Midnight Sun

THIRTY-EIGHT

At first Ellen knew only that she couldn't move. The weight which had gathered on her torso was so massive that it was forcing her arms and legs wider, as if her limbs were straining to become symmetrical. She felt as though she was turning into a sign – of what, she didn't know. In a moment she realised that the mound which was weighing her down was herself.

If she was pregnant, so was everything around her. Stargrave and the trees and crags and moors were swollen with a new life which was taking shape in utter silence, the silence of the life it was supplanting. If she succeeded in moving or even in making a sound, might that at least slow down the change?

She became aware that Ben and the children were somewhere close to her, though she couldn't hear them breathing. She had to rouse them. She drew a breath which shuddered through her, and the convulsion of her body went some way towards releasing her from the paralysis. She was able to raise her head shakily, despite the burden which was sprouting from her face.

It took her some time to see that the white glow was emanating not only from her surroundings and from the sun in the black sky but also from herself. Then her dazzled eyes adjusted, or reverted to a state sufficiently familiar to let her see with them, and if the sight which met them couldn't make her cry out, nothing could: the sight of Ben and the children and herself.

Though the cry stuck in her throat, it wakened her. She was lying in bed, arms and legs splayed, a mound which must be of the quilt looming over her. There were no sounds at the window; the silence seemed as profound as it had been in her dream. Despite the stillness or because of it, she felt as if something immense was surrounding the house. "What is it?" she wanted to know.

She wasn't aware of speaking aloud, but Ben answered from beside her, sounding fully awake. "The last day," he said.

His response made so little sense to her except in terms of her dream that she felt as if she hadn't wakened after all. Now that she knew he was there she wasn't afraid to go back to sleep, so long as the dream wasn't waiting. Sleep claimed her almost at once, and then there was only stillness until Johnny and sunlight came into the room. "It's snowed lots," he said excitedly. "Come and look."

"I know it has, johnny. Just let me wake up." She was trying to decide to her own satisfaction what had happened last night. She and Ben had made love in front of an uncurtained window and a blizzard; no wonder she'd felt so cold and so odd. She heard Ben on the floor below, telling Margaret to come to her bedroom window. It was a day for the family to be together, Ellen thought, not for her to muse in bed. "Let's see what the night's brought," she said, and Johnny ran the curtains back.

For a moment she could see only whiteness beneath the sky, and she felt as if she was back in her dream. Then she saw the simplified outlines of the moors, barely distinguishable beneath the frozen sea of white which stretched to a parade of clouds at the horizon, clouds which looked as if the snow was beginning to ornament itself and reach for the blue sky. To Ellen the landscape appeared incomplete, waiting for its details to be filled in. If it seemed somehow ominous, that was the fault of her dream, and she mustn't spoil the day for the children. "Looks like a good start to the holidays," she said, and chased Johnny down to the bathroom.

She was in the shower, having ensured that Johnny didn't just pretend to wash his face and brush his teeth because of his eagerness to play, when she heard his voice through the downpour. "Pardon?" she called.

This time Margaret shouted it with him. "We're going to have a snowfight."

For no reason she could bring to mind, Ellen was suddenly nervous. She turned off the shower and pushed back the clinging plastic curtain. "How deep is it out there? Better not go too near the woods."

"They can't do any harm. I'll be seeing they don't go far," Ben said outside the door. "They may as well make the most of the day."

She heard the children racing downstairs and Ben's tread following them. She stepped dripping out of the bath, fumbled with the slippery doorknob and hurried onto the landing, towelling herself to keep warm. "Ben, come here a minute."

He looked up over his shoulder, then his body turned towards her. Below him in the hall the children were stuffing themselves into their anoraks. He put his finger to his lips as they ran to the front door and slammed it behind them. "Thought of something?" he said.

"Did you talk to me during the night, or did I dream it?"

"Depends what you think you heard."

"Something about the last day."

"Sounds more like a vision than a dream if you heard a voice saying that. Maybe painting and taking my story over have opened up your mind."

All this seemed so irrelevant it only made her more nervous. "But was it you I heard?"

"Would you like it to be?"

She lost patience with him. "I thought you were going to keep an eye on the children."

"I won't leave them alone." His expression flickered as he turned away. "Don't let's drift apart now," he said, and strode out of the house.

