The Extinction of Snow Read online

  The journey here to Leeds was terrible, the train grossly overcrowded, with people sitting on bags between carriages causing the automatic doors to stay open so that there was a constant draught. There was a background buzz of music which sounded like tinnitus, broken by a constant accompaniment of bizarre ring-tones from mobile phones followed by subsequent very public conversation. Just along the aisle someone beat notes from a muffled conga. I took paracetamol as if that could solve the problem. I tried to read but had to go over paragraphs again and again. Eventually I tried to sleep and the sounds in my head coalesced into a single, patterned throb. My mind played tricks, throwing up images of shrunken heads, grossly decorated faces, and shifting pools like multi-coloured lava lamps. That at least afforded some peace.

  From the station I have taken a taxi. When I rang to say I was coming Sara didn’t offer to collect me. Not surprisingly she was astonished that I was coming at all, and didn’t disguise the fact. She even asked me what I wanted. It threw me. I said I just wanted to see Georgia. To that she merely said all right, but added that she wasn’t in a position to put me up. I suppose I should have predicted her response, after all, I have never been to the house before.

  I could be anywhere, the city centre quickly replaced by wide urban streets, tree lined, backed by small shops. I can’t help but try to imagine Joseph striding along the pavement. I think stride is the right word. He had that force and presence, striding and laughing going together somehow. I can hear it now, the way it used to fill up our debates of art and science, form and function, the Arts and Crafts Guild and Bahaus. Such dead conversations now, dead laughter, fouled enthusiasm. Could anything restore it? Only miracles, belief in heaven, lies I cannot commit. And yet I have tutored myself to be resilient. I am on a quest. It has brought me to a place I have never before been, its geography unknown, its airy, tree lined streets a surprise, cleaner and brighter than I expected. And Joseph was here, striding perhaps where my eye falls, past the estate agents – many estate agents – solicitors’ offices, building society offices, banks, mini-markets and the rest, striding because there was a need to arrive, in order to quickly move on – in emotional health, move on. Life was to be consumed in great deserved chunks, the direction of travel upwards, onwards, but to what earthly paradise certainly eluded me, eludes me still. He was brought up to an aesthetic, not the province of money – though money in the bank is always a help – but did I bring him up correctly, did we? How can I ever know? I brought him up to be alive. I failed in that. I failed in the fundamental.

  If I’m brutally honest I can’t really see him, nothing more than an impression, an image where features and outlines come in and out of focus though never all at once. I summon no more than a recognizable suggestion of him, and can’t get closer than that. But if I think of John, it’s just the same. If I think of me it’s no different. I have an impression, an impression of a face at a taxi window, looking out but seeing inward. (I am obviously not so steeped in grief not to be able to dramatize myself, which is a fault, something to regret.) Sometimes I cry because I can only see an impression, or at least that is the starting point, the thing that leads back to grief. An impression is not good enough, it lets me down. I let him down. There must be more, I must be able to draw more from myself, demand more, achieve more. All of the time I’m looking to find him. He can’t be all lost, not completely. I should have taken more account.

  I know I should rehearse what I will say to Sara, try to think of something that will make a good impression. Impressions matter to her. She is the daughter of a small scale business-man father and office-administrator mother, who like to boast of their material success, which Sara does too. She was brought up in Streatham, South London, and has a degree in business and finance. She likes themed parties, for instance getting all of the men to wear tuxedo and bow-tie, or having everyone bring a gift of amber, most people opting for beer and wine, but others pieces of jewellery or sunrise prints – though no one’s income stretched to insects in resin, as far as I recall. Her friends are beautiful, cheerful and polite. There are no misplaced, reckless souls haunted by demons and addictions, though they are far from prudish, drink to excess and exchange vulgar jokes, which will certainly cease when they all become parents. Their talk then will be of birth-plans and breasts, then nurseries and schools, ambition and success, and so it will go, immune from history if they are lucky, if they continue to be lucky. But that doesn’t tell me what to say to her, doesn’t prepare the ground at all. It only reminds me why the ground is so difficult, why the paths between us are so broad.

  At the funeral she was smartly dressed and angry, an attractive, impassioned widow. I could see the anger in her demeanour. It surprised me. I didn’t expect it. Judging by her tone on the telephone she is still angry. It suggests something new about her and being new something better. But is that right? If she is angry for herself then it is unforgivable, but if she is angry because her husband was so young, too young, his death too strange, then there is something commendable in that, something the mother should respect and rejoice in. I know what she will say though – I am angry because my child is an infant. Everything is passed to the children with them. Every self-seeking, selfish act is committed in the name of the children. The children must inherit a benign, trouble free, health and safety world. That is the world constructed for them, its inadequacies and exploitation glossed over; a world without history where only fashion counts. Well, I’m sorry, but the world will spurn and kick at such sanitation and in the end let you down, badly let you down. What will I say to her? How on earth can I begin?

