March comes in like the proverbial lion. A biting east wind whisks the last few brittle autumn leaves round the frozen garden and penetrates under doors and the edges of ill-fitting windows. The animals huddle in their sheds, and we huddle indoors, wrapped in as many layers as we can lay hands on. I look like a Russian doll; as though within each layer of clothing there lies another, smaller woman, similarly clad. Mum, who has never been good with the cold, suffers terribly from chilblains, and Silas, who still hasn’t regained all the weight he lost during his illness, feels the cold more than usual. He is banned from outdoor duties, although he protests that he is fine, and that the ‘fresh air will do him good’. Eric points out that it’s more likely to kill him, and fortunately the medical bible agrees, so Silas has to do as he’s told. He takes comfort from the corpse of the hare, recovered from beneath the frozen remains of Dorothy. We all hope that the stuffing of this unfortunate animal will keep him amused until the warmer weather arrives. The only people unaffected by the cold are Lazzo, who strides back and forth, often in his shirtsleeves, seeing to the animals, and Kaz and Kent. Having for the time being at least resolved their differences, they appear to have recaptured their initial glow, and this seems to be enough to keep them happy, if not exactly warm.
The baby is late. I never expected it to arrive on time, considering that after so long in the womb, it should be allowed a little leeway. I have never understood how babies can be late. I can see that early could be a problem; even I know that premature babies are bound to be underdeveloped. But late? It seems to me more than likely that each baby comes in its own time, and that that time varies from baby to baby.
But the midwife disagrees, and mutters about weight loss and something called ‘placental insufficiency’. I know that the reason I have lost weight is that indigestion prevents me from eating as much as I normally would, but the midwife, a busty bossy woman, doesn’t listen. I tell her it’s my body; she says what about the baby? I say it’s my baby, too; she says I’m being selfish, and threatens to have it induced. I ask whether this can be done without my consent. She reluctantly admits that it can’t. Well, then.
I sit around and wait. Because of my size and accompanying exhaustion, I was relegated some time ago to light duties — feeding the hens, helping Mum with meals, a spot of hen house duty — but now everyone insists on treating me like an invalid, and I’m hardly allowed to do anything at all. I read and try to play the violin, but my attention span is so limited that I can’t concentrate on either. My sleep is disturbed by the activities of the baby, who appears to have no notion of day or night, and by bad dreams. I have a recurring nightmare in which the baby refuses to come out — in fact never comes out — and I get bigger and bigger as the years go by.
‘He’s a man now, you know,’ says the midwife, who is still apparently in attendance. ‘He’s started shaving.’
The idea of a fully-grown man living inside me and actually shaving is so horrendous that it invariably wakes me up.
These days, I hardly recognise Kaz. Gone is most of the ironmongery which used to adorn her face, her hair is returning to its natural colour (a pleasant shade of honey) and she’s trying to give up cigarettes (Kent hates them).
‘Though it’s bloody difficult,’ she tells me, as we shiver together outside the back door while she has a smoke. She’s down to seven a day, and rations them carefully so as to get the most out of them. ‘If you’ve never smoked, you don’t know how wonderful it is. That first long pull of smoke into your lungs — there’s nothing like it.’ She removes what is now a minuscule stub from between her lips, gazes at it wistfully for a moment, and then screws it carefully into the ground with her heel. ‘Let’s go in and get warm.’
We wake the next morning to snow. When I look out of the window, the garden and the fields beyond are carpeted in white. The roofs and corners of the outbuildings are rounded and softened by snow, making them resemble gingerbread houses, and the branches of the trees are bent low under its weight. There isn’t a breath of wind.
Perhaps there’s still something of the child in me, for I never fail to be excited by snow. The magic white light, which seems to glow on the walls even before you’ve opened the curtains; the softness of the silence; the treat of being the first to make footfalls in virgin snow. Of course, as a child, I had snowballs and snowmen to look forward to, and I think I can say I’ve grown out of those, but there is still something special about waking up to snow, especially when, as today, it is totally unexpected.
But it would appear that I’m the only one excited by the snow, for downstairs, everyone is grumbling. Snow means more work, of course. It needs to be negotiated or shovelled away; such animals as are still allowed out during the day will have to be kept in, which means more mucking out; everything takes twice the time when you have to tramp through snow.
‘Blossom won’t be in,’ says Eric wearily.
‘Why?’
‘She never comes when it snows. Says the bike won’t work.’
‘Well, she may have a point.’
‘She may. But I think the real point is that she doesn’t like snow.’
But Lazzo turns up, full of good cheer, and between us all (for once, my offers of help are accepted) we get the jobs done. By lunch-time, the snow is pock-marked by trails of footsteps, crossing and re-crossing each other, and my excitement has evaporated as quickly as it arrived. My fingers are stiff with cold, my feet are numb inside my wellingtons, and I know without looking that my cheeks have turned an unattractive shade of purple. Maybe snow isn’t so much fun after all.
But after lunch, Mikey and Gavin turn up.
‘We’ve come to help you make a snowman!’ Mikey says. ‘To cheer you up.’
‘What a ridiculous idea.’ I’m no longer in the mood for snowmen. ‘Haven’t you got a job to go to?’
‘It’s Saturday.’
‘Oh. I’d forgotten.’
‘Come on, Ruth. It’s your last chance to be a kid before you’re a mother.’
‘You think?’
‘I know.’
So we make a snowman. Kaz and Kent join in, and when it’s finished, I have to admit that it’s the best snowman I’ve ever seen. It — he — is huge (Mikey made the finishing touches with the help of a stepladder), and sports a rather fetching trilby hat and a moth-eaten dinner jacket.
‘There. Don’t you feel better now?’ Mikey brushes snow off his jacket and beams at me.
‘You know, I think I do.’
‘I said you would. It brings out the child in you.’
‘That’s actually what I’m waiting for.’
‘So you are!’
We all howl with laughter, while my father, who doesn’t do fun in any form, watches us pityingly from the sitting-room window and Mr. Darcy runs round and round in circles, dizzy with excitement. A lone pilgrim, waiting for someone to attend to her, watches in astonishment, and Eric and Silas applaud from the back doorway.
Today has turned out to be a good day after all.