Games for Winter

by

Ann Cleeves

 

He flew into Stillwater in late January at sunrise on a clear day, so his first view was of flame coloured mountains and forests heavy with snow and tinged with pink. There was no wind and the ride in the small plane from Juneau was as smooth as sailing on a lake. Although in Summer there was a boat every week, in Winter flying was the only way in. Stillwater was as remote as any island.

They touched down earlier than the schedule and there was no one to meet him. The pilot lifted down his bags onto the runway, then got back into the plane and took off. Mark watched it until it flew away over the horizon. It was very cold standing there, and brilliantly clear. No noise, not even birdsong. The runway and a couple of huts and one road running off into the woods. A backdrop of mountain. The blinding light reflected from the ice, and sharp black shadows.

A dog barked and a woman bundled in a parka which made her look as fat as she was tall came out of the closest hut.

'Hi, there.' The dog had followed her and was dancing around her legs. 'You're the new teacher.' Close to, he saw she was middle-aged but striking. Red hair under the hood, a wide Cheshire cat mouth.

'Yes,' he said, aware of how English his voice was, thought that even one word sounded clipped and pompous. 'Mark. Mark Arden.'

'Well, hi, Mark. Pleased to meet you. Sally-Ann Larson. My daughter's in eleventh grade. Let's go into my office and I'll get you some coffee then phone around and find out what's happened to your ride. Welcome to Alaska.'

He met Sally-Ann's daughter the next day in school. She was sitting on the front row in the class for the older students. The school took children from kindergarten through High School. There were forty of them all together, three full time teachers. Mark was an extra, part of a cultural exchange programme. Usually he taught in an inner city comprehensive in Newcastle, not very far from the suburb where he'd been brought up. He was twenty six and needed a challenge. There'd recently been a messy separation from the girlfriend he'd had since college.

Beth Larson was sixteen, blonde and freckled, though as she stood to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, her feet apart, her hand on her heart, she looked so earnest that he thought she seemed younger. She had the same wide mouth as her mother. As they sat down he saw a moose in the school yard, grazing leaves from a nearby tree. It shook its head and the loose skin, which hung like a collar round its neck, moved too. The kids took no notice.

He asked them to introduce themselves in a piece of writing, 'as if you were introducing the characters in a story.' When they read out their work he thought how different they were from the students he'd taught at home. One boy boasted about his skill with tractors, another described a summer fishing trip. Beth placed herself in the kitchen at home helping her mother baking for her father's birthday party. He works most of the week in Anchorage, she wrote, so it's always special when he comes home.

Mark thought it was as if he'd gone back in time. These children seemed to belong to his grandparents' generation. In some respects, however, the settlement's philosophy was surprisingly contemporary, liberal. He'd expected a backward community. Red neck. Hunting and shooting and isolationist. But many of the residents of Stillwater had moved there from the city because they were looking for a better way of living. They were idealists, who'd cleared a patch in the forest and built a house out of logs for themselves and their families. They cared about their community and their environment. In the dark winter evenings they attended book groups and nature groups. They watched arty films in the school hall and put on plays. They didn't bother much with the television because the reception was poor and anyway most of it was trash, but many did listen to the World Service on the BBC.

In the summer, he supposed it would be different. Then tourists came to camp in the National Park and took boat trips into the bay to see the wildlife. The hotel would open again. But in the dark nights of winter the people of Stillwater made their own entertainment.

Mark lived with Jerry Brown, a young man from Seattle who worked as a ranger in the National Park. They shared a little house which was reached by a track through the trees. It had a porch looking over a bit of cleared meadow to a frozen stream. Jerry had moved to the community two years before and adored it. He said it was the only ethical way to live. He had a share in the Larsons' cow and took his turn at milking her. He led the conservation group. At home he was relaxed and friendly. He liked to drink beer and smoke a little dope, play very loud rock music. After all, he said, there was no one to disturb. Only the bears and it was probably a good thing to discourage them. He seemed to Mark to be as naïve and friendly as the children.

Mark walked to and from school, unless there was heavy snow. He enjoyed the exercise, the sting of the cold against his face and in his lungs. One afternoon he walked home and stopped by the jetty to look over the bay to watch the setting sun on the glacier. Cormorants stood on the wooden railing. The lights were coming on in the scattered homesteads on the opposite shore. Despite the cold, he must have stood there longer than he'd realised, because when he turned away from the view to continue, he saw it was almost dark. There were stars and a moon like a thin, tilted smile. Someone was walking down the straight road towards him. It was Beth Larson. She stood beside him, looked out at the jetty.

