The Extinction of Snow Read online

  Luckily he does know his way and pulls off the main road onto a narrower side road and then again into a quadrangle, a car park surrounded on all sides by various office units. As far as I can tell there isn’t a single free space. As a car user the taxi driver points it out, the lack of space, how it is the same in all of these units. He doesn’t know how people cope. Of course he is asserting his freedom. He suggests it could spoil your whole day. I smile appreciatively. He’s right, it could spoil the whole day. I ask him which one is Rennstadt. He indicates the building in front of which he has pulled up, frowning slightly as if it was obvious. He is a professional and something of a friend so he would naturally pull up outside. He tells me that the building also has the offices of a media company and the offices of the cancer network. He is something of a tourist guide, though whether he is impressed by the city’s development or disgusted by it would be hard to say. He is a taxi driver so simply chronicles it, the change, the increasing difficulty of getting about, the shifting world in front of his eyes. My world changes in more hidden ways. I am lost; he is still driving.

  I get out, go to his window and ask him what I should do. He looks at his watch. Do I have any idea how long I will be? I shake my head. I want to tell him that I don’t even know what I intend to do. I suppose I should question this need for an ally. What am I doing? I know it is something about Joseph, but I’m not clear what. Is it just to be somewhere he was, or do I have questions, real, grown-up enquiries unspoiled by grief? I shrug again and smile. I can see it in my mind’s eye, the pertness, the suggestion of being a bit scatter-brain. He will like that. He tells me he’s going to park up and have his sandwiches and coffee, indicating a lunch-box and flask on the passenger seat. I just need to ring. I find it comforting to have him close by.

  I’m sure the building originally had a number as the taxi driver suggested but now it’s Phoenix House. On some plan somewhere, whoever owns all this and rents it out, the number will still be there, income tallied against it, but in the cold light of a blustery day, it’s Phoenix House. How many buildings must also be called Phoenix House? Joseph was part of this world. Can I blame Phoenix House, and all the family of Phoenix Houses, for making my son bluff and ambitious, shallow and saddled with the refrain entertain me? Is that why I am here, to hurt myself with harsh realities? Phoenix House! I despise it.

  The occupants are listed on a nameplate as if it were the chambers of a group of solicitors or doctors, decent, respectable professionals, aiding the local community. Rennstadt probably have offices and laboratories in Shanghai, Kentucky, Abidjan, Sydney. They’ll certainly be bigger than any country, making global citizens of its workforce, or so they will believe and they’ll be flattered by it, bought off by it. They are certainly not here to aid the local population. The world is becoming too small for all of us. What sort of place will it be with no more secrets, no discoveries and no surprises. A place of gimmicks. A place of decline.

  The entrance is spacious and bare, a large single pot-plant to the left, a reception desk to the right, two large, abstract prints on the two side walls, fluid splodges of orange and yellow, the back wall with large open double-doors giving access to two lifts. Once upon a time the splodges might have demanded interpretation, posed questions about ways of seeing, of perception itself. The experiment would have been seen as an exploration, a journey into the meanings of surface and dimension. Now they are wallpaper. The end of discovery is wallpaper. The plant assumes symbolic significance placed alone in such barren, empty space. What is it saying? There is light here, because it grows, thrives. Someone obviously supplies the water and nutrients. Life is cared for, so we must be in safe hands. Of course it could simply be very stingy decoration indeed. Surely if all these companies clubbed together I could be greeted by a jungle. As it is I simply have to negotiate my way past the receptionist.

