Maggie Gee - Where are the Snows

Now I’ve dropped the subject, Susy feels thwarted.

‘If you want to know —’ she says, ‘— but don’t pass on any details to Dad —’

‘Guide’s honour,’ I say. I was sacked from the Guides for having two boys in my tent.

‘I haven’t ever done it,’ she says. It’s obvious what she is talking about. ‘I sort of — want to know — if I love Tim. Like Dr Larch says. I really want to know. And if I decide I love him. If he hasn’t given me up by August. I think we might start after my birthday.’ A long pause. I will her to speak. ‘Only… I know this is wrong, I mean I know it’s not right. But I sort of feel that if I love him… I might want to… well, don’t get annoyed… but I might want to…’ (she is blushing furiously) ‘… I might want to have his baby…’ Her eyes dart up, agonised, see my horrified expression, fall in shame. ‘I know it’s wrong,’ she repeats, dully. ‘I will make sure I don’t have a baby.’ I nod, frantically. She presses on. ‘I think that — you know — rubbers are best. If he agrees, if he can use them. He hasn’t ever done it, you see…’

I feel pity and irritation and worry; if she’s telling the truth, she’s younger than I’d dreamed. She hasn’t ever done it despite our fears. And, she’s going to do it when she’s seventeen, if he hasn’t given her up, that is, as if all boys would give her up…

But that isn’t funny. It’s what she feels. It must be our fault, her bad self-image (and again I have a flash of the inside of a plane, the kind stewardess who will erase all worries, filling my glass with oblivious gin; blank blue windows, smiling strangers).

‘Anyone can use them if they try,’ I say, attempting to sound crisp and encouraging, but not too crisp, or immoderately encouraging.

‘That’s not the thing that worries me most…’

— The physical contact, so rare between us, seems to have released a different girl, a confiding, dependent, needy girl we might have been grateful to know last week… Now, however, is a bad time to meet her. In under ten minutes the cab will arrive.

‘… Do you mind if I ask you something?’

‘Please.’ (But why didn’t you do it before?)

‘How do you know… don’t laugh. How do you know if you love someone?’

Suddenly feet bound up the stairs. Her door swings open, and Chris rushes in. He looks amazed to see us cuddling each other. ‘The cab’s outside. Are you ready? And where the hell is Isaac…’

‘You’re interrupting. Go away.’

‘What do you mean…?’ He gazes at me. I project the fictitious desire to be left alone with Susy that the occasion demands. And to my surprise it isn’t wholly fictitious; I almost feel like a mother, for once, yet at the same time I’ve split neatly in two, for another self, overcoat flung round her shoulders, steps out of the door and runs down the path, leaps straight through the taxi and into the sky.

Chris turns on his heel, exasperated.

The mood is broken. She edges away. I look her in the eyes, and try. ‘It’s very hard to say. I love your father. As soon as I saw him I wanted him…’

‘— You mean, when he was still married to Mother.’

‘Sorry. I’m trying to be truthful. Love is… oh, it’s everything. Not just wanting someone, needing them. Needing to have them to yourself. Wanting to protect them, sometimes…’

(Wanting to protect Chris from you and Isaac. Needing to take him away from your mother. Wanting to take him away on a plane.)

‘… Feeling they love you completely. Knowing how much you matter to them.’

Susy is staring at the floor, where the sun makes a brilliant pool on the carpet. ‘I feel I’ll never have all that. You’re the sort of person who gets all that… You’re the sort of person who’d get Dad. It’s all right. I’m not blaming you.’

And she smiles at me, a defeated smile, looking more grownup than she ever has. I turn and kiss her on the cheek.

‘Look, if you love this boy, you’ll know. You wouldn’t have to ask me.’

— Susy comes down to say goodbye, pounding docilely behind me, Susy who’s never been known to run, and rarely bothers to say goodbye.

(But where is Isaac? Hopelessly selfish. All teenagers are hopelessly selfish.)

Chris hugs her, engulfingly, passionately. His eyes over her shoulder are full of tears. At the very last moment, as we open the front door, Isaac comes panting up the street, an ungainly boy, very slightly knock-kneed, gleaming blue specs and flying hair. He is blowing like a fish, and trying to smile, and shouting something through the noise of the traffic…

It all turned into a scene from a film. Years later, that is how I remember it. For a brief moment we were all there together, all four of us by the hibiscus bush, blinking and cavorting in the sun, falling over cases, trying to hold each other, trying to say things that might last.

‘Take care.’ ‘Good luck.’ ‘Take care of your sister.’ ‘Take care of each other.’ ‘Don’t drive the car.’

The sun was so un-English (as we thought then) that Chris put on his holiday dark glasses, and the children laughed at him; ‘Poser!’ ‘Rock star!’

— He looked like an actor but he wasn’t acting. For a moment there we were a normal family, standing on the edge of another world, where we would simply have fitted together and gone on together into the future, the children growing bigger and brighter, us getting smaller and fading away; it was not too late, we could have changed our minds…

And then we turned, my eyes searched for Chris’s, a hibiscus bloom was reflected in his lens, then Susy and Isaac, smaller, distorted; the red silk bloomed on the back of his lens, a giant hibiscus, a tiny family; our fingers met, our fingers twined, we were leaving together for paradise.

In the quiet of the taxi we sat holding hands. The driver was in a tearing hurry and swore at a pudgy little dog who walked self-importantly over a zebra crossing.

It reminded me of the horrible dream with the dog-like doll and the empty suitcase.

But it seemed to come from another country, and besides, the little girl was dead.

‘What are you thinking about?’ Chris asked, as we screeched to a halt at Heathrow airport and he brushed the hair away from my cheek, ran his finger down my cheekbone.

‘You, my darling. Me and you. I can’t believe we’ve got away.’

‘Twenty pounds sixty!’ shouted the driver. Chris still took the time to kiss me, tenderly.

The gins we drank at the airport were large; we didn’t eat lunch; we were too excited. And a little tense, as well, having watched the queues of travellers filing like pack animals to the check-in desks. They were neither beautiful nor interesting; they were harassed beings from an alien planet, the dreary planet we were hoping to leave, people frowning at watches, counting their luggage, checking the papers in their briefcases. When a telephone rang in an empty booth, some of the zombies started staring about them, looking in the direction of the shrilling then casting round helplessly for someone to answer it, as if the ringing were a cry for help, as if it were somebody calling us back; as if it were somehow wrong to be leaving.

‘For whom the bell tolls,’ said Christopher.

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s just a quotation. It came into my head, the way things do.’ His smile was insouciant, reassuring.

Christopher: darling Christopher. I decided to ignore everyone but him. He was certainly beautiful and interesting. Perhaps a touch heavy, but I like heavy men, big men who know how to look after themselves. And me of course. I like to be looked after. His bones are fine; they can carry their flesh; a good square jaw, and an aquiline nose with well-cut bridge and nostrils. Sensual lips. Amused, slightly crooked. Frequently bored, but never with me. His eyes are hooded, a clear sea-grey with touches of yellow around the pupil. Sun on the sea: traveller’s eyes. He was my St Christopher…