'We swim from there in the summer.'

He felt uncomfortable being there with her. She was standing very close, whispering almost into his ear.

'It must be cold.' He knew he sounded ridiculous and stamped his feet to cover his embarrassment. The temperature had dropped as the light went.

'Sometimes we go skinny dipping…'

He imagined her in the summer sunshine, with her gold hair and gold skin, flashing like a fish through the water.

'You should get home,' he said. 'Your mother will be expecting you.'

'She's visiting Mary Slater. You know how they talk. She won't be home for an hour. The house is empty. Come back. You could help me with my school work.' Though her voice made it clear that wasn't at all what she had in mind.

He actually considered it for a moment. He wondered later what had stopped him and decided it had nothing to do with ethics. A fear of being caught.

'No,' he said. 'I don't think that's a terribly good idea.'

'You will,' she said. 'By the end of the winter when the boredom's set in, you'll be begging me by then. Only I might have changed my mind.'

Then she ran off, her boots making only a rustling sound in the new snow. She disappeared into the darkness and he could make himself believe that the encounter had been a figment of his imagination. Back at the house Jerry was caring for an injured surfbird, he'd picked up from the shore. He had put it in a cardboard box and was feeding it pilchards from a tin. Mark would have liked to ask his advice about Beth Larson, but he seemed engrossed in his task and the moment never seemed to arise. Although Mark's students in Newcastle had been precocious, none of them had propositioned him, and he told himself he must have misinterpreted what had occurred.

That night he dreamed of Beth Larson. In the dream it was summer and he was swimming with her. She rose out of the bay, pulling herself up onto the jetty and water dripped from her hair and ran over her body. He was about to reach out and touch her when he woke. In class the next day she was sitting in the front as usual, serious and polite. He found it hard not to look at her, to remember that she had been available to him. He lost himself in daydreams.

The following weekend it was Valentine's Day and all the community came together for a pooled supper and party. All the adults at least. The kids weren't invited. The food was supposed to have an erotic theme and they'd had fun with hot dogs and mounds of rice curved like breasts and strangely shaped fruit and vegetables. All very innocent, no doubt, but Mark felt uneasy. The evening wasn't what he'd expected. He had thought these people would lead simple and unsophisticated lives, had imagined himself even as a missionary from civilised world. But even though they wore jeans and hand knitted sweaters and thick woollen socks they talked about artists and writers who were only names to him. They made him feel like the country cousin, gauche and uneducated.

It didn't help that he found it hard to concentrate on the conversation. They were talking about a student, who'd drowned in a boating accident. It was almost exactly a year since his death. The water had been so cold, they said, that he'd had no chance to survive. The shock would have killed him in seconds. Jerry, who was there too, made little effort to join in. He sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, a can of beer in his hand, watching them. Even in this setting he was a scientist. Mark did try to take part in the discussion, but the party was being held in the Larson house and he was distracted. He imagined Beth upstairs in her room. When the heating pipes gurgled, he pictured her taking a shower, the water trickling over her shoulders into the tub. There was no water pressure in any of the houses in Stillwater so it would dribble slowly, across her belly and between her legs. Finally he made his apologies and left. Jerry offered to drive him, but Mark said he preferred to walk.

Outside the cold took his breath away and he stood for a moment gasping, snorting out a white vapour through his nose. The stars were hidden by cloud and there were occasional flurries of snow. The lights from the house saw him through the trees to the road and then he switched on his torch. There was no sound except for the squeaking of his feet on the compacted snow, and that seemed very far away because of the fur hat pulled over his ears. He walked on, past the school and the gas station. Everywhere was in darkness. He was approaching the turn off, the track which led to Jerry's house when he heard the sound behind him, a roar which made him think of an avalanche or water released from a dam. Here, surrounded by trees, it didn't occur to him in that first second that the noise might be man-made.

Then he realised that it was the sound of an engine being revved very hard, revved to screaming point. Head lights flashed through the trees. In the dual beams he saw that it was snowing more heavily now. He jumped off the track into the trees just in time as a white pick-up screeched past. He had stepped into a drift and the snow had gone over his boots and inside his socks. He was climbing out when the pitch of the engine changed and the headlights were turned again towards him. The truck only paused for a moment, then roared back down the road, the way it had come, spraying loose snow from the wheels, sliding when the driver touched the brakes to round a corner. Mark could not tell whether or not he'd been seen. He had the ridiculous thought that he might have been a target.

