(Amos 8:10)
By late afternoon on Christmas Eve, the heat in the kitchen is so unbearable Tirzah’s mother opens the back door a little. Oh, that’s lovely, she says, sniffing the chill, and fanning her face with an oven glove. Just for five minutes, and then we’ll close it again. Gusts of icy snow skitter across the tiles, bringing with them freezing swathes that briefly carve gaps in the kitchen’s savoury warmth. Her father is asleep by the gas fire in the front room, his open mouth like a bashed-in bucket rim. Every so often he lets out a throaty snort. Her mother has worn him out this year with her chattering about festive decorations. All right, all right, I give up, he’d said. This tree business is the final straw! I am a lone voice, crying in the wilderness. Yes, you are, Gwyll, her mother answered from atop the stool in the hallway. Now pass me some drawing pins, thou poor, ignored prophet of doom. Tirzah thought he didn’t look too unhappy, though it was difficult to tell with Dada. He’s been going around, pretending to bang into the decorations, knocking cards off surfaces, just to make his point. But Tirzah and her mother pick them back up and don’t say a word. Now that all the work is done, they have put on tidy clothes and wait for the visitors to arrive.
The dining table is laid for a special supper; there are seven red candles. It’s like Sunday, but better, with the holly boughs over the frames in the hall, paper garlands radiating out from the central lampshade in the dining room, and on its own little table in the front room, the sparkling tree. Tirzah quietly walks past her father and sneaks behind the curtains, worrying her grandparents will not make it. Putting both hands to the sides of her forehead, she presses against the frosted window, belly resting on the windowsill. Outside, around the glowing halo of the street lamp, snow masses like a swarm of flies. There is only a narrow walkway down the middle of the street now; on either side, solid, mauve-shadowed white piles rise to well over elbow-height. The space between the window and the curtains is a cold hinterland, and Tirzah feels like Jane Eyre, hiding behind the curtain at Gateshead House: neither inside the room nor outside, halfway between two worlds and not part of either. Gradually, shapes firm up through the teeming flakes, and Tirzah lets out a little scream, waking her father. It’s them! she shouts. And she and her mother run to open the front door. Come in out of the weather, both, her mother calls, grabbing their arms and pulling them in as if they were drowning.
Her grandparents’ coat fronts are white, and only their eyes visible in the gaps between scarves and pulled-down hats. They need help to get things off. Now, into the front room with you, her mother says, make yourselves comfortable. Tirzah kneels and helps both of them put their slippers on. Gran has scarlet cheeks and a white nose. You poor thing, Tirzah says, touching it, your hooter is frozen. Nothing that a little mouthful of my famous pick-me-up won’t cure, Gran says, winking, and she pulls a bottle of purply-black liquid from one of her carrier bags. Tirzah’s father gives a sniff and folds his arms. Come now, my boy, Bampy says. It won’t hurt you to have a swig of seasonal cheer. Soon they are all sipping the sloe gin’s dark sweetness from stubby, gold-lipped glasses that Tirzah’s mother keeps in the display cabinet. Made this myself, Gran says. Last year was a good one for sloes. When Tirzah goes out to the kitchen to fetch a bowl of crisps, pools of melted water already surround the two pairs of boots, and the sodden coats are steaming on the airer.
After supper, Dada distributes carol sheets and they all sing while Bampy plays the piano. Tirzah looks around at her family, and thinks about the houses lined along the valley sides and the serious, silent mountains above them, all slowly disappearing under a layer of glimmering white. Her heart thuds, and she stops singing. Brân is somewhere out there. Or maybe he has gone home to his mother. But just as quickly as that thought lights up, it falls to earth. She cannot imagine the mottled woman who had slammed the door on her and Biddy welcoming Brân back after all this time. At least Biddy had agreed to trudge over the fields with two hot-water bottles. The woods were silent, she’d reported, but there’d been a smell of smoke in the air when she’d dropped the bag in the clearing. Surely that was a good sign? Now they are singing In the Bleak Midwinter, her mother’s favourite carol, and Tirzah cannot stand it any longer. She slips out as they harmoniously sing the bit about earth standing hard as iron, water like a stone. By the time she is in bed, she is so cold herself that it’s impossible to push her feet down between the rigid sheets. An uncomfortable pressure is building between her legs. Her mother comes in to say goodnight. I cannot find the hot-water bottles anywhere, she says. Have you seen them? No, Mam, Tirzah answers. I haven’t.
On Christmas morning, Gran comes in with a tray. Wakey, wakey, festive greetings! she calls. It’s a splendid day, if a bit nippy. Tirzah stirs. Is it still snowing? she asks. Gran opens the curtains. Tirzah sees a wan sky and a tiny, weak sun like a punched-out hole adrift over the houses. The temperature is dropping, Gran says. I predict more later. Tirzah falls back on the pillows, reluctant to move. By the time she gets up, her parents have already gone to Horeb for the Christmas morning service and her grandparents are busy peeling vegetables in the kitchen. She offers to help but is told to sit down and put her feet up, so she parks herself at the table and waits for the rest of the family to come home. At dinner time, Dada brings the Christmas chicken to the dining table. God bless, he says, and smiles around at them all. Tirzah has a portion of everything on offer, but her best things are sage and onion stuffing and the little golden sausages. Those, and gravy. This is lovely, Mair, Granny says. Well done. And everyone joins in until Tirzah’s mother is blushing all down her neck. While they wait for Christmas pudding, they pull their crackers. Bampy puts his paper hat on upside down and pretends not to notice, and as a surge of laughter goes up from around the table, Tirzah suddenly shivers. In her mind’s eye, an image of Brân has appeared. Briefly she meets Biddy’s gaze, but then the picture of Brân reasserts itself. He is walking through the white village, his footsteps bloody and his head crowned with snow. She sees him looking in through the lighted windows, and rubs her eyes, trying to clear them, but he is still there, moving from house to house.
Excuse me, Tirzah says, and leaves the table. In the chilly hallway, Biddy joins her. Are you feeling poorly? she asks. But Tirzah shakes her head. She grips Biddy’s hand. I have a feeling he is out there, she whispers, pointing to the street. In the snow. Who’s out there? Biddy asks. What are you talking about? You’re scaring me. Tirzah moves to the front door, but does not open it. Biddy comes close. Do you want me to look into the street? she asks. Tirzah nods. The girls look at each other for a moment, then Biddy opens the door and glances up and down, peering through the swirling snow. No one is out there, she says firmly, and comes inside, drawing snowy gusts with her. Look again, Tirzah says. No, Biddy answers. You imagined it all. Stop it. And she leads Tirzah back to the table. Tirzah puts her party hat back on, but her Christmas pudding has the texture of gravel, and all she can think about is the picture of Brân in tatters, stumbling past the house, trying to find her.