  The driver has been speaking and I haven’t responded. He must think me incredibly rude, but I’m not, I was preoccupied, thinking of the encounter to come. I apologize and he says some more, whether repeating himself or not I don’t know. I don’t understand his accent. I’m not at all sure what he’s saying to me. I think to apologize again and say I’m hard of hearing. The idea is amazing. Why would I think to hide behind an imaginary ailment? I laugh and very honestly tell him that I didn’t quite understand his accent. My laughter is sweet and flirtatious, laughter I have denied myself for so long. Now it is just to get me out of a hole. It makes me feel guilty, as if I’m letting someone down. Nevertheless he laughs in return, good-naturedly, turns his head to speak more directly to me, slows his voice and asks me if this is my first time, first time in the city. I don’t think that is what he was asking me. He’s moved on, thought better of it, and settled for the easily answered. Yes, this is my first time. I tell him that my son lived here. The past tense hangs between us, an obvious question mark. He is too professional to be caught out like that. He tells me how much the city has changed and how it is scarcely recognizable. I feel he is trying to soften my disappointment. There is something pleasing in that. For him the job just gets harder. There used to be two rush hours, he laughs, but now they meet in the middle and there’s just one. But, he adds, it’s always been a great city. I’m sure he’s offering that loyalty for my benefit, to justify the fact that my son came here. I feel I should respond but before I can he tells me that we are nearly there, just up and round somewhere, place names that mean nothing to me.

  We are in an estate of large, brick houses, all slightly different, separate and unaligned, individual and yet similar enough to stand side by side. Sara will be comfortable with this, the proximity and distance of neighbours, the comparable wealth, the distinct yet shared existence. Or rather, I assume she will be comfortable with this. I am making judgements about her. The taxi pulls up in front of one of the houses. There are no hedges or fences, no marked boundaries, just patches of green, space before the next house and the one following that. The front of the house is paved with diagonally laid bricks. The house is on ground much higher than the road, as are all of the houses. There is a short steep drive to a double-garage. There is a large vehicle parked there, a Land Rover or Jeep, or something similar.

  I pay the driver, tipping him
generously, perhaps to make up for my inattention, take his proffered card, and then stand for a while simply looking at each of the houses in turn. They speak of a shared lifestyle: similar style cars, simple lawns with narrow empty borders – life is obviously too busy to be a serious gardener – and the same leaded windows and Georgian doors. I am sure the life must be good.

  Sara opens the door and steps out onto the paved bricks, looks me up and down, which she always does, and then gazes at me without speaking. Georgia follows, a toddler, immediately comic and appealing, playing a game for herself which must be musical statues. I address myself to the child. “What a big girl you are now,” stating the obvious that she is bigger than the last time I saw her; the obvious that it is some time since I saw her. She ignores me and continues her game, moving and stopping, her expression blanked at each halt.

  “I didn’t think you would really come,” Sara says, her tone and expression hostile, unforgiving.

  I don’t understand. We always played a game of politeness, asking about each other’s health and well-being, masking our antipathy and lack of mutual understanding. We have never openly disagreed, not that I remember. Normally I submit to being looked up and down, subject myself to talk of house furnishings, pretend to be flattered by questions of taste and decoration and in turn make appreciative noises about new acquisitions, then ask about her parents, the business-man and his administrator wife, and when really stuck her brothers, the accountants, both probably crooked, one certainly.

  Today she is openly disagreeable. I should applaud it if I understood it. Presumably no longer having Joseph to please she can openly declare her dislike of me. It should be tempting to respond to the challenge, fight my corner and tell the wife how narrow and lacking I find her, but I can’t. Perhaps it’s a generational thing to be polite to the bitter end, or I can’t really countenance being left to fend for myself in this lived-in but deserted estate, or maybe I’m finished with it. What’s the point? He is dead to both of us, we needn’t fight over his remains. I willingly concede. After all Sara has Georgia, a piece of him, the name strange and contemporary to my ears, the child beautiful to the eye.

  “I should have come much earlier,” I concede, “seen my granddaughter, seen you. I’ve been preoccupied by it all. I’m sorry.”

  “I wouldn’t expect it.”

  “But I should . . . want to.”

  Something like a smile crosses her lips, something bitter, hurtful. I guess she ran my incompetent, inefficient words together and came up with a joke, hence the dubious amusement. She turns away, says something to Georgia and together they go back to the door, hand in hand, mother and daughter, dressed alike, jeans and knee boots, fur lined, fur cuffed, and short neatly cut bolero jackets. The child is older than her years, the mother younger, both girls, not toddler and woman. In Victorian times Sara would have been expected to stay in black, just the one colour, for at least a year, after which she could introduce another colour and then after eighteen months a further colour, bereavement following a strict code. She would also have been expected to spend her days contemplating on his memory. Of course we are post-modern today and grieve individually.

  I personally would benefit from a rule-book. The feeling is too big without. I don’t know where to start, can conceive of no end. Of course men were expected to return to work where, according to Adam Smith society and conversation are the most powerful remedies for restoring the mind to tranquillity. I have read manuals and textbooks, but get no closer to peace, a peace I deny, a peace I distrust. Of course, for the Victorians even such prescribed mourning was only available for those with the money to purchase it. I’m sure Sara could buy some of it, her designer jeans at least could be black. Am I really so old fashioned? Naturally, when I want to be.

