The Winter House Read online

  I never talked of my family when I was with you. I thought of my other life as a virulent infection I didn’t want to spread. I was ashamed, I suppose. I remember one evening, after you’d gone to bed – you always loved to sleep, you said you needed at least nine hours, preferably twelve – it was cold outside and I had made a fire for Emma. I was telling her about a philosophy book that I was reading, something about the nature of certainty, when she laid a hand on my arm and said, ‘Can you take your shirt off, please, Ralph?’

  ‘My shirt?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  My cheeks were burning. ‘No, Emma. Don’t.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said gently. ‘I won’t tell Marnie. But I need to see.’

  ‘How did you know?’ I said wretchedly.

  She just smiled at me. I wouldn’t have done it for anyone else, but I unbuttoned my school shirt, took it off and turned round, feeling ashamed and exposed. She put up her hand and touched the bruises with her cool fingers. I shuddered. ‘It’s only when he’s drunk. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘He’s unhappy.’

  ‘I’m sure he is. Does he hit your mother as well?’

  ‘Sometimes.’ My voice was a whisper. ‘I don’t stop him.’

  ‘And Grace?’

  ‘No.’ I put my shirt back on and crouched beside the fire. ‘What are you going to do? You’re not going to do anything, are you, Emma?’

  ‘I’m going to think about it. I can’t just let this be… I’m sure you understand that. Do you always go to school?’

  I mumbled something.

  ‘Ralph?’

  ‘No,’ I said, not meeting her eyes. ‘Sometimes I skip it. I go to the library, though. I read books. I teach myself things I’d never learn at school.’

  I didn’t want to tell her that, even though I was now in the sixth form and nearly seventeen, I was still miserable at school, where I was pushed around and jeered at. It was bad enough that she knew my father bullied me; I couldn’t stand for her to know that my peers did too.

  ‘Listen to me. You’re going to have to promise me something now. You’re going to go to school every single day, do you hear? You have less than two years left. Education is what will open doors for you and take you into better worlds. You go to school, you do your work, you pass all your exams and you’re off into the wide world.’

  ‘But, Emma…’

  ‘What do you dream of being?’

  ‘Me? Well, I don’t know. My A levels keep all my options open, I guess. Sometimes I want to be a mathematician because I love maths – it’s like a secret language I can speak – and sometimes I want to be a writer, or a film maker. Or a doctor, perhaps. The other day I was thinking that maybe I could be a geneticist; I was reading this book and – what? You’re laughing at me.’

  ‘Only in a nice way,’ she said. ‘Now I’m going to make you a cup of tea and then you’re going to cycle home – unless you want to stay the night here.’

  ‘You’re very nice to me, Emma.’ I wanted to lay my head in her lap and let her take care of everything for me. Tears pricked at my eyes but I blinked them away. I still hadn’t cried about David, you know, or about anything since the day he had died. It was to be months before I finally cried. I guess you’re coming to that, aren’t you? In your own good time.

  Of course it wasn’t just some idyll. I had the blindness of an adolescent (I grew up slowly and reluctantly; I was still a child, really – you were so much more mature than I was) but I was aware of money difficulties. Your beloved house was old and coming apart at the seams. Things were always going wrong with it – the boiler broke down and had to be replaced; the damp course couldn’t prevent wet seeping into the bricks; a crack crept ominously up the wall next to the front door and Emma used to measure it to see how fast it was lengthening and thickening. Wherever it was possible, you didn’t call in workmen but did the job yourselves and, of course, I joined in, sanding down woodwork on Saturday mornings, helping you repoint the exterior and then paint it, spending back-breaking hours laying the gravel on your drive so that cars didn’t damage their undercarriage on the deepening potholes.

