Читать книгу The Water Children - Anne Berry - Страница 7

Chapter 2

1963

A 1940s house in Kingston, South-West London, its frontage pimpled with pebbledash and painted cream. Upstairs. The smallest bedroom of three. 7 a.m. Catherine has been awake for some time. She heard the milk float and the chink of bottles on the doorstep. It is the 17th of September, her ninth birthday, and she has a plan. She stayed up late the previous night working out the details. Now her tummy is alive with thumbnail butterflies. She pictures them fluttering about in there in jerky, bright colours. Light fingers its way doggedly through the gaps in the curtains. In their bedroom across the landing she can hear her parents stirring, her mother’s high croaky voice, her father’s acquiescent teddy bear growls.

Her plan begins with a prayer. Catherine has never been very good at praying, she admits to herself now. When she goes to church with her parents, she pretends. She moves her lips in a kind of mumble and counts things in her head. How many people wearing hats? How many lighted candles? How many empty pews? In any case, she knows her mother isn’t praying properly either, she is far too preoccupied studying what the other women are wearing, making sure that she has outdone them all in, say, her new custard-yellow Orlon sweater dress, cinched in at the waist with a wide black belt, plus her matching kitten heels with the fashionable almond toes.

Deep down Catherine isn’t really sure about God, about whether he truly exists. And if, just say he does, he is really bothered with her birthday. She has her doubts, grave doubts. She thinks about all the awful things that happen in the world, like murders and aeroplane crashes, and famines with thousands of babies swelling up like plums, and terrible storms that wash away whole towns. He doesn’t do anything about them, does he? So why should he intervene on Catherine’s behalf to ensure that her day goes smoothly? If he can’t be bothered to sort out the most ghastly of life-and-death catastrophes, why on earth should he trouble himself with one girl, a shop-bought cake and a few games?

Still, she presumes that it is worth a try anyway, and it certainly won’t hurt. So she takes a deep breath, and trying to be absolutely truthful, puts real words to her prayer. She feels a bit shy (although it is only her and God, and even he might not really be present at all), so she slides down under the sheet and blankets. She clasps her hands together in the fuzzy greyness, then begins to whisper:

‘Dear God, please let today be exactly as I have imagined it. Don’t let the bad thoughts ruin it. Let Mother come into my room in a minute with a real smile on her face, not the one she usually glues there, the one that looks fixed, like a painting. And don’t let her lose her temper with me, or Father either, and shout out in that screech of hers that makes me jump inside. And don’t let him shuffle about looking all lost, making me feel embarrassed in front of my friends. Please make sure that Stephen doesn’t forget about the motorbike ride. And also, could you see to it that I get all the presents I want, and that they let me win one turn of pass the parcel, and that Penny Rainbird is so jealous of me that her face goes all red and blotchy. Amen.’

Not bad for her first real prayer, is her assessment, not bad at all. And God really seems to listen because the day gets off to a very promising start. When Catherine comes down for breakfast, her hair brushed and her mouth tingling with toothpaste, there are two parcels waiting for her on the dining table, both with cards sitting on top of them. And there are other cards too that have arrived in the post, one all the way from America that she bets is from her cousins.

‘Here she is, the birthday girl,’ her father, Keith Hoyle, says, getting up from his seat to give her a kiss on the cheek.

‘Hello, darling. Many happy returns of the day,’ her mother chimes in perfunctorily, stooping to kiss a spot in the air somewhere past her head.

‘Now, where to start, that’s the dilemma,’ he continues kindly, a twinkle in his faded blue eyes.

As he retakes his seat and Catherine sits down opposite him, her mother floats by. She is distracted by her reflection in the oval mirror. It is suspended from the picture rail above the sideboard by a brass chain. She pats her curls, then peers closer at her image, worrying that she may have spotted a couple of grey hairs tucked in among the red. Catherine, oblivious to her mother’s preening, considers grabbing the packages and ripping them open, careless of ruining the paper. But that will be wasteful and probably earn me a scolding, she cautions herself.

It is good manners to open the cards first, and besides she can’t wait to read what Uncle Christopher and Aunt Amy have to say. She has heard whispers that the American Hoyles may be coming to spend Christmas in England. The idea of seeing Rosalyn again is so exciting that she is petrified to dwell on it, in case, like a wriggling fish, it slips away. She has a presentiment that if anyone realizes how much it means to her, even God, they will maliciously sabotage the trip.

She hasn’t seen Rosalyn for, well . . . almost a year. She may have picked up an American accent by now. She wonders how they talk in Boston. And she wonders if they will recognize each other, or if they both will have altered too radically. She suspects that she is much the same. Grape-green eyes, an oval face, fine Titian hair cut short, worn with a side parting and secured with several grips. Will Rosalyn like her as much as she used to, or will a year living in America have changed her mind about her cousin, Catherine? She may find her dull now, or worse, annoying. Oh, but to spend Christmas with Rosalyn, to go to sleep with her on Christmas Eve and wake up with her on Christmas morning. She dares to believe that it is possible in a miraculous kind of way. There has definitely been talk about her family joining them, the English Hoyles joining the American Hoyles in the house they are considering renting in Sussex. To open their stockings together, and pull crackers and read the silly riddles to each other, and to sneak out for long walks, and share the secrets they have collected in the months they have been apart. Actually, Catherine can’t remember any on the spot, but given time she’s bound to come up with some. And if she does have to invent a few, Rosalyn will understand, she is certain of it.

She loves to listen to Rosalyn talk. She has a voice that is clear as glass, a voice which tings the way her mother’s best crystal tumblers do when she flicks them with her long nails. She doesn’t apologize for herself when she speaks. She isn’t at all hesitant, or ready to concede the floor if no one wants to listen. She is accustomed to people paying attention. She has a confident air that clings to her, the way clouds do to mountain peaks. And she tells wonderful stories with beautiful descriptive words, draws them with the words, and then holds up the sketches with a smile that makes Catherine melt like butter on a hot crumpet. But this is too bad, she is already letting herself think about it as if it is as good as arranged. The consequence of this sort of thing will, of course, be that it is cancelled. So she pushes it out of her head with the brute force of her own will. As a penance she will open the other cards first, make herself wait to hear the news from America. Her father clears his throat and she looks up to see his expectant face, at least, is on her.

