Snow Garden by Rachel Joyce

Author:Rachel Joyce [Joyce, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473526471
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2015-11-05T05:00:00+00:00

A Snow Garden

The boys kept asking if there would be snow at the new flat. ‘Yes,’ he told them. It began as a joke but then it got serious. ‘Yes, Yes, YES!’ ‘I don’t know why you keep promising there will be snow,’ his sister said when she rang. ‘It only happens in films and that bloody advert.’ ‘Because it’s what everyone wants,’ Henry told her. ‘They want snow. It’s traditional. It makes Christmas – you know.’

‘What exactly?’

‘Magical,’ he said, but with a rising inflection so that instead of sounding certain he only sounded sort of desperate.

‘Are you sure you’re ready for this?’ his sister asked. ‘You can’t afford to blow it, Henry.’

She was right. As always. There was so much to fix before the boys arrived. Henry checked every day but she was right about the weather too; there was no snow forecast. There was no forecast for anything much except low-level grey cloud. Sometimes the day had barely got going before it turned dark again.

Meanwhile Henry’s head was feverish, flurrying with all the details he had to get sorted. First off, the flat needed a lick of paint. Henry had bought the place ten months ago just after the divorce came through and so far he had taken no interest in it whatsoever. The flat – not even his flat, but the flat, as if it was a neutral space he’d drifted into and might leave at any moment, the middle of the night maybe, whenever the urge took him – the flat was somewhere Henry ate a takeaway after work and drank a glass of milk whilst watching television until his eyes burnt so hard they had no choice but to close. When he washed a mug or a plate he replaced it not in a cupboard but in its storage box. Sometimes he even re-wrapped it in newspaper; he found his belongings seemed super-imposed on his life and had nothing to do with him. Even his sons didn’t quite seem to fit. At the weekends Henry went to the park or he drove to his sister for a proper Sunday roast. Bea was five years younger than Henry but behaved like his mother. Well, someone had to, she often joked.

‘I wish I wasn’t going away,’ she said.

‘I’ll manage. It’s OK.’

‘I don’t even like skiing.’ They laughed. And then she asked, ‘So what will you do with the boys? Six days is a long time.’

‘Oh, I have lots planned.’

‘You do?’ He could hear the surprise in her voice and also relief. She was trying not to show it and this made him sad, for some reason.

‘Well, bye now. I must get on with things,’ he said.

Normally when Henry had an arrangement to see the boys it was only for the afternoon. He never met them at the old family house because he still couldn’t face going back; it made him feel too guilty and uncomfortable. He’d allow a few hours for the drive down the motorway, stopping

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