Snowstop (14 page)

They were amiable at the moment, boasting, stoned perhaps and soon to be drunk as well, the best the world had to offer, except that they were on the wrong side, as far as he was concerned, the worse side because it was no side at all.

‘It depends what's in the van, don't it?' Garry said. ‘We wouldn't want to flog our goolies off if it wasn't important, would we?'

‘Forget about it, for the moment,' Daniel said quickly. Perhaps they did have the grit to get it to Coventry. He could telephone and say it was on its way, and if they argued for not having got it there himself, that would be their problem, though it would be his as well when they caught him. Then he recalled that the telephone lines were dead.

‘We can have a rave-up,' Lance said. ‘To think we met our old teacher when we got stuck in a blizzard.'

‘I always wondered what became of you,' Daniel said. ‘You were different to the others.' He couldn't stop his tongue from being the schoolmaster, Mr Chips of the slums, the man his mother had decided he would be, and what the greater part of him in those days had wanted to be. Looking at him from Heaven, the only place for her, if she was anywhere, she would be happy in that shark-like possessive way which had ruined his life by forcing him to be something which was not part of his nature. But he became even more of what she had in mind, a caricature in fact, to prove to himself that he at least had some independence. Therefore he could allow himself to enjoy being the schoolmaster, idolized by two old boys, rough and common as they were, who recalled what he had tried to do for them.

They stood as if expecting wisdom that only he as an old teacher could provide. He was sorry to disappoint them, yet they took the blow calmly, he thought, tamed at the moment by his presence. What he wanted – and craved for them to desire, though it was an accolade he knew he could never have, and therefore a blessed state that they could never have though he hoped for it against all odds nevertheless – was to be a god and run their lives from birth to death on the principles of love and justice and the mellow rules of sweet reason, till the world became perfect for teachers and taught alike, the harmony of the just and the elect to prevail over all rough beasts, pain and bloodshed banished for ever.

SEVENTEEN

Sally felt culled by the hair, out of a doze between icy terylene sheets, as if barbaric assailants were at the castle drawbridge of her dreams, vandals spilling in for rapine and plunder. Eyes pinned open, and sleep impossible, she would go down and find out what mayhem had broken loose.

It was a poor show, she thought, not having the wherewithal in her luggage to change from skirt and blouse into a frock: stockings and knickers instead of tights: her favourite amber beads and a Liberty's silk scarf. With a state of mind so altered such formality would have kept her within range of who she was, and stopped that happening which she might not like to remember. No, that wasn't how she felt at all. What she really wanted to be clad in was her leopardskin trousers, highnecked white shirt (opened a button or two) and black high heels. Stanley hated a rig that was outlandish enough to get everyone looking her way.

Standing in the doorway, she observed Daniel's ruminations, his eyes beamed downwards, deepening as if some recollection was coming full thunder on him, a pushing out and drawing back of the lower lip, and a more subtle alteration of his visible cheek. He was at the point of speaking to himself, or action of some sort, or even – a notion that caused her to hold back a laugh – a mild kind of fit.

She supposed the state of people's souls was marked on their faces, especially when they didn't suspect scrutiny, though Stanley's smooth visage showed so little he had to talk for her to know what was on his mind, and whatever was revealed proved that he didn't exist at the intensity she sensed in Daniel, whose differing layers of expression only increased her curiosity.

He looked up at this rangy blonde holding the bannister just outside the door. He had never known whether he was quick to show the red face on being surprised out of his reflections; or whether he was generally calm at any disturbance, always unable to decide which personality to use. With the short-fuse version he sometimes felt close to madness, and for that reason rarely employed it, knowing it was his responsibility when he did, and having no sympathy for people who couldn't control it (like some who also worked for the Cause) and might therefore be considered mad. To be mad was a matter of choice, it seemed to him, because on losing his temper he could watch himself doing so, and revert to a calm state easily enough.

He thought she was the sort who might laugh long and loud if he showed irritation at her gaze meant only for him. ‘You seem to be curious about me.'