  Sometimes B-and-B guests showed their disapproval of the house’s shabbiness. They wanted deep-pile carpets, colour TVs, en-suite bathrooms, fitted wardrobes with lights that came on when you swung open the door; instead they got a lavatory across the way, an ancient radiator that rumbled and belched and gave out very little heat, a rickety cupboard, old pockmarked beams, and a glorious view across the field to the sea. They wrote cool remarks in the visitors’ book and we knew they’d never return. Emma would mutter, ‘Good riddance,’ as their car pulled away, but later she would put on her glasses and go into the tiny room that served as her office to rifle through receipts and bills. She could be very morose; when she was like that, it was as if the sun had gone behind a cloud and the whole landscape chilled and darkened.

  You, too, sometimes withdrew. Even though you were still polite and friendly, I had the feeling that you weren’t really there. There were times when your down-at-heel lovely house, usually so warm and welcoming, was empty and sad, haunted by absences I didn’t understand at first, and by deep, uncanny silences. You told me about your father and brother long after we were friends. It was nearly Christmas and there had been a light sprinkling of snow so we had walked down to the beach. Everything looked unfamiliar: there were patches of snow dappling the shingle, the sky was low and white, the sea a dull pewter and the tiny waves made no sound as they licked at the shore. Your voice was muffled when you spoke. I didn’t say that Emma had told me already, after she saw me looking at the family photograph. I wanted to hear it in your words.

  I’m making it sound as though it was just you and me and Emma, occasionally Eric (which was how I preferred it). There were others: the guests, of course, especially in the late spring and summer – even when they had retreated to their rooms we were aware of them there and couldn’t entirely relax. Then Lucy was often with us, and I knew she and you spent a lot of time together when I wasn’t around. I first met her the third or fourth time I visited, arriving unannounced to discover the two of you in the kitchen making a chocolate cake heavy enough to sink your boat. You two were licking out the bowl and turned simultaneously as I came in; on your faces there were chocolate smears and gleeful smiles. You looked like two naughty little kids. I felt a sharp stab of jealousy: you never looked like that with me.

  I was jealous as well of Lucy’s relationship with Emma: Emma treated her like a grown-up, asking her opinions and listening to her replies respectfully. But I couldn’t feel angry with Lucy for long. She was fiercely clever, sardonic, waspish, loyal and – yes – good. A good woman. I see her now with her smudged glasses on her small round face; her thin wrists, knotted shoulders, knobbly knees. She would lob dry comments into the conversation and wait to see what would happen. She would look at me with her disconcerting gaze and grin quickly, as if I’d passed some kind of test. Soon I liked her enormously – liked her passion for politics, her radicalism, her shyness. I liked her because she loved you but generously made room for me. And I liked her, of course, because she liked me. All right – she loved me.

  Then there was Grace. One Saturday, unable to bear the thought of her sitting all day in front of the television while my parents bickered and slammed doors and the air boiled with unhappiness, I pushed her all the way to your house. I forgot to take her to the lavatory before we left, and to pack a drink, so she arrived hot, distressed and smelling of urine. Emma helped me wash her down and then you lent her some old clothes and we lifted her onto the lawn and she sat there, slumped among the daisies, smiling and cooing like a pigeon. You made her a daisy chain and hung it round her neck. I brought her back several times that year. You and Emma always kissed her forehead in greeting, and you talked to her as if she could understand what you were saying. You told her things; you teased me through her. ‘Tell your brother his h
air needs cutting,’ you’d say. ‘Tell your brother he needs to learn to clear up his own mess after cooking.’ And perhaps you even confided in her because she couldn’t react or reply. All your secrets were safe with her.

  It’s curious, but in that first year or so of knowing you, I never thought about you sexually. I adored you, but in a fervently romantic and chaste fashion. If we touched, it was in a rough-and-tumble way: arm-wrestling, pushing each other under the waves; sometimes you tucked a casual arm through mine. We behaved a bit like children with each other – to begin with anyway. Of course, you had been David’s girlfriend, but I couldn’t bring myself to think about that or to imagine him holding and kissing you. It horrified me to think of you gripped by desire. Anyway, he was dead and buried – my brother lying a stone’s throw from yours.

  I don’t know when the innocent time came to an end, but I suppose it began when Oliver arrived.

