Ice (18 page)

In a sky which should have been cloudless and burning blue the sombre, enormous structures of storm cloud looked inexpressibly sinister, threatening, like monstrous ruins on the point of collapse, hanging impossibly overhead. Icy crystalline shapes began to flower on the windscreen. I was oppressed by the sense of universal strangeness, by the chill of approaching catastrophe, the menace of ruins suspended above; and also by the enormity of what had been done, the weight of collective guilt. A frightful crime had been committed, against nature, against the universe, against life. By rejecting life, man had destroyed the immemorial order, destroyed the world, now everything was about to crash down in ruins.

A gull flew close and cried; I had reached the sea. I sniffed the salt smell, looked over the dark waves to the horizon, saw no wall of ice. But the air was full of the deadly coldness of ice, it could not be far away. I raced across fifty miles of bare land to the town. Above it, the clouds hung lower, blacker, more ominous, waiting for me to arrive. The cold made me shiver perhaps
he
had already been there. When I slowed down and entered the streets where people had danced all night, I could hardly believe this was the same gay place. The streets were all deserted and silent; no pedestrians, no traffic, no flowers, no music, no lights. I saw sunken ships in the harbour; demolished buildings, closed shops and hotels; a cold grey light that belonged to another climate, a different part of the world; everywhere the imminent threat of a new ice age.

I saw what was in front of my eyes, and at the same time I saw the girl. Her picture was always with me, in my wallet and in my head. Now her image appeared in the open wherever I looked. Her white lost face was everywhere with its too-large eyes, her albino paleness flared like a torch beneath the malignant clouds, drew my eyes like a magnet. She was a shimmer among the ruins, her hair a glittering in the dark day. Her wide eyes of a wronged and terrified child accused me from the black holes of smashed windows. Like a perverted child she ran past, soliciting me with big eyes, tempting me with the pleasure of watching her pain, elaborating the worst imaginings of my desire. The ghostly gleam of her face lured me into the shadows, her hair was a cloud of light; but as I came near her she turned and fled, the silver shifting suddenly on her shoulders, a waterfall glinting in moonlight.

The remains of a roadblock obstructed the entrance to the hotel at which we had stayed. I had to leave the car and walk up the drive. A strong wind, cruelly cold, blew straight off the ice, tore my breath away. I kept glancing at the anthracite-coloured sea to make sure the ice itself was not already in sight. At ground level the exterior of the hotel was unchanged, but higher up the walls were full of great gaping holes, the roof sagged. I went inside. It was cold and dark, no heating, no light, dilapidated chairs and tables arranged as in a café. In spite of fragments of gilt decoration surviving amidst the destruction, I did not recognize the wrecked room.

I heard uneven steps, the tap of a stick, was approached by someone who knew my name. The young man's appearance was vaguely familiar, but at first I could not place him in the dim light. Suddenly it came back to me while we were shaking hands. 'Of course, you're the proprietor's son.' The lameness was new and had put me off. He nodded. 'My parents are dead. Killed in the bombing. Officially I'm dead too.' I asked what had happened. He grimaced, touched his leg. 'It was in the retreat. All the wounded were left behind. When I heard I'd been reported killed I didn't bother to contradict. . . .' He broke off, gave me a nervous glance. 'But what on earth brings you back? You can't stay here, you know. We're in the area of immediate danger. Everyone's been told to get out. There are only a few of us old inhabitants left.'