  She is young, smartly dressed, attractive, with very fine lines. She doesn’t speak but gestures through her whole figure that she is giving me her undivided attention. I say the name of the company. I expect to be ushered to the lifts and told which floor, but she looks at me questioningly. I return the gesture. She wants to know whether I am expected. I am too alert to say no, but suggest not exactly. Well, who have I come to see? I smile as if I am a friend of everyone in the company and very casually suggest Gareth or Amy, as if it really wouldn’t matter which. She asks if she can have their surnames. In that moment I don’t know their surnames. Of course I know Gareth’s, he was Joseph’s friend for years, but it has gone completely out of my head. I try to convey the absurdity of that to the receptionist, the fact that I could forget the surname of a pal. She suggests that she’ll ring up and see if anyone knows who I mean. When she has entered the number she asks me who she should say is here. I don’t want to give my name, knowing it will debar me in some way, but I’m too slow to work out an alternative and acquiescently say, Mrs Tennant, Louise, Louise Tennant.

  When the phone is answered she turns away from me and lowers her voice. I hear her say that there is a Mrs Tennant in the lobby, looking for a Gareth or an Amy. She makes them sound like objects, potential purchases. I smile at her, acknowledging the flimsiness of the information I have given. There is more conversation and then she puts down the telephone. She informs me that they are going to make inquiries and ring back. She continues with something else. She has decided that I am obviously not a significant client and she doesn’t have to be anything more than polite with me.

  There are no seats in what she calls the lobby, which strikes me as an accurate but pompous term, so I stand. I feel awkward and exposed in that space. I am now in context with the plant and the paintings. I am now significant. My signification works at other than eye level. I have furnished a name, Mrs Tennant, Mrs Louise Tennant, the first name asserted as if demanding a former identity. I am Mrs Tennant but I am also Louise; as Louise I too was young, an artist, and I saw many things and I did many things, so don’t misread me. I pattern my expression, suggesting my boredom with the lobby and its contents. I want to impress on her that I am a busy woman of business. That is what she will be used to. I should have played that role from the start. It might have got me through.

  The phone rings. She listens without speaking, replaces it on its stand and then tells me that they have made inquiries but can’t help with a Gareth or an Amy, then shrugs and suggests that it would have helped if only I’d had their surnames. I ask for a moment and go outside. There is nothing for it but to ring Sara. She is naturally surprised and uncomfortable hearing my voice. With understandable curtness she demands to know what I want now. The now seems unnecessary, implying that I’m regularly demanding something, which is wrong in every way. I ask for Gareth and Amy’s full names. She naturally wants to know why. There should be no reason not to say it’s because I want to see them, but I feel there is something to be kept secret about it. I very lamely say I can’t remember, that’s all, but as they were his friends I’d like to recall them. It is feasible, the mother reminiscing. By this time Sara has obviously given it some thought and not managing to work out any objection snaps out Gareth Gate and Amy Tomlin.

  I return as if flush with memory, my lackadaisical mind put to rights. I would like to see Dr Gate or Dr Tomlin. Again she rings up and this time is told immediately that neither is available. She puts the phone down again and I ask her why they are not available. She looks at me with a certain degree of irritation. She has no idea. She is only one of the ground floor staff, not a member of Rennstadt or any other company, therefore she can’t say. I adopt what I believe to be a penitential look and ask her, if she doesn’t mind, whether she could ask whether Mr Davidson is free. Once again she rings up. This time the information is unequivocal. Mr Davidson has moved to the London office. She looks at me as if she expects me to produce another name.

  I wish I could. In coming here I have made a compact with myself that I expect something from it, even if I don’t know what it is. There is something im
poverished about going away empty-handed. But there is nothing else for it but to leave. I thank her, aware that my voice betrays a thickness of emotion, my disappointment and hurt surfacing. She recognizes it and tells me she’s sorry. That indefinite apology heartens me. It’s somehow pleasant that she’s sorry at my dissatisfaction, whilst neither protecting, defending nor condemning anyone else, simply sorry that I feel as I do. I purse my lips, giving that telltale smile which admits that there are things going on, human depths, and go back outside.

