The Ice Palace (13 page)

‘Oh, there’s plenty of time. I shan’t go until it gets quite dark. And the twilight doesn’t come so early any more.’

‘I’ll go at once.’

‘You must say we’ll be late,’ said Auntie, ‘but there’s no need to be nervous.’

Siss felt quite solemn as she walked home. She and Auntie were going for a walk. It would be no ordinary walk.

‘We shall be late,’ said Siss at home when she was ready to go. ‘She said I was to tell you.’

‘Yes, that’s all right,’ they both answered with alacrity.

Siss knew perfectly well why they were so agreeable.
Anything she could find to do was welcomed at this time, even if it was no more than an evening walk with someone else. She had brought them to this pass.

She thought about it all the way back to Auntie.

Auntie was not ready.

‘There’s no haste,’ she said. ‘We shan’t go before it gets dark. We want to be on our own. This isn’t anyone else’s business.’

Siss was happy and excited, and it was all mixed up with the sadness of departure. Auntie was busy packing and tidying things. Siss helped her as far as she could – but most of it was already finished. The sitting-room was stripped and bare, cheerless, and much larger than before.

The door to the bedroom had not been left open. That was a good thing.

‘I expect you’d like to look in?’

‘No.’

‘No, there’s no point. There’s not a scrap left.’

‘I’m sorry, I think I will after all.’

She looked in. There was not a scrap left. Such things are odd and make you feel insecure.

Now they could go; it was getting dark.

The spring was clearly on its way. You felt it when you stepped out of a house: the soft air, and the snow that had a spring smell about it. But the snow still lay compactly everywhere. The sky was hung with low-lying cloud, the evening mild and dark. You could walk as slowly as you liked in that kind of weather. It was just as it should be, and they walked along slowly for a good while without exchanging a word.

The landscape around them was indistinct. Indistinctly
the houses stood aside for them. Lights shone out. Siss made no sound. Auntie was taking her farewell walk. Tomorrow she would not be here.

She’ll probably say something shortly.

The winter-spring evening transformed the landscape into a hazy, shifting pattern that passed their eyes in slow movement, a wall slowly pacing beside them. The shimmer of the snow made walking easy. Across the imperfect screen of their eyes there glided tall trees that seemed to stretch out their arms in admonition; and pitch-black, stooping-shouldered rocks, moving like clenched fists towards their foreheads.

This was Auntie’s farewell. She was not visiting anybody. She had not had very much to do with other people while she lived here. She had been a friendly stranger who bothered no one and who preferred to manage on her own. But when misfortune had struck and the child was lost, everyone had volunteered their help. Now Siss watched while Auntie said goodbye in her own way.

So they walked in silence for a long time. But it was not only a farewell. Siss was waiting – and the moment came. Auntie stopped on the road and said in a tone of voice that was almost embarrassed: ‘Siss, I didn’t ask you to come
just
to have company.’

Siss answered quietly, ‘I didn’t think you had.’

‘What is this to be, then? How I wish it were over. No, I don’t really, but still …’

Auntie began walking along the snow-hushed road, in the raw air. Her voice was raw, too, when she spoke again.

‘I may live alone, but people tell me one thing and another. I meet them here and there,’ said Auntie. ‘And I know you’ve had a hard and difficult winter.’

She stopped, as if to give Siss time.

I shan’t, thought Siss, preparing to be on the defensive. ‘I’ve heard that you’ve cut yourself off from your school friends and even from your parents to a certain extent.’

Siss said quickly, ‘I made a promise.’

‘Yes, I realized it must have been something of the sort – and I suppose I ought to be grateful to you, for the sake of kinship, so to speak. I don’t want you to tell me any more about it. But you mustn’t promise so much that you destroy yourself, especially when there’s no point in it any more.’

Siss said nothing and tried to understand what Auntie was driving at. She was not listening unwillingly.

‘You’ve been ill,’ said Auntie.

‘They went on so until I couldn’t stand it any more! About something I couldn’t tell them. Over and over again -’

‘Yes, yes, I know. You must remember it was at the very beginning when everything had to be tried in order to find some trace. I was in such straits that I tried as well, you know. We none of us realized that it was too hard on you.’