Grandma Stubbings has sent a crisp ten-shilling note, and a card that is really too young for her, with a picture of Miss Muffet on it and a big hairy spider. And there are a couple of other cards as well, one from the godmother who hasn’t forgotten her. She has opened a savings account for Catherine and keeps telling her on birthdays and at Christmas time, that she has put in another pound. But Catherine thinks, although generous, that this is very wearisome, because she can’t take any money out until she is eighteen, which is a lifetime away. And there is a book token from her godfather who lives in Wales, and a prayer card from the lady who runs the Sunday school. Then at last she opens the one with the American stamp on it. Her Uncle Christopher and her Aunt Amy, and her cousins Rosalyn and Simon, have sent a postal order for one pound and ten shillings. Aunt Amy has written a note on the side of the card that doesn’t have a printed message on it. Catherine reads it and her heart thumps loudly in her chest.

‘Thirty shillings. That’s generous of my brother. Isn’t that kind of Christopher and Amy, Dinah?’

‘Mm . . . very generous, I’m sure. We’ll have to match it for Simon and Rosalyn, though,’ remarks Catherine’s mother, sounding less than pleased. Her brow scrunched, she picks at her hairs rather like a monkey.

‘What do they say, Catherine?’ Her father slips out his pipe to make room for the words, then plugs it back in and puffs contentedly. He will have to extinguish it in a minute, but he may as well enjoy it while this rare reprieve continues.

‘That they haven’t decided about Christmas yet. Uncle Christopher may not be able to take the time off with all the seasonal flights.’ Her father wags his head to either side in that accepting way of his. But Catherine wants to scream, to beg him, no, to beseech him on her bended knees to force his brother to come, to make a long-distance ’phone call right now and insist on it. Even if it means cancelling all the flights, then that’s what he should tell Uncle Christopher to do. Because otherwise she will die, she will simply curl up and die. But she mustn’t say that, mustn’t let on how vital it is, because then it will all be over. There won’t be one grain of hope left in the empty sack of her life. Yet, yet . . . that is the word she must hold onto. They haven’t decided yet.

With grim determination she swallows back her dismay. She will act like Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet. She gathers up her money and postal orders now and makes a fan of them in her hand. She flutters them and pulls her lips into a smile. She is overwhelmed by her sudden wealth, but when her father questions her she has no clue what she will spend it all on. Such unexpected largesse and all those things in the shops to choose from. Her parents have given her one of the new Sindy dolls, with curly blonde hair and bold chalk-blue eyes. She is dressed in navy jeans and a red, white and blue stripy sweater. And she has two extra outfits, a glamorous pink dress for her dream dates, and an emergency ward nurse’s uniform.

‘Like it?’ her father asks. Catherine nods. She would have preferred a bike, but she hooks up the corners of her smile valiantly. Keith Hoyle glances surreptitiously at his wife, then relights his pipe which has gone out, with the mother-of-pearl lighter he always keeps in his pocket. He settles back in his chair as if he is not in any hurry at all. ‘Let’s see her done up in all her glad rags then,’ he requests. So, face radiant, Catherine dresses Sindy up in her party outfit and trots her round the crockery.

‘She’s really swinging now,’ he says, when Sindy finally stops jigging by the sugar bowl. Truly he makes Catherine want to laugh. She lets her mind run on him for a while. It is inconceivable that her father will ever be really swinging. He is thin as a beanpole, with a mournful, equine, lined face that appears sun-tanned. This is a bit of a conundrum because he is never in the sun long enough to catch its rays. His hair is very fine, the colour of a silver birch tree, clipped close around his ears and neck, parted to one side like Catherine’s. He massages brilliantine into it before combing it down, which makes it appear as if there is even less of it. It has a funny whiff about it too, rather like an old tweed coat. Her father doesn’t talk a lot either, but it isn’t noticeable because her mother prattles enough for both of them.

Stephen, Catherine’s older brother, has promised that he will call in later on, after the party. He has a job in a garage not far away. The owner lets him stay in one of the spare rooms above the business, so he returns home infrequently, and only to bring his washing or have a hot meal. Catherine thinks he resembles James Dean with his red BSA Bantam motorbike. He is saving for a Triumph Bonneville, and when he finally has enough money to buy it, he has said he will take her all the way to Brighton on it. But today, as it is her birthday, he has promised her a ride to Bushy Park and back instead. Honestly, she is more excited about this than her party, which she feels sure is bound to be a disaster.

Later, as Catherine trails through to the sitting-room to arrange her cards on the mantelpiece over the tiled fireplace, she considers her Uncle Christopher. He is a pilot, which is just about the most romantic thing in the world, she believes. He is handsome in a chiselled kind of way, while Aunt Amy has the grace of a model about her, with her wavy blonde hair, her clear skin, and her calm, low voice. There isn’t a huge gap between Rosalyn and Simon either, not like her and Stephen. Rosalyn is ten and Simon is twelve. And they talk to each other about shared interests, and watch the same programmes on the television sitting side by side. In a way Catherine is a bit frightened of Stephen. After all, he is pretty nearly an adult, and besides there is a strong scent that hangs about him, under the smell of leather and oil. It makes her feel very shy, especially on the rare occasions when she is on his bike with her arms folded about his waist, and the thrumming, dizzying whizz of the machine between her legs.

As she starts up the stairs with her presents, her mother appears in the kitchen doorway, a cigarette in her mouth, a lighter halfway to her lips. Seeing her daughter, she slips it out and wafts it in her direction. ‘You aren’t wearing that dress for the party?’ she calls after her. ‘I told you that the pale pink velvet is best. It’s hanging in the airing cupboard.’

As Catherine lifts it out, despising the fussy, lace neckline, she imagines what it must be like to be a pilot. Her father works in the city. He is a commuter with a hat, not a bowler hat but a hat anyway, and a briefcase. He trudges off to work in creased suits looking exhausted before he’s even left. And he returns grey and even more exhausted, often long after dark. Sometimes when he blows his nose black stuff comes out, which Catherine thinks is revolting, as if he isn’t just black on the outside but is slowly turning black on the inside too. He makes her think of Tom, the chimney sweep, in the book The Water Babies, as if he needs a good scrub to get the engrained dirt out of his pores. But Uncle Christopher goes to work in a smart uniform, one fit for a general or a commander or a president. They are in the back of her mind all day, her aunt, her uncle, Simon, but mostly Rosalyn, though she is determined to make the best of her party.

