Maggie Gee - The Ice People

And then, as I flicked the switch in frustration, the light flooded out; the wonderful light. ‘We’ve got light!’ I yelled, forgetting caution. ‘Maybe there’ll be heat as well.’

It was like a firstclass hotel, to us, a place with light, water, a stove. This house had not been abandoned long; there was a bottle of whisky halfempty in the kitchen, and it still had most of its furniture, which made a nice change, something comfortable to sleep on. Rich people must have lived here once. There was a Bechstein grand piano next door, abandoned in a sea of white, and they’d left some of their pictures, oddly.

‘Why don’t you play something?’ I said to Luke.

‘I’m tired,’ he said, ‘and it won’t be in tune. Maybe I’ll try it out in the morning.’

He didn’t want to eat; he wanted to sleep. Sometimes he still looked very frail. I fetched him the duvet that Briony had washed — dry, it was light as thistledown — and lulled by the luxury of heating and the duvet waiting like a cloud on the sofa, Luke stripped off everything and dived into bed. Adolescent boys never did like washing.

Briony found that the cooker worked. And there were some dry stores, rice, a few herbs. ‘But have we got anything to cook? Oh Saul, did you chuck that chicken away —’ For we had been carrying a plucked chicken for nearly three days in the back of the car. Sometimes the chill was very useful; food was scarce, but it lasted longer.

We ate like kings on real roast chicken with rice and herbs and a generous whisky. It was a large chicken. I took some to Luke, but he was sleeping a dead, drugged sleep. We gorged ourselves, and left nothing behind but a little grey cat’scradle of bones.

Briony and I talked deep into the night, trying to plan the next stage of our journey. I didn’t really want to drive over the mountains. There had been too many stories about travellers being ambushed in the high passes, and reports of wolves in increasing numbers, after some bloodied bodies were discovered. I began to veer towards the train.

There were still trains running through the tunnels, but according to the screens they were often held up by desperate gangs who blocked the tracks. There were no more timetables, trains weren’t maintained, they ran through the tunnels without any lights … It was when I mentioned the absence of lights that I saw Briony shake her head.

‘How long shall we be in the tunnel?’ she asked.

‘If nothing goes wrong, just under an hour. The rolling stock is in a terrible state, the speed is nothing like it was.’

‘And there aren’t any lights?’ Her nostrils were dilated.

‘Well, no … but every so often there are arches cut through the rock to the outside, I think. Or was that the Simplon? I’m not sure.’

She didn’t say a word. She sat there, hunched. ‘I’ll have to do it, won’t I,’ she said, a statement, not a question, a kind of giving up, a dreadful acceptance of suffering that perhaps explained her attachment to Wicca. Her father drank and her mother hit her: she’d told me that much, though she wouldn’t expand, and I wanted to hit her, too, at that moment, but only because I didn’t want her to suffer.

‘Briony,’ I said, ‘you’re claustrophobic. I know you are. Luke told me. Forget about the train. We’ll do it by car. It’ll be fine … it’ll be an adventure.’

She looked up, her blue eyes puzzled, short-sighted, as if she must continue to be tormented. Then she smiled, and her eyes focused. ‘Thank you, Saul,’ she said. ‘You’re kind.’

‘We can do it,’ I said, and I smiled like a hero.

Partly to cover a surge of fear. Now I was committed to doing it by road, driving up, up into nomansland. Another crossing as hard as the last one.

What had I seen as I lay on that beach the morning after we sailed the Channel, deafened, stupefied by wind and waves, watching the sun cut curves through the dunes, clutching the icy blankets round us?

That the world was enormous, and I was very small. That life was short, and death was certain.

And yet I was responsible for Luke, and Briony. I could not die, because of my son.

‘Let’s get some sleep,’ I said, kind, paternal, though a little voice inside me said Come to bed, if you’re afraid of the dark, kind Daddy will help you … ‘I’ll get more bedding out of the car.’

‘Don’t forget the gun,’ Briony said. She felt we were safer keeping it with us, but each time I placed it by my bed I feared that Luke might shoot himself by accident. I secretly determined to leave it in the car.

‘I’d rather not be alone,’ she added, and my heart lifted, my penis stirred. I would happily cross the Pyrenees for this.

That night the sex was slower, better, still wildly, deliriously exciting but more human, more friendly, like coming home, as I whispered to her, and she sighed, and kissed me, though we were all so far from home. But I fell asleep with her in my arms, curled tightly together against the cold, against the hatred between men and women that had turned me into a brute and a killer. ‘I like you, Briony,’ I said. ‘I like you too,’ she said, after a pause. I felt warm, and safe. I began to drift. Tomorrow would be hard, but tonight was good …

What seemed like seconds later I was suddenly awake, seeing bright beams of light circling the ceiling, and the sound of a car engine uncomfortably near. I felt icy cold. My heart was thumping.

‘Briony,’ I said. ‘Wake up. I think there’s someone outside the house. Could be the owner.’

She sat up, eyes closed, made an incoherent noise and lay flat again.

I heard footsteps on the gravel outside, and cursing in French, and a muttered conference. They’d seen our car, and the dangling shutter, and the smashed pane, and drawn their own conclusions. I got up stealthily and tried to look out. Then I saw how many cars there were, six or seven, maybe, drawn up in the snaking ‘S’ of the drive. So that explained all the noise, and the lights. There were six men, ten, perhaps a dozen. And then I knew we were really in trouble.

I assumed they were the owners, that they had keys, but of course they were more probably looters, criminals … But I remembered the halffinished whisky. And the confident way the cars had scrunched on the gravel. The owners, bringing back their friends for a party. Should I try to talk to them? Charm? Explain?

I remembered what I looked like. Big. Unshaven. Wild. Mixed-race. Frightening. We were in their house. They wouldn’t wait for explanations. No one waited for anything; the ice moved too fast.

Luke was next door; if he only stayed quiet they might never realise he was there. But I had an uneasy feeling that he wouldn’t keep quiet. I was afraid my son would try to be a hero.

I pulled the bedding gently over Briony’s face. If they looked quickly, they might think it was just a pile of clothes. I took Dora, who was in Sleep Mode, and pushed her roughly behind the sofa. Trousers, shoes, I pulled on my shoes, and of course they wouldn’t go, the heel stuck stupidly to my naked flesh, but I’d never find my socks, so I grimly crammed them on.

Gun , sodding gun. I hadn’t got it.

Briony had told me, but I hadn’t obeyed — I didn’t like being bossed around by women. So somehow I would have to get out to the car. They were all spilling round towards the front door, talking, by now, in subdued voices that diminished more as they went round the corner. I’d climb out through the broken window and fetch the gun.

I landed as quietly as I could on the gravel and ran to the wrong car in the moonlight, cursing, impotent, then recognised ours, and the key turned miraculously in the cold lock and I was in, fumbling, desperate, and on the back seat was my heavy friend, my horribly heavy, serious friend, the green canvas bag, with my Magnum on top, but the Magnum didn’t have enough shots … I dived down deeper, to the shotguns and rifles, the bag had got smaller, tighter, duller, I could find nothing in the dark — I dragged out the first big gun I could find, which turned out to be the antique American carbine, loaded it by the light from my door, talking to myself, ‘Hurry, hurry’ , as I jammed the full clip into the breech, and it took an age, it took two minutes –