Tim Lebbon - White and Other Tales of Ruin

The snow in the manor garden was almost a metre deep. The three of us had botched together snow shoes of varying effectiveness. Brand wore two snapped-off lengths of picture frame on each foot, which seemed to act more as knives to slice down through the snow than anything else. He was tenaciously pompous; he struggled with his mistake rather than admitting it. Charley had used two frying pans with their handles snapped off, and she seemed to be making good headway. My own creations consisted of circles of mounted canvas cut from the redundant artwork in the manor. Old owners of the estate stared up at me through the snow as I repeatedly stepped on their faces.

By the time we reached the end of the driveway and turned to see Ellie and Hayden watching us, I was sweating and exhausted. We had travelled about fifty metres.

Across the road lay the cliff path leading to Boris’s dismembered corpse. Charley glanced that way, perhaps wishing to look down upon her boyfriend one more time.

“Come on,” I said, clasping her elbow and heading away. She offered no resistance.

The road was apparent as a slightly lower, smoother plain of snow between the two hedged banks on either side. Everything was glaring white, and we were all wearing sunglasses to prevent snow-blindness. We could see far along the coast from here as the bay swept around toward the east, the craggy cliffs spotted white where snow had drifted onto ledges, an occasional lonely seabird diving to the sea and returning empty-beaked to sing a mournful song for company. In places the snow was cantilevered out over the edge of the cliff, a deadly trap should any of us stray that way. The sea itself surged against the rocks below, but it broke no spray. The usual roar of the waters crashing into the earth, slowly eroding it away and reclaiming it, had changed. It was now more of a grind as tonnes of slushy ice replaced the usual white horses, not yet forming a solid barrier over the water but still thick enough to temper the waves. In a way it was sad; a huge beast winding down in old age.

I watched as a cormorant plunged down through the chunky ice and failed to break surface again. It was as if it were committing suicide. Who was I to say it was not?

“How far?” Brand asked yet again.

“Ten miles,” I said.

“I’m knackered.” He had already lit up a joint and he took long, hard pulls on it. I could hear its tip sizzling in the crisp morning air.

“We’ve come about three hundred metres,” I said, and Brand shut up.

It was difficult to talk; we needed all our breath for the effort of walking. Sometimes the snow shoes worked, especially where the surface of the snow had frozen the previous night. Other times we plunged straight in up to our thighs and we had to hold our arms out for balance as we hauled our leg out, just to let it sink in again a step along. The rucksacks did not help. We each carried food, water and dry clothing, and Brand especially seemed to be having trouble with his.

The sky was a clear blue. The sun rose ahead of us as if mocking the frozen landscape. Some days it started like this, but the snow never seemed to melt. I had almost forgotten what the ground below it looked like; it seemed that the snow had been here forever. When it began our spirits had soared, like a bunch of school-kids waking to find the landscape had changed overnight. Charley and I had still gone down to the sea to take our readings, and when we returned there was a snowman in the garden wearing one of her bras and a pair of my briefs. A snowball fight had ensued, during which Brand became a little too aggressive for his own good. We’d ganged up on him and pelted him with snow compacted to ice until he shouted and yelped. We were cold and wet and bruised, but we did not stop laughing for hours.

We’d all dried out in front of the open fire in the huge living room. Rosalie had stripped to her knickers and danced to music on the radio. She was a bit of a sixties throwback, Rosalie, and she didn’t seem to realise what her little display did to cosseted people like me. I watched happily enough.

Later, we sat around the fire and told ghost stories. Boris was still with us then, of course, and he came up with the best one which had us all cowering behind casual expressions. He told us of a man who could not see, hear or speak, but who knew of the ghosts around him. His life was silent and senseless save for the day his mother died. Then he cried and shouted and raged at the darkness, before curling up and dying himself. His world opened up then, and he no longer felt alone, but whoever he tried to speak to could only fear or loath him. The living could never make friends with the dead. And death had made him more silent than ever.

None of us would admit it, but we were all scared shitless as we went to bed that night. As usual, doors opened and footsteps padded along corridors. And, as usual, my door remained shut and I slept alone.

Days later the snow was too thick to be enjoyable. It became risky to go outside, and as the woodpile started to dwindle and the radio and television broadcasts turned more grim, we realised that we were becoming trapped. A few of us had tried to get to the village, but it was a half-hearted attempt and we’d returned once we were tired. We figured we’d travelled about two miles along the coast. We had seen no one.

As the days passed and the snow thickened, the atmosphere did likewise with a palpable sense of panic. A week ago, Boris had pointed out that there were no ‘plane trails anymore.

This, our second attempt to reach the village, felt more like life and death. Before Boris had been killed we’d felt confined, but it also gave a sense of protection from the things going on in the world. Now there was a feeling that if we could not get out, worse things would happen to us where we were.

I remembered Jayne as she lay dying from the unknown disease. I had been useless, helpless, hopeless, praying to a God I had long ignored to grant us a kind fate. I refused to sit back and go the same way. I would not go gentle. Fuck fate.

“What was that?”

Brand stopped and tugged the little pistol from his belt. It was stark black against the pure white snow.

“What?”

He nodded. “Over there.” I followed his gaze and looked up the sloping hillside. To our right the sea sighed against the base of the cliffs. To our left — the direction Brand was now facing — snowfields led up a gentle slope towards the moors several miles inland. It was a rocky, craggy landscape, and some rocks had managed to hold off the drifts. They peered out darkly here and there, like the faces of drowning men going under for the final time.

“What?” I said again, exasperated. I’d slipped the shotgun off my shoulder and held it waist-high. My finger twitched on the trigger guard. Images of Boris’s remains sharpened my senses. I did not want to end up like that.

“I saw something moving. Something white.”

“Some snow, perhaps?” Charley said bitterly.

“Something running across the snow,” he said, frowning as he concentrated on the middle-distance. The smoke from his joint mingled with his condensing breath.

We stood that way for a minute or two, steaming sweat like smoke signals of exhaustion. I tried taking off my glasses to look, but the glare was too much. I glanced sideways at Charley. She’d pulled a big old revolver from her rucksack and held it with both hands. Her lips were pulled back from her teeth in a feral grimace. She really wanted to use that gun.

I saw nothing. “Could have been a cat. Or a seagull flying low.”

“Could have been.” Brand shoved the pistol back into his belt and reached around for his water canteen. He tipped it to his lips and cursed. “Frozen!”

“Give it a shake,” I said. I knew it would do no good but it may shut him up for a while. “Charley, what’s the time?” I had a watch but I wanted to talk to Charley, keep her involved with the present, keep her here. I had started to realise not only what a stupid idea this was, but what an even more idiotic step it had been letting Charley come along. If she wasn’t here for revenge, she was blind with grief. I could not see her eyes behind her sunglasses.