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  A few years ago we were having a meal, me and one of the lads I used to knock about with back then. You have a curry and a few pints and you talk about the old days, don't you? You have a laugh.

  Until her name came up.

  He was talking about what he thought had happened and why. Wanted to know what I thought had gone on; fancied getting my take on it. You used to know her pretty well, didn't you, he said. That's what I heard, anyway. You used to be quite close to her is what somebody told me.

  I had a mouthful of ulcers at that time. It was when my old girl was suffering, you know, and the doctor reckoned it was the stress of her illness that was causing it. Ulcers and boils, I had.

  When he mentioned her name the first time, I started to chew on a couple of those ulcers. Gnawing into those bastards so hard it was making my eyes water, though my mate probably thought it was the vindaloo.

  You used to be quite close to her, he said.

  I bit the bastards clean out then, two or three of them. I remember the noise I made, people in the restaurant turning round. I bent down over the table, coughing, and I spat them out into a serviette.

  That more or less put the tin lid on our conversation, which was all right by me. My mate didn't say too much of anything after that. Well, we'd been talking about what was happening with me and my old lady before, and when he saw the blood in the napkin, maybe he was confused, you know, thought I was the one with the lung cancer.

  It wasn't the best punch I ever threw, but it made contact and I concentrated on the blood that was running down his shirt-front as he swung me round and pushed me against the wall.

  ‘What's your game, you silly old bastard?’

  I tried to nut him and he leaned back, his arms out straight, holding me hard against the bricks.

  ‘Take it easy.’

  I thought I felt something crack in his shin when I kicked out at him. I tried to bring my leg up fast towards his bollocks, but the pain in his leg must have fired him right up and his fists were flying at me.

  It was no more than a few seconds. Just flailing really like kids, but Christ, I'd forgotten how much it hurts.

  Every blow rang and tore and made the sick rise up. I felt something catch me and rip behind the ear; a ring maybe. Stung like hell.

  I swore, and kept kicking. I shut my eyes.

  My fists were up, but it was all I could do to protect my face, so I can't have been doing him a lot of damage.

  But I was trying.

  When the gaps between the punches got a bit longer, I tried to get a dig or two in, just to keep my end up, you know? That was when the background went blurry, and his face started to swim in front of me, but as far as I'm concerned that was down to the pain in my arm. It had bugger all to do with any punishment I might have taken.

  He hit me one more time, when I dropped my fists to clutch at my arm. It was all over then, more or less. But it was the pain in my chest that put me down, and not that punch.

  Not the punch.

  There's always a something that gets you from one place to the next, right? That you're chasing after in some way, shape or form. Granted, some people are happy enough to let themselves get pissed along like a fag-end in a urinal, and yes, I know that some poor bastards are plain unlucky, but still...

  OK, then, to be fair there's usually a something. For me, anyway, is all I'm saying. If I'm centre of attention right now, for all the wrong reasons, it isn't really down to anyone else, and I'm not going to feel sorry for myself.

  That's more or less what I tried to say to Maggie and Phil when they came in to visit, but they were in no fit state to listen, and I don't think I made myself very clear.

  Blimey, they're at me again . . .

  Loads of them, and I thought there was supposed to be a shortage. Poking and prodding. Talking over me like I'm deaf as well as everything else.

  It's not pain exactly.

  It's warm and wet and spreading through my arms and legs like I'm sinking into a bath or something. They've got those things you see on the TV out again, like a pair of irons on my chest. Like they're going to iron out my wrinkles.

  Now they're going blurry either side of me, same as that fucker did when I was punching him. The sound's gone funny too.

  And clear as you like, I can see her face. The stain around her eye and the purple bruise. The hair lying dead against her cheek in the rain.

  Music as I step up and step up. Some tuneless disco rubbish while I'm sneaking looks at her in that tight leotard thing and Ruth bawls at me through her stupid microphone.