***

It was Christmas. They were staying in the house in Sussex with the American Hoyles. And it was every bit as amazing as she had imagined it would be. The house was huge, nearly as tall as a castle, redbrick, rectangular and solid, with lots of windows that gleamed like dozens of golden, unblinking eyes in the winter sunshine. And there was a fire-engine red front door that had a brass knocker in the shape of a face with swept-back, wild hair. When you lifted it and banged it down a couple of times it boomed satisfyingly, like a cannon firing. There were lots of bedrooms upstairs and none of them were pokey like Catherine’s. And there was an attic floor that had been converted into yet more rooms. The kitchen was massive, dominated by a milky blue Aga that crunched up scuttles full of coal every morning, while spewing out gusty exhalations of glistening dust.

The lounge was twice the size of theirs. It had wall-to-wall carpet, not just a lino floor with a rug thrown over it. There was a baronial fireplace, in which a real fire crackled and spat and hissed in the grate. It permeated the room with a homely, spicy fragrance, because of the pine logs they fed it, her uncle said. Even her mother, in a rare moment of enthusiasm engendered by the festive season, remarked that it was all rather jolly. Though she added that their built-in bar fire was definitely much cleaner, and probably a lot more efficient – cheaper too, when you con sidered the outrageous cost of fuel.

It was called ‘Wood End’, the stately house, the name painted on a sign at the bottom of the drive. Catherine’s mother admitted grudgingly that it was a suitable name, because the property actually did back onto woods. Another bonus, woods to explore and have adventures in. When they had first approached it in the grey Ford Anglia, puttering along the meandering tree-lined drive, her mother kept reminding her father that the house was only rented, that anyone could afford a house like that for a few weeks.

The property stood in enormous gardens that ran all the way round the house, with no partition dividing the front from the back. There were sweeping lawns and clusters of shrubs and lots of trees. One of them, an ancient oak, with bark like deeply wrinkled skin, only crustier, had a magical tree-house wedged in its branches, with a ladder hanging down from it. There was a separate garage, with double doors, as large as an entire house all by itself, Catherine estimated. They had brought one of the suitcases they usually took on holiday with them, Catherine cleverly sandwiching jeans and jumpers in among the dresses she so hated wearing. She had been overcome with nerves by the time they arrived, she recalled. Dry-mouthed and feeling rather sick, she had climbed out of the car as the American Hoyles piled onto the porch to meet them. This was the moment fated to sully everything, the moment Rosalyn would materialize looking incredibly grown up and aloof, surveying her cousin Catherine with a head-to-toe sweep of her crystal-blue eyes, and turning away, pained.

But that wasn’t what had happened at all. Catherine drooped there, looking frumpy in a patterned corduroy skirt and butterfly collared blouse, and making so many wishes that her head throbbed with them. To be taller, slimmer, to have black or blonde hair, to be dressed fashionably, to instantly shed her chipmunk cheeks, to have a different voice, different parents, to have arrived in a different car, oh, just to be somebody else and not Catherine Hoyle, that would do it, not Catherine the calamity, who didn’t have a single interesting trait in her solid personality.

But a second later and Rosalyn was there, standing before her smiling that self-assured, relaxed smile with the mouth that had never known a quiver. The parents were embracing, voices rising up like startled birds on the crisp morning air. Simon, head tilted, fingers spearing his thick, blond fringe, was hanging back a little, not shyly, just making it clear that he wasn’t up for any of this sloppy stuff. And Rosalyn, who Catherine noted in one stolen peep, had grown taller and even, astounding as it was, prettier, had stepped forward and was wrapping her arms around her and giving her cousin a hug of pure pleasure.

‘Catherine! Oh, it’s brilliant to see you. I’ve got so much to tell you. We’re going to have the best Christmas ever.’

It was a decree. Rosalyn would accept nothing short of perfect. And Catherine felt like Atlas shedding the weighty globe from his bowed shoulders after an eternity of burden. It wasn’t her responsibility if it went badly, not something for her to feel guilty about and to relive agonizingly in the months to come. And she needn’t feel anxious anyway because Rosalyn was going to take care of it. It was going to be the best ever. And you couldn’t jinx her, the way Catherine knew she could be jinxed. If you tried to put a hex on Rosalyn, unfazed, she would gather up the sticky skeins of doom, pat them into a neat ball, and hurl them straight back at you with that dauntless grin, and the sure aim of a girl who was top of the class in PE.

The next moment and she had been delivered into the arms of her aunt, whose embrace was just as genuine, just as sincere, and whose perfume wasn’t sickly sweet like her mother’s but had a subtle soapy aroma. Then her Uncle Christopher bent his tall frame for her to peck him on the cheek, and his skin smelt wonderful too, fresh and clean, not tainted with tobacco, as if bathed in the expanse of glacial blueness above them. Before Catherine knew where she was, Rosalyn had taken her by the hand and was running with her into the house.

‘I want to show you where we’re sleeping,’ she cried excitedly. ‘At the very top, in the attic. We’ve got it all to ourselves.’ Behind her Catherine heard her mother beckon.

‘Catherine. Don’t just dash off, dear. Your father and I need a hand with the bags. Catherine!’ Catherine hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, and her forehead slipped into its familiar groove.

‘Oh never mind about that,’ Rosalyn told her carelessly. ‘They can manage fine. Daddy’s there to help them, and Mummy, and even Simon.’ She was on the third step, her daring blue eyes locked on Catherine’s, still clasping her hand.

‘But—’

She gave the hand a tug. ‘Race you to the top.’ And then she was off, bounding up the stairs two at a time. And Catherine was charging after her, breathless with laughter. She felt as if she was escaping, as if, as they scurried upwards towards the sky, freedom was rushing down to greet her.

‘What do you think?’ Rosalyn demanded, hands on hips, inside the attic bedroom. She was wearing tight jeans and a loose, long-sleeved T-shirt in navy blue, which emphasized her boyish slimness.

