lit a torch from a star and fended off the next ice age. She and Kerys celebrated with another bottle of champagne. 'Next time bring the kids,' Kerys said. 'You know they're always welcome.'
'They'd be here now, but they're going to a pantomime with one of Margaret's friends from her new school.'
It was almost dark by the time the women left the restaurant. Taxis packed with shoppers and with festively wrapped packages dodged through the side streets. As the women said goodbye on New Oxford Street, outside a store where mistletoe dangled above the window dummies and a taped choir sounded as if it would never tire of wishing its audience a merry Christmas, Kerys took hold of Ellen's shoulders and kissed her on the mouth. 'Give that to the kids for me and tell them I've sent them books for Christmas.'
Ellen walked to Kings Cross. Bare trees gleamed metallically in the squares; between the streetlamps the pavement glittered like coal. She felt lonely yet befriended, robbed of the part of herself which was Ben and yet discovering aspects of herself which, while they would never replace him, would at least prevent her from failing. 'Happy Christmas, wherever you are,' she whispered. The streets were dark enough to let her weep.
She dabbed at her eyes as the tearful lights of the station appeared ahead. She found a window seat on the Leeds train and waited while the carriage filled up. The brakes kept emitting a loud sigh as if the train was impatient with being held back. A minute or so after it was due to leave, it crawled out of the station. Soon it was racing past streets which made Ellen think of glaciers composed of headlights. These streets gave way to suburbs where deserted streets looked scoured by the street-lamps, and then there was only the night and the glow of an occasional distant house like the ember of a fallen star.
She ought to have known she would miss the children when this was the first time she'd left them in Stargrave. The experts said there was no evidence to suggest that the area would ever be so cold again, but she wished she weren't recalling memories she had refrained from telling Kerys: her yalking the frozen streets of Stargrave and promising herself that Ben would be around the next corner, that she had only to catch up with him; her asking the ambulancemen from Leeds if they had seen him on the road and then having to wait an endless hour for the team from Richmond to arrive; the numbness which had spread through her mind as she'd seen draped corpse after draped corpse borne out of the houses on the upper slopes of the town, a numbness which had felt like muffled fear and then like knowing Ben was gone for ever… She tried to concentrate on the book Kerys had given her to illustrate, and nodded halfway through it and fell asleep.
A voice as large as a cavern wakened her. It was announcing the arrival of the train in Leeds. She jumped down to the platform, the impact jarring her fully awake, and hurried to the car park. The car engine was cold; it kept stalling whenever she had to stop for traffic lights. Night separated the villages beyond Leeds, and then scattered the houses, and stones like houses blurred by ice loomed out of the dark. She didn't know when she had last seen the stars as clear – so clear they seemed to tremble on the edge of a new meaning while they emphasised the night. Of course this was the shortest day of the year.
The railway bridge clenched her headlight beams, dazzling her as she drove beneath the arch. The car swung into the open and up around the curve, and Stargrave appeared by stages: the crags on the high moor, the forest hovering like a spiky earth-bound cloud miles long, her tall lightless house, the town itself. Skeins of streetlamps and bright windows led like candles to the multicoloured glow of the church. She drove up Church Road to Margaret's friend's house.
As she parked just beyond the cottage opposite the playground, she saw the front door swing inwards. What had happened in her absence that someone was waiting for the sound of her car? She'd thought she might see the children in the playground, but only a wind through the forest moved the swings. She switched off the engine, a muddle of suppressed fears making her clumsy, and struggled out of the vehicle so that she could see past Janet's parents' van.
She shoved herself around her car to the pavement, and saw Margaret and Johnny running to meet her, Margaret in her party dress and new big heavy coat with huge lapels, the hood of Johnny's anorak flapping at his tousled hair. 'Are you glad to see me?' she said, hugging them. 'Did you have a good time?''
'It was brill, Mummy. The Snow Queen's palace was all made of ice, all sparkly…'
'And when the girl tried to save the boy there were terrolls that looked like snowmen that chased her…'
'They're called trolls, Johnny, not terrolls.'
'You call them what you like, Johnny. Don't you think terrolls is a good word for them, Margaret? Worth putting in a book.' She thanked Janet's parents for having the children, and promised to give Janet and her younger brother a treat before they all went back to school. 'If you'll excuse me, I'm almost ready for bed.'
'I'm not.'
'You never are, Johnny.' She handed him and Margaret into the car. 'Home we go,' she said, and drove carefully downhill.
There weren't many For Sale signs, and almost none on the occupied houses. The community was determined to recreate itself as far as it could. She found the sight of so many decorated windows, holly or coloured lights or paper angels facing the night, oddly suggestive, but whatever it almost recalled seemed as remote and unlikely as a scrap of a dream. She swung her car up the track and parked by the house, stretching so vigorously as she climbed out that she shivered. She was opening the gate when Johnny cried 'Look, a star's moving.'
A gleaming speck which appeared momentarily bright as a star was descending from the sky, sailing past the roof of the house. It was a snowflake, one of a number falling lazily to the earth. 'Let's catch them,' Johnny shouted, and ran to be ready for the one he'd first spotted. 'Mummy, I've caught it,' he cried.
Ellen saw it land on his palm. When she went to him she was astonished by how clear it looked, a feathery star composed of glass, and how it seemed to be lingering. Margaret had caught one too, but rubbed her hands together quickly to make it vanish. Now Johnny's was a large drop of water which he let fall to the ground. 'I'm the boy who caught the snowflake.'
'It's just a story, Johnny,' Ellen told him, not knowing why she felt she needed to, and ruffled his hair when she saw his disappointment. 'A lovely story, though, and it's ours to keep. But the rest of our lives will be our best story of all.'
A wind like a whisper of agreement passed through Sterling Forest as she ushered the children towards the house, and a few more snowflakes fell. They hadn't really taken longer to melt on the children's hands than they should have, she told herself. She unlocked the front door and switched on the hall light, and thought how to cheer Johnny up. 'Next year if you like we'll see about making a path all the way through the woods,' she said, and followed the children into the house, where the tree from the forest was waiting. She breathed in the warmth and the scent of pine, and murmured something like a prayer, too low for the children to hear. 'Let this be the Christmas we missed,' she said.
