As she walked to the door, Helena had time to register that she was moving from one phase of her life and into the next. Fear, like
a cold sword, cut through her.
The woman had bleached, short hair and eyes harshly outlined by thick pencil. She smelt of cigarettes
and crowded rooms. Helena heard her voice as if from the end of a long tunnel, and noted an attempt at softness. They were in the
bright, familiar kitchen again, at the table, where the letter lay on its back, buckled on its fold-line. The policewoman had hold
of Helena's hand; her own was small and blunt, with carefully manicured nails. Her words were thin, half-heard echoes in Helena's
consciousness. 'He died instantly. No pain. So brave. A boy tumbled down a steep escarpment. Your husband went after him. Saved the
boy's life. But then fell himself. A long way. Everyone else is all right. Have you someone we could telephone?'
Behind them moved
the man, with the kettle and cups. A hot, suffocating blanket seemed to press on Helena's lips and nose. Nauseous, she fixed her gaze
on the woman's small mouth.
Wave after wave of black, comfortless silence blotted out the pictures on the cupboard door opposite, the
white gleam of the letter and the empty doorway leading to the dark hall.
On the fourth night after Michael's accident Helena
at last became conscious of Nina's pain. At tea that evening she noticed the child's white face with a sprinkling of freckles frighteningly
prominent on her small nose. Behind her glasses Nina's eyes were bleak with misery. Not even her grandmother could persuade her to
eat. She merely turned her face into her grandfather's sweater, her unbrushed hair a tousled mop against his chest.
'Come on, Nina,
and give me a hug,' Helena said, and they all looked at her with their now habitual expressions of concerned alarm. But the little
girl climbed onto her lap and Helena clasped the bony body and buried her nose in her daughter's hair, which smelt today of plasticine.
Across the table Helena's mother, Joanna, gave a little cough and then stood to clear the table.
'You'll be worn out, Mum,' Helena
murmured weakly.
. 'No, no. Good heavens, I can't do much but I can do this.' Joanna tied on her blue and .turquoise floral cotton
apron - brought from home in her suitcase on the night of Michael’s death - with the quick, deft movements of hands and elbows that
were so typical of her.
'Then I'll put Nina to bed.'
'Let Dad do that.'
'I'm all right. What story shall we have, Nina?'
They did not
waver from the familiar bed-time ritual. Undressed, Nina trotted along to the laundry basket in her parents' room with her discarded
underwear. Then she and Helena went into the bathroom for a wash of face and hands and a clean of teeth. Back in the bedroom Nina
chose 'The Twelve Dancing Princesses' and both climbed beneath the duvet with the book, Nina tucked under Helena's arm, thumb in.
For a while they were lulled into a false sense of normality. Michael was often out; at parents' evenings or nights at the pub to
plan the next expedition. Later he would be back with a clink of his key in the lock and a wolf whistle at the bottom of the stairs.
After the story Helena sat for a while with the child cuddled up against her aching ribs. The gnawing pain in her chest and abdomen
had been unremitting since the police had arrived with news of Michael's death. She took a breath and said: 'You and I will be all
right, Nina, you'll see,' and at once felt a surge of relief that she had made a commitment to her child, and even believed her own
words. Until that moment she had struggled through a thick black fog with only the thoughts: He's dead. I can't manage. He's dead.
What will I do? whispering over and over again through her head.
'Shall I get Grandma to come up and say good night?'
'Yes please.'
One last tight hug and Helena was released.
On the surge of energy created by her own' optimistic words, Helena went to her bedroom
and closed the door behind her.
She sat on the green checked quilt which had been a wedding present from one of Michael's Mayrick cousins,
and confronted the row of baggage lined up neatly along the wall. Michael’s s possessions had been brought to the house that morning
by the same blonde policewoman who had delivered the news on the night of the accident. There was a plastic bag of clothes, his walking
boots and his rucksack which~ looked even shabbier than usual propped against the shiny cream radiator. Michael had decorated the
bedroom the previous summer and its paintwork had not yet lost its freshness.
Helena put out her hand and touched the hard nylon top
of the rucksack.
'This rucksack's been the equivalent of several times round the world on my back,' Michael had protested when Helena
had offered to buy him a new one for Christmas. 'It wouldn't be right to abandon it.'
It had numerous, misshapen, bulging pockets.
Occasionally Helena had felt irritated by the officiousness of that rucksack. 'Other people just go for walks,' she had protested.
'Why must you make every outing such a palaver?'
'I'm responsible. I take precautions.'
There were stains on the fabric from years of
walking through rain and mud.
His boots, by comparison, were quite new. Helena found herself thinking: He only bought them last year. Ninety pounds, they cost.
She was afraid of the rucksack, the bag of clothes and the boots and wondered how his things could go on
existing now that he was gone. And yet they already had the slightly decayed air of items put out for a jumble sale. We're used and
discarded, they seemed to say, we shall never be important again.
Helena dealt first with the boots, which were clean. Even he would
have let me put them away as they are, she thought. But the leather on the heel of the left boot was badly scuffed and, in a couple
of places, torn back. The soles also had graze marks. She rested her palm on the roughened places as if they were sore but her mind
shied away from picturing the force of impact which had left such scars on the boots. She placed them carefully on Michael's side
of the wardrobe. .
The clothes in the carrier bag had been beautifully folded. Helena visualised the policewoman with her smooth, oval
nails packing them away. The last time Helena had seen them was when Michael was tucking them in curved wads into the rucksack. She
had been summoned to dig him out an extra pair of boxer shorts from the back of the airing cupboard. Now she could do no more than
touch the soft cotton of his shirt inside the bag. She withdrew her hand as if burnt.
The contents of the rucksack were less intimate
for in it were stored all the paraphernalia of climbing and survival.
She arranged the things in a row under the radiator: Kendal mint
cake, survival blanket, rope, pitons, hammer, first aid kit, compass, map, camera, water bottle, kagool, cartons of soft drink. In
the side pockets were paper and pen, spare socks, chocolate, fruit sweets, tissues and a list of emergency phone numbers.
The last
pouch was for rubbish. Helena used to jeer at Michael for such organization. 'Only you would have a designated rubbish pocket,' she
said.
Nevertheless, she arranged each bit of litter as if it was of great value. She smoothed out the wrappers, made a pile of
the balls of tissues and unfolded the papers: a shopping list and a couple of receipts.