Too Cold For Snow

been here?’
    And then she told him all about her wanderings, ever since her mother and father had been taken away from her and she had found herself travelling byways and green lanes, crossing moors under moonlight, learning to live off her wits and a flair for spotting nature’s gifts. Autumn had been a feast of chestnuts, hazelnuts and berries beyond measure. She had gathered baskets of fungi and sold some of them at farms on the high hills. But the weather, when it turned, had been her undoing.
    Peace was amazed that he could understand her. He’d heard Romany many times as a child but had no idea he carried so much with him.
    ‘What happened to your parents?’
    She turned her head away, scrutinising the wall as if it told secrets. He let the subject drop and suggested they should start walking back to his farm where she could spend the night, and have some soup. She fixed him with an accipitrine stare.
    They walked into the gloaming. The land was preternaturally still and the only sound was their breathing. They were plumed by vapour as their exhalations fogged in the chill. It seemed a long way now and Pearce’s joints protested as they clambered over the tops of smothered trees. There were snowlamps hanging in the sky, a wintry candelabra about to be extinguished at day’s end.
    The girl marched on, buoyed up by thoughts of the broth that was promised. The old man had promised leeks and carrots. Pearce struggled to keep up, his breathing shallow now. She asked him questions with every step, a trick to keep them going, give extra purpose to their strides.
    ‘How old are you?’
    ‘Who will pluck the birds – you or me?’
    ‘The dead people – who were they?’
    ‘How many carrots?’
     
    They had called by the snares on their way and all five had taken, a total of two fieldfares and three redwings. Eiza took one of the thrushes from Pearce’s hand and scrutinised it, appreciating the beauty of its plumage and weighing up how much it had to contribute to their supper. He looked at her, a halo of refracted light throwing her black hair into stark relief and rimming her eager, scanning eyes. He thought he’s never seen anyone or anything as beautiful in the whole span of his days. He took her hand in his and kissed it, his back creaking audibly, so that they both laughed and there was no embarrassment. Pearce saw the shadows gathering, and was aware, for one terrible and heavy moment, of all the love he might have encountered had he not lived his lonely life with only a dog to converse with and the small talk of wind in the eaves. Eiza looked up at him and smiled.
    ‘We should press on, before it gets too dark.’
    The moon made the hills incandesce, a snowy phosphorescence. It took an hour longer than he thought it would. The map of the land was almost without feature.
    Pearce lifted the latch of the door and ushered Eiza inside. She took bold steps ahead of him into the bare room. In the chair was the old farmer’s body, his glazed eyes like trout on a slab. He must have been dead for some time.
    You never know how it will come. It might come as a young girl, or as a raven, or like the tolling of a bell where there is no bell, or even a steeple to bear it. One thing is sure. To see the rumpled pile of human clothing you leave behind isn’t easy. Ask old Pearce, as he trudges off into the snowfields, leaving behind the gipsy girl plucking her pile of winter thrushes.

Shearwater Nights
     
     
    It was a summer of sex and seabirds, arranged around two events that were to shape Kenny’s life forever. He would always remember that bright season, full of sea campion, the coruscating light of the tide-race, inquisitive seals and mewing seagulls, which ended with an extraordinary meal, fit for a Queen.
    Kenny had been sent to the island because of what his docket sheet described as ‘transgressive’ behaviour. A docket sheet was written by a probation officer before a court appearance and was in part character survey, in part character assassination. They were duty bound to declare everything about him that was bad, but the good bits were added at their discretion. In Kenny’s case the docket was like giving permission to line him up for execution by machine-gun fire. There was something about Kenny that poisoned his probation officer’s bloodstream and set fire to his clothes. So when Kenny was had up for three burglaries he thought he’d be in for a long stretch. In the judicial system