  Sara ushers Georgia indoors, turns slowly, acting a part I don’t understand, portraying a grief outside of my vocabulary – despite my reading – and coldly says: “As you are here you’d better come in.”

  The invitation is so niggardly I hesitate. Should I simply apologize, without knowing for what, and make my exit? That is surely what Sara wants. She doesn’t want me across her threshold. But if I go now how do I ever enter Georgia’s life again? Up until now I have given it no thought, been a particularly ineffectual grandparent, leaving the field to the overindulgent couple from Streatham, but now faced with its closure I feel a sense of panic. I don’t want to be excluded from her life. She is all I have, the very last breath of me. “Yes,” I say, scarcely disguising the appeal in my voice. “Yes, I’d like to come in.”

  Sara goes ahead leaving the door open. I follow, knowing this is a hollow, empty welcome. I am being tolerated, not invited: I have to follow of my own accord, not be led.

  I follow Sara through a spacious hallway, where there is a stairway leading up with a wooden spoke banister, through double doors leading into a lounge, into the back of the house where there is a large square kitchen with a central island, the work surface covered in jet black marble. To one side of the kitchen there is a conservatory with rattan furniture and large succulents, to the other, continuous with the kitchen, a play area with large toys, a small lavender coloured, cloth settee and bean bags. She gestures for me to sit in there. The invitation seems needlessly cruel. There is a man sitting on the settee. I hesitate, but then go where directed. He immediately stands and offers to shake my hand, an embarrassed, spontaneous gesture. He is taller than Joseph, fair haired, attractively suffused with redness, his skin imperfect, stippled with dormant freckles, his features rounded, the overall effect one of softness. I should instantly dislike him but don’t. I don’t take his hand but smile, weakly, in just the way I should. He scoops up some papers from the settee, takes his jacket from the back of it, and says he’ll go, says it in a way that makes it clear he is vacating the room, the house, not that he has to go. Does he want me to be grateful? Well, I am. If I am tempted to manufacture some doubt as to the nature of their relationship it is dashed by the intimacy of their kiss on parting. Much to my horror and distress it is redolent with symbolic good luck, as are his parting words and the farewell glance he gives me. There is also an added note of pity for me. God knows what Sara has said about me, but the man has obviously concluded that I’m maybe not as bad as has been suggested.

  I sit where he was sitting and wait. The room looks out onto the garden. It isn’t large, and is surrounded by a creosote fence. In the centre is a trampoline, and littered around it are a tricycle, go-cart, and other bits and pieces that I can’t really work out.

  Sara brings a jug of filter coffee and a plate of biscuits. She can either sit by me or flop onto a bean-bag. She refuses either and brings a stool from the island in the kitchen and sits on that. She is much higher than me, surveying me.

  I say: “I was surprised when you stayed in Leeds.”

  She looks at me sharply, weighing up my words, then visibly relaxes, relieved by something. “Steven you mean. He’s kind, a nice guy, good with Georgia. Who knows?”

  “Yes, he looked kind,” I concede, suffering it, his being good with Georgia. “But no, I wasn’t meaning that, him I mean. In general, I thought you didn’t like it that much.”

  “What choice do I have?” she snaps, looking at me darkly, as if I am culpable. “Do you think selling this would buy me a doll’s-house in London?”

  “It’s a nice house.”

  “Yes, it’s a nice house,” she says, leaving something else unsaid but apparent.

  I don’t know how to continue. To go on will draw me into their world, man and wife, practicalities of their life together, something that at the moment seems as intimate as sex. “I presume Joseph left you well provided. I mean, he was very practical, and you with numbers.”

  Quite rightly she looks horrified. How could I have said, you with numbers? I make it sound like a complaint, a physical illness rather than an attribute. She stares at me incredulously. Finally she utters: “No, Joseph did not leave me well provided for
as I’m sure you know.”

  I don’t know what to say, but I can’t leave it where it is. “Surely he would have had life assurance, benefits from work.”

  She glares at me, and I can’t tell whether she might burst into tears or laughter, both look possible and likely. Finally she gives a peremptory smile, slips off her stool and walks out into the garden where Georgia has already gone and is sitting on her tricycle. Sara goes right to her and kneels down in front of her, the coffee cup held in both hands, warming them I suppose. It is a cold blustery day, the wind strong enough to be heard. There is something deliberate about kneeling down to the child and speaking, something symbolic. It eradicates other thought for her, I feel sure of it.

  I find myself thinking that she is a good mother. I have never seen her angry, only indulgent. Is it fair to complain about indulgence? So she has never entertained large thought, considered a world beyond the confines of her narrowness, but I don’t suppose it has ever been her intention to wish it harm. She is shallow, materialistic, judgemental but not bad. She falls short of the mark, but maybe I’m the one who has it wrong with my redundant, worn-out ideals, my forsaken dreams. I should have given thought to that, been less inclined to judge, letting mother bias get in the way. It’s hardly criminal to be petty in this petty world. I of all people should have learned that people should be allowed to live the life they want to live without the interfering judgement of an ousted mother. I should ask her forgiveness, though I have never been one to forgive myself.