‘I'm sorry if it annoys you.'

‘I'm flattered. Let me get you a drink.' It was always hard to bring the fascinating conversations in his own mind into the open. Women suspected such concentrated silence while he wondered whether he should and how he could do it. Or they were bored, or took his inability as indicating that they themselves were at fault. They might question what the man was trying to hide, though you weren't expected to talk nonstop either, because that would be worse than silence. But, above all, and this he felt from the most bitter experience, he must never mention even the mildest of his dreams.

‘I'd love a sherry. Dry.' She sat at the nearest table, much better than staying in that draughty bedroom. The storm was so dreadful that no one could complain about their accommodation, however. Poor Stanley would wish he hadn't left Singapore, though she shouldn't keep thinking of him if she wanted to get the best out of being marooned. ‘Cheers! Here's to getting out – sometime.'

‘You seem uncertain about it.' The English loved a crisis. Even the bikers were quiet, sitting before their drinks and heaps of sandwiches. ‘I expect we'll be on our way by tomorrow.'

Percy, jived by some chemical engine, swayed away from his table. ‘We're on the way to Heaven. That's our destination.' He smacked the middle of his forehead. ‘I can feel it here. It's a wide road into the blue beyonder. A lot of light up there. You'll enjoy it. I can't wait, talking for myself, though I don't know if any of us deserve it.' He lurched towards the bikers, caught a chairback to right himself. ‘We'll all go together when we don't, won't we, lads? No matter how old you are you always look young in the mirror.'

Garry reached for another sandwich. ‘I reckon you're a teeny-weeny bit stoned, Dad.'

‘Never felt better.' Percy flailed away. ‘You won't stone me, young 'un. That's what them Arabs do when you're caught having a bit on the side.'

‘I have this awful feeling' – Sally knew she could say it, since his behaviour at the telephone had indicated that his life seemed to depend on getting out as soon as possible – ‘that we'll be cooped up for days.'

There was nothing to do but smile, except that he couldn't. ‘Since I can't get out in the next couple of hours it won't much matter if I'm here for weeks.'

She gulped the sherry. ‘Crikey, it's like that, is it?'

He had already had several whiskies and a few more would make him drunk, yet he was disappointed not to feel any clouding of the faculties, since that would be some relief from the horror which seemed to fill his stomach with cold water. ‘Would you like another?'

At least he was losing his look of frantic worry. ‘Please, but I ought to pay.'

Fred came in with another load of wood, the cane of the basket scratching his jacket as he set it by the fire. If he didn't do it no one would, and he wondered how much fuel he would use before they took themselves off upstairs. Still, it was his job, what he was here for, though if this went on for several days he might yet show them who was the gaffer.

On the second load his arms straightened as he went forward. After the butt at his ankles he let the woodbasket shoot ahead to the floor. He swayed sideways and, with a few workings of the legs, grabbed a table and righted himself. ‘You bloody fool!' he screamed.

Wayne straightened himself at the bar. ‘I hope you don't mean me, because if you do we'll use your swede-head for a game of soccer. Won't we, lads?'

‘You bloody tripped me up.' Fred gathered the logs. ‘And you know it.'

‘Did I?' Wayne smoothed his beard. ‘You're making a mistake. If I had, you'd still be on the floor.'

Aaron had seen only enough to make a definite accusation difficult. It could have been the sheet of coconut matting which had one of its corners turned up.

‘I'm not daft. I felt your toecap.'

‘Did you? I didn't. My toe wanders off on its own, though, and gets me into all sorts of trouble. I give it a good talking to now and again, but it don't make a blind bit of difference. Shall I get my left foot to apologize? It makes people feel better, after it's been naughty.'

Fred stood at the fire, with his back to them. ‘Forget it. But I bloody well know what happened.'

‘Does he know he's talking to the Wheelie Champion of the World?' Garry said. ‘Somebody ought to tell him, in no uncertain terms.'

‘Not yet.' Wayne gave a sinister, self-confident grin. ‘We've got all night to think about it.'

