Then she saw the simplified outlines of the moors, barely distinguishable beneath the frozen sea of white which stretched to a parade of clouds at the horizon, clouds which looked as if the snow was beginning to ornament itself and reach for the blue sky. To Ellen the landscape appeared incomplete, waiting for its details to be filled in. If it seemed somehow ominous, that was the fault of her dream, and she mustn't spoil the day for the children. 'Looks like a good start to the holidays,' she said, and chased Johnny down to the bathroom.
She was in the shower, having ensured that Johnny didn't just pretend to wash his face and brush his teeth because of his eagerness to play, when she heard his voice through the downpour. 'Pardon?' she called.
This time Margaret shouted it with him. 'We're going to have a snowfight.'
For no reason she could bring to mind, Ellen was suddenly nervous. She turned off the shower and pushed back the clinging plastic curtain. 'How deep is it out there? Better not go too near the woods.'
'They can't do any harm. I'll be seeing they don't go far,' Ben said outside the door. 'They may as well make the most of the day.'
She heard the children racing downstairs and Ben's tread following them. She stepped dripping out of the bath, fumbled with the slippery doorknob and hurried onto the landing, towelling herself to keep warm. 'Ben, come here a minute.'
He looked up over his shoulder, then his body turned towards her. Below him in the hall the children were stuffing themselves into their anoraks. He put his finger to his lips as they ran to the front door and slammed it behind them. 'Thought of something?' he said.
'Did you talk to me during the night, or did I dream it?'
'Depends what you think you heard.'
'Something about the last day.'
'Sounds more like a vision than a dream if you heard a voice saying that. Maybe painting and taking my story over have opened up your mind.'
All this seemed so irrelevant it only made her more nervous. 'But was it you I heard?'
'Would you like it to be?'
She lost patience with him. 'I thought you were going to keep an eye on the children.'
'I won't leave them alone.' His expression flickered as he turned away. 'Don't let's drift apart now,' he said, and strode out of the house.
She heard his footsteps engulfed by snow as he pulled the door shut, and then the children shrieked. She would have smiled, imagining him pelting them with snow, except that she was trying to determine what expression she'd glimpsed on his face. Really, it was unfair of him to talk about drifting apart as if she should blame herself; he was the one who was playing word games. Still, she could be joining in the fun instead of brooding. She pulled on a sweater and jeans and ran down to find her boots in the cupboard under the stairs.
She was shrugging on her anorak as she dragged the front door open and stepped outside. 'Where are you?' she called.
Beyond the doorstep, the snow was up to her ankles. She could see how the children had had to pull their feet out of their footprints, whose outlines were crumbling. Quite a few of the prints had been trodden down by their father. Except for their trail, the snow was as unbroken as the silence between the squeaks of snow crushed under Ellen's boots. Ben and the children must be lying in wait for her, she thought, and prepared to dodge as she followed the trail around the outside of the garden wall, up the track towards the crowd of white figures which had grown fatter and more featureless overnight. The figures moved apart as she approached, and just as she passed the corner of the garden, snow flew at her. She ducked, more out of nervousness than to avoid the snowballs, and scooped up a handful to shy at the children as they dashed away from crouching behind the wall. 'Don't hide from me, all right?' she said.
She meant that for Ben too, and when he rose from among the swollen figures she flung as much snow as she could pick up in one hand at him. He seemed content to watch while she and the children played; even when the children scored hits on him he responded only with a smile so untroubled it looked secretive. Before long Ellen's feet began to ache with cold. 'You play with the children for a while, Ben,' she said. 'I'm going to make something to warm us all up.'
She sat on the stairs and pulled off her boots, one of which proved to be leaking. She changed her sodden sock and made for the kitchen. She was expecting to see Ben and the children outside the window when she raised the blind, but they were under the trees. The forest crouched over them, a mass of white poised to draw them into its bony depths, where the treetrunks appeared to shift as whiteness glimmered between them. Ben and the children were each rolling a snowball towards the house, and she turned from the window, telling herself not to be so ridiculously nervous.
When she went to the window to announce breakfast she saw that Ben had piled up the three giant snowballs like a totem-pole. He'd rolled the largest against a group of the smaller figures so that they propped up the construction, and Ellen thought they looked as though they were worshipping it. 'It hasn't got a face,' Johnny said to his father.
'It will have,' Ben said. 'I think we're being summoned.'
Ellen enjoyed the sight of colour returning to the children's faces while she ate breakfast. 'Will you play with us again after?' Johnny asked her.
'I'd like to get some new boots first. Did I just make a joke?'
Ben looked mysteriously amused again, and oddly wistful. He reached across the table and laid his icy hand on her wrist. '1 was thinking how trivia becomes part of us all and how easy it should be to slough it off.'
'Is anyone coming with me while the others wash the dishes?'
'Me,' the children chorused.
'I don't mind. You won't be going anywhere,' Ben said.
She shooed the children to the bathroom, and was ready with anoraks and scarves and gloves and a deaf ear to protests when they ran downstairs. From the front doorstep she saw Ben at the sink, the snow figure towering over him. 'Shall I bring you anything back?' she called.
He raised his head but didn't turn it. 'Only what you have to.'
The white silence seemed to mute the slam of the front door. A bird flew away across the moors, its song chipping at the stillness, and then there was only the frustrated revving of a car engine somewhere in Stargrave. 'What did he mean?' Margaret said.
'Ourselves, I suppose.'
'Why is he being like that?'
'Because he's a writer, sweetheart. He gets on my nerves sometimes too. He wasn't saying he didn't want us. I'm sure he meant anything but.'
'I think he's all right,' Johnny said, and Ellen didn't know if he was expressing loyalty or reassurance or a hope. 'Race you to the road,' he said, nudging Margaret, and skidded away down the track.
'Mind you don't twist your ankles,' Ellen called after them, and trudged in pursuit, slowed down by her climbing boots. As she led the children along the muffled dazzling road towards the hushed town, the hard surface under the snow cracked, sinking her heel into a frozen puddle. She imagined the whole of the road being as precarious, undermined by the cold, ready to give way. She was beginning to wish she had left the children with Ben; she might have made more headway on her own. Because the snow was silencing their footsteps, she had to keep glancing back to confirm they were behind her, a tic which only aggravated her reawakened nervousness.
It took her a quarter of an hour, more than twice as long as usual, to reach the first pavement. All the houses were top-heavy with snow. Despite the screech of spades on flagstones as shopkeepers cleared snow from in front of their premises, the town seemed laden with silence. Above the streets full of parked cars sheeted with snow, Ellen heard children playing on the common, their distant voices thin as birdcalls. From the foot of Church Road she saw them, tiny figures dressed in bright colours which kept being obscured by explosions of white. The forest reared above them like a wave about to break, but why should that make her uneasy? 'Come on, let's get your poor old ageing mother something to keep off the shivers,' she said.
She was sitting on the only chair the cluttered shop in the station building was able to accommodate, and pulling on Wellingtons which tied at the knees, when Sally Quick found her. 'For once we could use a few more walkie-talkies,' Sally said.
