In The Grip Of Old Winter (2 page)

“Aye.” Granddad sniffed.
“Probably, it’s getting thicker. Daylight’s going fast. I reckon we’re in for a
right dumping. You arrived just in time.” He trudged towards the house, head
bent and shoulders sloped from the cases’ weights.

Dad followed. “Is there any
place I can get the car under cover?”

“Round the back,” said
granddad. “In the barn. Give me the keys and I’ll drive it in before the snow
comes down proper.”

“Thanks.”

Peter didn’t move and the
snow brushed against his cheeks. He watched the window where he’d seen the pale
face, but it stayed dark. He swallowed to wet his dry mouth. A breeze shifted
the falling snow sideways and the cold flakes stung his cheeks. His stomach
tightened like a wound-up spring, for though the snow fell in silence, the
twigs on the trees rattled and the bushes, empty of leaves, let the breeze hiss
through their branches.

Everything is holding its
breath and watching, waiting for the right time. Something is about to happen
that will include me.

He shivered from fear, not cold.
Two strange events already, the man with the sword and shield and the face at
the window. Three, if he thought the old house watched him with dark eyes. That,
he didn’t want to believe, for where else might he go if he didn’t dare enter.
He brushed the snow off his head. Just imagination and he wished hard to make
that true.

Dad called. “Come ON, Peter.”

He hurried after,
half-running, half-shuffling. The house loomed above him and he focused on the
stone path and didn’t look up until he reached the front door.

‘Door’ didn’t seem the right
word. Thick planks, almost beams, rounded at the top to fit against the stones
and joined together by huge iron hinges, might be the entrance to an ogre’s
castle. Black iron studs, hammered into the wood, stood proud like sharp
knuckles and a large iron ring, which must be the handle, rocked backwards and
forwards.

Granddad waited for him and
stamped his feet on the doormat. “In you come.”

Peter crossed the threshold
and granddad heaved the door to. It shut with a deep
clunk.

“That’s better, keep all that
nasty old weather out.”

They stood in a narrow hallway
with three doors and an archway opening on to a long passage. The doors, made of
planks and also fixed by black hinges, didn’t look as big or heavy as the front
door. They had latches for handles, like the ones on a farm Peter had once
seen.

The open door to Peter’s
right revealed the kitchen, where mum and grandma arranged plates and cups on a
long wooden table. Dad slumped into a chair, dropped the car keys onto the table
and then studied his mobile.

“Leave your things down here
with the cases,” granddad said to Peter. “We’ll take them up after we’ve had a
spot of tea.”

Peter slid the backpack off
his shoulders and put it down with the carrier bag.

Granddad rubbed his hands.
“That was a long old journey, I bet.”

Peter nodded.

“It’s tiring work travelling
in the cold.” He scraped his fingers through his long white hair. “Don’t
suppose you remember coming to see us - I don’t know how many years back now?”

Peter almost shook his head
and then he remembered. “I saw the wolf.”

Granddad’s eyes opened in
surprise. “The wolf! Fancy you thinking of that.”

“Is it - is it still here?”

“Oh yes. It lives in the
kitchen. I’ll show you in a moment.” Then he bent lower and spoke in a quieter
voice. “We have lots of strange things in this old house.” A frown creased his
forehead. “Outside just now, your dad said you saw something at one of the
windows.”

Peter swallowed. He didn’t
expect to talk about what he’d seen so soon. He didn’t dare, because talking
about strange events made them real and he didn’t want to do that.

Granddad’s eyes, almost
hidden by his bushy white eyebrows, glinted, more kind than stern as he waited
for an answer. Like the wound-up feeling that had enveloped him the moment he
stepped out of the car, it all joined together even if he didn’t understand how
and granddad, waiting for an answer, fitted into that.

He swallowed again. “I saw a
face at a window.”

Granddad pursed his lips.
“What sort of face?”

