and turned onto her back, crossing her fingers in superstition for a second, like a child. She gazed up at the ceiling.

The house was very narrow and very old, a four-story Regency building, with a cellar, a cramped back kitchen, a luxuriously broad sitting room on the first floor, and this bedroom on the top, tucked under the roof. Doug had brought her to it only last month.

“Do you like it?” he’d asked, as they stood in front of it. The pavement outside was barely wide enough to take two people. A post-office van edged down the narrow entry, squeezing along between the double-yellow-lined curbs, almost brushing their sides.

She’d gazed up at the tiny frontage. It was squeezed in a haphazard, uneven row of others, black timber against white plasterwork, with a red brick hem. Looking up farther, Jo noticed that the tiny leaded panes of the top windows caught the various tones of sky, and were speckled white and blue.

“Whose is it?” she’d asked.

“Would you like to live here?”

She’d turned to look at him. “Is it likely?” she’d said.

“I want to buy it,” he’d told her. “For us.”

“You can’t buy it,” she’d countered.

“Why not?”

“Because … if we live anywhere, buy anywhere, I want to put in half.”

He’d laughed. “Come on.”

“I’m serious,” she said. “You don’t have to support me. It’s only fair.”

He’d sighed. “Look, you haven’t even got the Fulham flat on the market yet. And why shouldn’t I support you? I
want
to support you.”

“Thank you,” Jo had said, “but I don’t want to be a princess.”

He’d stared at her, truly perplexed. “A what?”

She’d waved her hand. “Bought things for. A kept woman.”

“Kept woman?” he’d repeated. “What year is this, 1902?”

“Quite. There you go.”

He’d shaken his head. “Look,” he’d replied, “it’s a place to live, better than my flat. That’s all. I saw it in Flaxter’s window, I thought you’d like it. These places
never
come on the market. Don’t you like it? Look at it. It’s Gothic.”

“I love it,” she said.

“There’s a garden at the back. A walled garden, Jo.”

“I’m sure there is.”

“Then …”

She’d screwed up her face, shuffled her feet. “Don’t let’s change,” she said.

He’d turned her to face him. “Don’t move house?”

“No.”

The post-office van was back, this time reversing down the alleyway. The driver gave an apologetic grin as they did a quick dance to avoid him.

“Give me a decent reason,” Doug said.

She’d shrugged. “There isn’t one. I don’t want to move. That’s it.”

“The world won’t fall down if we cart our belongings four streets across town.”

She’d looked at him. “And I don’t want to be bought things,” she reminded him.

“I’m not buying it for you, you silly tart,” he’d replied equably. “I’m fed up living in three rooms and falling over your shoes, and I want a study. And there’s the other thing. We need more space.”

She’d bitten her lip, then smiled at what had become their softly spoken catchphrase recently. “Yes, the other thing,” she’d murmured.

He’d looked into her face, considering her. “We won’t break,” he said quietly. “We’re not that fragile.”

Aren’t we
, she’d thought.
I fell in love with you, and you with me, and you don’t call that fragile, breakable? Move house. Break the spell. No, thanks
.

But they had. Doug had put down the deposit, but the house was in both their names. She’d almost changed her mind in the solicitor’s office, felt that creeping sense of alteration. Some mirror shattering. Some distant echo.

Her hand had paused over the contract. Doug had leaned over to whisper in her ear. “Sign,” he’d said. “If it makes you feel better, when the Fulham flat’s sold, I promise I’ll take you for every penny you’ve got.”

Since that first night at her flat in May, they had barely been apart. Jo couldn’t actually remember, now, what it was like to be without him; they had fitted together seamlessly, without any of the half-expected strains of adjustment. For the first month he had lived with her in Fulham, during the absence from work imposed by his leg. When it was healed, he went back to Cambridge, and she went with him. There was barely any discussion about it. She worked as well in Cambridge as in London, going down to Gina and her other contacts by train a couple of times a week. She grew to love coming back in the evenings, watching London disappear and be slowly replaced by fields and low hills, and eventually by the open spaces and red earth of her second home.

Doug never made any demands on her. He never said that she should alter her life. He never insisted on her being there, or looking after him, in any way. There were no relaxations in the tidy and austere way that he looked after himself; he was a practiced housekeeper and made no fuss about it. He even kept quiet about Jo’s habitual mess, which tended to trail after her like the train on a wedding dress. Though she sensed that he bit his tongue more than once.

In everyday things they were not alike at all. It was at some deeper level where they were molded from the same material. They were wanderers both; and they tended to bend rules. There were years between them; they were of different generations. They looked nothing like each other. They inhabited different worlds. And yet they were the same. The same at heart.

Jo smiled now at herself, at her thoughts and superstitions about this house. She gently stroked the center of Doug’s back. He woke up. “You’re cold,” he mumbled.

“It’s snowing,” she said.

He rolled onto his side and looked at her. “Is it? Much?”

“Like a Christmas card,” she told him. “Full-on drifts. I bet there’s a robin sitting on a spade in the garden right now. Not to mention people in Victorian costume on stagecoaches, chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Tiny Tim, et cetera.”

“Tiny Tim roasting on an open fire,” he mumbled. “There’s an idea.”

