The Winter House Read online

  ‘Gone?’ Emma’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Gone for good?’

  ‘Yes.’ She waited for her mother to ask why, but she didn’t. She had always been wise like that, knowing when to hold her tongue. She just gave a little nod, as if in recognition.

  Eric took Ralph out onto the loch, whose waters were still opaque from the previous night’s storm. From the first floor, Marnie could see them, cut-out figures against the washed turquoise sky. It was as if Oliver had never been there – except for the ache in her eyes and throat, the exhaustion that made her bones heavy. She lay in the hot bath that Emma had run for her and listened to the sounds from the kitchen: the china clinking and doors being shut; a tap running. She imagined her mother there – her dressing-gown sleeves rolled up and her hair pulled severely back, a look of concentration on her strong, handsome face as she stood at the sink or wiped the table clear of crumbs – and she felt safe again, and young. She didn’t want to grow up, anyway. She could do without the heavy, coiling lethargy of lust, the gulping and hyper-ventilating elation of what, for want of a better word, she called love. The water lapped around her and her skin felt soft and clean. Emma was making things orderly; Eric was taking care of Ralph for her; Lucy was peacefully asleep in their room, her sharp features softened by hopeful dreams. Marnie’s father had been dead for nearly fourteen years; her brother too; they lay under the turf hundreds of miles away, but they were here too. Everyone was here. Marnie closed her eyes and tears bubbled under the lids.

  Once I had a dog. I keep expecting her to be here now, laying her muzzle on my arm, looking up at me with penitent brown eyes. She was a stray, a ragbag of breeds, and I got her from a rescue centre when she was a year old with sharp ribs, a matted coat and a trembling fear of loud noises, motorbikes, other dogs, crowds, men with beards. I called her Gretel. She spent her first few months cowering in corners and under chairs, panting and whimpering. Bit by bit she gave me her trust. After six months, she was devoted to me. When I came into the room, she would be hysterically happy, dashing around and throwing herself onto the floor in front of me, where she would lie with her belly exposed and her tail thumping, her eyes rolling back to show the whites. When I went out of the room, she would weep – there’s no other word for it. She followed me everywhere. She looked at me with wounded adoration.

  I had her for five years. It was – this sounds ridiculous, and you know how I always hated that sentimental attitude to dumb animals – one of the most important relationships of my life. I guess you could say that during those years, some of the darkest years of my life, Gretel was my best friend. Maybe she saved me from – what? What am I saying? Would I have killed myself without her? All I know is that I couldn’t collapse when I had her to look after. She needed me, not just to feed her, take her for walks, but to be there for her. I couldn’t leave her, not when she was so unconditionally in love with me. Sometimes I would wake in the mornings and think, Why should I get out of bed? Then I would hear her whining and scratching at the door downstairs, asking to be let out, and I would make myself go down to her. In the evenings, she would rest her head on my lap as I sat in my chair and read, or just stared out of the window, and that physical contact took the edge off my loneliness.

  One day she simply disappeared. We were on one of our walks, a regular cross-country circuit that took an hour or so and she knew well, and a rabbit ran across our path. Gretel ran after it, her tail streaming out behind her and her ears back. She disappeared like an arrow and I never saw her again. I spent weeks, months searching for her. I imagined her lost and waiting for me to find her. I imagined her stolen and whining for me to rescue her, or injured and knowing I would come to help her and take her home. Every so often I would think I saw her, although I knew I hadn’t, and my heart would jolt with the hope that I knew would be crushed. Years later, I would get sudden false glimpses of her. I still dream of her.

  Why am I thinking of her now? I suppose because I’m dying and I often wake and think she’s here with me, lying on the floor. Perhaps she is, in a way. When there’s no future, the past crowds in on you. I can hear the thump of her tail on the floor and feel the grizzled softness of her muzzle. She loved me and I loved her, and that was the only balanced equation of my life.

  Chapter Fifteen

  While Oliver read poems to Ralph, Marnie cooked. It was just for the two of them; she knew that Ralph would never eat another meal, and the most she could try to do was spoon a few drops of soup down his throat; even that seemed painful for him to swallow. She held his head up and he fixed his cavernous eyes on her.

