Midnight Sun

FORTY

Except for the misty blur above the trees, the sky was clear. The night was closing around Stargrave, darkness spreading over the horizon beyond the railway to meet the shadow of the forest. Both of the lonely farmhouses she could see on the moors were lit. Their yellow windows were brighter and steadier than the star which flickered in the depths of the rising night, but it was the darkness which Ellen felt coming into its own – the darkness, and the lurid glow of the snowscape, and above all the cold. The temperature must have fallen several degrees since she had last been out of the house. She felt as if a claw of ice had seized her face. She thrust her hands into her gloves and hurried down to the main road, stumbling over footprints.

By the time she reached the shops, the cold was close to overcoming her ability to think. Each breath stung her nostrils, each step struck chill through her boots. The snow on the pavements was trodden down, and walking was treacherous with frozen slush. Most of the shops were open, their windows grey with condensation, but they had few customers. A family with a terrier on a leash crossed the square, their footfalls sounding compressed, their heads hanging low as if they'd been defeated by the cold. "Watch you don't fall," the woman with the terrier said, and Ellen saw that they were only attending to their steps.

As she turned along Hill Lane, she faltered. The mass of white above the streets – the common and the forest which was almost indistinguishable from it except for the hint of shapes of trees – was glowing. It put her in mind of an enormous crumpled page which was illuminated from within, and it appeared not to be entirely blank: she thought she saw patterns extending from the dimness beneath the trees onto the edge of the common. She made herself concentrate on the street she was climbing. Poring over her drawing must have affected her eyes, but she had to ignore that for the children's sake.

Soon she couldn't see beyond the town for the streetlamps, which seemed to huddle together as they approached the common. Nearly all the houses had at least one downstairs window lit. Their illumination shone through curtains and Christmas wreaths and lay on the pavement or in gardens, exhibiting snow. A door opened ahead of Ellen, and a woman hurried across the street to deliver a saucepan covered with a steaming cloth to an ageing neighbour. "Don't leave it open, we'll catch our deaths," a man protested as the woman dashed back into her house. The door slammed, and then the street was deserted apart from Ellen and several figures poking their white heads over garden walls.

By the time she reached Kate's and Terry's house her face felt like a frozen mask. As she stepped onto the short path, the roses on the trellis over the gate shed snow on her. She heard Johnny and Margaret laughing as she picked her way along the icy path beside a snowman surrounded by footprints. She dragged one hand out of her pocket and prodded the doorbell, and Kate ran to let her in. "You look as if you could do with something to warm you up."

"Don't open any Christmas spirit just for me."

"Christmas has already started in our house." Kate led her into the main room, where symmetrical angels had been unfolded and hung from the cornice, and slid the double doors open to the dining-room. "Scotch is the answer to this kind of weather."

"I'm glad something is."

"Don't go imagining this is the kind of winter you've got to look forward to for the rest of your life. It can be cold here, but it's never been like this."

Ellen's face and ungloved hands were already aching with warmth. Kate poured out single malts and clinked glasses with her. "Here's to coping with the winter. We always have."

"How's Terry managing with the van?"

"With the van, not at all. He's been out all day with one of Elgin's wheelbarrows, delivering books to the old folk. You can't keep a good librarian down."

"Here's to him."

"And to whatever keeps us all going. Children, and people in general. And pictures and stories that need you and Ben to put them on paper." Kate squinted at their empty glasses. "Well, that saw that off. Better have one for the road, or not for the road if you want to stay longer."

She was heading for the cabinet when the doorbell rang. "Would you see who that is, Ellen? It must be important if they're out on a night like this."

Was it Ben? Perhaps a drink or two would help him relax. Ellen opened the front door, hoping to see him. But it was Terry, about to prod the button again with the key which his gloved fist had proved too cumbersome to wield. "Another minute out there and you'd have had to defrost me in the microwave," he said, shouldering the door closed. "How are your pipes?"

"Pretty healthy as far as I'm aware. How about yours?"

"I don't mean your innards, I mean at your house." He fumbled his gloves off and winced as he wriggled his fingers. "I met Stan Elgin by the church, Kate. Some of the houses on the top road are already frozen up. He's going round to tell folk to keep their heating on overnight. I said I'd tell our street once I get warm."

"I'll do it if you like, love. You've been out enough."

"I'd much rather you stayed in, at least until we see how tomorrow is. And Ellen, if I were you I wouldn't wait much longer before you take the children home, unless you're planning to stay over, which you're certainly welcome to do. Right, Kate?"

"Any time."

"It wasn't that bad when I came," Ellen said.

Terry clasped his hands together and raised a glass of the malt to his lips. "I'd say the temperature has dropped several degrees in the last half-hour."

Ellen downed her Scotch and went to the foot of the stairs. "Say goodbye, you two. Time we were going."

She was sorting out their boots from the chaos under the stairs when all four children stampeded down. Margaret was glittering like a fairy on a tree. "Look, Mummy, Ramona says I can have her party dress now it doesn't fit her."

"You're lucky to have such a good friend. Better not wear it on the way home. You can dazzle your father with it when we're safely shut in."

Margaret ran upstairs in a whirl of spangles which reminded Ellen of snow dancing in the wind, and Kate went to the kitchen to fetch a bag for the dress. Stefan and Ramona were playing pat-a-cake, clapping at each other's hands in a pattern so complicated they lost the rhythm and collapsed with laughter. "You try it, Johnny," Stefan said, and when they'd had enough: "I'm sorry I forgot to sort out my monster cards for you. I'll give you all the spares next time, cross my heart and hope to die."