At school on Monday, he called Dan Slater back after class. The Slaters were the only family in the community to have a white pick-up and the parents had been at the Valentine party. Outside the other kids were standing around in the yard. That was unusual. It was too cold, even in daylight, just to hang out. Their presence unnerved Mark, though they couldn't possibly hear what he was saying. Dan was fourteen, very young for his age. He had problems with simple reading and writing. At home they would have said he had special needs.

'Were you driving your father's truck on Saturday night?'

Dan blinked, looked out of the window, stared at the ceiling.

'Sure,' he said. 'He lets me.'

'You were driving very fast. You could have hurt yourself.'

Outside the kids seemed to lose interest. They were starting to drift away. Mark felt more confident. He'd worked with dozens of students like Dan. He spoke gently. 'Weren't you scared, driving like that? What made you do it? It wasn't a race.'

'Not a race, no. Sometimes we race. But not last time.'

'What then?'

'It was a game.'

'What sort of game?'

'I guess it was a dare.'

'Who dared you, Dan?'

But Dan wasn't prepared to talk any more. He pulled the strange, little boy faces he made when he was concentrating in class, shuffled his feet and stared out of the window. Finally, Mark let him go.

When Mark got home Beth was waiting for him. They never locked the door and she was inside the kitchen, sitting on the rocker in front of the stove, moving backwards and forwards. He'd been surprised to see smoke coming from the chimney as he'd approached, had thought Jerry must be back earlier than usual from work. She'd taken off her boots and her outdoor clothes, put a cassette into the recorder. When he opened the door she stood up. She'd changed from the clothes she'd been wearing in school. Her jersey had a slash neck and was very tight. Her jeans could have been sprayed on.

'I thought I'd give you a second chance,' she said. 'I've seen the way you've been looking at me in class.'

He stooped to unlace his boots. He knew he should make a light hearted remark and send her on her way. Nothing too heavy. He had to live here for the rest of the year. He couldn't afford to upset her or her parents. But he was flattered too. Excited. She walked towards him, moving her hips in time with the music and she grinned, thinking in his moment of indecision, that she had him hooked.

'Is this a dare too?' he asked.

'What do you mean?'

'Like Dan stealing his father's pick-up and racing round the tracks.'

She didn't answer.

'You do know Dan could have killed himself?'

She began to struggle into her coat. Although the grin seemed fixed to her face, there were tears on her cheeks. She tried to push past him, but he stood with his back against the door, pressing it shut. He took her by the shoulders, felt the bones under her thick coat, remembered other bones, another woman. He whispered into her ear, as she had whispered to him on the jetty, and his voice was seductive too. 'Just how far would you have been prepared to go, Beth? What exactly did they dare you to do?'

'Nothing,' she said. 'It was just a game.' She scrambled out of his grasp and he let her go, feeling suddenly ashamed. The last of the sun caught her hair as she ran away down the track.

That night he dreamed of her again. In the morning her school desk was empty.

'Does anyone know where Beth is, today?' he said, looking around the classroom. They stared back at him, challenging him to ask more. Whatever game was being played, they were all in on it.

'Her mother phoned in to say she's sick.' It was Peter, the boy who knew about tractors. He was thick set and sullen and Mark had come to the conclusion that he knew little about anything else.

'Who told you that?'

Peter shrugged, not caring whether or not he was believed.

While the children were eating their lunch, Mark went to the Larson house. Sally-Ann would be working in the booking office on the airstrip and Beth's father was in Anchorage. On his way there he wondered why he was going. Was he looking for an excuse to see Beth on her own? He decided he was worried about her, though what on earth did he think could have happened to the girl?

He found her outside. She was in an open sided barn splitting logs with an axe. Mark watched her from the yard. The axe was heavy, and she struggled to lift it, but her aim was exact and the blow was powerful. He thought how strong she must be, stronger than him. The wood split with one go and the splinters scattered, bouncing on the concrete floor. He could smell the resin from where he stood.

'I thought you were sick,' he said. He waited until she was resting. He didn't want to scare her while she had the axe in the air. It would have been easy to cause an accident.

She didn't bother replying.

'Tell me about these games,' he said.

'Why?' Her voice was bitter. 'Do you want to play too?'

'I want to understand.'

'It's winter,' she said. 'Boring. We have to do something.'

'It has to stop. Someone will get hurt. Tell them. If it doesn't stop, I go to the principal. And to your parents.'

She turned angrily to face him, allowing the axe to crash to the floor.

'People have already been hurt,' she said. 'They won't stop.'

But the next day she was back in school and he thought he'd handled the situation well. She'd have passed on the message to her friends. There would be no more foolishness.