‘They’ve stopped now.’

‘Yes, they put a stop to it in the end, when things began to go wrong.’

Siss stared at Auntie’s vague outline. ‘Put a stop to it?’

‘Yes. You say they’ve stopped. I don’t suppose you’ve heard anyone mention the disaster for a long time now. To you, I mean. The doctor who came to see you put a stop to it. They’ve had it rubbed into them at school, too.’

This was a complete surprise to Siss. She scarcely managed to say, ‘
What?’

It was a good thing they could not see each other’s faces clearly, she thought. Then they could not have talked about it. Auntie had chosen the right time for telling her.

‘They took a serious view of it, as you know. You were very depressed. It’s best for me to tell you, since I’m going away. I think you ought to know.’

Siss still stood silent. Here was the explanation of much that had surprised her. Auntie added, ‘You can be told about it now, now that it’s over. Now that we’re not waiting any more.’

Siss exclaimed, ‘Is it over? What’s over?’

‘Yes, I thought we’d better talk about that, too.’

Siss’s heart began to thud, but Auntie began talking again, about the same thing.

‘You mustn’t think people have forgotten who they were searching for. They haven’t forgotten.
I
know that. They’ve given me so much help that now I’m leaving I don’t know what to do about it. I ought to have gone round to thank them all. But I can’t. I’m not made that way.’

‘No …’

‘And that’s why I’m walking out here in the dark this evening. I’m too miserable. I want to walk about here, and yet I daren’t show my face.’

And she did look miserable, standing there in the darkening April evening; but she didn’t seem like it, really.

‘Let’s walk on, Siss. I’d like to do the rounds before I go to bed.’

The road again led among houses and people. The windows were still lit here and there. Siss thought how good it was to be out walking with Auntie. She asked herself why she never went walking like this with her mother? She could find no answer. Even though she was enormously fond of her, she was shy with her, too. She could not think of any way she wanted her to be different, but she was shy. She was shy with her father, too – even though she was especially good friends with him. What in the world was it that made
this miserable little Auntie into someone she would walk with all night if necessary?

Yes, Siss could ask her.

‘You must tell me what’s over, the way you said.’

‘It’s over for
you.’

‘Oh no!’

‘I think it is, you know. There’s nothing for us to wait for. She’s gone, and she’s not alive.’

A good thing it was dark.

A whisper from Siss, ‘Have you found out somehow?’

‘Not what
you
call finding out, and yet – I know just the same.’

Siss knew this was an important moment. Auntie cleared her throat and steeled herself to say something decisive.

‘Listen, Siss, what I want to ask you before I leave is that you should try to go back to all that you used to have. You said you had made a promise. But it can’t come to anything, when the other party to it isn’t here any more. You can’t bind yourself to her memory and shut yourself away from what is natural for you. You would only be a bother to yourself and to others, and no one will thank you for it, far from it. You’re already making your parents unhappy. Are you listening to this speech of mine?’

‘Yes, yes!’

‘Then listen: she will not come back, and you are freed from your promise.’

A fresh twinge.

‘Freed from my promise?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you do that?’

‘Yes, I think I can, here and now.’

Auntie’s voice had acquired a ring of authority. Siss did
not know what to think. An avalanche of relief, and at the same time doubt.

Auntie gripped her arm: ‘Shall we say that it is so? Make an agreement?’

‘How can I know if it’s true?’ said Siss.

‘If it’s true?’ asked Auntie, hurt.

‘Yes, whether
you
can do it for me. Because it was I –’

‘Has it gone so deep, Siss? But what I just said – you must have thought the same, now and again this spring?’

‘Yes, I have, but …’

‘It will be all right. So I can be a
little
happier about going away.’

‘You are funny,’ exclaimed Siss, gratefully.

This was something she did not dare acknowledge. Freed from it? Was she? Was it good or sad to be freed from it? You are funny, was all she could say.

‘We must get a move on,’ said Auntie. ‘We mustn’t be too late about coming home either.’