Catherine couldn’t gasp as she stepped after her. It wouldn’t have been enough, a paltry gasp in exchange for the sight that met her eyes. It simply would not do. There was a huge bed with an old-fashioned, carved, wooden headboard, and a deep mattress that looked perfect for bouncing on. Above was a large skylight with the morning brightness flooding through it. The floor was cosy with colourful blankets, the walls banked up with cushions and pillows.

‘This is our den. Strictly private. I told Simon. Mummy let me take practically all the spare bedding and cushions for it. And at night we’ll be able to lie in bed and look at the stars. We can tell each other stories about the people who live on the different planets, describe them to one another, make up names for them. It’ll be terrific.’ There was a long pause while Catherine just stared, floor to bed, bed to skylight, skylight to floor, floor to bed. She thought she might cry. But Rosalyn wasn’t having any of that rubbish. ‘Well, put me out of my agony. It took ages to get it just right. Do you like it?’ she asked, giving Catherine a nudge with a swing of her bent arm. Catherine turned to her.

‘I love it. It’s better than perfect,’ she breathed solemnly, and then they were off giggling again.

‘I think we should try out the bed,’ Rosalyn suggested, her shoes already off. ‘Check out the springs. See who can remember the most. I’ve got heaps of new American ones.’

It was a favourite game. They clambered onto the mattress, straightened up, holding onto each other like two fragile old ladies who’d had one tipple too many, and started to leap as high as they could, bumping frequently.

‘A free glass. Yours for the price of Duz,’ yelled Rosalyn, her hair flying across her face.

‘Caramel Wafers by Gray Dunn, a crunchy treat for everyone,’ retorted Catherine through her chuckles.

‘Get that lovely, lively, Lyril feeling,’ crooned Rosalyn into a make-believe microphone.

‘Spirella, they’ll like the way you look,’ Catherine thundered back.

The words of the jingles kept pace with their jumps.

‘You’re never alone with a Strand.’ Again her cousin mimed, only this time elegantly smoking.

‘Diana – the big picture paper for girls!’ sang back Catherine.

‘Cadum for Madam. Cadum for Madam.’ Now Rosalyn set about lathering up her face with an imaginary bar of soap.

‘Rinso white, Rinso bright,’ Catherine broke off to rub her hands. ‘Happy little washday song!’

‘Wake up your liver with Calomel,’ panted Rosalyn.

Rosalyn won in the end, but Catherine didn’t mind. She’d kept going for ages and had acquitted herself fairly well, she thought.

‘You’re getting really good,’ complimented Rosalyn, not in a patronizing way either, and Catherine blushed at the compliment.

Eventually they fell over in a tangled heap, their heads still spinning, laughing hysterically until Catherine’s tummy felt sore. And just when they were calming down, Rosalyn got them both going again, because she squealed that she was going to wet herself if they didn’t stop. Then, as though attached at the hip, they rolled onto their backs and stretched out like stars. Rosalyn’s arm lay across Catherine’s chest. Catherine’s leg lay over Rosalyn’s thighs. They shared a sublime sigh. Catherine took stock of her cousin with a sideways glance. She was the same but different. Taller, yes, and she seemed to be growing into her athletic build: long legs, broad shoulders, her mother’s classic facial bone structure. She had cut her black hair. It was a blue-black shade she had inherited from her father. As the light fell on it, the dark tresses shimmered with traces of purple, green and gold. It suited her, gave an impish, gamine quality to her face. And the blue eyes, well, they had grown more dazzling, more full of merriment, more mischievous.

Later on in the afternoon Stephen arrived on his motorbike. He roared up the drive looking more like James Dean than ever, and they rushed out to meet him. For ages, still sitting on his bike and rocking it to either side, then rolling it forward half a foot and back again, he held court. Simon was terribly impressed. He hunkered down, peered interestedly at the mechanics of the thing, and kept asking questions. Rosalyn and Catherine struck a haughty pose, their weight on one hip each, regarding Stephen coolly, until he offered to give them rides up and down the drive. Then in a second they lost all their contrived composure, and hopped about as though an electric current was pulsing through their veins.

As Rosalyn had ordered, all continued without a hitch. A walk in the woods, filling bags with snippets of prickly, dark-green holly studded with blood-red berries, collecting knobbly fir cones and spruce boughs that smelt of pine sap, to deck the house. Rosalyn storytelling in their tree-house retreat, which enchantingly had its own dear ceiling light. Tea of toad-in-the-hole, crispy batter pudding and sausages that were cooked just right. Television – a double episode of Supercar. A bubble bath, where they fashioned wigs and moustaches of sparkling soapsuds. And then, Catherine, not minding about her tartan ladybird pyjamas with the elasticized wristbands, because Rosalyn didn’t even seem to see them as they lay in bed in the enchanted darkness, star gazing.

Rosalyn told Catherine all about America, her school and her friends, and how terrible the assassination of John Kennedy had been last month, in Dallas, Texas, and that everyone was dreadfully sad about it. And Catherine managed a short extempore speech about her own school, in which she made up a friend called Karen, who had her own horse which she rode on weekends.

Even Christmas Day, notorious for scenes in Catherine’s experience, with her mother feeling so put upon, went well. Everyone lent a hand cheerfully, the seasonal songs tra-la-la-ing from the radio. The snow fell on Boxing Day and quilted the scenery in virgin white, so that it looked like a sparkling picture on a Christmas card. Catherine wasn’t sure whose idea it was to go for a walk, perhaps even find out if the pond that was too large for a pond and too small for a lake, had frozen over. They left their mothers nattering in the kitchen, peeling vegetables and preparing lunch, their fathers, in the lounge having a serious discussion about something called the Profumo affair, and debating whether or not a Labour government would get in next year, and Simon transfixed by Stephen tinkering with his motorbike in the garage.

