This is a seasonal short story from my upcoming collection Losing Definition - enjoy
Snow
It is a whole different kind of cold when it passes ten degrees below, perhaps twenty or thirty degrees below is different again, but I don't want to know.
The house heating was cranked up as high as it would go and the house was still cold. The temperature was borderline bearable in the one room, elsewhere was only suitable for a quick, heavily dressed dash. All this heating was costing a fortune, but without it the water would freeze in the pipes and rip them apart. We had had bad winters before, and year by year, we had prepared for them. Every autumn the house maintenance was scrupulous, cleaning out the rhones, checking the tiles, the gutters, fixing the harling, refilling the holes that freeze and thaw might pop open. There was a stock of emergency supplies in the loft, plastic sheeting, duct tape, paraffin lamps, Tilley lamps, a mighty lamp that ran off some sort of compressed petrol that hisses and spits but produced as much light as a hundred watt light bulb. The thin stylish curtains, on thin stylish curtain rails had all been replaced by plain heavy lined curtains on hefty curtain tracks. Year on year the house was more and more prepared for winter. Likewise ourselves, year on year, a breakfast of porridge, moleskin trousers, hiking boots and gaiters.
That year I had got myself a heavy felt Russian Red Army Ushanka hat, with flaps that came down and covered my ears, it took ages to arrive, posted all the way from the Ukraine. When I got it it felt a bit tight, the Russians must have tiny heads, it was the second biggest hat that they had and it was still tight on me. But with a couple of good soakings, and pulled down tight over my head, over time it moulded itself to fit just fine. It meant that I could fit my headphones into my ears, and listen to sturdy Russian orchestral music while I walked, without the wind whipping past, diluting the sound.
When I was heading into work normally I stood at the far end of the railway platform, waiting for the train, but in this weather I arrived slightly early to get a seat in the small uninsulated waiting room on the platform. Wedged in the corner I could keep an eye on the announcement board. You could never quite tell what was happening, the train might be late, or cancelled, or might even be on time. Best to try and cater for all eventualities, plot some path between the possible options that expends as little effort as possible. In winter always stay as dry as possible, and as warm as possible, for as long as possible.
That morning the train was on time, but it was already packed, presumably earlier trains had been cancelled, so the usual travellers had accumulated on the 7:57. The train was short of carriages so we were standing before we even left our station, but at least we were on the train. We called at a few more stops before the bridge, people trying to get on the train were shouting down the carriage for people to move on up the train. We were leaving people standing at every platform after ours, a throng of people pressing against the steamed up glass windows of our train, peering in, at us peering out.
It had been this cold for weeks, but this was the first of the real snow. It fell in that dry powdery way that it does when it is really cold. Not that fluffy stuff that you can make snow men out of, that you can bundle into a snow ball and throw at someone. Dry powdery stuff that drifts for miles and piles up against anything vertical. I could overhear the conversations of other passengers, text messages were coming in from people on platforms and the trains that were up ahead of us. The road bridge had closed, the rail bridge still seemed to be open. Buses had stopped, cars were getting stuck in drifts.
It was eerie crossing the rail bridge, all smothered in falling snow, we could not even see the sea beneath us, just the half light of snow falling all around us, a floating shimmering ephemeral wall. It was like being out on a misty day, you felt somehow naked and alone in a familiar place. It was just after crossing the bridge that the train stopped in a cutting. We tried to make the best of it, I suppose that is what they used to call the Blitz spirit, people spoke to those they were standing next to, just offering whatever help or comfort they could.
There was no point in getting angry or annoyed, the journey was an ordeal to get through and you could not afford to waste the energy when you had no idea of where you would end up. The railway cutting must have cut off the signal for mobile phones, the overheard updates from platforms and preceding trains had stopped, to be replaced by just speculation. I did my best to make myself comfortable, standing propped up against the edge of a seat. We obviously were not going to be going anywhere for quite a while, so I loosened my grip on the overhead strap.