  Chapter Nine

  Marnie stood by the window, trying to see signs of the storm that was raging outside in an orchestra of discordant sounds. The wind howled and she could hear the violent creaking of trees; rain pinged like bullets against the glass. As far as she could tell, there was still not even the faintest band of light on the horizon. She didn’t hear Oliver come into the room on bare feet and jumped when he put a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Oh!’ she said, turning in relief. ‘You startled me.’

  ‘Bad night?’ His voice was quiet and held a note of tenderness that Marnie felt spread through her body.

  She didn’t answer immediately but looked at him. Very gently, he reached out a hand and brushed a tear from her cheek.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said at last. ‘I was scared.’

  ‘Of him dying?’

  ‘Just scared.’

  ‘You should have woken me.’

  ‘No, you needed rest.’

  ‘So do you. You look all in. I’ll take over here. Go and lie down for a bit, try to sleep.’

  ‘I don’t think I can at the moment. Shall I make us some tea?’

  ‘That would be nice.’

  ‘Anything to eat?’

  ‘Maybe later.’

  He went and sat beside Ralph and held one thin hand between both of his warm, solid ones. ‘Hello, my friend,’ he said very quietly. It was impossible to tell if Ralph was asleep or not. ‘Here I am. I’ll stoke up the fire in a minute. Dot’s bringing some portable heaters so the house won’t be cold any more. You just tell me if you need anything, OK? Marnie’s making us tea now. Marnie and her cups of tea, eh?’

  Marnie put tea leaves into the pot and placed the kettle on the hob. While she was waiting for it to boil, she went to wash her face and hands. The face in the mirror was strained but composed. She pulled a comb through her hair, wincing as it tore into the knots.

  ‘I had such dreams,’ said Oliver, as she came back into the kitchen.

  ‘Did you?’

  After the horrors of yesterday evening, there was a new ease between them: the awkwardness and self-consciousness had dropped away, leaving in their place a solemn intimacy. They both felt they had moved to the next stage; that death had come much nearer, was crouching in the room with them.

  ‘Disordered. I was dreaming but I knew I was dreaming.’

  ‘I know that feeling. Here. Your tea.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Marnie sat down on the other side of Ralph. With her free hand she stroked his hair. ‘Did you hear the storm in the night?’

  ‘Yes. And it’s not really died down, has it? When it’s blown itself out we’ll go and see what damage it’s done. There’ll probably be some trees down.’

  ‘This morning I think I’ll wash the windows.’

  ‘Really?’ Oliver sounded dubious.

  ‘It seems silly to you, doesn’t it? Washing windows he can’t see from his bed, scrubbing floors he won’t be walking on, making soup he can’t drink and cakes he can’t eat.’

  ‘No, it’s lovely. It wasn’t like this before you arrived. Whenever he wakes, you’re there, as if you’ve never been away. You’re making life go on right until the last moment. All the small, ordinary things that seem like irritating chores until we’re losing them.’

  ‘Look, it’s getting light.’ Marnie bent nearer to Ralph. ‘It’s daytime now. The night’s over.’

  The storm abated. Outside, large and small branches littered the ground. A little tree had been ripped up by its roots, creating a surprisingly deep crater. Several tiles had come off the roof and the entire landscape looked as if it had been subtly rearranged. But now the clouds that had swirled with such force in the sky, like an inverted ocean, were breaking up and behind them lay pale blue. Marnie, freshly woken from her nap, walked cautiously across the sodden ground towards the loch, whose waters had been churned to a muddy brown. She turned back to look at Ralph’s small house, standing stubborn and plain, surrounded by trees. Smoke was coming out of the chimney. She knew that Oliver was sitting in there, holding his friend’s hand and talking to him. Soon she would go and join them. They would read poems and drink tea and do the small domestic tasks that were, in their intimate dullness, oddly pleasurable: pairing socks, washing Ralph’s sweat-drenched T-shirts, rubbing wax into the wooden table, then buffing it with a soft brush until it had a honeyed glow, putting out crusts of bread for the birds that were struggling through the winter. All of a sudden, she was pierced with a shaft of joy that made her gasp and put her hand to her heart. Why should she be happy when she was watching over Ralph’s deathbed? Yet she was exquisitely aware of feeling more finely tuned to life than ever.

