He hadn't realised it was so large. He must have perceived it as smaller because at first sight he'd taken it to be a face. He was tiptoeing across the room, holding his breath. The closer he approached, the more like ice it looked — cracked ice, in which thousands of delicate lines composed an abstract mandala so nearly regular that it took his breath away. What could have caused such a flaw in the glass? He gripped the window-sill and craned to touch the mark. Just as his fingertips brushed the edge of it, he saw that the lines went all the way through the pane. The next moment the entire cracked patch collapsed.
Most of the shards fell outwards, jangling among the weeds under the window, as he dodged back. He was left staring at an almost perfectly circular hole in the glass and feeling like a destructive child who couldn't be trusted to behave himself alone in the house. He went in search of some material with which to plug the hole. At the far end of the landing, on the bathroom floor beside the pale dim open coffin of the bath, he found a mat so disreputable that he shuddered as he snatched it up, though in fact there were no insects underneath. He stuffed it into the hole in the pane and wiped his hands on his coat, feeling as if he'd robbed the house of the magic it had offered him.
The next bare room had been his grandparents' bedroom. He remembered hearing his grandmother wheezing in the bed to which she had been increasingly confined in the months before the car crash. She had apparently been sewing a present for him, but he had never seen it. "Shouldn't have been such a perfectionist," he muttered sadly as he climbed the stairs.
The first room on the top landing had been his parents' room. Its barrenness made him feel close to tears, especially as he remembered how his mother would come down to him when he cried out with whatever dreams the stars above the moor had given him. His aunt had slept in the adjacent room when she was visiting, and next to that one was the attic. This had been his favourite room, full of broken toys so old they were fascinating, crippled furniture, incomplete books whose pages had crumbled at the edges when he'd tried to read them. Now it looked pillaged; four dents in the carpet beneath a skylight obscured by night and grime showed that it had recently been used as a bedroom. Nevertheless he went in, because it seemed to be the brightest room in the house.
It must be, for him to have distinguished the marks in the carpet. He wouldn't have expected the room to be so visible under such a thin moon. As he crossed to the dormer window, pines the colour of the moon appeared to rise to meet him. He was at the window before he realised that the moon was out of sight above the house; it was the forest that was shining.
Had frost gathered on the trees while he was exploring the house? Surely it took more than moonlight to turn the forest so pale that the trees resembled great feathers of ice. As he gazed wide-eyed at the spectacle, the forest seemed to brighten gradually, and he thought the room did so. There was movement among the trees near the edge of the forest, an approaching glow. He fumbled at the catches of the window and pushed its two wings open. The chill of the night gathered on him as he saw what was out there. Snowflakes luminous with moonlight were dancing beneath the trees.
How could it be snowing there and not above the forest? Indeed, it appeared to be snowing only in an area about as wide as the house. He strained forwards, trying to understand the sight, scarcely aware of the steep slope of the roof below him. It seemed to him that the silent luminous dance was constantly about to form a pattern in the air — that if he could only distinguish the pattern, unimaginable revelations might follow. He'd almost seen it once before, he remembered at last, when he had run away to Stargrave, but this time there was nobody to prevent him from following it into the woods.
He didn't know how long he gazed entranced from the window until a shiver roused him. He closed the window and ran downstairs, the echoes of his footsteps racing ahead. He dragged the front door closed behind him and shook it to ensure it was fastened, and was hurrying around the outside of the garden when a clock chimed in a nearby cottage.
Ben listened to the microscopic sound and shook his head, bewildered. It couldn't really be two o'clock. He bared his wrist-watch and peered at its face until he had to believe it. Somehow he'd spent over four hours in the house. What might Ellen be imagining had happened to him? Dismayed for her, he nevertheless went up the track past the house to a point from which he could see Sterling Forest. The trees and the shadows beneath them were quite still, and there was no sign of snow in the air.