  As I step up off the beach. With the sea coming up on to the sand behind me. Noisy, like the sigh of someone who's sick of waiting for something.

  Stepping up on to the hot pavement, where she's stood waiting with a drink. That mouth, and her hair darker now and she looks magnificent. And we lean against each other and drink sangria at one of them places where you can sit outside.

  The music's still getting louder, so I ask them to turn it up.

  That song she likes on the radio.

  The bird with the bare feet.

  It's our song now and she sings along, same as always. I just nod my head and grin like an idiot. I've already told her over and over that I care, that I love her madly. That I'll gladly be there…

  END

  Games for Winter

  by

  Ann Cleeves

  He flew into Stillwater in late January at sunrise on a clear day, so his first view was of flame coloured mountains and forests heavy with snow and tinged with pink. There was no wind and the ride in the small plane from Juneau was as smooth as sailing on a lake. Although in Summer there was a boat every week, in Winter flying was the only way in. Stillwater was as remote as any island.

  They touched down earlier than the schedule and there was no one to meet him. The pilot lifted down his bags onto the runway, then got back into the plane and took off. Mark watched it until it flew away over the horizon. It was very cold standing there, and brilliantly clear. No noise, not even birdsong. The runway and a couple of huts and one road running off into the woods. A backdrop of mountain. The blinding light reflected from the ice, and sharp black shadows.

  A dog barked and a woman bundled in a parka which made her look as fat as she was tall came out of the closest hut.

  'Hi, there.' The dog had followed her and was dancing around her legs. 'You're the new teacher.' Close to, he saw she was middle-aged but striking. Red hair under the hood, a wide Cheshire cat mouth.

  'Yes,' he said, aware of how English his voice was, thought that even one word sounded clipped and pompous. 'Mark. Mark Arden.'

  'Well, hi, Mark. Pleased to meet you. Sally-Ann Larson. My daughter's in eleventh grade. Let's go into my office and I'll get you some coffee then phone around and find out what's happened to your ride. Welcome to Alaska.'

  He met Sally-Ann's daughter the next day in school. She was sitting on the front row in the class for the older students. The school took children from kindergarten through High School. There were forty of them all together, three full time teachers. Mark was an extra, part of a cultural exchange programme. Usually he taught in an inner city comprehensive in Newcastle, not very far from the suburb where he'd been brought up. He was twenty six and needed a challenge. There'd recently been a messy separation from the girlfriend he'd had since college.

  Beth Larson was sixteen, blonde and freckled, though as she stood to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, her feet apart, her hand on her heart, she looked so earnest that he thought she seemed younger. She had the same wide mouth as her mother. As they sat down he saw a moose in the school yard, grazing leaves from a nearby tree. It shook its head and the loose skin, which hung like a collar round its neck, moved too. The kids took no notice.

  He asked them to introduce themselves in a piece of writing, 'as if you were introducing the characters in a story.' When they read out their work he thought how different they were from the students he'd taught at home. On
e boy boasted about his skill with tractors, another described a summer fishing trip. Beth placed herself in the kitchen at home helping her mother baking for her father's birthday party. He works most of the week in Anchorage, she wrote, so it's always special when he comes home.

  Mark thought it was as if he'd gone back in time. These children seemed to belong to his grandparents' generation. In some respects, however, the settlement's philosophy was surprisingly contemporary, liberal. He'd expected a backward community. Red neck. Hunting and shooting and isolationist. But many of the residents of Stillwater had moved there from the city because they were looking for a better way of living. They were idealists, who'd cleared a patch in the forest and built a house out of logs for themselves and their families. They cared about their community and their environment. In the dark winter evenings they attended book groups and nature groups. They watched arty films in the school hall and put on plays. They didn't bother much with the television because the reception was poor and anyway most of it was trash, but many did listen to the World Service on the BBC.

  In the summer, he supposed it would be different. Then tourists came to camp in the National Park and took boat trips into the bay to see the wildlife. The hotel would open again. But in the dark nights of winter the people of Stillwater made their own entertainment.

