14

Winter Comes

The next months slowly drifted by, without any more news from Mr Turner. The first winter storms came rolling in with gales and rain. The rain was followed by snow, which covered the hills and fields in a beautiful, soft, white, deadly blanket. The sea was grey and angry. White froths of sea-foam were whipped through the air, up and over the cliffs, looking like a flock of sea birds tossed about by the wind.

Melanie was now a regular visitor at Alfie’s home. She and Alfie would sit and listen to music, do homework, and talk to Alfie’s mum when she was awake. They’d go for walks in the gales, leaning forward into the wind and rain, laughing as they had to hold on to each other not to be blown away, and in the evenings, read books by the warmth of a crackling fire of holly tree logs, that burned with a clear bright flame. Much to Alfie’s relief, but total embarrassment, his mother would sometimes regain consciousness for a few minutes to tell Melanie stories of when Alfie was a baby.

“Have I told you the time that Alfie dressed up as a wizard, and would pretend to fly around the house…?”

But lately she’d begin a story and then lose her train of thought, asking them to remind her what she had just said. She rarely woke up for long, now, and if Alfie was there, she’d want to hold his hand and tell him how she wanted so very much for him to be happy.

“Don’t worry, I am, Mum…” he always reassured her, “of course I am.”

The doctor’s visits had been frequent when they had first moved in, but now they had stopped altogether. “They want to treat her in hospital,” his dad had said, “but she doesn’t want to leave here, she’s afraid she might never come back.” He’d turned away quickly, and cleared his throat, trying to hide his emotion.

Christmas came and went, all tasty foods, crackling fires, cinnamon smells, tinsel, repeats on telly, fairy lights and wrapping paper, but the happiness was muted. One night, the local news carried a story about a break-in at Bangor Cathedral library. Some old books once belonging to St Deiniol had been damaged, pages torn out and stolen. Alfie knew the gang was still at large.

The New Year had brought a strange, new silence to the house. Gone were the cheery hellos on his return from school, no dad jokes anymore, and the house was starting to get untidy, and the snow had changed to rain, then heavy frost. A leak had started to drip into Alfie’s room through his ceiling roof, with a regular “plink, plop, plink” into a plastic bucket, put there by his dad. One of the roof slates was missing, and the guttering was overflowing, clogged by old leaves, creating a brown stain that streaked down the side of the wall outside into a small pool at the base of the wall. The paint on the front door was flaking off, revealing an old grey undercoat and plants had started to grow up against the windows, their stems tapping like thin, bony fingers on the glass panes in the wind.

There was no cheerful call to breakfast, either. Alfie would traipse downstairs and help himself to some cereal and a glass of water while his dad would sit in a chair by the radiator in the kitchen, hunched and almost motionless, only occasionally looking across to Alfie and giving him a weak smile if their eyes happened to meet. He was now watching his dad shrink in front of his eyes. Mr King had moved from being a carer, to being cared for, in just a few months.

“I’ve left you cold pizza and some tomatoes in the fridge for your lunch, Dad,” said Alfie, “…and don’t forget Mum’s protein shake at 12.00. I’ll be back at 3.00 but text me if you need me to pick up anything special.” Just as he was going out of the door, he looked back, turned and softly said, “Dad… Mum would want you to try and carry on as normal… maybe… getting dressed today would be a good idea. Mum might notice…” His dad waved a hand but didn’t turn to look. “Bye, Dad…”

It was bitterly cold today, a scattering of snow lay thin on the ground, but at least the wind had dropped. As he walked the familiar route to school, familiar thoughts ran through his mind. He was worried about his dad, he was worried that he’d started to talk as if his mum had died. He felt troubled, anxious and wasn’t sure what he should do or even what he might get back home to.

Suddenly, there in front of him, on the frosted field, was a large white hare. He stopped dead. It didn’t move. It was crouched down flat in a hollow, its beautiful, soft, white fur blending in with the sparkling hoar frost on each blade of grass. Its sapphire blue eyes held no fear and had captured his gaze. In the cold, still air, his own breath silently seeped from his nose, and slowly drifted up around his head in thin wisps of steam. The hare’s nostrils opened slightly and the tiniest puff of steam issued from them, perhaps in sympathy. The two of them looked at each other, two creatures alone in the soundless and peaceful icy white landscape, a moment when time stood still, just for a little while, no longer a human outsider, but accepted by the wild world.

After a minute, Alfie spoke. “Are you cold?”

The hare stared back, still unblinking, unmoving.

Alfie gave a sad half-smile, and whispered, “What are you…?”

As if responding to the question, the hare moved up into a sitting position, flicked its long ears, and unexpectedly loped towards him, just a few steps. There was a distant noise of a car on the road nearby, and Alfie instinctively turned around to see where it was, and when he looked back, the hare had gone. He scanned around quickly, hoping to see it running or if it had moved to another furrow, but there was no sign, even the furrow it had been lying in lay untouched, no frosted blade bent or broken. Even more curiously, though, he felt better, lighter, even a bit more hopeful than he had before. Strange, he thought, shrugged and walked on.