He felt profoundly disappointed, but he had to admit that he was also experiencing some relief. If expectancy was what he valued, hadn't he preserved it by allowing the mystery to stay mysterious? Now that his trance was broken, the depths of the forest seemed more ominous than alluring; even the trees were no longer so luminous. All the same, as he made for the floodlit end of the track, he stopped and closed his eyes to let the dazzle fade from them, and turned for a last look. He hadn't opened his eyes when he realised what his trance had caused him to forget. Whatever had cracked the window, it wasn't just a flaw in the glass. He'd seen it appear there as he had arrived in Star-grave, and that was why he had mistaken the appearance for a face.
His eyes snapped open, perhaps not quite swiftly enough. For a moment he was sure that he was being watched; he thought he might have glimpsed the watcher withdrawing into the dark, but where? His impression of the glimpse seemed to expand as he glanced from the house to the forest to the sky. Nothing moved except the flickering of the stars. Surely all he'd seen was the blind Cyclopean eye of the plugged window, he told himself as he retreated to the main road — but he felt as if he was descending from a height and losing all sense of what he had in fact experienced.
Once he came in sight of the market square, all he felt was embarrassment at having to rouse someone to let him into the hotel. A porter whose left eye seemed unable to waken trudged to the doors in response to the night bell. "Sterling from room six," Ben explained awkwardly. "Has anyone been wondering where I am J"
The man gave him a suspicious look, the more concentrated for being monocular. "If they have, they've not told me."
Ben thanked him and sneaked upstairs. Ellen was asleep in the middle of the double bed, one arm stretched out as if she'd reached for him. He was both touched by the sight and grateful that she wouldn't want him to explain his absence. When he slipped in beside her, she shivered and mumbled a drowsy protest and retreated to her side of the bed. He lay awake trying to fix in his mind his experiences at the house, but the harder he tried, the more elusive they seemed. He wasn't aware of falling asleep. If he dreamed, his dreams were too large to remember.
The children wakened him, bouncing on the bed and clamouring for breakfast. "And then can we go to the house?" Margaret pleaded.
"We'll see," Ben said, no longer sure how much of the night he had dreamed. At breakfast he gulped several cups of coffee and then agreed to visit the house.
Families were strolling up the eccentric streets to church. As he reached the beginning of the track to the Sterling house, Ben had the fleeting impression that the churchgoers had taken the wrong route. Of course he would, he thought, as a lapsed believer. The house looked shabby and abandoned, its isolation emphasised by the gloomy forest and pale sullen sky. "What happened to the window?" Margaret wanted to know.
"Someone must have broken it," Ben said nervously.
"It was like that yesterday," Ellen said. "I thought there was something wrong with it. That's what I saw, whatever it's mended with."
Ben felt guiltily secretive, but what could he say? Only "Stay with your mother and me" as he unlocked the front door. As soon as he stepped over the threshold he was sure that he didn't need to be uneasy on their behalf; it was just an old house where he used to live, a house empty of everything but daylight. He thought this disappointment might have been what he was afraid of, why he'd been loath to agree to visit the house, even though it hadn't felt quite like that kind of fear.
Once he'd gone through the motions of exploring all the floors he let the children run shouting through the rooms. "It's going to need some money spent on it," Ellen said, but otherwise kept quiet, presumably out of respect for his memories. When the children were tired of playing he led the family back to the hotel and checked out, wishing he could stay another night and go back to the house after dark. He drove out of Stargrave, trying to think of an excuse to return soon. As the car raced under the bridge he saw darkness fill the driving mirror, swallowing his last sight of the house. The car sped onto the moor, and he saw Johnny nudge Margaret, who leaned forwards to meet her father's eyes in the mirror. "Daddy, could we come and live here?" she said.
SIXTEEN
Ellen had fallen in love with the landscape around Stargrave. She thought she mightn't see it again, given the way Ben's homecoming appeared to have disheartened him. She was sorry they hadn't taken time to explore the moors, but he had grown so taciturn since they'd visited the house that she hadn't liked to suggest lingering. The sooner they were home and the children were in bed, the sooner she might be able to help him talk out his feelings. Retreating into himself so as to write was part of his job, but she didn't see how brooding over his memories could benefit him.