For a while it felt like they just walked aimlessly. It had turned a good deal colder and they were both bundled up in coats, gloves and scarves, Rosalyn wearing a red beret that looked so dramatic against her shiny black hair. They found their way to the end of the drive, then to the end of the lane, pausing to throw snowballs at one another. They discussed making a snowman that very afternoon, getting the boys to help. Then Rosalyn mentioned the pond again and they set off more purposefully this time, pushing their way through the copse that bordered the lane, sending the canopy of snow scattering in little flurries. For a short distance the growth was fairly dense. Dry, frosty twigs snapped with sharp reports as they shouldered their way through. A robin looked on inquisitively when Catherine tripped into a hollow hidden by the lambent carpet. But she wasn’t hurt and she was quick to assure Rosalyn of it, and to dismiss her suggestions that they turn back. The sky had a yellowish tint to it that possibly meant more snow. The low sun had not yet broken through the layers of clouds. The uneven ground they trudged over with its mounds and dips, looked like a lunar landscape with, here and there, a skeletal tree throwing up its bony branches in desolation.

It was very quiet. The snow seemed to soundproof the setting, so that they had that shut-off feeling Catherine had known when Stephen had taken her to a recording studio. They were a long way from the lane now, a long way from the house in its relatively deserted location, a long way from the main road, from cars, from people. Catherine was dimly aware of a shift in both of their demeanours. The casual wandering had become a determined trek, the destination they sought was the pond. It was unthinkable to them now that they should retrace their steps and abandon the mission. Like mountaineers seeking the summit of a challenging peak, or arctic explorers following a planned route in rigorous conditions, turning back was not an option. Their conversation had grown sporadic, then hiccupped into a quiet that neither wanted to break.

They were still, more or less, walking companionably side by side, one slipping down a small slope and then speedily clambering upright again, the other circumventing a split tree-trunk and bending to brush snow off her boots, then the two of them falling into step again. Neither felt cold because of the exercise. They watched each other’s breaths misting the chilled air. The pond was screened by a thicket of saplings and bracken, so that when they finally fought their way through and came upon the winter oasis, they were both awed by the scene.

The hoop of vegetation stood out in dark relief against the pallid sky. The banks, blanketed in white, canted down to an iced mirror of frozen water, edged with hoary reeds. They could just glimpse dusky shapes looming up from the opaque depths.

‘It’s beautiful,’ said Rosalyn, taking in the zinc-grey gleam.

‘You were right, it’s iced over,’ said Catherine, wonder-struck.

‘Our own private skating rink,’ said Rosalyn covetously. Their eyes met, blue and green, and both alight with devilry. ‘Can you skate?’ Rosalyn wanted to know. She crouched down and started to make her descent, knees bent, gloved hands searching the snow for a hold of woody stems or sunken rocks.

‘Of course,’ said Catherine, following her. This was untrue, but then how complicated could it be? You slid your feet on the ice, skidded, skated. This would be much easier than trying to balance on real skates, the ones she had seen on television with flashing silver blades, the ones that cut the ice with a hiss, sending a fine spray flying up. She followed Rosalyn. When they arrived at the place where the ice began they both stopped and faced each other. Catherine thought Rosalyn had never looked lovelier. Her skin was very smooth and white, except on the rounds of her cheeks, which were flushed rosy red with the cold. Her mouth was leaning towards a smile. The irises of her vivid blue eyes were ringed in a velvety indigo. Her abundant glossy curls were such a contrast to the scarlet beret pulled down over them, each accentuating the vibrant colour of the other. Yes, she was truly lovely, Catherine thought. Then the sequential thought, that she should like to remember her just like this, a snapshot that she could carry in her head forever. She shivered involuntarily.

‘Cold?’ Rosalyn asked.

‘No . . . no,’ she answered a trifle hesitantly, because now they had stopped walking she did feel cold tentacles worming their way through her layers of clothing.

‘Oh, come on. Last one on the ice is a rotten pig,’ teased Rosalyn.

And then she was pushing off from the bank, rising to her feet until she was standing tall on the frozen platform. She slid forwards once again, flapped her boots against the ice to check that it was solid. Satisfied, she slid a few more steps. Now Catherine was on her feet too. Copying her cousin, she traced her silvery snail trails on the ice with her boots. Rosalyn was gaining in confidence, her feet arcing out as if she was on a real rink. She was putting all her weight on one foot as well, the other foot flicking up behind her. Catherine was nowhere near as adept as her cousin was. Rosalyn had actually skated on several rinks in America, she called over her shoulder. There was nothing to it. Of course, it would be much better if they had proper skates, but then they had their own rink, so they really couldn’t complain. Catherine slid forward gingerly, but either the soles of her boots were not the slippery kind or she was plain hopeless; she suspected the latter.

Rosalyn was heading for the centre of the large pond, her progress as fluid as a boat bug. Catherine, who had only narrowly avoided falling over by flexing her knees just in time, and propping herself up, hands flat on the ice, arms braced, had just succeeded in standing up again. She was concentrating hard, but glimpsing up, saw how far Rosalyn had gone, that she was nearing the middle of the pond. She herself was still only a couple of yards from the bank. The red beret swooped before her eyes.

‘So I’ve had a go with my hands behind my back. Now I’m going to imagine I’ve got a big, fur muff, bring my hands to the front and burrow inside it. I’m like one of those Victorian girls skating in a fur-trimmed coat.’

‘Perhaps you’d better come back now, Rosalyn. You don’t know if the ice is the same thickness everywhere,’ Catherine cautioned, not liking to dash her exuberance, but feeling impelled to.

Rosalyn spun round to face her, one leg out, like a professional skater. She had a look of mild surprise on her face. ‘You’ve hardly come any distance at all, Catherine. What’s the matter? Do you want me to come and help you? We could skate in tandem if you like?’

‘I’d like you to come back, that’s what I’d like,’ Catherine said a little tremulously.

‘Oh Catherine, don’t be such a scaredy-cat. It’s perfectly safe,’ Rosalyn assured her with that breezy smile of hers.

‘Please, please,’ Catherine said, now unable to keep the pleading note from her voice. She reached a hand towards her cousin, trying to keep her balance despite stretching as far as she could.

‘You want me to help you?’ Rosalyn asked, head to one side, not able to comprehend this sudden plummet from bliss to fear.

‘Yes, yes, that’s right, to help me,’ Catherine shot back.