  She boiled water and dropped tomatoes into it, then scooped them out after a few seconds and removed their skin. She roasted peppers in the oven and peeled off their blackened skin as well, then chopped the soft flesh into strips. She crushed garlic and fried it in a small amount of olive oil, then shook in some dried herbs. She added the tomatoes and peppers and the smell, pungent and rich, filled the air.

  ‘Look,’ said Oliver, suddenly. Marnie, raising her head from her task, saw that the quality of light in the room had changed. ‘It’s started to snow.’

  She rinsed her hands and joined him at the window. The flakes fell slowly, dissolving on the ground.

  ‘It’s not settling yet.’

  ‘No – but I think it’s getting heavier.’

  ‘Do you remember the time when we all went tobogganing down the hill by our house? We didn’t have a sledge, just bin-bags and an old metal tray.’

  It had been cold and bright, the sun sparkling off the crust of unbroken snow, giving out no heat. Marnie could still recall how it had felt swooping down the hill, faster and faster, and ending up with her face buried in a snowdrift, cheeks stinging, ice trickling down her neck, stiff scarf rubbing against her chin, the balls of her feet numb, fingertips throbbing, in bliss.

  ‘I remember it vividly,’ said Oliver. ‘Ralph ended up in a thorn bush.’ He turned. ‘Do you remember, Ralph?’

  Ralph didn’t answer. His eyes were half open but it was impossible to tell if he was awake or asleep.

  Marnie went over to him, held one translucent hand. Was he lying there listening to their words, or had he gone beyond them now? She wondered what thoughts and memories were in his mind. She could picture him on that snowy day, careering down the hill, head thrown back, snow glistening on his dark hair, mouth open in a shout of delight, utterly reckless and abandoned to the moment, and now he lay in front of her, a pile of bones under the sheet. Was he still inside that crumbling body, the same wild and lonely boy whose face used to light up when he saw her, whose words would tumble out of him, whose mind would fizz with sudden new enthusiasms, whose raw need and clumsy generosity had once touched and tormented her?

  She was filled with images of the past, which she had forgotten but for years must have lain dormant, waiting for this moment. Ralph making a mobile for Grace, using a metal coat-hanger and the stones he used to search for on the beach, sometimes for hours on end, with holes at their centre. He said that each stone represented a wish and it would slowly spin over Grace’s bed, keeping her safe from harm. Ralph trying to do cartwheels on her lawn – he’d kept at it until his gangly body straightened out and his legs described a smooth circle through the air. Ralph barbecuing mackerel over the fire in Scotland, very serious, wrapped in the striped apron that Eric used to wear. Ralph on his knees in front of Emma, his face in her lap, and Emma’s hand softly stroking the tangle of his hair – when had that been and why had he been crying? She couldn’t remember now, didn’t want to. She concentrated on images of happiness, as if by remembering them she could communicate them to Ralph. Riding on the rusting old bike that Emma had given him, his greatcoat streaming out behind him. Learning how to toss pancakes, half-cooked shreds of batter flying through the air. Reading to her when she had tonsillitis and had two weeks off school – Rosamund Lehmann’s Dusty Answer, she could still hear his voice, and Catcher in the Rye. Singing, badly. Playing the guitar, badly. Tryin
g to learn to play her harmonica. Striding through the surf towards her with Lucy on his shoulders, his face split into a grin. He had a capacity for silliness that had allowed Marnie to be silly as well. He’d given her a childhood.

  ‘How have I managed without you all these years?’ Marnie said now, bending forward and kissing his clammy forehead, his damp head. Then she said, ‘I know it’s only just been done, but shall I wash your hair again, ready for our Christmas celebrations?’

  He didn’t reply but he gave her a small, affirmative smile.

  She filled a bowl with hot water, and lifted his head up to slip a plastic bag and then a towel under it. She used her own shampoo, which smelt of lemons, and lock by lock washed and rinsed his hair, rubbing it dry as she went along. She noticed grey strands among the black. When she was done she shaved him as well, taking great care not to nick him. His skin was loose on his wasted face. She put a dry towel under his head and patted Oliver’s after-shave onto his smooth cheeks, breathed in appreciatively. ‘Very fragrant,’ she said.