Peter’s heart pumped louder.
Granddad believed him and that relieved some of the fear. Talking might make it
real, but sharing it lessened the shock. “I think - I think it was a girl.”

Granddad’s eyebrows rose, not
in surprise, but understanding. “Ah yes - could be.” He placed an arm around
Peter’s shoulders. “Don’t let it worry you. She means no harm and later I’ll
explain a bit more. Want a cheese scone?”

If granddad, like his dad,
didn’t frighten at the unexpected, then bad things hadn’t the power to harm.
“Yes please.”

“Come on then,” and together
they walked into the kitchen. “Stand back now,” granddad announced. “There’s a
wolf needs meeting.”

***

Peter’s bedroom, next to mum
and dad’s, looked out across the flagstone path that split to the left and
right just below his window. The left path went round the side of the house to
the kitchen and the right up to the front door. The snow shone, even though no
moon lit the cloudy sky. The trees, their trunks shrouded in shadows, circled
the house. Peter knew that the face at the window didn’t appear in this room,
because the wooden staircase, which creaked with every step as he followed
granddad up, had climbed to higher floors. That window must be far away.
Stay
there
, he wished to whoever stared out when he waited by the car.

His breath steamed against
the diamond-shaped panes as the snow piled up on the sill. Sometimes, when the
wind blew, it hit the glass with a
shush
ing sound.

*

“You can build a snowman
tomorrow,” grandma said after dinner. They sat in the big room at the end of
the passage. A log fire crackled in the enormous stone hearth and yellow
lamplight pooled in distant corners.

Beside the hearth stood a
Christmas tree that reached halfway up the wall. Red, gold, green, white and
purple tinsel hung from its boughs and baubles and angels and jolly Father
Christmas’ decorated with glitter, sparkled. Fairy lights glowed white then
blue then back to white again.

Granddad called this room,
The Hall. He joined them last with his glass of whiskey and sat next to Peter. High
above, dark wooden beams spanned the ceiling, their undersides lit by the
fire’s glow. The windows too, built into the walls a long way above the ground,
glimmered orange and yellow when a flame flared in the hearth. Three big sofas
surrounded the fire and everyone’s faces glowed red from the heat.

Dad laughed. “We can all
build snowmen. Look how much is falling.”

“I hoped to go into Hastings
tomorrow,” said Mum. “Just to buy some last minute bits and pieces.”

“It’s been a long time since
we’ve had this much snow,” grandma replied. “We could ring Farmer Brunt first
thing - get him to bring his tractor round, if we can’t clear a path to the
lane.”

“We’ve got shovels,” granddad
said. “If it comes to that.”

Grandma beamed her cosiest
smile. “And what do you want Father Christmas to bring you this year, Peter?”

Peter didn’t believe in
Father Christmas. The plastic bag full of brightly wrapped boxes he’d carried
in earlier made believing in Father Christmas impossible. He’d known what went
on at Christmas for years, but adults still pretended it was the best kept
secret in the world, so he did too.

“A bike with ten gears and a
satnav.” The bike didn’t look promising, he’d watched mum and dad load the car
when they thought he was asleep and nothing like the shape of a bike appeared.
One of the boxes in the plastic bag might be a satnav though.

“A bike, that would be nice,”
agreed grandma. “Well, not long to wait now.”

“Ay, just three more days,”
said granddad.

Three days!
It sounded
forever.
Peter sipped his hot
chocolate. Granddad and grandma didn’t even have a television!

A log shifted in the fire and
clouds of sparks erupted like a volcano. The adults’ voices murmured over
Peter’s head and he stopped listening. He heard his name mentioned, how the new
school suited him better, that he tried hard to make friends, but it was all
grown-up talk that he didn’t want to hear. Then, with a jolt, his stomach
clenched and the dread that came with the wound-up feeling tightened. He
jumped, for during dinner all those feelings evaporated. Now they returned and
worse than before.