Kate reappeared as Margaret came downstairs, and folded up the dress for her before slipping it into the bag. "Ellen, if you want to borrow any extra clothes to keep the cold off you and the children, just say."

"We'll survive, don't worry. You look after yourselves," Ellen said. Once the children were as insulated as she could make them she urged them out onto the path. "I'll be in touch," she told the Wests, smiling at the sight of the four of them crammed together in the hall, and shut the door quickly to keep in the warmth.

Even before the strip of light on which she was standing vanished, Ellen felt the night close in. It felt as if there was nothing behind her but darkness and a cold so profound that the air itself seemed to ache. "Off we go, Sherpa Peg and Sherpa Johnny," she said.

Margaret stayed close as Ellen skidded downhill, one hand poised to support herself on the encrusted garden walls. Johnny would have skated down to Market Street if Ellen hadn't stopped him; though there was no traffic, she preferred to keep him with her in the dark. Eventually they reached the level road, where marble replicas of cars were parked beneath the streetlamps. More of the shops were closed, their decorations gleaming from the unlit interiors as though frost was developing on them, and the windows of the few lit shops were opaque with trapped breaths. The only sign of life was the confusion of footprints preserved by ice on the pavements. As Ellen led the way into the road, Johnny began to sing:

"Snow in your ears

And snow up your nose,

Snow in your eyes

And snow for your toes…"

"Shut up, Johnny, I'm cold enough as it is," Margaret complained. "What sort of stupid song is that?"

"About a snowman. It just came into my head."

"We'd never have known."

"Don't you listen to her, Johnny. I expect she's wishing she'd made it up herself." Nevertheless Ellen was glad that he'd fallen silent, whether from pique or because he'd run out of ideas; the song had reminded her of the snowmen she'd passed on the way down the hill. She'd been too busy keeping her footing to spare them more than a glance, but she had the impression that there had been something odd about their rudimentary faces – as if, she thought now, they had all been sketches of the same image, trying to make it look more like a face. "What do you want to sing, Margaret?" she said to quiet her nonsensical thoughts.

"I don't feel like it. I'm too cold."

"What's your favourite carol?"

" 'Silent Night', I suppose."

"Mine too," Ellen said, and began to sing it, raising her voice to encourage the children to participate. Johnny did so halfway through the first chorus, and Margaret picked up the next line. By then, however, Ellen was finding phrases in the carol uncomfortably appropriate. It was increasing her awareness of her surroundings, of the calm which didn't seem as holy as she would have liked, the brightness where the snow reflected the glare of the lamps leading into the outer darkness, the sense of being surrounded by sleep as if she and the children were part of a dream. If their singing had brought someone out of a house or even to a window she would have felt less isolated, but every door stayed closed, and not a curtain moved. Once she thought she heard a fourth voice joining in, but surely it was an echo; it sounded too close to be inside a house – too close for her to be unable to see where it was coming from. Perhaps it was Stan Elgin, though if he was nearby she wondered why she hadn't heard him going from door to door.

The carol took the family as far as the last streetlamp. They were singing "Slee-eep in heavenly peace" as they left the light behind. To their left the snowbound landscape stretched to the edge of the silenced world, to their right it swept upwards to the vast snowy efflorescence which was the forest, up further to the icebergs of the crags. The sky was black except for the random patterns of stars – so black that she could imagine that the stars were flickering because the dark was overtaking them. She felt the heat draining out of her body into the sky and the landscape.

As they trudged past the outlying cottages, Margaret broke into song. Ordinarily "The Holly and the Ivy" would have been a good choice for a walking song, Ellen thought, but just now she would have preferred not to be reminded how the song took ancient traditions and tried to disguise them as Christian, traditions whose age was no more than a moment of the ancient darkness overhead. Besides, not only did the carol emphasise the stillness rather than relieving it, but Ellen's impression that there were more than three voices had returned. She blamed her imagination until Margaret's singing faltered and the girl began to peer at the swollen hedges which glowed like a moon in a cloud on both sides of the road. Didn't her behaviour suggest what the icy whisper must be? "It's just wind in the hedges," Ellen said.

"I thought there were birds moving about in there," Johnny said.

When had she last seen birds around Stargrave? But she couldn't feel a wind either. Presumably she was too cold. She stumbled past another cottage and began to sing:

"God rest ye merry gentlemen, Let nothing you dismay. Remember Christ our Saviour Was born on Christmas Day…"

Of course, she thought, the echo was under the railway bridge, even if it seemed to be behind them and around them, more like a stealthy chorus, a whispering which seemed enormous and yet on the edge of inaudibility. It must be the bridge which turned the echo of her last words into a sound like muffled icy laughter. She peered along the road at the lightless mouth and the hint of whiteness at the far end of the tunnel, and looked away quickly. Her eyes were misbehaving again; the whiteness had appeared to lurch forwards into the tunnel. "Nearly there now," she said firmly, and stepped off the road onto the track past the lit and curtained cottage. Then she sucked in a breath to suppress whatever comment she might have blurted out. As far as she could see, their house was dark.

"It looks as if your father's gone out looking for us," she said.

She fumbled in her pocket and managed to extract her keys without dropping them as she picked her way along the track. She would feel better once she was home, she promised herself. She could only assume it was the way her vision was struggling to grasp the obscured shape of the forest which had caused the patterns to reappear in the snow, stretching across the common and up to the ridge. She hurried the children towards the house, gripping the key to the front door so hard between her finger and thumb that she could feel the chill of the metal through her glove. But she hadn't reached the front step when the door of the dark house swung open. "I was just coming to get you," Ben said.