Page 63 of Where Do We Go From Here?
Gentle snowfall continues, but for most of the day the flakes melt the second they hit the ground. It’s only when she steps outside for her final cigarette of the evening that she sees it’s starting to settle. The bowl she’d put out for the cat is empty but dusted with snow. Damn! She’d hoped to catch it eating.
She watches a film on her laptop featuring not one, not two, but three AA meetings and notices for the first time how ubiquitous they’re becoming in modern TV. She studies the ravaged faces of the people in the scenes and thinks,No, that’s not me, thank God.
She dozes off before the end of the film and wakes just enough to stoke the fire and climb the stairs to bed, where she dreams of a cat in boots drinking whisky from a bowl and dancing an Irish jig. When, at the end of the dream, she wakes again, the image lingering in her mind’s eye is so comic that shelaughs out loud. Someone should make it into a cartoon, she thinks. She must try to remember the dream in the morning. But as she slips back into sleep, she knows she most probably won’t.
On going to bed last night, she’d expected to wake up to a winter wonderland, but she can tell the second she opens her eyes this has not come to pass. Rather than being lit by that strange icy brightness, the cabin is almost dark and the sound of the world outside is unmuffled. She lies, listening to birdsong for a while, trying to pluck up the courage to leave her warm bed and when eventually she makes it downstairs, she sees there’s been only the lightest dusting of snow.
She stokes the fire and, while she eats breakfast, wonders what to do with her day. A walk, then a read, and then some Netflix, maybe? She can’t help but feel that’s rather a waste of a day, but then who is here to judge? Who’s to say that time has to be ‘spent’ usefully, anyway? Sometimes, managing to just about feel OK is ‘enough’.
When she steps out of the shower and opens the bathroom window to let the steam out, she gasps. Outside, the snow is falling thick and fast – as heavily as she has ever seen. The flakes are like massive cartoon-style fractals, and they are so dense that it’s impossible to see further than a few feet.
She dresses quickly and steps into the swirling whiteness of it all. The air is icy and fragrant with that unique metallic smell of snow, and under her feet – where more than an inch has already settled – the snow squeaks beneath the soles of her boots.
‘God, I love snow!’ she says out loud. ‘I love it!’
She nips back indoors for her phone and records a slow-movideo of drifting flakes. She’ll get a hundred likes with this video – more probably. Everybody loves snow.
She’s in the process of uploading this to Instagram when a message pops up from Madame Blanchard.There is much snow forecast, the message says.Please beéconomiquewith theélectricité and let me know in case of problem.
God!she thinks.Of course! The solar panels.She crunches her way to the rear of the house and sees that they’re already buried.
She returns indoors to ensure that everything is unplugged and then sets off, crunching her way towards the bakery. The snow beneath her feet feels squeaky and delicious. Surprisingly it isn’t slippery at all.
She peers up at the white-dusted pine trees overhead and notes, beneath her feet, the tracks left by a single passing car. Just before the village she spots paw marks, too – a reminder that she needs to buy cat food.
The houses in the village look beautiful today, and she finds herself marvelling more generally at the beauty of the world and, unusually for her, feeling lucky to be alive to witness it all. She thinks that this must be why we all love snow so much – because it makes everything seem new, and that newness, that difference, makes reality become visible again. The world doesn’t change at all, but this unexpected shift to whiteness makes it all stand out for our tired, bored eyes.
Trudging on, she finds herself thinking about her twenty-five-year marriage and an unusually profound thought strikes her: That if they could only come up with some kind of marital snowfall, she and Harry might be able to see each other properly again, too.
The bread racks in the bakery are almost empty by the time she gets there, and the cold cabinet, usually laden with quiches and cakes, is in the process of being cleaned.
‘Hello!’ the baker says, looking up at her through glass. ‘It’s good you come today. Tomorrow we are on holidays.’
‘Holidays?’ Wendy says. ‘In December? For how long?Pour combien de temps?’
‘Until this is gone,’ the woman says, straightening, dropping the sponge into a bucket, then massaging her back while simultaneously nodding at the weather outside. ‘As you see, everyone stays home. No customers, no bread!’
Just in case, and despite yesterday’s delivery, Wendy buys as much as she can carry, choosing fresh bread, instant noodles, cat food, crispbreads and cheese. She very nearly grabs a couple of extra bottles of wine as well to replace the two she drank yesterday, but then she remembers denying ever being able to drink two bottles and feels too ashamed to get more. She wonders if Manon has already been in. She wonders if the baker alreadyknows.
By the time she steps back out, the snow is four inches deep and she can no longer see where the tarmac ends and the verge begins, so, in the absence of traffic, she carves a line down the middle of the road.
As she reaches the turning towards her cabin she spots a distant car approaching, creeping around the bend. By the time it passes she has her back to the main road, but she glances behind her to see Manon at the wheel, leaning forward, feigning concentration as she drives laboriously towards the bakery – a near miss which leaves her feeling nauseous.
TEN
INTO THE WILD
Day One
So, I’ve decided to keep a journal. As I’m finally getting thatInto the Wildadventure I was hoping for, I thought I should write it all down. That way, when I’m eaten by wolves, Sean Penn can make the movie.
First (because writing anything original is hard) some facts and figures:
Inches of snow: 5.
Food remaining: Masses.
Electricity: Yes!