  Ralph’s eyes opened and he gave her a little grin. She kissed his forehead and said, ‘Now for your nails. They’re turning into talons.’

  She did his fingernails first, collecting the thin crescents in the palm of her hand and dropping them into the bin. Then his toenails. His feet were bruised, as if he’d put them in a mangle, and she rubbed cream into them, holding them between her hands and massaging them gently. She had done this for her mother, during her last illness. She remembered painting Emma’s cracked toenails red on the day before she died.

  She returned to her cooking, and Oliver to reading poems. His voice was quiet and she only caught a few words. She boiled water for the pasta, chopped cucumber and tore lettuce leaves, grated Parmesan, made a salad dressing. If she kept busy, she would be all right. Oliver came over and opened a bottle of wine, poured her a glass and raised his own to her silently. Inside, the Christmas lights glowed and flickered. Outside, the snow was falling more thickly. It streamed past the window and gathered in small heaps on the sill.

  When Marnie stepped outside for a few seconds, she looked up, suddenly disoriented in the vortex of white. Flakes landed on her upturned face and melted there, sliding down her cheeks. She put out the tip of her tongue to catch one, the way she used to as a child – and for a fraction of a moment, she thought she saw her brother running towards her with a snowball in his hand. How the imagination tricked one. There were ghosts in the woods and by the water. The world was white and muffled in silence; the pines above her creaked slightly under the new weight of snow.

  Back at the hob, she added the pasta to the boiling salted water, dressed the salad, drank her wine, feeling it course through her. Every time she looked up she saw Oliver sitting by the bed in the pool of light, and Ralph lying inert beside him.

  ‘It’s ready,’ she said at last. ‘Shall we eat it with a film?’

  ‘Sure.’

  So they sat on either side of Ralph, the television at the end of his bed, and watched a black-and-white movie in which the wisecracking guy got his wisecracking girl. Marnie didn’t even try to follow the plot. The figures on the screen made animated gestures, Ralph’s eyes flickered open and closed again, the snow fell steadily and the fire burnt down in the grate until only the embers glowed. She ate her pasta slowly and drank more wine. Oliver handed her a whisky and she took a single burning sip. If she closed her eyes, she knew that she would be overcome with tiredness, but she didn’t want to close her eyes, because it seemed to her that it would not be long now and she had to be awake: she had to be there and accompanying him until the very last moment when he would cross the threshold and they would no longer be able to follow.

  Chapter Sixteen

  No one mentioned Oliver any more: it was as if he had never existed. Emma simply said that if Marnie ever wanted to talk about – ‘No, thanks!’ snapped Marnie, banging round the kitchen, attacking the surfaces with Vim, exaggeratedly busy. ‘There’s nothing to say, so why should I say it?’ Lucy, after an initial attempt to draw her out, had become tactfully silent on the subject. And Ralph – once he had begged Marnie to meet up with Oliver, he wanted them to be together, and Marnie had told him coldly that it was none of his business and he should stop interfering – proceeded to behave as if he did not have a friend called Oliver Fenton, although Marnie knew for a fact that the two of them had met up the day after they had returned from Scotland to sort out their quarrel. It didn’t help. The more that she made him into a taboo, the more she thought about him. She even had disturbing and erotic dreams about him, and would wake in confusion.

  The day before she went back to school for her final year, the phone rang and when she answered it was him.

  ‘Marnie?’

  ‘What?’ she snapped. Oh, but she had longed to hear his voice. She pressed the receiver to her ear, closed her eyes.

  ‘Can we meet?’

  ‘No.’ Why did she say that?

  ‘I’ll be on the beach – by that old rotting boat – in about twenty minutes.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘I’ll wait for an hour.’

  She hung up and prowled irritably round the house. Emma was in her shed and neither Lucy nor Ralph was there, although Ralph had asked himself round for supper that night. He wanted to cook for them – already Marnie felt tired just thinking of the mess and drama he would create when she wanted a peaceful evening and an early night.