‘No, but let’s go as far as you want.’

Beside them glided the increasingly confused pattern of trees, houses and rocks; and occasionally soot-black patches. When the latter came gliding into sight, it went straight to the heart – what’s
that!
– in this unbearable moment; but it was imagination each time, and her heart started up again, full of the coursing blood. It’s we who are walking; the pattern doesn’t move.

Auntie’s voice. ‘I say again, you must feel you are freed. It’s not right for you to go on as you are. It’s not like you. You’re a different person.’

Don’t answer. It’s not meant to be answered. But it’s like the gleaming of stars in a well. And no explanation.

They had finished their walk. It was black night. Auntie had gone the rounds. They came to Siss’s house first. A single lamp shone, waiting for her; there was no sound.

‘Well, here we are, and I’d like to say -’ began Auntie, but Siss said quickly, ‘No. I’ll see you home.’

‘Oh no, don’t bother.’

‘I’m not afraid of the dark.’

‘I’m sure you’re not, but …’

‘May I?’

‘Yes, of course you may.’

They set off once more. The sleeping house with the waiting lamp wheeled away. The road was deserted. They began to feel a little tired.

‘It’s not cold.’

‘Not a bit,’ said Auntie.

Siss ventured to ask, ‘What will you do in the place where you’re going to live?’

She did not know where it was; it had not been mentioned. Auntie was used to seeing to everything on her own.

‘Oh, I shall have to busy myself with something or other. I’ll find something,’ she said. ‘I’ve sold the house, too, you know. Don’t worry about me for an instant, Siss.’

‘No.’

‘I’m a worthless creature,’ said Auntie shortly afterwards, when they were nearing her house, nearing the end of the evening. She began again: ‘Worthless. The people here have done everything for me during this misfortune, and now I’m going like this when I ought to take my leave properly.

‘What do you think, Siss?’ she asked, when Siss made no reply.

‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘And so I’ve been thinking that since you’ve been with me this evening, they’ll get to know that I went the rounds, and that I did it as a way of thanking them. There’s that, too. I’ve counted on your telling them about it, and I’d be grateful if you would – though I know that only a worthless creature would think things out like that.’

Now they would have to say goodbye.

They were floating, almost at one with the darkness, reflecting no light. Their footsteps could not be heard. But their breathing could and perhaps the heart. They mingled with other almost inaudible nocturnal stirrings, like a small vibration in long wires.

Afraid of the dark? No. Bright woodwind players had appeared and were walking along the sides of the road.

Who is freed?

No one, and yet …

No wild leap back to the others: Here I am! No one is freed, and yet it is as if woodwind players have arrived.

Like the water drop and the twig in the daytime. The naked, wet twig, the sodden snow caving in below, and the clear water drop down in the snow. The snow drift trickles away – and it has a black stripe inside it, a stripe of black creatures that undulates with the layer of snow over hill and dale and trickles away. A strange memory: a hurrying of black creatures in the darkness, league upon league in a mild night between the cold spells. Now everything is trickling away as yellow water or standing still in yellow puddles.

‘Hi, Siss!’

A distant shout. A call from the other world.

You feel like the water drop and the twig. You are uncertain. You are anything but dead.

The promise has been lifted off, but you are not freed because of that. There is an unmoving weight all the same. You know too little.

Things happened as quick as flame.

Mother, revived, ‘Siss, can you run an errand for me after school today?’

‘Yes, of course.’

Why is it different now? What have they seen? Perhaps it is only myself that thinks so.

She walked along the road on her errand. Everything about her was bare. Drizzle, wind and swaying trees. What was it like at school today? Don’t know, I don’t pay much attention to anything. It would be no good running over to them. The promise was a strong tie, hard, but I knew where I stood. If it’s gone, I don’t know where I am. When there’s a strange scent in the spring twilight, I know least of all.

Someone was coming, joining the road from the northern slope in the wind and rain. A half-grown boy from the neighbourhood. She knew him. The sweat was steaming off him; he was dressed for the rain, and warm. Something smoothed itself out inside her, something that had knotted itself against the headlong approach behind her back.