  I stand on the steps for some time, reluctant or even unable to take an immediate leave. The strangeness of this workaday place bothers me. There is so much evidence of people, but no proof. There are numerous cars, some blocking in others, cars and no spaces, but no people. There are rows on rows of connected windows, all tinted, reflecting the buildings opposite, together with the blue sky with its quickly moving trails of watery cloud and the thin, spindly branches of winter trees, but offering no signs or evidence of the people within. The architecture looks out. It is art as function, blending into the landscape, cancelling itself. The people don’t exist, Dr Gate and Dr Tomlin unavailable. But why are they unavailable? I am a grieving mother, surely a few minutes of their time would be time well spent. The chances are that I will never stand in this self-referencing space ever again, so I need to make it count. I can’t walk away empty-handed. I consider going back to the receptionist and pleading my case, openly telling her my history, my hurt, my need to hear from Dr Gate and Dr Tomlin, but she is only a member of the ground floor staff so I guess wouldn’t sanction any breaking and entry. But, of course, that is the answer, criminal trespass.

  As I ponder the break-in a group of three women come from the car park and pass me. They have that air of being just and no more in time for a meeting, their conversation loud and business-like. One of them goes to the receptionist and obviously signs them all into the building, whilst the other two go for the lift. At this point they are joined by a fourth who rushes in and catches them just before the lift closes.

  I consider brazening my way in, going right up to the reception, signing my name and taking the lift as well. But of course, I’d be recognized, besides which I lack all of the supporting paraphernalia, an open coat and scarf, a brief-case tucked under my arm, a suit. I’m dressed for travel, black jeans, slipper shoes, mustard coloured coat. I look a different part altogether, though wear it well. Why is that? Why do I bother? Is it habit or diehard vanity? I presume it’s the latter. How dreary I am, my grief a sham, my hurt a posture. But a voice sears through the bleakness: It is illegal to go naked, to pine in the gutter, to howl. I would be pumped full of drugs if that were the case. I don’t want to be out of my mind other than in my own crazy, riddled way, the right side of the mirror.

  As these thoughts go through my mind another group of women – again four, sharing cars obviously, parking a premium – make their way to the entrance. They could be the first group again they are so alike. I look at my watch and pace as if I’m waiting for someone. I have to look as if I have purpose; only purpose is without suspicion, loitering always suspect. One of them says hello. I am accepted as part of the group, a working woman. Why else would any of us find ourselves in such a sterile domain? I watch them cross the lobby, again one of them signing them in, whilst the others call the lift. When the lift doors open I hurry in and make my way to join them, even calling out for them to hold it for me. As the lift doors close behind me I turn and see that the receptionist is looking our way, but whether with any real interest or not I can’t discern. I tell myself I should be indifferent to her recognising me. At the worst I can be ejected, but I don’t want the scene, the fright, the being laid bare as a grieving obsessive mother. My counsellor would certainly refute that this behaviour is moving on.

  The lift stops at the third floor. When I stepped inside one of the women gestured for me to say which floor. She had already pressed for the third. I simply smiled and nodded. On the landing outside the lift are toilets and we all troop in. Being a blustery, wild day we have to check our appearance, put everything back in place. I go into a cubicle and wait, listening for them to go.

  Having given the women ample opportunity to go into their meeting I make my way out of the toilet. The landing lets onto another space with a number of doors to either side, all ajar. Straight in front is a partition wall, the upper portion glass, with a set of double doors. The sign beside the door says it is the West Yorkshire Cancer Network. Through the windows I can see a vast open office space covering an entire floor. I can’t guess how many people are working here, nor can I imagine what they do. People sit in front of computer screens or mill about, sharing moments away from the desk. There must be so many spaces like this, people in front of screens doing something with data that the artist can’t comprehend, I can’t comprehend. I go closer to the windows in order to peer in.