He stayed at school late that evening for a staff meeting, and then to prepare a lesson for the following day. He was the last to leave the building and it was already dark, though there was enough of a moon for him to follow the road. Past the gas station, Jerry's was the only house. There had been a slight thaw and he'd been aware all day of the sound of melting snow dripping from roofs and trees. Now it had started to freeze again but he felt as if he was being followed by the same persistent sound. He stopped once and still it seemed to be there, coming from the trees on either side of the road. When he shone his torch there were strings of icicles on each branch, quite frozen. It began to unnerve him and he wondered if it wasn't water after all, but the scratching of animals in the forest. There were brown bears. Everyone had stories about them, stealing food from outhouses, staring in through windows. They were only dangerous, people said, if they were cornered. He had never quite believed that. He walked more quickly. The sounds came nearer, gathering around him, closing him in.

Close to the turn off to Jerry's house, panic made him stumble. As he pulled himself to his feet, he swung the torch behind him and saw two figures on the road. They were wrapped in coats and hoods so he couldn't tell who they were. Each had a stave in one hand, a piece of wood as thick and solid as Beth's axe handle. They banged the sticks in rhythm on the frozen path.

'Hi!' he called, relieved at first to have company. 'Who is it?' But before he had finished speaking he had realised that they weren't there to help him. He turned to continue on his way, but another moving shape had appeared on the road ahead of him, blocking his path. For a moment the scarf he was wearing slipped and Mark recognised Peter, the tractor driver.

More figures approached, moving through the forest. He circled, shining the torch crazily around him, catching glimpses of them, hooded like ghosts. The noise they made didn't come from the natural sound of footsteps or crackling undergrowth. Each held a stick which he knocked against tree trunk or branch, disturbing the snow lying there and shattering icicles. It formed a strange percussion, at once hollow and brittle, which grew louder and louder. Mark jumped from the road into the trees and started running, sucking in the icy air in huge, howling gasps.

Roots tangled about his legs. The ground was uneven. There were frozen pools and outcrops of rock. Branches whipped into his face and upper body. And always he was aware of the noise around him and behind him. At last, when he was too exhausted to continue he curled into a ball behind a pile of dead undergrowth. His muscles twitched from the exertion and he was still wheezing, but he forced himself to stay silent. He listened.

The dull thud of wood against bark had stopped. There were footsteps but they seemed to be dying away. Desultory scraps of conversation grew more distant. Someone laughed. It seemed that the game was over. It was too cold and uncomfortable for them. They'd had their amusement. They'd go home to a wholesome supper, an evening of television or computer games. And in the morning they'd sit at their desks daring him to speak of what had happened. He'd over reacted of course, which was just what they'd wanted. He'd made a fool of himself. He had believed that they meant to hurt him. He wasn't sure he could forgive them. Especially, he thought, Beth had betrayed him. She would have to pay for his humiliation.

Although it had seemed as if he'd been running for miles, he saw, when he could think more clearly, that he wasn't far from home. There was a faint light at the end of a clearing which must be their house. If he'd not panicked he could easily have made it back to safety before the children caught him up. Jerry would be cooking. He'd promised potato pancakes with apple sauce. It was the night, Mark thought, to open that bottle of Scotch he'd brought with him. What a sight he must look, all scratched and bruised. He began rehearsing a story of the incident in his head. How could he explain it? As a joke at his own expense, perhaps. The rookie Brit teacher spooked by a bunch of kids.

They were all waiting for him in the house. He didn't realise until he'd pushed open the door and by then it was too late. Peter came round behind him and wedged it shut. They were sat on the floor round the walls, the sticks and baseball bats propped beside them. They had all kept very quiet, like the guests at a surprise party. He wondered if there had been the same nervous giggling. Now nobody laughed. They looked up at him and stared.

'Come on, kids,' he said. 'This is a joke, right?'

'Not a joke,' Beth replied sternly. 'A dare.'

'You should go. Jerry will be here any minute.'

'I'm here already,' Jerry said. He slipped out from the bedroom. He looked as he always did when he got in from work. Relaxed and gentle. He wore a plaid shirt and jeans and held a can of beer in his hand. 'It's my dare. I mean, I get bored in winter too.'

'You dared them to frighten me off?'

'Oh no,' he said. 'They dared me. To get rid of you. Without too much fuss. Before you could tell anyone about our games.' He looked around at the staring children. 'What shall it be, guys? A boating accident like last time? Or something more imaginative?'

The children picked up the sticks and began to batter them, the same rhythm over and over again, against the wooden floor.

END