“There
is
an idea,” she agreed.

He smiled. “And how are you?” he said.

“Fine.”

He sighed, rubbing his eyes. He glanced at the bedside table. “What time is it?”

“Almost eight.”

They looped arms, lying in the bed. He gently ran his thumb over her wrist, and smoothed a little circle in the palm of her hand. “They’ll all make an excuse not to get here, if it’s snowing,” he said.

“Not Gina,” she said. “Gina will single-handedly shovel her way up the M-Eleven. You’ll see. And John will come. Catherine will make him.”

They smiled, but Doug’s mood suddenly faded. “I still think we should have told Alicia,” he said. “I’ve got a bad feeling.”

Doug had seen his wife only twice since May. In July, a couple of days after Jo had moved into his Cambridge flat, he had taken himself off to Franklin House one morning, without telling Jo where he was going. She only realized where he had been when he turned up again at lunchtime, flushed in the face, looking almost ill.

“What’s the matter?” she’d asked him. “What’ve you been doing?”

“I’ve been to see Alicia,” he said. He held a letter out to her. “This came today.”

It was his decree nisi. There were a mere six weeks left between it and the end of his marriage.

“I knew she would have got hers today,” he continued. “And I thought”—he’d grimaced; frowned—“I thought, even now, that she wouldn’t accept it, so …”

They’d sat down on the couch, side by side, sunlight filling the room. There was a scent of the flowers that Jo had bought the day before: old English roses, their color filling the table by the window.

“What did she say?” she’d asked.

“The usual rubbish,” he told her. Distracted, he ran his hand through his hair.

“Let me guess,” she had murmured. “She blamed me.”

“I filed this before I’d even met you,” he said. “We’ve been apart for five years. There’s nothing she can do.”

“She’ll never let go of you,” Jo replied.

“She’ll have to,” he said. “I want us to get married.”

There had been a moment of silence, while Jo stared at the hand in hers. “You don’t want to get married so soon after the last,” she’d murmured.

“I do,” he’d answered. “It’s the only thing I want. Marry me as soon as this becomes legal.”

“No,” she said. “I’d be expecting Alicia around every corner, waiting for me with an ax.”

“Marry me next month.”

“No.”

“Christmas, then.”

She’d smiled at him. “Saddled with a second wife,” she said. “A second wife years younger than you.”

“Christmas.”

“The same generation as your son, who hates me.”

“John doesn’t hate you,” he said. “He’s just mixed up.”

She’d narrowed her eyes. “He’s jealous, Doug,” she said. “Of you and your time. Now you’re going to tell him this.”

Doug had looked away from her temporarily. He shook his head slightly. “I lost a lot of years with him,” he said. “I’m not going to lose them with you as well.”

“Oh, Doug …”

“I’ll get him back,” he countered. “I promise you that, Jo. I’ll do my damnedest to make up what I’ve lost with him. But I’m not losing you. I want you to marry me. Say you will. Say you will, at Christmas.”

The scent of the roses flooded the room.

She remembered that, above anything else.

It was eleven o’clock that morning when they got to the Preston Arms.

It was the closest pub to Shire Hall, and the place where they had arranged to meet Gina and John and Catherine, before the ceremony. They’d been forced to walk from Lincoln Street, heads down against the still-blowing snow, fine and grainy now, more ice sleet than flakes, and settling on the already transformed roads. Traffic ground through Cambridge as if in slow motion. The sky looked low and gray and full.

They were out of breath when they arrived, and stood in the doorway, shaking the snow from their coats.

They looked up and saw Gina bearing down on them, her arms outstretched.

“My God,” Jo said, hugging her. “How in hell did you get here?”

“Hell is right,” Gina said. She looked Jo up and down. “Nice dress. Goes with the wellies.”

Jo laughed. “What can I do? Doug likes rubber.”

“Oh, yeah?” Gina rolled her eyes. She turned her attention to Doug, enveloping him in the same strong embrace, until he grimaced at Jo over Gina’s shoulder. Eventually, they parted. “Don’t tell me you drove up today,” he said.

Gina smoothed her hair, smiling. She was perfectly turned out in a red suit, and red shoes with killer heels. “I read the weather forecast yesterday afternoon and drove up last night. I got here about midnight. It was just starting.”

“You should have rung us,” Jo said.

“At midnight? No way,” Gina replied. “Come and have some champagne.”

They went into the next room. An ice bucket and five glasses were already on the table. “I thought, wait until after the ceremony,” Gina said, sitting down. “Then I thought, nah. Before
and
after is better.”

Doug glanced down at the glasses. “Shall we wait for John?”

Jo looked at her watch.

“Have we time?” Doug asked.

“It’s five minutes’ walk to Shire Hall. Ceremony eleven-thirty. …” She looked back up at him. “He should be here any minute. You could open it.”

He hesitated. “Maybe I’ll just wait until he gets here.”

Jo shot Doug a sympathetic look. She knew that he didn’t want John to come in and find them drinking without having waited for him. He was making an effort to do it right: not offend John, not get under his skin.

Ever since they had told John that they were getting married, Doug’s son had been strange. He had been very formal and rigid with them. Conversations with him were conducted as if in the presence of a total stranger.