Maggie Gee - The Ice People

‘I know about Roncesvalles,’ Luke interrupted, eager to show off. ‘ We did it in history. It’s where Roland was killed, and he blew his horn, but I forget what happened … All the birds dropped dead, I think that was it. He was the bravest of them all.’

‘I have a feeling we’re very near,’ Briony went on, smiling faintly. ‘If only we can get the car to the top. There was a monastery up there. Incredibly old. Reconsecrated in the twenties. I’m sure the monks would let us have some fuel.’

‘But how can I push like this?’ I lamented.

‘Luke and I can do most of it,’ she said, nodding firmly. ‘I’d better push from the front, hadn’t I? Steer and push, through the front door. We’ll take it in very easy stages. This car may be crap, but at least it’s light.’

The car was light, but we were heavily loaded — yet Luke was nodding, brighteyed, determined. I got up and stared back down the mountain. The road wound away into the far distance, a thin black line in the expanse of snow. Below I remembered the endless foothills. Along the horizon I saw tiny clouds, grey and white mixed, small but busy, bubbling slightly like life in a pond. I had a sudden sense of urgency.

I went to the rear and put my back into the car, trying to protect my damaged arm. Luke and I pushed side by side.

(Things had changed a lot since we sailed the boat. We knew each other better, but the strains were greater. He resisted me; rejected me. If I talked about Africa, he always fell silent, and then I was afraid it was just a delusion, my reborn pride, my belief in the future. Sometimes he reminded me of Sarah, who always made me feel like a hopeless dreamer. But I persevered. In the end, he would see it, he had to see it, as Briony did. I only wanted the best for him. All that I did, I did for him.)

Every five minutes we had to rest. Luke talked to Briony, not me. Once or twice I felt almost jealous. He always seemed to be sitting between us. I realised yet again how close they were, how they teased each other, how he cared for her, perhaps in a way he couldn’t care for his mother, for Briony was so much gentler.

‘Briony,’ I said, as Luke took a piss and she smoked one of her rare cigarettes, ‘how did you ever get involved with Wicca? I mean — you’re not remotely like them.’ I know I had asked her that question before, but today for some reason she wanted to talk, or else I happen to remember her answer.

‘You don’t really know what they were like,’ she reminded me, with a wry smile. ‘They weren’t all like Sarah … duller, most of them.’

‘Sarah wasn’t dull.’

‘No … she isn’t an easy person, though.’ The tense she used gave me a faint shock, reminding me Sarah was still alive. ‘I admired her enormously, you know,’ she continued. ‘She was very strong. Very forceful. I think I wanted to be like her. She was like my mother, but much — nicer. At first, you know, she didn’t really hate men.’ She blushed. ‘I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but by the end they really did hate men, her and Juno particularly … Later we argued. And they didn’t trust me. I lost my job. And I couldn’t escape. If I’d tried to leave they might have killed me. And besides, there was Luke. He was … like my son … I would do anything for him. Now he’s growing up so fast he scares me.’

I chuckled. ‘Take a glance over your shoulder.’

She did, and her eyes were suddenly bright, with the queer quick emotions I liked in her. ‘They never got enough chance to play. Life in the Cocoon was so serious.’

For Luke was bent double, scraping up the snow, making what could only be a snowman. It was crazy, but we all joined in. Our hands ached with cold, we slithered and slipped, but we laughed like drunks; we were a family.

‘You’d be a great mother,’ I whispered to Briony, when Luke skidded off to find stones for the eyes. He came back too quickly, so I’m not sure she heard me. But she would have been, could have been –

‘Let’s get back on the road. Night comes down so fast,’ said Briony, and looked at me blankly, as if she were suddenly unutterably tired, as if the cold had pierced her body.

It was noon, in fact, and the sun was almost hot, but the strange small clouds were boiling away.

We got puffed very quickly in the thin air. By two we only seemed to have moved a few hundred metres from the place where the snowman sat, looking faintly mocking as he receded, too slowly, wrapped in Luke’s red scarf. I decided we needed encouragement. Somebody — me — should do a reconnoitre to find out how far we still had to go. I left the others resting together, and set off walking as fast as I could.

The road rose steadily to the horizon, but I couldn’t see if another slope lay behind it. Then the road changed course very slightly, just enough, with the steepness of the banks, to put me all at once in shadow. And then I was aware of the depth of the cold, the physical, cutting power it had, the way it gripped and squeezed your flesh, trapping the blood in your swollen fingers, driving the blood from your frozen toes. And in that shadow I was afraid, for I knew the cold would kill us, if we couldn’t make it. If we didn’t manage to get to the top before dark came we were as good as dead. And the road was getting steeper. Sharply steeper.

If we all died here, would Sarah ever know?

I told myself not to think of that, crunching on upwards, eyes on the ground, making myself take it one step at a time, don’t look at the slope, don’t look at the skyline …

I had a sudden sense that something had changed. I looked up, and the ground had dropped away before me. A high bleak basin, flat, bare, surrounded me, but then the road dipped down. This little patch of land must be protected from the wind, because a few straggling fir trees survived, and away behind them stood a tall building, fifty metres from the road. It was gaunt, dark, without any sign of life, but there was glass in the windows, and yes, that was surely smoke from the chimney, hard to see against the boil of clouds … thankgod, it must be the monastery. This must be the pass of Roncesvalles, where Charlemagne fought, where Roland died, and I turned and ran down the mountain to find them, slipping and sliding, dizzy with joy, and to my surprise they were only two hundred metres away, though to me on the way up it felt like a thousand, and behind them I could clearly see the little snowman with its flapping, snakelike scarlet tongue, and I realised that our epic effort had only pushed the car eight hundred metres.

But I shouldn’t have said so to Briony, who didn’t seem to hear that we were very near the summit.

‘ We’ve been pushing this bloody thing since eleven. Four hours, and we’ve only gone eight hundred metres, according to you. I don’t believe it.’ Redcheeked and furious with effort, Briony smacked her hand on the bonnet.

‘Her fingers are bleeding,’ Luke said, worried, though when I looked, his were bleeding too.

‘I reckon we’re about a halfanhour from the top. Like you said, the monks will give us food and fuel.’ I wanted her to share my optimism, but she was too exhausted to respond. I hugged her, kissed her, she looked magnificent, sturdy, glowing, orgasmically flushed — I saw Luke blush and look away. ‘I’m proud of you, Briony,’ I said.

But she shook me off, angry, or just tired. ‘We’re not there yet. And you sound like my father. You don’t own me, you know.’

This was it, with women. You couldn’t get it right. Say something nice to them, and they bit you. ‘Okay,’ I said, patiently. ‘I’m proud of Luke. And I admire you. Is that better?

She nodded; I hope she was ashamed of herself.

I noticed Luke was sitting on the bonnet, and I yelled at him at the top of my voice, ‘Get off that fucking car, for godsake!’ I was in pain, and cross with them both. I imagined the car sinking into the snow, but of course it stood on solid ground. Luke jutted his jaw, and got down, slowly, but he said these words, he spat them out — ‘My mum said you had a horrible temper. My mum was right.’