The wind buffeted the windows
and thick smears of snow slid down the glass. The fire flared and shot flames
up the chimney and every light in the room flickered. Shadows darted, some
towards the group sitting around the fire, others up the wall towards the dark
expanse of the ceiling.

Everything watched and
waited, just like he’d experienced when he arrived, because outside, in this
wild night, he knew that something approached the house. Peter gripped his mug
of hot chocolate and his fingers trembled.

His parents and grandparents
all turned towards the lights.

Grandma exclaimed. “Oh!
Please, don’t let there be a power cut.”

Dad groaned and mum covered
her mouth, which she did when worried.

The lights flickered, then
held, then flickered again. Granddad leaned forward and rested a hand on
Peter’s shoulder as he stood. “I’ll fetch a torch.”

Grandma stood too. “I’d
better hunt out some candles. Where did I put them, I wonder?”

The lights went out and the
room glowed red with firelight. Peter gripped his mug tighter. Then, dim at
first, the lights came on and the shadows retreated, except one, a silhouette
against the far wall. A girl, the same girl he’d seen in the upstairs window.
She held a candle and glided towards a distant corner. The lights brightened
and she evaporated. His heart thumped.
She moves around the house!

Peter pointed. “Did you...
it’s the...” when,
Bang, Bang, Bang!
Somebody pounded on the front door.

Bang, Bang, Bang!
went the echo through the old house.

Grandma’s hand went to her
chest. “Oh goodness gracious, whoever’s that?”

Dad frowned. “Someone at the
door in this weather?”

Granddad hesitated as he
listened. “Might be their car’s broken down.”

“That lane through the trees
will be lethal,” said dad. “Bloody fools to attempt it.”

Mum took charge and stood up
with a determined look. “Well, we can’t leave them to freeze on the doorstep.”
She strode down the passage and granddad hurried after.

Bang, Bang, Bang!

Grandma followed. “Take one
of those golf clubs from the umbrella stand. Just in case...”

Dad jumped up and Peter leapt
after him, no way did he want to be left on his own.

The family gathered at the
front door. Grandma brandished a wooden golf club and granddad drew the bolts
and turned the iron key in its lock. “Who is it?” he called. No reply and an
icy draught streamed under the door. Granddad twisted the iron ring and as the
door opened, the wind forced it against him and he staggered. A flurry of snow
blew into Peter’s face.

Granddad shouted. “Who is
it?”

He opened the door wider and
Peter squinted against the wind and the snow and peered into the dark.

A voice shouted from out of
the night. “About time too.”

Grandma gasped. “Almina?” She
braced herself against the wind and pushed the door wider. “Almina! What on
earth are you doing out there? Come in, come in.”

Through the door, blown in by
the stormy weather, strode a figure swathed in an enormous red cape which
billowed like the sails of a ship. Two long scarves sparkled with sequins and a
large dark blue hat with a wide brim concealed her face. Light brown leather
gloves protected her hands and she pulled behind her a black and yellow tartan
suitcase on wheels.

“I thought I’d freeze to
death.” The deep voice bounced off the walls. “I’ve walked all the way from the
lane.”

Granddad shut the door and
bolted it. “Thank goodness you made it.”

“The lane?” Grandma took the
suitcase. “Oh, Almina! Why on earth didn’t you ring? I wasn’t expecting you
until tomorrow.”

Almina unclasped her cape and
with a flourish as extravagant as any magician’s, swept it from her shoulders.
“The forecast looks bad. The trains are just about running, but by tomorrow,
judging from past experience, they’ll be quite hopeless.” She took hold of the
brim and peeled the hat from her head. “Bad weather and public transport do not
good bedfellows make.”

Peter didn’t think he’d ever
seen so much make-up on a woman’s face. Or so many colours. Orange lipstick,
dark green between the eyelids and eyebrows, thick black rings around the eyes
and a rosy red that bloomed on her cheeks.