In the morning the snow was two inches deep. The leaves of the rose bushes, which the boy had put down next to the freshly turned soil, were white.
‘I have to go to Caernarfon,’ she said after breakfast. As usual, Bradwen had eaten a lot. The coffee was just ready.
‘What are we doing there?’
‘Me.’
‘What are you doing there?’
‘None of your business.’
‘Do I need to drive?’ He tried not to look hurt.
‘No.’
He didn’t say anything else.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘What do I do?’
‘Please yourself. Maybe you should call your parents for once.’
He sniffed and gestured over one shoulder with a thumb at the staircase on the other side of the wall. ‘Thanks for washing my clothes.’
She lit a cigarette. ‘Light the stove in the living room and make a fire in your bedroom too if you like.’
‘There’s not much wood left.’
‘When it’s gone, it’s gone.’
‘Shall I decorate the Christmas tree?’
‘If you like.’
‘Where?’
She glanced around the kitchen. There was an empty corner next to the sideboard. She gestured with the cigarette. ‘There?’
‘That’s a good spot. Then we’ll see it from the living room too. What shall I put it in?’
She didn’t look at him. She couldn’t look at him. What do you put a Christmas tree with roots in? She stubbed out the cigarette. ‘There might be something in the pigsty or out the back. I don’t know.’
‘I’ll find something,’ the boy said.
The dog scrambled to its feet, walked over to her and began to lick her hand. She started to cry.
The boy didn’t get up. ‘There’s no need to cry,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why you’re crying, and if I asked, you’d only say “ach” and that wouldn’t get us anywhere. But there’s no need to cry.’
‘No,’ she said, sniffing.
‘When you get back from Caernarfon, from whatever it is you have to do there, the Christmas tree will be done and the stove will be lit in the living room. I’m going to Waunfawr in a bit, so there’ll be fresh bread too. Not that you’re bothered about eating, but it will be here. And I’m not going to ring my parents. I’m not going to ring anyone, because I’m here now. This afternoon at quarter past five, you’ll sit on the sofa and turn the telly on and watch Escape to the Country, and while you’re doing that, I’ll cook. Fish. You’ll eat it and drink two or three glasses of wine to go with it and maybe after tea we’ll plan a garden together or watch a film. The BBC always show great films around Christmas. Afterwards you’ll go to bed. If you like, I’ll light a fire in your bedroom an hour beforehand. I can take the car and trailer and go for new wood any time I like. I can even pay for it. Sam and I will be sleeping two doors along. We’re here. We’re waiting for the lamb that farmer, Rhys Jones, promised you.’
She sat down. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The lamb. He was here yesterday.’
‘I saw.’
‘He brought hay for the sheep.’
‘I saw that too.’
‘I keep thinking you’re a gymnast.’
‘What?’
‘The kind that does floor exercises.’
‘That’s a first.’
‘When you walk, when you sit, when you’re sawing or digging.’ She went to light another cigarette, but didn’t, because then she would have had to smoke it and all she wanted to do was have a bath. To have a bath, then leave. She stood up. ‘You say “we” a lot,’ she said.
‘That’s because we’re here together.’
‘I think that’s what made me cry.’
‘Liar.’
‘Yes.’ She left the kitchen. In the bathroom she pressed the last three paracetamol out of the strip and took them with a couple of mouthfuls of cold water.
*
She drove very slowly; the narrow roads weren’t gritted and she kept a tight grip on the steering wheel going downhill. The dual carriageway to Caernarfon was gritted, but here, too, the few cars she saw were crawling along, as if everyone expected it to start snowing again at any moment. I mustn’t bask in the security, she thought. Curling up by the stove. Allowing him to take charge. Letting the dog lick my hand. She pulled over in a lay-by and got out of the car without putting on her coat. She dragged herself over a fence, walked a good distance through the snow, then turned round. She looked at her footsteps, she looked at the car, she shivered. This is it, she thought. This is the situation. Her shoes were wet, her toes cold. An empty car by the side of the road, bare trees, hills, cold. A badger that no longer appears; standing in a pond with water up to my waist, no heavy objects in my pockets. The smell of an old woman in my body. This is it. This is the situation.