Rosalyn took three sliding steps. The sound when the ice cracked wasn’t very loud at all. It seemed to sink as if in weariness, giving a series of muffled pops. Rosalyn’s leading leg just disappeared into its craggy mouth in one smooth movement. As her trunk hit the ice, fissures appeared, the way they sometimes do on a glass just before it shatters. She scrabbled with the other leg, trying to regain her footing, but now the tension of the ice was weakened. She felt the previously solid surface dip under her, like a pie crust that has lost its support. Another chunk crumbled away from her so that a few inches of her hips sagged beneath the water.

‘Oh!’ she said, more in bewilderment than consternation.

‘Don’t move. Just keep very still. I’ll get you out.’ Catherine took two tentative steps towards her, with terror starting to claw at her reason, then felt her own feet break through the deceptively stable surface. She kept on steadily sinking, the ice pop-popping and creaking about her. Her hips were half submerged when she contacted something immovable. Tree roots? The sloping bank itself ? Perhaps the pool was relatively shallow.

‘Oh!’ Rosalyn said again. Freezing water was pooling around her bent leg as the ice dipped into a cracked water cradle.

‘Look, don’t worry. I can feel the bottom. I’ll get out and . . . and . . . and I’ll help you,’ Catherine finished lamely. Rosalyn was really not that far from her, five yards, no more. Perhaps if she managed to climb out she might be able to reach her with a stick, pull her to safety. Under the water Catherine tried to lift her feet, to take an experimental step towards the bank. But already she was icy cold, her boots were full of water, her feet were numbing fast. Beneath her trousers she could feel the blood pumping painfully through her legs. Again she attempted to lift them, to take an underwater stride. Her movements were performed in slow motion, her body unresponsive, her breathing constricted by the shock of the sudden severe chill. Her legs pedalled clumsily under her, making no progress at all.

‘I’m freezing,’ said Rosalyn, with a truthfulness rarely applied to the hyperbole. There still seemed to be a hint of faint amusement in her voice, as if their predicament was a practical joke. Her other leg had disappeared now, but the cot of fractured ice was still acting as a submerged raft, partially bearing it up. Ignoring Catherine’s advice, she panicked and struggled to heft herself out, but as her hands pressed down on the ice surrounding her she felt it shift.

‘No, I told you to keep still!’ Catherine ordered. She’d never used such a schoolmarmish tone to Rosalyn before. She would have preferred not to, but again she had an idea it was necessary if she was to hold her attention. ‘I will get you out, but you must listen to me.’ A moment passed that might have been five seconds or might have been two minutes, while Catherine tried and failed to crest the ice herself.

‘I’m very cold now,’ said Rosalyn. She was in up to her waist and with her red beret looked strangely comical, like a cartoon figure. ‘I can’t feel my legs any more. Catherine, I can’t feel my legs.’ She was supporting her torso from the waist up with gentle pressure from her spread, sodden, gloved fingers. It was just dawning on her how difficult it would be to maintain her precarious position, that too much pressure and the ice would shatter and give way, too little and she would sink slowly but surely beneath it. Teetering on that point of balance was like finding the biting point on a clutch, and attempting to hold it there forever with a foot fast losing feeling. It needed superhuman strength, the kind of strength the cold stripped you of in minutes.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Catherine again.

The lightest snow powder, like a dusting of talc, was starting to fall. The sky had deepened so that they were no longer peering up through a yellow-tinted lens, but a green one, oppressive and malignant. The closed feeling that had been intimate before, lending a clandestine atmosphere to the outing, had begun to transmute. Catherine felt as if they were being sealed up in an alabaster tomb. She saw a blackbird hopping on the bank, head cocked, gleaming eyes swivelling curiously at the two creatures floundering in the frozen pond.

The revelation when it came was not the kind accompanied by a fanfare of trumpets, or a fall of biblically blinding light through which the sonorous pronouncement of a god boomed. It came quietly, a small voice in Catherine’s ear, a tickle of prophetic truth. Rosalyn is going to die now. And so are you. You are both going to slip noiselessly under the ice, flail about for a moment, then die. It was as simple as that, she thought. One moment she was walking with her cousin in the snow and having a laugh, and it was the best Christmas ever, just as Rosalyn had ordered, and the next they were sliding under icy water readying themselves to drown.

In church they talked about the still small voice of calm. It was just like that, what she heard. Catherine found herself wondering if it sounded inside everyone’s head the moment before the darkness came, before the light died. She could accept her own death. It was not that she wanted to die. Oh, no; life, however problematic, was still preferable to death, Catherine realized. But that Rosalyn, her cousin, who was a beacon of life force, who drew you into her circumference and let you bask in the glow of her, who had never, not once, made Catherine feel she should be grateful that she was bothering with her – that she was about to die was unthinkable. It might have been the extreme cold – her teeth were chattering uncontrollably now – or fear unhinging her imagination, but that was the moment she saw the hooded man hunched on the far bank. She was going to call out to him, but when he looked up there was a blank where his face should be. In the same instant she saw Rosalyn’s body being winched, stiff as a plank, from the gelid water. Her dripping hair clung to her face, her mouth was wide in a scream of terror, her blue eyes were those of a dead fish, glassy and lifeless, the whites bulging and bloodshot. The beret, heavy with water, sagged under her head. She thought about burying Rosalyn, the physical act of lowering her in a coffin into the hard winter earth. She wondered if her parents would want her grave to be in England or America.

‘Catherine, I really am very cold now and sleepy too. Terribly sleepy. I want to close my eyes and just drift off. Only . . . only a minute but I . . . I must shut my eyes,’ came the querulous voice from the ice maiden who was slowly being claimed by the pond. Then, dreadfully, as if she had been reading Catherine’s thoughts, ‘Am I going to die now?’

Catherine closed her eyes. There was a skewering pain in her head. No, she thought. She opened them. ‘No,’ she said. Her voice rattled out of her. ‘Now pay attention, Rosalyn.’ The school-marmish timbre was back, if a little ragged. ‘I am going to call for help.’ The red beret bobbed a nod. Then Catherine started to shout. She didn’t shout anything particularly original. ‘Help! Over here! Help us, please! We’re stuck in the ice! Help!’ But the extraordinary thing was how enormous her voice had become, as if it was magnified many times over, a great manly bellow that came from the base of her. At the outset Catherine was hopeful. Each time she paused to draw in another breath, she half expected to hear someone shout back, ‘It’s all right. We’re coming.’ But all that answered was a cathedral of silence. She had fooled Rosalyn, made her believe just for a moment that she could fix this, that she could outface death. With each cry, though, the light faded in her cousin’s blue eyes, to be replaced with a terrible resignation.