She heard his footsteps engulfed by snow as he pulled the door shut, and then the children shrieked. She would have smiled, imagining him pelting them with snow, except that she was trying to determine what expression she'd glimpsed on his face. Really, it was unfair of him to talk about drifting apart as if she should blame herself; he was the one who was playing word games. Still, she could be joining in the fun instead of brooding. She pulled on a sweater and jeans and ran down to find her boots in the cupboard under the stairs.

She was shrugging on her anorak as she dragged the front door open and stepped outside. "Where are you?" she called.

Beyond the doorstep, the snow was up to her ankles. She could see how the children had had to pull their feet out of their footprints, whose outlines were crumbling. Quite a few of the prints had been trodden down by their father. Except for their trail, the snow was as unbroken as the silence between the squeaks of snow crushed under Ellen's boots. Ben and the children must be lying in wait for her, she thought, and prepared to dodge as she followed the trail around the outside of the garden wall, up the track towards the crowd of white figures which had grown fatter and more featureless overnight. The figures moved apart as she approached, and just as she passed the corner of the garden, snow flew at her. She ducked, more out of nervousness than to avoid the snowballs, and scooped up a handful to shy at the children as they dashed away from crouching behind the wall. "Don't hide from me, all right?" she said.

She meant that for Ben too, and when he rose from among the swollen figures she flung as much snow as she could pick up in one hand at him. He seemed content to watch while she and the children played; even when the children scored hits on him he responded only with a smile so untroubled it looked secretive. Before long Ellen's feet began to ache with cold. "You play with the children for a while, Ben," she said. "I'm going to make something to warm us all up."

She sat on the stairs and pulled off her boots, one of which proved to be leaking. She changed her sodden sock and made for the kitchen. She was expecting to see Ben and the children outside the window when she raised the blind, but they were under the trees. The forest crouched over them, a mass of white poised to draw them into its bony depths, where the treetrunks appeared to shift as whiteness glimmered between them. Ben and the children were each rolling a snowball towards the house, and she turned from the window, telling herself not to be so ridiculously nervous.

When she went to the window to announce breakfast she saw that Ben had piled up the three giant snowballs like a totem-pole. He'd rolled the largest against a group of the smaller figures so that they propped up the construction, and Ellen thought they looked as though they were worshipping it. "It hasn't got a face," Johnny said to his father.

"It will have," Ben said. "I think we're being summoned."

Ellen enjoyed the sight of colour returning to the children's faces while she ate breakfast. "Will you play with us again after?" Johnny asked her.

"I'd like to get some new boots first. Did I just make a joke?"

Ben looked mysteriously amused again, and oddly wistful. He reached across the table and laid his icy hand on her wrist. "1 was thinking how trivia becomes part of us all and how easy it should be to slough it off."

"Is anyone coming with me while the others wash the dishes?"

"Me," the children chorused.

"I don't mind. You won't be going anywhere," Ben said.

She shooed the children to the bathroom, and was ready with anoraks and scarves and gloves and a deaf ear to protests when they ran downstairs. From the front doorstep she saw Ben at the sink, the snow figure towering over him. "Shall I bring you anything back?" she called.

He raised his head but didn't turn it. "Only what you have to."

The white silence seemed to mute the slam of the front door. A bird flew away across the moors, its song chipping at the stillness, and then there was only the frustrated revving of a car engine somewhere in Stargrave. "What did he mean?" Margaret said.

"Ourselves, I suppose."

"Why is he being like that?"

"Because he's a writer, sweetheart. He gets on my nerves sometimes too. He wasn't saying he didn't want us. I'm sure he meant anything but."

"I think he's all right," Johnny said, and Ellen didn't know if he was expressing loyalty or reassurance or a hope. "Race you to the road," he said, nudging Margaret, and skidded away down the track.

"Mind you don't twist your ankles," Ellen called after them, and trudged in pursuit, slowed down by her climbing boots. As she led the children along the muffled dazzling road towards the hushed town, the hard surface under the snow cracked, sinking her heel into a frozen puddle. She imagined the whole of the road being as precarious, undermined by the cold, ready to give way. She was beginning to wish she had left the children with Ben; she might have made more headway on her own. Because the snow was silencing their footsteps, she had to keep glancing back to confirm they were behind her, a tic which only aggravated her reawakened nervousness.

It took her a quarter of an hour, more than twice as long as usual, to reach the first pavement. All the houses were top-heavy with snow. Despite the screech of spades on flagstones as shopkeepers cleared snow from in front of their premises, the town seemed laden with silence. Above the streets full of parked cars sheeted with snow, Ellen heard children playing on the common, their distant voices thin as birdcalls. From the foot of Church Road she saw them, tiny figures dressed in bright colours which kept being obscured by explosions of white. The forest reared above them like a wave about to break, but why should that make her uneasy? "Come on, let's get your poor old ageing mother something to keep off the shivers," she said.