I looked at him; did not understand why he was uneasy with me. He told me the crowds of people I had seen here had left long ago. 'They almost all got away before war broke out.' I said I had come in the hope of finding the girl. 'But I ought to have realized that she would have gone.' I waited for him to say something about the warden. Instead, he looked awkward, hesitated before he spoke. 'As a matter of fact, she's one of the very few who did
not
go.' My emotions had been disturbed during the last few seconds; to disguise the fact as much as to make sure my present relief was justified, I asked if any inquiries had been made about her. 'No.' He looked blank, seemed to be speaking the truth. 'Does she still live here?' Again the reply was 'No'. He went on: 'We've been using this part as a restaurant, but the whole building's unsafe. There's nobody left to do repair work. Anyhow, what's the use?' I agreed that the approach of the ice made all such activities futile. But I was only interested in the girl. 'Where is she living now?' His hesitation was longer this time, more marked. He was obviously embarrassed by the question, and when he finally answered it, I at once saw why. 'Quite near, At the beach house.' I stared at him. 'I see.' Everything was clear now. I remembered the house well, it was his home, where he had lived with his parents. He continued uncomfortably: 'It's convenient for her. She's been doing some work here.' 'Really? What sort of work?' I was curious. 'Oh, helping in the restaurant.' He sounded evasive, vague. 'Do you mean waiting on people?' 'Well, she sometimes dances. . . .' As if to avoid the topic, he said: 'It's a great pity she didn't go to a safe place like everyone else, while it was still possible. She had friends who would have taken her with them.' I replied: 'Evidently she had friends here she preferred to stay with.' I watched him closely, but his face was in shadow, his back to the fading light, I could not make out his expression.

All at once I became impatient. I had already wasted too much time on him. She was the one I had to talk to. On my way to the door I asked: 'Have you any idea where I'd be likely to find her?' 'I should think she'd be in her room. She's not due here till later.' He limped after me, leaning on the stick. 'I'll show you a short cut through the garden.' I got the impression he was trying to delay me. 'Many thanks: but I can find my own way.' I opened the door and went out; shut it between us before he had time to say anything more.

FIFTEEN

An ice-cold air-stream hit me outside. Dusk was falling, the wind brought crumblings of frozen snow. I did not look for the short cut, but took a path I knew led down to the beach. Frost had killed off the exotic plants I remembered growing beside it: the leaves of palm trees were shrivelled, moribund, blackened, furled tight like rolled umbrellas. I should have been inured to climatic changes; but I again felt I had moved out of ordinary life into an area of total strangeness All this was real, it was really happening, but with a quality of the unreal; it was reality happening in quite a different way.

Snow began to fall steadily, driven into my face by the arctic wind. The cold scorched my skin, froze my breath. To keep the snow out of my eyes I put on the heavy helmet. By the time the beach came in sight, a thick crust of ice had formed on the brim, making it still heavier. Through the white shifting curtain the house dimly appeared ahead; but I could not make out whether waves or a huge uneven expanse of pack ice lay beyond. It was heavy going against the wind. The snow thickened, inexhaustibly falling, incessantly sifting down spreading a sheet of sterile whiteness over the face of the dying world, burying the violent and their victims together in a mass-grave, obliterating the last trace of man and his works.

Suddenly, through the churning white, I saw the girl running away from me, towards the ice. I tried to shout, 'Stop! Come back!' but the polar air corroded my throat, my voice was whirled away by the wind. Snow powder blowing round me like mist, I ran after her. I could hardly see her, hardly see out of my eyes: I had to pause, painfully wipe away the crystals of ice forming on my eyeballs, before I could continue. The murderous wind kept hurling me back, the snow heaped up white hills that fumed like volcanoes, blinding me again with white smoke. In the awful dead cold I lurched on, staggered and stumbled, slipped, fell, struggled up, reached her somehow at last, clutched her with numbed hands.

I was too late, I saw at once that we had no chance. A mirage-like arctic splendour towered all around, a weird, unearthly architecture of ice. Huge ice-battlements, rainbow turrets and pinnacles, filled the sky, lit from within by frigid mineral fires. We were trapped by those encircling walls, a ring of ghostly executioners, advancing slowly, inexorably, to destroy us. I could not move, could not think. The executioner's breath paralyzed, dulled the brain. I felt the fatal chill of the ice touch me, heard its thunder, saw it split by dazzling emerald fissures. Far overhead the iceberg-glittering heights boomed and shuddered, about to fall. Frost glimmered on her shoulders, her face was ice-white, the long eyelashes swept her cheek. I held her close, clasped her tightly against my chest, so that she should not see the mountainous masses of falling ice.

