Page 21 of A Season in the Snow
Chapter 11
As August took its last stretch before stepping into September, Alice and Bear kept each other company. She walked him as early as it was light, when most of the people out were joggers who still smiled at the cute puppy but tended not to stop. She wore headphones with no sound playing, and kept off the path to avoid people further, sticking to walking on the grass which she hadn’t noticed was growing green again. To the outside world she looked deeply involved in a podcast, or an audiobook, or favourite tunes, but actually her ears were listening, alert. When she thought he’d had enough she’d scuttle them both back home, locking the doors behind her.
Alice ate a lot of toast and pasta, basic things she could buy in bulk from the small supermarket around the corner. She kept the curtains closed and her friends at bay. She wandered from room to room and watched a lot of TV, but never the news. She didn’t want to draw, she didn’t want to talk, she didn’t want to think.
Bear slept when she slept and stuck to her side at all times, leaping when she stood, following her from room to room, keeping a close eye on her always. He seemed to hurt with a mild separation anxiety, and would bite her ankles or whine when she tried to leave the house, and so she did so less and less.
He desperately wanted to play every waking hour, bursting to life and full of bounce, and Alice struggled to find the energy to keep up. ‘You do realise we apparently have to join the real world again at some point?’ Alice asked him one time, after he’d knocked over her bowl of pasta by trying too hard to get at it. ‘We probably can’t both get a free pass for antisocial behaviour for ever.’ But as she said it, a huge part of her closed its doors and battened down the hatches.
The knock on the door seemed so loud it made her jump, which made Bear woof in a way that surprised them both.
‘It’s just Mum and Dad. My mum and dad. It’s okay,’ Alice soothed, and Bear scampered towards the door (some guard dog). She nudged him aside to open the door and there were her parents, heads tilted in concern already. ‘Hi.’
‘Hello. honey.’ Liz gave her a hug. The door was still open and Bear tried to make a leap for freedom but Ed caught him.
‘Come in,’ said Alice.
Usually if people came to stay, even her parents, she’d have spruced the place up, lit the odd scented candle, plumped the sofa cushions and had the kettle ready-boiled. But as she led Ed and Liz into her living room she realised how stale it seemed.
‘Sorry it’s a bit of a mess, we’re still getting used to . . . everything.’
‘No problem at all, darling,’ Liz said. ‘I’ll just pop the kettle on if that’s okay with you.’
‘We brought brownies,’ Ed said, clutching a neat cardboard box from Waitrose. ‘Mind if I have one with my cuppa?’
Bear’s eyes were wide and he sniffed at the box. ‘Sure,’ Alice said. ‘But don’t give any to Bear.’
‘Hard luck, matey, more for me. And your mum, of course,’ Ed said, winking at his daughter and tucking in before Liz had even finished boiling the kettle.
‘So how have you found it being back?’ asked Liz. ‘Have you been meeting up with any of your friends this week?’
‘No, I’ve just been here.’
‘Don’t you have that exercise class on Tuesday nights you like? It would be a nice distraction to get back to doing something like that.’
Alice shook her head. ‘I can’t leave Bear on his own.’
‘Oh, right.’
Her mum wasn’t believing a word of it, and it irked Alice.
‘So what’s going on at home?’ Alice asked.
‘Not much,’ Ed answered. ‘It seems quite empty now you’ve gone again. I’ve fixed that leak in the bathroom.’
‘Oh, that reminds me, while you’re here can you just take a look at a shelf in my bathroom?’
‘Of course, let’s take a look now.’
It was all rather mundane, but each member of the family was glad for some mundanity right now. All four of them shuffled down the corridor and into the tiny bathroom, while Alice pointed out a tilt that was appearing in her bathroom shelf. Ed pulled a pencil from his pocket and Liz helped by neatly stacking the items from the shelf on the nearby tallboy. It was only when they were all silent while Ed, tongue poking out to the side, was carefully drawing a pale line across the paintwork that Alice noticed her white noise machine – the dog – was no longer snuffling around her legs.
‘Where’s Bear?’
Her parents looked around, as if he might be hiding in this tiny space, and Alice left the bathroom and strode down the corridor. ‘Ohshit!’
Bear was stretched, paws on the kitchen island, nose in the box of brownies. He jumped down, his tail wagging and his teeth full of gloopy chocolate.
‘Shit!’ Alice repeated, and her parents appeared.