  She found herself standing in front of the mirror, looking critically at her image, wrinkling her nose at her dishevelled hair and shabby clothes. She found herself taking a shower, even though the water was tepid, and she told herself that she had been going to wash her hair anyway, before going back to school. Nothing to do with him. She wasn’t thinking about him. She wasn’t going to look at her watch. She looked and saw that he would probably be there by now, waiting for her. She towelled her hair dry and pulled on her oldest jeans and a green shirt that Oliver had once said he liked. Her cheeks burnt. What did she care whether Oliver liked it or not? She brushed mascara onto her lashes and bit her lips to bring colour to them, then went into the kitchen. She had been about to make a cake before Oliver phoned; the bowl of sifted flour stood ready, three eggs, two lemons waiting to be zested. She took the margarine out of the fridge and weighed four ounces into the scales and grinned savagely at herself, making a lemon cake in the kitchen like an obedient suburban housewife while the young man she loved – yes, oh, yes, she did, she did, why not admit it to herself? – waited for her outside.

  There was a clock on the wall and she didn’t look at it, wouldn’t, but out of the corner of her eye she could see the minute hand advancing.

  Why not? Why not?

  Four ounces of sugar added to the margarine; she beat them ferociously with a wooden spoon until the mixture was pale and light. The sky outside the window was a pale, cool blue. She cracked the eggs into a bowl and whisked them, hard, until they frothed. Zested the lemons into the flour, grazing her knuckles.

  He wouldn’t wait. If she didn’t come, she knew he wouldn’t stay.

  She pushed her feet into her walking boots and her arms into the black woollen jacket that had seen better days. Ran from the kitchen and out, down the garden, towards the sea, which rippled and shone. The shingle crunched under her feet. Autumn was nearly here; there was a lash to the wind that made her eyes water. Shallow waves foamed over the pebbles and sucked back. She slowed as she saw the ruined hulk of the boat in the distance, trying to get her breath.

  He was looking out at the sea, his arms wrapped round himself for warmth. She stopped and then, when he turned and saw her, moved forward again until she was a few feet from where he stood.

  ‘I thought you wouldn’t come,’ he said, not moving.

  He seemed tired, thinner than she’d remembered him. Soft brown hair, steady gaze, lanky frame. Just an ordinary young man, nothing remarkable, but hers. Was it possible that he could feel the same as her, that his h
eart was also bursting with fierce joy? In a few moments would he be holding her tight? She put it off, standing her ground. ‘I wasn’t going to.’

  ‘So why did you change your mind?’

  ‘Because I had to see you.’

  ‘Marnie –’

  ‘I was just hugging him. He was so upset.’

  ‘I know that. He told me.’

  ‘You’re going away soon.’

  ‘Yes.’ He looked at her, waiting.

  ‘I can’t bear it,’ she said, in a small voice.

  In two steps he was beside her, or perhaps it was her who crossed the distance between them, she couldn’t tell. All she knew was that his arms were tight round her and hers round him and they clung together, pressed to each other blindly. Now his hand was in her hair and he pulled back her face until they were staring into each other’s eyes, not smiling, not saying anything. Behind them, she could hear the slap of the water, the lonely call of a bird. His arms went under her coat, her hands were beneath his shirt and feeling the warmth of his back, the sharpness of his spine. Too many layers, but at last they were peeled off and he laid her down on top of them, so she was protected from the sharpness of the shingle. The wind was chilly on her bare skin but then he was covering her and it was too late to tell him that she’d never done this before, he was the first, she didn’t know, he had to be careful, it hurt… She closed her eyes and put her arms on his shoulders, on his back; she opened them and saw the pale sky and Oliver’s face, frowning as if he was concentrating. This was something to get through, she understood, like a gate into another place in her life. And when it was over he pulled the strands of her dark hair from her face and kissed her mouth, her cheeks, her forehead, her neck, smiling at her at last. Then he pulled his jacket over the top of both of them and they lay curled up together, his arm pillowing her head.

  ‘Oliver,’ she said at last, and he raised himself on one arm and looked at her.