The car sped past the house and gathered speed towards the bridge, and she saw Ben look for the house in the mirror. When she stroked his knee, he didn't seem to notice. Feeling snubbed, she moved her hand to her lap as the car passed under the bridge. She was telling herself not to be silly when Margaret said "Daddy, could we come and live here?"
Ben stared at the oncoming road, and his face and voice grew blank. "Who knows."
Johnny began to jump up and down in his seat-belt. "Could we? Could we?"
"Calm down now, johnny," Ellen said. "Don't you two like where we live any more?"
"I do," Johnny said, sounding abashed.
"Well, so do I," Margaret said angrily.
Ellen decided it was time to close the subject. "Quiet now. Let Daddy concentrate on driving."
At the hotel she'd offered to drive, but now it looked as if driving might beneficially occupy Ben's mind. Half an hour later, when the moorland road straightened out as it descended into the first of the villages outside Leeds, he broke the silence with one of the nonsense verses he used to invent for the children on family walks:
"Come quaff the mugs and fill the jugs
And baste the goose with lotion.
Haraldahyde has sunk inside
The coracle of potion ..."
"Say another one," Johnny requested as traffic built up dangerously ahead. When the way was clear Ben intoned:
"There are wombats in the kitchen
And tapirs on the stairs.
The large old chest of drawers supports
A family of bears ..."
The sight of the sun sinking over Lincolnshire prompted:
"Red sky at night,
Fish won't bite.
Red sky in the morning,
Frogs are spawning."
"No they aren't," Margaret said sleepily.
"Frogs are yawning, rather. Don't you, or we won't be able to eat out on our way home."
By the time the car crossed the Norfolk border, both she and Johnny were asleep. Ben glanced in the mirror as headlights rushing by on the winding road illuminated their faces, and confided to Ellen:
"The rich man often dines on quail,
The poor man picks at scrod.
But the hungry man consumes their turds
And says 'Thanks be to God!'"
"That's terrible," she said with a grin. "I take it you're feeling better now we're nearly home."
"Got to grow up sometime. Maybe I should think about writing a book for adults."
He hadn't really answered her, but this wasn't the time or the place to insist. When he began to look out for restaurants she said "Let the kids sleep and we'll eat in Norwich."
It was only when she awoke to find Ben placing a hot bundle in her lap that she realised she had nodded off. The car was parked outside a fish and chip shop where several youths with their hair in tarry spikes were gesticulating at the Chinese family behind the counter. The smell of food in newspaper roused the children, who stretched as if their bodies were gaping to be fed. Once they were home and taken care of, Ellen hastened them up to the bathroom and into bed.
Ben seemed more exhausted than the length of that day's journey would normally have made him. "Sweet dreams," she said as she wriggled under the duvet and slipped her arm around him, but he was already in his own dark. The next she knew, a shape like thin grey breath was dancing above her: steam from a mug of coffee on the bedside table. The children were kissing her awake. Til walk them to school and go on to Milligans," Ben said behind them.
When she heard them in the street, Johnny emitting sounds of a rocket launch while Margaret chattered to her father about books, she propped herself up in bed, feeling luxurious. She stayed in bed until she heard the postman pushing letters into the house. As she went downstairs she could see that they weren't bills; the envelopes didn't have that dingy thickset bullying look. She examined them as she took them to the desk in the back room. Two of the long white envelopes were from Ember Books, the other was from Ballyhoo Unlimited. "Say what you like," she told the latter, forcing a laugh at her tenseness as she thrust a finger under the flap and pulled the single sheet out of the envelope.
Dear Mrs Sterling
Thank you for submitting yourself for interview with regards to a position with our agency. Both Gordon Fuge and myself were impressed by your presentation and the main reservation expressed by our senior partner Max Rutter concerns whether after twelve years absence from the
business
you would have lost the aggressive qualities our clients look for in our campaigns. We have therefore decided to offer you a trial contract for twelve months to run from 15 February at the advertised rates. Max Rutter has asked me to mention that the contract makes no provision for maternity leave. May I say how much I personally look forward to working with someone as mature as yourself. Please let us know at your earliest convenience if these terms are satisfactory.