‘You might as well stop,’ Rosalyn whispered the next time she gulped in air. ‘There’s no one out there. We’re all alone.’

Catherine tried to rekindle her fight, but found herself suppressing dry, involuntary sobs. And she, too, was tired, so tired that defeat seemed almost welcome. So that when, a minute later, a small round face reared up from the side of the pond, her immediate thought was that it wasn’t real. Her mind was playing tricks. Her eyesight could not be trusted. Then the head tipped to a quizzical angle. And a voice came from it.

‘What are you doing in there?’ it said.

Now she knew the ginger-haired boy was real, and that there was not a moment to waste. Although at the sound, Rosalyn had glanced up, she was sinking fast. ‘We’re stuck, stuck in the ice. We fell through. You need to run for help. Quickly! Go quickly! There’s no time to waste!’ The boy hesitated. ‘Hurry! Hurry!’ Catherine screamed. And then he was off, streaking away like a snow hare. The instant he had gone a plague of doubts descended on her. What if he forgot or was distracted? What if he didn’t understand how serious it was? What if he wasn’t real after all, that she had dreamt the strange encounter in this bleached wonderland? Rosalyn’s head lolled on her shoulders, so that all that was visible of her was the red beret, like a red full stop punctuating the ice. Please, Catherine prayed in her head, please. Without her having to say anything, she could feel Rosalyn’s will sapping away. She had to keep her going until help came, she had to do that much.

‘I can’t feel my hands either. I think they’re slipping,’ sighed Rosalyn drowsily.

‘No they’re not!’ snapped Catherine. ‘Nonsense! Stop thinking about it! They’re going to come and get us out, any second they’ll be here.’

‘I’m not sure I can—’

‘Oh yes you can!’ Catherine interrupted her. She took a shaky breath. The cold no longer hurt. It was a bad sign. ‘I’ve got a story to tell you. It’s very important that you listen to it, to all of it. You’re always telling me stories, so it’s only fair that you should listen to mine now.’

‘All . . . all right,’ Rosalyn said uncertainly, her own teeth clacking together. ‘But I’m so tired.’

The story Catherine told made no sense at all. She had no talent for making things up the way Rosalyn could. The rambling plot and motley band of characters were fuelled by sheer panic. Suddenly she could feel Rosalyn letting go, as if she was inside her body, as if they were connected. And that was when she screamed at her, when she stoked up a fire of rage.

‘If you don’t listen to the end I’ll never forgive you, Rosalyn Hoyle! Not ever! I made it up, out of my head. Out of my head! Do you understand what I’m saying? You might find that easy but I don’t, so there. And you may not think it’s very good at the moment, but I promise you it’s got the most fantastic end. And I’ll hate you if you don’t listen to it. I’ll hate you! I will! I really will! Not just now but forever! You have no idea how much I’ll hate you!’ She was shrieking the way her mother did at her father sometimes after they went to bed, shrieking so loudly that her throat hurt.

‘Okay, I’ll try,’ Rosalyn quavered. ‘I’ll try my hardest.’

When Catherine saw Stephen’s face appear as he thrashed through the thicket, her father and Uncle Christopher on his heels, she could have fainted for sheer elation. At the sight of her own father, Rosalyn rallied a bit. Instantly Uncle Christopher took control. He’d brought a rope. Of course he had. He was a pilot. He was prepared for every eventuality. Hurriedly he fashioned a lasso with it, talking all the while in that soothing tone of command, the one Catherine expected he used when they en countered a bit of turbulence in his aeroplane. Nothing at all to worry about, ladies and gentlemen. Just stay in your seats and fasten your safety belts. We’ll be through this in no time.

‘Well, what on earth have you two girls been up to? Surely it’s a bit cold for a dip, Rosalyn, even for you?’ Rosalyn managed a suggestion of a smile from her paralysed blue lips. ‘I know you’re a school champion but this can’t be much fun. Now, I’m just going to toss this rope over to you. What I want you to do is use one hand to slip it over your head and shoulders, then ease it down to your waist, and at the last minute pull your other hand through.’ It took two goes and progress was painfully slow. Rosalyn’s hands and arms had locked in the bitter chill. But her father’s encouragement never wavered, his pace upbeat, almost jovial. The instant he saw that the rope was safely under both arms he sprang into action, though. Legs apart, knees bent, he put his back into it and began to heave.

Meanwhile, a short way from him, Stephen, his own legs gripped by his father in possibly the most intimate contact they had ever had in their lives, snaked over the ice, grasped Catherine’s arms and pulled. He didn’t say much but his eyes looked more animated than Catherine had ever seen them before. It was tricky man oeuvring her stiff body onto unbroken ice but he succeeded in jerks, levering her out in a side-to-side movement. Once she was lying on her stomach, no longer impeded by the lip of ice, it was comparatively easy to drag her to the safety of the bank. With Stephen, her gawky brother, folding his lanky limbs round her, Catherine raised her head to see Rosalyn being drawn steadily over the iced pond. She resembled a seal in her drenched clothes, a seal being slowly but surely reeled in by her father, the red beret still perched waggishly on her head.

After that Catherine seemed scarcely aware of her coat being pulled off, of her body being hoisted up into Stephen’s arms, of the march back to where the car was parked in the lane. Rosalyn was also being carried by her father. Catherine caught a flash of his face, the expression no longer seemingly blithe, but one of entrenched concern. Her own father appeared occasionally at the edges of her field of vision, his arms full of their wet clothes. He looked absurdly like a photograph of a Sherpa she had seen when they were studying the Himalayas in geography at school. Also, he had the air, Catherine thought, of a non-relative, a man who didn’t quite belong to their party, who had just tagged along, a hanger on, somehow unconnected to the tragic events.