It was obvious that no one was going to get to their work on time, indeed it was obvious that as soon as we got to our destination our first thought would be where we could stay the night, or how to get back home.
After an hour or two the guards on the train opened the doors, the men started to take turns and head back down the tracks to urinate against the basalt sides of the cutting. The snow stained yellow and a gentle steam rose briefly in the chill air.
Smokers of both sexes huddled miserably together, united in their plight, before chucking their dog ends down the short gravel incline. In the cutting it was quiet, there was not much wind anyway. Some snow was finding its way down to us, but the angle of the cutting seemed to be protecting us from the worst of it.
I had got off the train for a pee and there was a group of figures that seemed to be particularly purposeful, so I headed towards them. We were all heavily covered, various assortments of winter wear, skiing wear seemed particularly popular this year, but there were also Barbour jackets and quilted jackets too. Everyone was wearing a hat, and most of us were wearing scarves over our mouths, a few even had ski googles. I recognised the tallest of the figures, he was a regular commuter on the train, I had probably sat next to him hundreds of times but we had never spoken. He wore a dark quilted jacket and a ski hat with a fleece face mask and googles. His boots were that orange leather colour with bright red laces, and a bulging tongue. He was saying that we should just walk on from here, we could cut onto the motorway after a short distance and head back home from there. While the roads were probably impassible for traffic, it should be relatively easy to walk the short distance involved. There was some macho agreement amongst the heavily wrapped figures about the shortness of the distance and the feebleness of just waiting.
On a whim I decided to go with them, there was no word of when the train would start moving and I was getting bored of squeezing into a cold damp corner of the train with all the other commuters. There were half a dozen of us, we headed up along the gravel track for the length of the train, as we headed past the front of the train, we heard the driver shouting at us. He must have wound the side window down, he sounded pretty annoyed, but not annoyed to get out of the train. For a moment I worried about electric rails, or getting my foot caught in points, but we came out of the cutting into the open without any drama. The wind cut through us, stabbing at any exposed flesh, and finding its way to any warm flesh beneath the layers. The tallest man was at the front, and we instantly sorted ourselves into single file behind him, the snow had covered the railway tracks, but the rough layout of the landscape was still visible.
Now I wished that I had paid more attention to what had passed my window so many times before, now I could not remember what was under the snow at all. The motorway and the railway line cross over/ under each other at different points, I honestly could not remember whether it was left or right that we needed to turn to reach the motorway. The figure at the front turned left, and I did not disagree strongly enough to do anything about it. He sped up slightly down the slope, and then stepping sideways up to the wooden fence. Heavily wrapped in layers the fence was a trickier obstacle than I would have believed possible. In turn we fought our way over it, I landed heavily on the far side of the fence and turned to try and help someone.
The wind was accompanied with snow now, within the field the snow was already up to my knees, and it seemed to be deepening quickly. We were taking it in turns to take the lead, pushing aside and trampling the snow was too exhausting a task for anyone to cope with it for long. Too quickly it was my turn to lead, after stumbling at the task, I found a rhythm of jumping slightly and then letting my bent knee half push aside half flatten the snow before me. No sooner had I pushed forward a bit, than the others hungrily followed me. A tap on my shoulder indicated that I needed to straighten up the path I was cutting. I was out getting out of breath and the cold air was tearing at my throat.
The field felt endless, with neither beginning nor end, a vast endless expanse of white that hurt your eyes to see.
My initial energy and enthusiasm had been completely exhausted, the wet was seeping through everything I wore and I could feel myself slipping into grim survival mode, resolute and determined. I was dead already, but I would just keep going on out of sheer cussedness. There was a change of lead and we stopped. After a few seconds of standing still I pushed a path through the snow and stood with the others. We formed a small huddle, each instinctively facing away from the oncoming wind. I pulled back the scarf that covered my mouth. The person in the blue ski jacket who had taken the shortest spell at the lead was not happy, they wanted to us to all head back. Her red bobble hat bobbed up and down seriously. I could not see much of her face behind the colourfully tinted ski goggles, in fact from appearance alone I could not be certain it was a she, but it was a woman’s voice. No one was exactly keen to head on further, this was rapidly turning into a bad case of all the gear and no idea. All this winter clothing had looked fine in the shop but in real life we were struggling. Trying to walk through snow that was now half way up our thighs it was obvious that our clothing could not protect us from the sheer numbing pain of extreme cold.
