Maggie Gee - The Ice People

He seemed kind enough, kinder than we might have expected. Did we want to sleep? Did we want to eat? Did we want to put our car in their garage? Bad storms were predicted, he told us, for that day but they had held off. They would come tonight. I said that that would probably explain the lack of travellers on the road, but the robed one said, ‘There are many roads. Not everybody crosses the mountains this way.’

Briony didn’t seem to be trying. I began to feel slightly annoyed with her. (Perhaps I was doomed to feel annoyed with whatever woman was with me in public, for I certainly used to get mad with Sarah.) She’d been curt and distant with the monks from the start, refusing to put our car in their garage, and insisted on my borrowing a melder from them so we could patch the fuel tank straight away, though obviously we couldn’t leave till morning. I felt like nursing my injuries, but ‘I want us to do it now,’ she insisted. ‘We’ll pay them for some fuel. And fill the tank. Now, Saul, please. Luke can help.’ Sometimes you have to humour women. She looked tired, and strange, with hectic cheeks.

I admit that the two of them did most of the work, but I got covered with methanol, mending the fuel tank. The monks seemed to have a lot of cars and tools. ‘We help many travellers,’ one old monk said, when I remarked on their wellstocked hangar. ‘Sainte Christophe is our saint, here.’ St Christopher, the saint of travellers. He grinned at me, showing a broken tooth. His eyes looked merry in the shade of his hood. ‘You will eat with us at sevenoclock.’

I thought Briony might like to freshen up with me, but she refused. She preferred to stay with Luke, who was much livelier than either of us, asking questions of the monks, wanting to see everything. Briony was uncharacteristically short with him, snapping at him to stay with her, but it wasn’t surprising, we were all exhausted, and I was pretty peevish too, I wouldn’t have minded a bath with her … I left them sitting propped upright by Briony’s bag, on a dirty white sofa.

I was shown upstairs to a small bleak room with a bath next door. They told me to come down when I had finished. I took off my clothes with such relief, hauling them over my cuts and bruises, wonderful to be safe, and naked, though my teeth were chattering with tiredness. I ran a bath, which was scarcely warm, but as soon as I eased myself into it I fell into a stunned torpor. I woke up with a painful start to find a hooded man staring at me, just a metre away, under the bare bright bulb his scarred nose stood out pink and disfigured beneath his hood … I swore, and then apologised profusely. It must have been his room, and I said sorry again, but he stood there for a moment, then went out, silent.

When I got down, it was tentoseven, and Briony and Luke had fallen asleep, they were both stretched out on the sofa, sleeping. It was such a strange feeling to find them together, a little upsetting, I don’t know why, his light curls touching her white cheek, their immobile bodies mirroring each other, they could have been lovers, or mother and son. Luke’s arm lay across her, as if to protect her. A little group of men were watching them, speaking in low voices in the shelter of their hoods. When they saw me the group dissolved. The monk who had come out to greet us in the first place — I recognised him by his rough voice — led us into the diningroom.

‘They call it the refectory,’ I told Luke, proud of this scrap of knowledge from somewhere. I turned to my companion for confirmation. ‘ On dit le réfectoire, n’est-ce pas, Monsieur? ’ but he looked at me blankly. Perhaps conversation was forbidden at meals, or else my French was not so good as I thought.

The diningroom was more as I’d imagined it. There were candles on the long wooden tables. Someone outside kept revving an engine, and the wind had begun to rattle the windows, but we were all right, we were safe inside. They offered us bread and strong hard cheese and sausage riddled with disgusting white fat, but we were so hungry, it slipped down fine, and there was red wine. So it was wine that they made, I knew that monks were famous for something. I smiled at them as nicely as I could, since Briony still wasn’t making an effort. ‘I believe you monks are famous for your wine.’ This sally was successful; they laughed appreciatively, and passed it down the table, so everyone chuckled. I took my first sip with high hopes, but probably the cold had ruined the grape harvest, for it seemed much rougher than I would have expected. But it didn’t matter, they were very generous. Whenever I looked, my glass was full.

At table they became loquacious, so I’d got it wrong, about the rule of silence. They plied us with questions about the roads in France, about how easy it was to buy fuel, the presence or absence of police in towns, where we had found abandoned houses — though I skipped over the details of our ‘borrowing’: I didn’t want them to think we were crooks. How cunning I fancied myself to be. I knew that I was getting drunk, but I tried to do it relatively slowly.

It was nineoclock before we finished eating, then one of the brothers brought round some brandy, and I was almost asleep in my seat after our sleepless night the day before. I began to feel hypnotised by their brown hoods. They began to seem like bags of darkness in which their hard eyes darted, flickered, as if they were making signs to each other, sly little signs from the depths of their burrows, and I realised my mind was starting to wander, I was starting to shut down … I must go to bed, and Briony, I saw, was also exhausted, though she had an alert, worried look. Luke had gone out ten minutes before, I’d thought to have a piss, but he hadn’t returned.

‘Go and find Luke,’ she suddenly said, with surprising force, in English, though we’d all been talking in French before. ‘He’s gone to the car to get his things.’

‘He’ll be fine,’ I said. I wanted one more brandy, I’d deserved a sit-down and a little drink, but women always find things for you to do — then she kicked me hard under the table.

I didn’t want Luke to get lost in the dark. Of course I didn’t, although I was drunk. I went, after only a little complaining. The eyes watched me as I left the room, the eyes slid after me like little bright stones, reflecting the candles on the table. I turned to the right as I went through the door and had a distinct unnerving sensation that one of the dozen cloaked men in the room had got up quietly and followed me. Without clearly knowing why I did it I stood back in a doorway on the left of the corridor and yes, there he was — I let him go past me, then followed him, trying to make sense of this. Perhaps he just wanted to make sure that we didn’t steal their monastic treasures. Not that I’d seen anything worth stealing. He went to the front door, looked out briefly; I had dodged back behind a tall cupboard. He walked right past me again looking puzzled and hurried back to the diningroom. I was rather pleased with my game of cops and robbers, I felt that my mind was working brilliantly fast, as you sometimes do when you’re dull with wine.

Outside the door it was fiercely cold. There was a pool of golden light from the hexone flambeaux suspended above it, and in that pool big flakes of snow whirled gently down, unreal, like a ballet. Outside the bright whirlpool there was thick darkness. I peered across to where the car was parked, but Luke was suddenly right behind me, I jumped when he laid his hand on my shoulder and heard him hissing in my ear, ‘Briony says, get in the car. She thinks they’re going to kill us. She’s following.’

‘What?’ I couldn’t take it in. ‘She’s crazy. Monks don’t kill people.’