Nor did Sally like his smile, and wouldn't trust him an inch. She turned to Daniel, thinking that the truly liberated woman (whatever that might be, because if ever it came about, she told herself, we would have the truly liberated man) would go straight for the man and get his trousers off, letting the devil take the hindmost. I suppose you would frighten most men, though not a real one – whatever that might mean as well.

Daniel saw laughter in her eyes, but they also had that slightly troubled look of the woman who is worried about her husband. He had learned a lot in his short but turbulent marriage. Strange how much part of the world he felt, but he was calm, almost grateful to her. Threatened by the biking hooligans, he had become more like his old self before enlisting for the Cause, no longer involved in damaging other people's bodies from a distance with Semtex. The blue cold glow of snow outside, and talk with an attractive woman who so obviously saw things about him that she liked, took him from thoughts of the cataclysm nobody knew was on its way.

‘I think we're both ready to burst out laughing,' she said, ‘and I'll bet neither of us can think why. Or if we are, we aren't saying.'

He liked her, because she knew his thoughts, and didn't unreasonably demand that he know hers, which promised a viable relationship, though one that had come too late.

Percy reamed out his pipe, black dust chuting into the ashtray. Better than nodding off, he thought. Well, I've got a right to nod, haven't I? Prodding and scraping with a little silver penknife made for the job, he fought the oppressive snow by lingering on memories of summer weather, rich black elderberries over a glassy pond not far from the colliery, the sun so warm and mellow through the trees that he only wanted to lie down and sleep on the bank. Birds with their hot little hearts whistled among the leaves, and there was a smell of wood ash from a fire where kids had been playing. You couldn't call them happy days. Happy wasn't a good enough word. But God had been on your side a few moments now and again in your life, whatever other troubles you had. And then as an engineer he had overseen the drainage of that pond on Coal Board land, trees uprooted, declivity filled, and buildings put where none should be. He had taken many a sweetheart there as a youth, remembered it as vividly as in reality, and so it was, memory being everything, to judge by the smile on his face which he felt duly grateful for.

‘Why don't you have another fag, Dad?' Garry called. ‘That old pipe'll choke you.'

He paused, smiling widely. ‘I'm up to your kids' tricks. You're trying to get me even more stoned than you are.'

Alfred had been glad to have his father off his hands for a while. ‘Don't press him. He's never been used to that drug sort of thing.' We don't want to turn him into a hophead at his age, though it might not be a hard way to go, which idea made his reprimand a mild one.

She put a hand on Daniel's sleeve. ‘Have you ever indulged in hash?'

‘I have more respect for my consciousness' (or my immortal soul, he was too shy to say) ‘though I can't be that much of a prig, can I, if I drink and smoke?'

‘I'm wondering how much it would relax me if I took some.'

Garry wiped crumbs and turkey fat from his lips, flashed his Zippo, and passed her one. ‘The opium of the masses. Well, we've got to have something, haven't we? What's good enough for the middle classes is good enough for us.'

She coughed as the fibres lit. ‘It's my first time.'

‘Let's hope it isn't the last.' Wayne looked closer into her face than Daniel liked. ‘How did you manage then, up to now?'

She pushed him away, and took Daniel's hand, his fingers warm and slender, acting so forwardly because she didn't want him to imagine later – when she had gone further, which she fully intended to do – that smoking a bit of pot had been the cause. ‘Do you mind if I kiss you?'

He would like it more than anything. The back of his neck tingled, and his face went close enough to meet her lips halfway, the delightful pleasure of flesh on flesh causing him to smile.

His lips had been cold, but she would soon warm them.
Warm hands – cold lips
must mean something. ‘I never know how to act when I fancy someone. I rarely do, of course. I see very few men I could fall for. I mean, it's not a normal thing with me.'

‘You have a lovely voice.' It was the sort of upper-register English trill he had always loathed and distrusted, but he didn't mind it now because he couldn't care less what she said – he told himself. Just to hear her talk was enough, being already in love with her even if only because she had made the first move. Otherwise, how had it happened?