Midnight Sun

THIRTY-FOUR

It didn't start snowing for almost a week, and then only on television. Johnny saw it on the children's news, and shouted for them all to come and see. There were blizzards in the north of Scotland. Queues of sluggish vehicles turned even whiter in the seconds they were on the screen, their yellow headlights dimming; people masked with scarves leaned into the white wind so as to stay on their feet; a flock of sheep would have been indistinguishable from the blizzard except for their eyes. When a pine forest filled the screen Margaret thought for a dreamlike moment that it was Sterling Forest, all its colours swallowed up by white. "It's coming," Johnny cried.

"It won't be as bad as that here, will it, Mummy?"

"What's bad about it?" Johnny complained as if her saying so would keep it away, baby that he was. "It looks good. I thought you liked snow."

"Not that much."

"Let's wait and see what the forecast says," Mummy said.

That wouldn't be on for almost an hour. Margaret went up to her room. The floor above was dark; her father must have switched off the workroom light to help him imagine his story. She left her bedroom door open so as to have the rest of the house for company, and took down from the shelves in the corner by her overloaded wardrobe the big Grimm Brothers book.

She sat on the edge of the bed and opened the book on her lap. When she was Johnny's age she'd read it so often that if she held it any other way the pages sagged forward on the strip like a bandage to which they were glued. It fell open at the story of Hansel and Gretel, and she remembered the name her father had called her in the forest as some kind of joke. Perhaps she was too old for the story; the burning of the old woman seemed pointlessly violent and cruel. She tried the Hans Andersen book instead, but that seemed even bleaker; the thought of the Snow Queen made her shiver. She left the books in Johnny's room and put on her headphones to listen to one of Ramona's tapes of Pile of Cows, the rock group from Leeds, until Mummy called "Dinner in five minutes."

Margaret was down in time to see the long-range forecast, and so was her father. The forecaster, an owlish man whose expression suggested that he was keeping a joke to himself, stood with his back to a map of Europe across which whiteness was crawling. The map turned into one of Britain, and it looked to Margaret as if a white claw was closing around the island. Blizzards were expected in the south of England by the weekend. "Why can't they be here?" Johnny complained.

"Suppose it's like that for weeks here, Mummy? How will we live?"

Her father gave Margaret a dazzling smile. "You'd be surprised."

"I'll go into Leeds tomorrow to stock up on provisions. We've plenty of room in the freezer."

"Had enough pictures of snow?" Daddy said, and switched the television off. "They won't bring it any sooner."

Johnny thought they might, Margaret knew, though his expression only admitted that when he thought nobody was watching. As they took their places at the dining-table she said "I put my old fairy-tale books in your room. They're yours now."

He thanked her and cheered up at once. "The old stories never die," Daddy said.

After dinner Johnny kept parting the curtains to look for a snowfall until even his mother lost patience with him. He was making the house feel surrounded, Margaret thought – making the night outside feel almost solid, and pregnant with snow. It reminded her of last Saturday in the forest, when she had become acutely aware of the weight of snow on the branches and afraid they would give way, burying her and Johnny and her father. No longer liking snow as much as she used to must be part of growing up.

So many unfamiliar things were. At least Ramona had been through them too: feeling lonely when you didn't expect to, and wanting to cry for no reason, and finding your brother becoming more and more of a pain. The idea that as Margaret grew up, her feelings might keep growing bigger too, dismayed her. She could talk to her mother about the way her body would soon be changing, but she didn't like to mention her feelings, because they seemed somehow disloyal to the family. And now there was something else she couldn't tell her mother – that she was afraid the snow might catch her on the way back from Leeds.

She lay in bed that night feeling helpless and childish. She was being sillier than Johnny; she'd heard what the forecast had said. When she wakened in the morning she felt as if she hadn't slept. She stumbled to the window, her feet tangled in the duvet. Towards the horizon the moors were white as if the snow was waiting there; but the whiteness was mist like a huge lingering breath. She had a quick wash and ran downstairs to watch the forecast. Snow had closed over the southern tip of England and was inching northwards across Scotland. The map showed cold suns multiplying over the rest of the country, displaying their rays like wings. They made Margaret think of angels, new lights in the sky, Christmas, though they would be gone by then. All that mattered was that the forecast showed her mother would be safe.

Except that forecasts were sometimes wrong, she thought as she walked to school. She didn't know what to say. Johnny reached the school gates and turned to wait, and Margaret blurted "Will you come and meet us?"

Her mother looked puzzled. "Why, would you rather I did?"

"Not instead of Daddy. Can't you both come?"

"We'll try. If I'm home. I'm not going to the end of the earth, love, only Leeds. Maybe I'll get your father to help carry. That way I should be quicker." Her mother kissed her and Johnny and then Margaret again. "Don't wony, this will be my last trek."