  Mark lived with Jerry Brown, a young man from Seattle who worked as a ranger in the National Park. They shared a little house which was reached by a track through the trees. It had a porch looking over a bit of cleared meadow to a frozen stream. Jerry had moved to the community two years before and adored it. He said it was the only ethical way to live. He had a share in the Larsons' cow and took his turn at milking her. He led the conservation group. At home he was relaxed and friendly. He liked to drink beer and smoke a little dope, play very loud rock music. After all, he said, there was no one to disturb. Only the bears and it was probably a good thing to discourage them. He seemed to Mark to be as naïve and friendly as the children.

  Mark walked to and from school, unless there was heavy snow. He enjoyed the exercise, the sting of the cold against his face and in his lungs. One afternoon he walked home and stopped by the jetty to look over the bay to watch the setting sun on the glacier. Cormorants stood on the wooden railing. The lights were coming on in the scattered homesteads on the opposite shore. Despite the cold, he must have stood there longer than he'd realised, because when he turned away from the view to continue, he saw it was almost dark. There were stars and a moon like a thin, tilted smile. Someone was walking down the straight road towards him. It was Beth Larson. She stood beside him, looked out at the jetty.

  'We swim from there in the summer.'

  He felt uncomfortable being there with her. She was standing very close, whispering almost into his ear.

  'It must be cold.' He knew he sounded ridiculous and stamped his feet to cover his embarrassment. The temperature had dropped as the light went.

  'Sometimes we go skinny dipping…'

  He imagined her in the summer sunshine, with her gold hair and gold skin, flashing like a fish through the water.

  'You should get home,' he said. 'Your mother will be expecting you.'

  'She's visiting Mary Slater. You know how they talk. She won't be home for an hour. The house is empty. Come back. You could help me with my school work.' Though her voice made it clear that wasn't at all what she had in mind.

  He actually considered it for a moment. He wondered later what had stopped him and decided it had nothing to do with ethics. A fear of being caught.

  'No,' he said. 'I don't think that's a terribly good idea.'

  'You will,' she said. 'By the end of the winter when the boredom's set in, you'll be begging me by then. Only I might have changed my mind.'

  Then she ran off, her boots making only a rustling sound in the new snow. She disappeared into the darkness and he could make himself believe that the encounter had been a figment of his imagination. Back at the house Jerry was caring for an injured surfbird, he'd picked up from the shore. He had put it in a cardboard box and was feeding it pilchards from a tin. Mark would have liked to ask his advice about Beth Larson, but he seemed engrossed in his task and the moment never seemed to arise. Although Mark's students in Newcastle had been precocious, none of them had propositioned him, and he told himself he must have misinterpreted what had occurred.

  That night he dreamed of Beth Larson. In the dream it was summer and he was swimming with her. She rose out of the bay, pulling herself up onto the jetty and water dripped from her hair and ran over her body. He was about to reach out and touch her when he woke. In class the next day she was sitting in the front as usual, serious and polite. He found it hard not to look at her, to remember that she had been available to him. He lost himself in daydreams.

  The following weekend it was Valentine's Day and all the community came together for a pooled supper and party. All the adults at least. The kids weren't invited. The food was supposed to have an erotic theme and they'd had fun with hot dogs and mounds of rice curved like breasts and strangely shaped fruit and vegetables. All very innocent, no doubt, but Mark felt uneasy. The evening wasn't what he'd expected. He had thought these people would lead simple and unsophisticated lives, had imagined himself even as a missionary from civilised world. But even though they wore jeans and hand knitted sweaters and thick woollen socks they talked about artists and writers who were only names to him. They made him feel like the country cousin, gauche and uneducated.