  She turned on her mobile and listened to messages. Lucy had called but only to say hello; a couple of friends were asking where she was and why she hadn’t been at home for the last two days; Elaine reported that Eva had opened the puppet museum rather late on the two days she had been there, not until eleven o’clock, and Luisa – Eva’s less flamboyant sister – was saying she wanted to join Eva and Marnie for Christmas, if that was all right. She knew from Eva that Marnie was away but she would arrive at the airport in four days’ time and make her way to the flat.

  ‘I miss you,’ she said at the end. ‘Marnie?’ There was a pause, as if she thought that Marnie was actually listening to her speak. ‘Marnie?’

  Marnie called Eva at the museum.

  ‘Hi!’

  ‘That’s a rather casual way to answer the phone. I might have been anyone – I might have been Elaine, for instance. What’s that noise?’

  ‘Marnie! Hang on, let me just turn that off. Greg? Turn the music off, will you?’

  ‘Is Gregor with you?’

  ‘He’s helping out,’ said Eva. ‘That’s OK, isn’t it?’

  ‘Does Elaine know?’

  ‘Should she?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ There was a crash and a loud laugh in the distance. ‘Eva – is anyone else there as well?’

  ‘Um – the others have come to keep us company.’

  ‘Others? What others?’

  ‘Oh – you know.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘It’s OK, Marnie. Everything’s good.’

  ‘You can’t just turn the museum into a party place.’

  ‘They’re dusting.’

  ‘Dusting?’

  ‘It’s all cool.’

  ‘Why don’t I feel reassured? These others – are they staying in my flat?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  ‘Kind of. Right. How many?’

  ‘Oh – not a lot.’

  ‘Eva!’

  ‘It’s all right. We haven’t trashed the place. They didn’t have anywhere to stay. What could I do?’

  ‘But –’ Marnie closed her eyes, imagining her tidy flat, where everything had its proper place and pictures hung peacefully on white walls, full of strangers and in violent disarray. ‘And Luisa’s coming too?’

  ‘Yes – are you pleased?’

  ‘What about Fabio? Doesn’t he feel deserted?’

&
nbsp; ‘Uh-uh, he’s going to be staying with – Actually, you probably don’t want to know this right now.’

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘Anyway, we can have a family Christmas, you and me and Luisa.’

  ‘I don’t know when I’ll be back, though. I’m staying until the end.’

  She stood for a moment after the conversation was over. A family Christmas: a light at the end of this dark passage. Lucy had wanted to change the world and had wanted Ralph; Ralph had wanted reckless adventures and Marnie. But all I ever wanted was a family, she thought: tall sons and beautiful daughters and somewhere to call home.

  She didn’t go back in immediately, but walked into the wood over the soft floor of fallen needles, until she found a well-shaped pine branch that had been ripped down during the storm. It was dark among the trees, almost like night, and shining drops of water fell noiselessly from the canopy above. Marnie held up her pine branch for inspection: it would have to do.

  The wind was still blowing strongly, and now clouds raced across the sky, the blue patches widening all the time, a glister of cold brightness rolling across the landscape. The nurse had been and gone, and there was a barely discernible smell of shit and disinfectant in the house. Oliver sat by the side of Ralph’s bed reading poems in a low voice. Ralph’s eyes were open, but Marnie could see immediately that he was drifting in a drug-induced drowsiness.

  ‘Hello.’ Marnie took off her coat, blew on her hands to warm them, then kissed Ralph’s head carefully. Everything about him seemed infinitely frail and breakable. If she touched his skin, she half expected bruises to appear; when she lifted his head – so unnaturally large and heavy in contrast to his disappearing body – so that he could sip a mug of tea, she feared his neck might snap in her hands.

  ‘What have you got there?’ asked Oliver.