Once he and Margaret were in the schoolyard, Johnny said "Why was mummy saying not to worry?"

"In case it's so crowded in Leeds that she isn't back in time to meet us," Margaret said, feeling as if he had stolen the reassurance she'd gained from sharing her anxiety with her mother, feeling the responsibility of being a big sister weigh her down. Johnny ran off to play with his friends, and she watched her mother becoming smaller and smaller as she walked downhill beneath a sky which was growing paler, frosting over.

Margaret had been looking forward to rehearsing the nativity play, but it wasn't as much fun as usual. She and Sarah and Rachel were people at the inn – the teacher's pet, Allie, having been chosen to play Mary despite groans of protest from all the other girls – and the children in Johnny's year were animals who came to the crib at the end. Ordinarily Margaret enjoyed remembering to speak up while she pretended to complain about the wine which Sarah had served her and which was really blackcurrant juice, but now she couldn't even take much pleasure in watching Johnny and his friends run squeaking into the school hall. When Mrs Hoggart asked her what was wrong she could only say "Nothing, miss" for Johnny's sake.

At lunchtime she played with Sarah and Rachel to distract herself, but she kept thinking that the schoolyard hubbub wasn't loud enough, as if it somehow concealed a silence. The bell rang at last, sending her class back to the hall to continue rehearsals. Margaret didn't have to sing a solo in any of the carols, but until Mrs Hoggart singled her out she thought she was losing herself in the choruses. "Try and keep up, Margaret," the teacher said. "We want your parents to be proud of you on the night, don't we?"

Margaret had the sudden terrible notion that unless she sang with all her soul she would be acting as though she didn't expect to see them again. For the rest of the afternoon she sang as if only the carols were able to delay the snow. "That was much better. You sounded like you had something to sing about," Mrs Hoggart said.

The final bell shrilled, and Margaret ran to the classroom ahead of the rest of her class. She grabbed her lunchbox and her coat from the corridor and struggled through the crowd of children from the other classes. She hadn't yet been able to see the school gates, but at least the sky beyond the windows was clearing. "Scuse me. Scuse me," she said, and dodged out of the school, into the shadow of the forest. Then she felt her heart stumble. All along the railings parents were waiting for their children, but neither of her parents was there.

At least one of them would be here by now unless something had gone wrong. She found herself wishing that she was either as young and unaware as Johnny or much older; it seemed horribly unfair that she should have to prepare him for the worst at her age. She felt as if the clear sky overhead had suddenly turned black. Children who seemed hardly present to her pushed past her towards the gates, and then she heard Johnny run into the yard.

"There's my sister," he was complaining to his friends. "I've got to go now." For a moment Margaret was certain that she would burst into tears, but she managed to stiffen her face as she turned to him. She was trying to think what to tell him when he walked straight past her.

Rage flared in her, so violently that it frightened her. She swung round, trying to restrain herself from grabbing him, because she would only hurt him and make the situation worse, if it could be worse – and then she saw why he was walking so confidently towards the gates. Daddy was coming up Church Road.

She felt dizzy with relief, and yet the sight of him wasn't quite as reassuring as she would have expected. Why wasn't Mummy with him? Margaret closed her eyes and swallowed and sidled between two prams out of the gates, and raced Johnny downhill to their father, who gave her a vague smile. "Where's Mummy?" she said as neutrally as she could.

"She'll be at the freezer. We're only just home."

That ought to have rid Margaret of her fear, but perhaps there was more to it than she'd realised, unless it was only the shadow of the forest which was making her so shivery. She held onto the jagged top of a garden wall until Johnny and her father looked back to see why she wasn't following. "Come on if you want to see your mother," Daddy said.

Margaret trudged after them, past the information centre where Sally Quick had hung Mummy's paintings on the walls, alongside the dead railway and up the rough track. Though the shadow of the forest had reached the house, none of the visible windows was lit. The snow figures were glowing; mustn't that mean the kitchen light was on? She ran past the house, though the chill of the forest seemed to leap at her; ringing the doorbell and waiting would take too long. Her mother was in the kitchen, and waved to her through the window.

Margaret felt as if she had to give everyone a hug. She sprinted up the garden path and emb ^ r aced Johnny, who protested "Get off," and her father, who looked bewildered. As soon as he unlocked the front door she raced to the kitchen and clasped her mother tight. "I love you too," Mummy said, and returned the hug. Margaret was tempted to blurt out her fears, but there was no need; they no longer mattered – the family was together and safe. She wasn't going to take any more notice of her imagination, of any feelings she might have about the winter. She squeezed her mother again and held onto her. "We'll never forget this Christmas, will we?" she said like a promise.