  I have never been an office worker, not even when I was a student and took summer jobs. I worked in a hospital kitchen. It was in an underground basement, buried beneath London. The place was overrun with cockroaches. Periodically pest control would come and spray gas behind the skirting and thousands of cockroaches would scuttle about, the majority returning to where they came from, apparently unscathed. I remember doing a triptych called The Pest Controller, the centre-piece showed a dying man in a grey windowless room. I’d painted in the background in thick oils and then chipped it away and painted over it because I’d seen a documentary that told how Edvard Munch had done that in his painting The Sick Child. It described how he’d attacked the canvas and I wanted to imitate that. In the right panel there were faceless mourners standing as rigidly as bowling pins, standing against a veined mauve background. In the left panel there was a figure dressed in protective clothing, his face mask composed of large gaping sockets, spraying gas which is going nowhere but pluming around him, the background magenta. It did very well, earning me excellent marks. I was told it set up thrilling correspondence, the metaphor complex and compelling, the surface rich in detail and reference. I was naturally pleased. Frank said it was derivative and predictable. It pained me to hear that. I didn’t know he was mad then, mad with jealousy and ill will. Why do people hurt each other? Is that not the great mystery of life? I remember going to the Tate to see Munch’s painting and being shocked that it was different, the background green, not the chipped and scarred surface I’d seen in the film. I didn’t realize that an artist would duplicate work. But of course he would, working through obsession until there is some sense to it, however barbaric.

  It was over Munch that I stood up to Frank. He was praising The Scream, a painting on which Munch had written that it could only have been painted by a madman, a sentiment Frank thoroughly applauded. Very caustically I said that he’d meant it was a failure. Frank despised me for that comment, or maybe for the temerity of it. When John and I saw The Sick Child he was wholly appreciative and said it hurt. He was never given to affectation so meant it. He also knew to question why he found it beautiful, but knew it was. We went to see an exhibition of Munch’s paintings of workers intended for public spaces, industrial spaces and I knew I was right, The Scream was a failure, a madman’s painting, however vivid and compelling, and I knew that I had grown up, freed myself, settled into who I wanted to be. Perhaps that’s why I slept with Frank again, because it was me doing it, me whole and complete, as much as I could be. It doesn’t make it right, but some things can never be made right.

  I feel like a dispossessed child, my nose to the glass, peering into a world in which I don’t belong. I wouldn’t delude myself and deny that the way I feel isn’t exactly how I want to feel. I’m playing up to an artist’s notion of art. If I’m not careful I’ll become as hell-bent and crooked as Frank. I have no hatred of the modern world; my dispute is that it has hurt me grievously. I have no romantic notions of a better world, though once I believed there was one to come. That particular dream has long withered.

  Someone comes out
of the office, the opening door releasing a sudden bullet of sound. I back away from the window, failing entirely to look as if I had a reason to be there. A young woman says hello and goes into the first room adjacent the office doors, pushing the door wide open. The room turns out to be a kitchen. I can hear her filling and boiling a kettle, then preparing cups. I step by the open door hoping I won’t be noticed. I have to get to Rennstadt’s offices before someone challenges me. I slip back onto the landing. Tucked away in the corner is a door with a sign that says: Only to be used in the case of a fire. It strikes me as strange that there should be an insistence on using the lift, an unhealthy laziness. I hope it means that the fire-escape allows access to all floors, bypassing any gatekeepers. I go to the door, quickly check that I’m not being watched, and then slip through.

  The dark landing gives way to a bright open stairway, uncarpeted, without the apparent luxury of the rest of the building. I run upwards, assuming Rennstadt occupies the upper levels, calculating that the private company will have more finance to spare than the state cancer network and can therefore purchase better views, lofty heights. In fact floors four and five are occupied by Patent Media. Their sign says: Patent Media incorporating Demon and Damask. The mind boggles. What is behind the door? A door is always a wonder. A door separates spaces, separates realities. Every knock at a door is a possibility. Friend or foe? Will something happen, or will everything carry on in the same predictable way. Demon and Damask intrigues me. Was it formerly one company or two? And why, with such an intriguing, enterprising name did it have to throw in its lot with Patent Media? Of course patent has a much more business-like, management ring to it. Patent means ownership and control, whereas demon and damask denote black magic and silk. I go right up to the door and put my ear against it. I can’t hear anything.