  It didn't help that he found it hard to concentrate on the conversation. They were talking about a student, who'd drowned in a boating accident. It was almost exactly a year since his death. The water had been so cold, they said, that he'd had no chance to survive. The shock would have killed him in seconds. Jerry, who was there too, made little effort to join in. He sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, a can of beer in his hand, watching them. Even in this setting he was a scientist. Mark did try to take part in the discussion, but the party was being held in the Larson house and he was distracted. He imagined Beth upstairs in her room. When the heating pipes gurgled, he pictured her taking a shower, the water trickling over her shoulders into the tub. There was no water pressure in any of the houses in Stillwater so it would dribble slowly, across her belly and between her legs. Finally he made his apologies and left. Jerry offered to drive him, but Mark said he preferred to walk.

  Outside the cold took his breath away and he stood for a moment gasping, snorting out a white vapour through his nose. The stars were hidden by cloud and there were occasional flurries of snow. The lights from the house saw him through the trees to the road and then he switched on his torch. There was no sound except for the squeaking of his feet on the compacted snow, and that seemed very far away because of the fur hat pulled over his ears. He walked on, past the school and the gas station. Everywhere was in darkness. He was approaching the turn off, the track which led to Jerry's house when he heard the sound behind him, a roar which made him think of an avalanche or water released from a dam. Here, surrounded by trees, it didn't occur to him in that first second that the noise might be man-made.

  Then he realised that it was the sound of an engine being revved very hard, revved to screaming point. Head lights flashed through the trees. In the dual beams he saw that it was snowing more heavily now. He jumped off the track into the trees just in time as a white pick-up screeched past. He had stepped into a drift and the snow had gone over his boots and inside his socks. He was climbing out when the pitch of the engine changed and the headlights were turned again towards him. The truck only paused for a moment, then roared back down the road, the way it had come, spraying loose snow from the wheels, sliding when the driver touched the brakes to round a corner. Mark could not tell whether or not he'd been seen. He had the ridiculous thought that he might have been a target.

  At school on Monday, he called Dan Slater back after class. The Slaters were the only family in the community to have a white pick-u
p and the parents had been at the Valentine party. Outside the other kids were standing around in the yard. That was unusual. It was too cold, even in daylight, just to hang out. Their presence unnerved Mark, though they couldn't possibly hear what he was saying. Dan was fourteen, very young for his age. He had problems with simple reading and writing. At home they would have said he had special needs.

  'Were you driving your father's truck on Saturday night?'

  Dan blinked, looked out of the window, stared at the ceiling.

  'Sure,' he said. 'He lets me.'

  'You were driving very fast. You could have hurt yourself.'

  Outside the kids seemed to lose interest. They were starting to drift away. Mark felt more confident. He'd worked with dozens of students like Dan. He spoke gently. 'Weren't you scared, driving like that? What made you do it? It wasn't a race.'

  'Not a race, no. Sometimes we race. But not last time.'

  'What then?'

  'It was a game.'

  'What sort of game?'

  'I guess it was a dare.'

  'Who dared you, Dan?'

  But Dan wasn't prepared to talk any more. He pulled the strange, little boy faces he made when he was concentrating in class, shuffled his feet and stared out of the window. Finally, Mark let him go.

  When Mark got home Beth was waiting for him. They never locked the door and she was inside the kitchen, sitting on the rocker in front of the stove, moving backwards and forwards. He'd been surprised to see smoke coming from the chimney as he'd approached, had thought Jerry must be back earlier than usual from work. She'd taken off her boots and her outdoor clothes, put a cassette into the recorder. When he opened the door she stood up. She'd changed from the clothes she'd been wearing in school. Her jersey had a slash neck and was very tight. Her jeans could have been sprayed on.

  'I thought I'd give you a second chance,' she said. 'I've seen the way you've been looking at me in class.'

  He stooped to unlace his boots. He knew he should make a light hearted remark and send her on her way. Nothing too heavy. He had to live here for the rest of the year. He couldn't afford to upset her or her parents. But he was flattered too. Excited. She walked towards him, moving her hips in time with the music and she grinned, thinking in his moment of indecision, that she had him hooked.