CHAPTER ONE
But we are spirits of another sort.
OBERON, KING OF SHADOWS. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
In the deepest heart of England there is a place where everything is at fault. That is to say that the land rests upon a fault; and there, ancient rocks are sent hurtling from the deep to the surface of the earth with such force that they break free like oceanic waves, or like monstrous sea creatures coming up for air. Some say that the land has still to settle and that it continues to roil and breathe fumes, and that out of these fumes pour stories. Others are confident that the old volcanoes are long dead, and that all its tales are told.
Of course, everything depends on who is telling the story. It always does. I have a story and though there are considerable parts I’ve had to imagine, the way I saw it was as follows.
It WAS CHRISTMAS DAY of that year and Dell Martin hovered at the double-glazed PVC window of his tidy home, conducting a survey of the bruised clouds and concluding that it might just snow; and if it did snow then someone would have to pay. At the very beginning of the year Dell had laid down two crisp twenty-pound notes on the bookie’s Formica counter, just as he had done every year for the past ten. The odds changed slightly each year and this time he’d settled good odds at seven-to-one.
For a White Christmas to be official—that is, to force the bookmakers to pay—a flake of snow must be observed to fall between midnight on December 24 and midnight on December 25 at four designated sites. The sites are the cities of London, Glasgow, Cardiff, and Manchester. The snow is not required to lie deep nor crisp nor evenly upon the ground and it doesn’t matter if it’s mixed with rain. One solitary flake would do it, fallen and melted, observed and recorded.
Living in a place somewhere between all of those great cities, Dell had never collected in all those ten years, nor had he seen a single flake of Christmas Day snow hanging in the air of his hometown.
“Are you going to come and carve?” Mary called from the kitchen.
This year they were having goose. After decades of turkey dinners on Christmas Day they were having a change, because a change is as good as a rest, and sometimes you needed a rest even from Christmas. Nevertheless the table had been laid out, just as in previous years. Crisp linen and the best cutlery. Two heavy crystal wineglasses that, year round, were kept in a box and stowed at the back of a kitchen cupboard.
Dell always carved, and he carved well. It was an art. He’d carved well when the kids were small, and he carved well now that there was only Mary and himself to carve for. He rubbed his hands together in a friction of delight, passing through to a kitchen warm and steamy from simmering pans. The cooked goose rested under silver foil on a large serving plate. Dell pulled a blade from the knife block and angled it to the light at the window. “Gone a bit dark over yonder,” he said. “Might snow.”
Mary was draining vegetables through a sieve. “Might snow? You haven’t put money on it, have you?”
“Hell, no.” He whisked the foil cover off the goose and rotated the plate to get a better purchase with his knife. “Just a thought.”
Mary tapped her sieve on the lip of the sink as Dell began to carve. “Hasn’t snowed on Christmas Day in ten years. Plates warming in the oven. Bring them through?”
When Dell had finished carving, each plate boasted a plump goose leg and two neatly carved slices of breast. There were roasted potatoes and four types of vegetables, all steaming in serving dishes. The gravy boat was piping and there was stuffing and sausages wrapped in bacon, and cranberry sauce.
“I went in for an Italian this year,” Dell said, pouring Mary a glass of ruby-red wine and then one for himself. He pronounced the I in Italian the way you might pronounce eye-witness. “Italian wine. Hope that goes well with the goose.”
“I’m sure it will be lovely.”
“Thought we’d have a change from the French. Though I could easily have had a South African. There was a South African on offer. At the supermarket.”
“Let’s see, shall we?” Mary said, offering her glass for the clinking. “Cheers!”
“Cheers!”
And it was the cheers moment, that gentle touching of the crystalware, that Dell hated the most.
Feared it and detested it. Because even though nothing was ever stated and even though the faultless food was served up with wide smiles and the clinking of glasses was conducted with genuine affection from both parties, there was always at this moment of ritual a fleck in his wife’s eye. A tiny instant of catch-light, razor-sharp, and he knew he’d better talk over it pretty damn quick.
“What do you think of the Italian?”