She was sitting on the only chair the cluttered shop in the station building was able to accommodate, and pulling on Wellingtons which tied at the knees, when Sally Quick found her. "For once we could use a few more walkie-talkies," Sally said.

"Surely there can't be anyone out on the moors in this."

"Only the farmers, I hope. I was meaning the phones. The lines must be down somewhere with the snow. We can't even phone across town at the moment. Don't say you were expecting your publishers to call."

That wasn't why Ellen had experienced a twinge of panic. She must be thinking of her parents: if communications weren't restored she and the family wouldn't be able to call them on Christmas Day as usual. "Can anything be done?"

"We'll have to wait for Leeds to fix it, though heaven knows what they can do in this. When Eric from the dairy went to fetch his load this morning he couldn't get more than a few hundred yards past the bridge. The snow was over his wheels out there. We're going to be living off whatever's in our shops and houses until conditions improve."

"I may have something surplus in the freezer if anyone gets desperate."

"Let's hope things don't come to that, but bless you for offering." She picked up Ellen's old boots and followed her to the counter with them. "It'll take more than a bit of snow to spoil Christmas in Stargrave, and I can see it's making Christmas for the kids."

As Ellen came out of the station she heard the children on the common, their cries so tiny they sounded in danger of being wiped out by the silence, but all she could see beyond the roofs was the forest poised above the town. Around her, as her ankles began to ache with the chill of the snow in which she was standing, everyone looked unconcerned: people were depleting the food shops and even the video library, but otherwise the snow seemed hardly to have affected the town. Not yet, she thought, and told herself to stop being so gloomy: was she going to be the only member of the family not to enjoy the season to the full?

She was picking her way across the icy ruts on the road when Kate West emerged from the computer shop. "Cheer up, Ellen," she called. "It may never happen."

Ellen gave her an embarrassed smile. "I don't even know what it is."

"If you're wondering how to keep these two occupied you know they're always welcome. I've just bought a new computer game for when boredom sets in. You and I are lucky to have children who are readers and can make their own entertainment, but I suppose even they'll feel robbed."

"Of what?"

"I take it nobody watches daytime television in your house."

"Not as a rule."

"You'll see nothing but snow if you do – interference, I mean. And the radio seems to have lost its voice as well."

Johnny was watching his toes burrowing in a pile of cleared snow. "Kate, when can we come and play with the new game?"

"Now, if you like," Kate said, winking at Ellen to forestall any rebuke. "We ought to make sure it's popular before the shop shuts for Christmas. I'll have them until whenever you want to collect them after lunch, Ellen."

"You're a life-saver, Kate. Stefan and Ramona must come for lunch soon. Both of you be good until your father or I come for you," Ellen said.

No sooner had she tramped past the shops than she was met by a silence which seemed to extend to the edge of the world. The children on the common were building snow images now. The shadow of the forest crept towards them as the shrouded treetops reached for the low sun. She marched up the track, retracing the trail of her footprints, and let herself into the house.

After the glare of the snow, the hall was as dark as the forest must be. She heard the tree creak, and then light streamed down from the top of the house. Ben had opened the workroom door. "Only me," she announced.

Wood creaked above her, disorienting her until she realised he was leaning on the banister. "Where are they?" he demanded.

"At Kate's. I thought we might like to be on our own for a while."

"How long for?"

"They're having lunch there," Ellen said, trying to blink her eyes clear. Of course it was the stairwell that made his voice sound as large as a wind. "Come down. Whatever it is, you can tell me."

"Whatever what is?"

"Whatever's been making you so secretive lately."

She waited, but he didn't stir. She couldn't tell if he was arrested by her words or if his thoughts were somewhere else, but he seemed unlikely to come to her, and so she started up the stairs. "I don't know why, Ben, but it's making me nervous."

"I was too. It won't be for long now, I promise."

She felt as though she was dreaming the conversation, it was so difficult to grasp and so isolated by the silence. She didn't speak again until she was on the stairs leading to the top floor. "What won't?"

"Ellen…" It sounded like a plea. He clenched his fists, and she saw him shudder from head to foot. She was running to hold him when he swung towards her, his face blank. "If you need me to talk, I will when the children are here. Better collect them before it's dark," he said, and went into the workroom, closing the door behind him.