The cousins were propped side by side on the back seat of the car, and staring down, Catherine found herself worrying in case the water that seemed to be leaking from them stained the upholstery. They were back at ‘Wood End’ within minutes, which seemed odd to both girls. Only moments earlier they had been on the brink of death. Now they were being set down in a steamy kitchen where saucepans bubbled on the stove, and where a discussion was blaring from the radio about Kenya and somebody they called the Burning Spear. And in this increasingly surreal world, Catherine’s mother swung round and berated her for being so daft, before they were whisked away by Rosalyn’s mother to have a bath.

Catherine was on the verge of protesting that she wasn’t dirty, but it was clear from the set of her face that Aunt Amy would brook no argument. Modesty too seemed to have been abandoned in this curious dimension. Her aunt and her uncle were both in the crowded bathroom, and oblivious of proprieties, were jointly unbuttoning, unzipping and tugging off the girls’ dripping clothes. Catherine stared at Rosalyn, who stared back. Their bodies looked very white, deathly white, their flesh was tinged with blue here and there. Still more outlandish, the water, which Aunt Amy insisted was tepid, scalded Catherine the way she imagined having a kettle of boiling water poured over her nakedness might.

‘Oh, oh, oh. It stings. It really stings!’ she whimpered, trying to get out but being prevented by her uncle.

‘It will, after the freezing temperatures you’ve endured. But it shouldn’t last too long,’ he insisted.

If Rosalyn was suffering, she was more stoical than Catherine was, allowing herself to be manhandled, to have her limbs rubbed vigorously by her father’s big hands. Aunt Amy ministered to Catherine in much the same manner, cooing soothingly all the time. Then the bath that had nothing to do with soap was over, and they were being briskly towel dried, put into pyjamas still comfortingly warm from the airing cupboard, and bundled into blankets with hot-water bottles cunningly concealed in their folds. Once again they were borne aloft to the sitting-room and given mugs of warm, sweet cocoa, while Catherine’s father banked up the fire. This was when the discomfort that she had thought was over, returned with a vengeance. Her entire body seemed to be tingling painfully now, as if it was gradually coming back to life, as if she was defrosting like something her mother took out of the freezer.

Intuitively she knew everything had changed. The atmosphere in ‘Wood End’ had grown unaccountably funereal, though neither of them had died. The radio was turned down, everyone talked in low voices as if they were in a doctor’s waiting room, and Aunt Amy hardly spoke at all, which was completely out of character for her sociable nature. Catherine noticed that her eyes darted warily all about her, alert, on guard, as though possible threats lurked everywhere. Permission for walks were denied the pair of them, and even a suggested game in the garden and a quarter of an hour in the tree house had to be strictly supervised. But as Rosalyn didn’t seem very keen on any activity at all, preferring to curl up on the settee or in their den, it didn’t much matter that their antics were being rigidly curtailed.

When Catherine awoke the next day and the day after that, there was no hump that was Rosalyn on the other side of the bed, no black curls spread on the pillow. Seeing her emerge from her parents’ bedroom on both occasions when she ventured downstairs, Catherine concluded that she had stolen into their bed some time during the night. Whether inside or out, Simon now shadowed Rosalyn protectively all day long, so that the privacy previously afforded them that Catherine had so relished, was entirely lost. She felt uncomfortable speaking to Rosalyn within his hearing, so their conversations lapsed into an uneasy silence.

Then Stephen took off on his motorbike, claiming he had to get back to work, that cars needed to be repaired and ready for their owners by the first week of January. Coupled with this unscheduled departure, Catherine’s mother was more than usually irritable with her. And her voice began to ascend into that piercing register of hers that normally she reserved for behind their closed front door. Suddenly they were going too, packing the suitcase and bags and loading up the car. They had planned to stay for New Year’s Eve, to see the New Year in, her mother had enigmatically said, as if the New Year was a person you let into the house in the middle of the night. But now it seemed her father had been summoned back to London.

‘I’m so sorry, Amy, but he’s required urgently. That was what that telephone call he had to make was all about. He was checking up on some problem he thought had been solved. But apparently things have worsened. And now there’s another crisis. Very hush-hush, so I can’t really say much more. Such a disappointment! So, darling, I’m afraid you mustn’t try to stop us.’

Aunt Amy didn’t. In fact she hurried away to cut sandwiches for their journey, and then assisted them with an alacrity Catherine read as eagerness, in ferrying their baggage out to the car. So there it was. They were going home. Although Aunt Amy had promised that Rosalyn was coming out to say goodbye, she did not appear, could not even be glimpsed in the hall through the front door which stood open like a shocked mouth.

‘It can’t be helped,’ said her mother laconically, only just succeeding in keeping her tone level, and holding the car door open for Catherine to climb in.

But it could be helped, so Catherine dashed back into the house and galloped up the stairs to their attic room, where she found Rosalyn lying on the den floor sucking her thumb. She pulled it out the moment Catherine tore breathlessly into the room, and sat up as her cousin kneeled down.

‘I was just coming to say goodbye. I’m sorry, I must have—’

But Catherine interrupted her. ‘You’ll always remember me as the cousin you almost drowned with. That’s how you’ll think of me now. The feeling will be all black and bad.’ She hadn’t realized but she was crying, her cheeks were wet and her pitch was warlike. From downstairs she heard her mother’s impatient call.

‘Catherine, do come! We’re all waiting for you.’

‘Oh no, no, no!’ appeased Rosalyn. She took Catherine by the shoulders and held her gaze for a long moment. Dinah Hoyle’s imperious voice rose to them again.

‘Catherine, do I have to come up there and get you?’

‘I have to go,’ said Catherine miserably, dashing away her tears.

‘Because of you . . .’ But Rosalyn could not go on. A deep intake of breath, and then most awful of all, the mouth that never had, wobbled. An unsure, childish wobble that brought more tears to Catherine’s eyes.

‘Catherine!’ came her mother’s furious shout.

Her cousin didn’t say anything else. She looked as if the effort of speaking that much had utterly depleted her. Then she hugged Catherine hard and their cheeks touched. Rosalyn’s felt very smooth and cold, like marble, against Catherine’s hot, damp one. She drew back, stood, took one last long look at Rosalyn, into her frightened, uncertain blue eyes, and left.