We argued, well most of us just stood there too cold to think, the tall man wanted us to head on, the woman wanted us to head back. It seemed common that no one would want to go forwards or back alone. Nothing was agreed by our huddle, the woman headed back along the path that we had cut. Looking back along the path, it was starting to fill up again with snow, and was far from straight, but heading back looked relatively achievable, we had managed to come this far, going back surely could not be too bad. A few others headed back after her, there were just three of us left, we said nothing, well nothing that I heard, and headed on. By now we were no longer walking on the ground beneath, the snow was thick enough that eventually it just compacted enough to support you. The rhythm of trying to walk through the snow, was just part of the larger rhythm of taking turns to lead. The snow was thick around us, there was no obvious direction to head, no sun to orientate us, no landmarks to mark the horizon.
We must have crossed fences without realising, progress was slow but we were covering the ground, it was just that we did not know what ground it was or where it was taking us. We each retreated into ourselves, the exhaustion starting to make us feel elated, until the leading person fell. Not just stumbled, we did that all the time, but fell, like you knew it was bad. He was bleeding, the snow was streaked with red, after so long with just ourselves and the white of the snow, it gave you a jolt to see colour again, like that. He had must have torn his leg on a barbed wire fence somewhere in the snow.
He could not walk, he just lay there, we pushed up the snow to shelter him as best we could. He lay there looking tired and half dead, watching as the red snow expanded out round him. I did my best to make him comfortable, and holding his face between my mittens looked at him, he was looking at me, but I could tell he was not really listening or seeing. I looked him in the eyes and told him that we would be back with help. We both knew that I was lying and did not care. With my sole remaining companion both of us stepped gingerly over the barbed wire and headed on.
There were just the two of us then, it was like fighting your way up a sand dune that was slipping down against you. All the time, the wind was hammering into you. After a while the pain orientated you, we were not heading in any particular direction anymore, just walking because stopping would mean something else. I could see my companion, and counted another, sometimes ahead of us, sometimes behind us, white on white, I struggled on because I was too stubborn to lie down and die, …
We had been climbing for so long, when climbing turned to falling, I felt weightless for a moment, the sudden silence and stillness was like being immersed in some new element, I could see an arm in a heavy jacket, and thought how strange it looked, and slowly recognised it as my own arm. Things were happening that I was too tired to understand, I was made out of ice and I was starting to melt, I was starting to fall apart like all that snow and ice that gets tramped into the house on your boots, there was no wind, it was quiet, quiet in a way that was feeling increasingly oppressive.
***********************
I understand now that we must have been walking in circles for hours, we were not far from the train, but had stumbled upon a farm building tucked out of sight of the railway line, the farmer had used a tractor to keep the ground in front of his farm house clear, the snow was banked up, and we had walked up one side and fallen down the other as he was looking out his farm house window. He was a stout fellow, wiry in the way that farmers often are, grabbing us by the scruff of our coats and pulling us in, like he would manhandle a recalcitrant sheep.
The train we had left was still waiting in the cutting when the wind shifted and the snow toppled in half filling the cutting. With the carriages half submerged in snow, there was little they could do as the carriages got darker and darker as the snow rose up entombing them. Perhaps it never occurred to them that it could just keep on snowing. So many people died that day, too many to count.
That is all a long time ago, it seems ridiculous now that we could all have been so unprepared. The glass roofs on the railway stations and the holiday caravans on the estuary coast are all gone now. This is a cold hard world now, perched on the snow and ice, scraping through the seasons.