In her grey loden coat, she stood on the verandah surrounding the beach house, waiting for someone. At first I thought she had seen me coming, then realized that her eyes were fixed on a different path. I stopped and stood watching. I wanted to make sure who it was she expected, though I did not think the hotel man was likely to come now, knowing I would be here. She seemed to feel she was no longer alone, started looking about, and finally saw me. I was not close enough to distinguish the dilating pupils that made her eyes huge and black in her white face. But I heard her sharp exclamation, saw the hair swirl and glint as she swung round, pulled the hood over her head, and started towards the beach I could hardly see her once she was off the verandah. She was trying to become invisible in the snow. Sudden terror had seized her: the thought of the man whose ice-blue eyes had a magnetic power which could deprive her of will and thrust her down into hallucination and horror. The fear she lived with, always near her, close behind the world's normal façade, had become concentrated on him. And there was another connected with him, they were in league together, or perhaps they were the same person.

Both of them persecuted her, she did not understand why But she accepted the fact as she accepted all the things that happened to her, expecting to be ill-treated, to be made a victim, ultimately to be destroyed, either by unknown forces or by human beings. This fate seemed always to have been waiting for her, ever since time began. Only love might have saved her from it. But she had never looked for love. Her part was to suffer; that was known and accepted. Fatality brought resignation. It was no use fighting against her fate. She knew she had been beaten before the start.

She had gone only a few steps when I overtook her and pulled her back to the shelter of the verandah. Wiping the snow off her face, she exclaimed, 'Oh, it's
you,'
stared at me in surprise. 'Who did you think it was?' I remembered the uniform I was wearing. 'These clothes aren't mine, by the way. I borrowed them.' Her apprehension vanished, she showed relief, her manner became quite different, suddenly she seemed self-possessed. I was familiar with the air of confidence and independence she could assume when people or circumstances made her feel secure. The young man at the hotel must have done this. 'Let's go in quickly. Why are we standing here?' She spoke casually, acted as though my return had been planted and expected, pretending there was nothing unusual about the situation. It was annoying, after all I had been through. I knew it was meant to make me feel small.

She led the way to her door, invited me in with a social gesture. The little room was bare and cold, an old-fashioned oil heater barely took off the chill. But everything was clean and tidy, I saw that affectionate care had been expended, here were decorations of driftwood and shells from the beach. I'm afraid it's not very comfortable; not up to your standard.' she was trying to make fun of me. I said nothing. She undid her coat and put back the hood, shaking her hair free. It had grown longer, sparkled and shimmered with life. Under the coat she was wearing an expensive looking grey suit I had not seen, which had evidently been made to measure. So she had not been short of money. To see her looking attractive and well-dressed for some reason added to my annoyance.

Like a conventional hostess making conversation, she said: 'It's nice to have a place of one's own after so much travelling about.' I stared at her. I had come so far to find her, through so many deaths and dangers and difficulties: now at last I had reached her; and she was talking to me like a stranger. It was too much. I felt hurt and resentful. Exasperated by her offhand pose and her determination to deprive my arrival of its importance, I said indignantly: 'Why are you putting on this act? I didn't come all this way just to be treated as a casual caller.'

'Did you expect me to put out the red carpet for you?' The feeble flippant retort sounded offensive. I was becoming angry, knew I would not be able to control myself much longer.

When, still keeping up the farce, she inquired in the same artificial tone what I had been doing, I answered coldly: 'I've been with someone you know,' giving her a long, hard, meaning look at the same time. She understood at once, dropped her affectations and showed signs of anxiety. 'When I first saw
you ...
I thought
you ... he ...
I was afraid he'd arrived here.' 'He will be here at any moment. I came to tell you that. To warn you, in case you have other plans, that he means to get you back—' She interrupted, 'No, no—never!' shaking her head so vigorously that the hair flew out with a sheen like spray. I said: 'Then you must leave immediately. Before he comes.'

'Leave here?' It was cruel. She looked round in dismay at the home she had made. The sea shells comforted, the little room was so reassuring, so safe, the one place on earth she could call her own. 'But why? He'll never find me. . . .' Her wistful, pleading voice did not touch me; mine remained adamant, cold. 'Why not?
I
found you.' 'Yes, but you knew. . . . ' She looked at me with suspicion, I was not to be trusted. 'You didn't tell him, did you?' 'Of course not. I want you to come with me.'