‘Um, yeah. Well, maybe I missed him then … anyway. You know, you look upset. You should really try meditating? And chilling? And your diet can’t help—’
‘You. Are. Vile,’ said Carmen. And she turned and fled.
Outside, the snow was thicker than ever. There wasn’t a cab to be seen anywhere. Blinded by the flakes and her tears, Carmen saw a bus coming and jumped on, waving her phone at the ticket point.
It was nearly empty, and she found a seat in the back upstairs where, as the bus trundled on, she could let the tears fall and drip down.
She thought of Mr McCredie, living his life tied up in shame, missing opportunities because he had spurned them. She thought of herself, turning away from opportunities, from education and work and all that life had to offer, in case she failed, in case it went wrong. It had taken the combined efforts of her entire family just to get her to take a new job, which had ended up changing her life.
She had been so scared to try. She had been too timid. And look, she was too late. She sighed, tears from the weather dribbling down the window in sympathy. She looked out into the fading light. The buildings were disappearing behind her, rather than approaching; she was moving away from the centre of the city, and home and at least the consolation of a family who loved her. Now they had crossed the bypass and were out in the countryside.
Oh God. She realised in her confusion she must have come out of a different exit, and taken a bus going the wrong way. Oh God. Where even was she?
She wobbled downstairs and jumped off the bus in a panic before she got even further away from home. She was standing in the freezing cold, with a rapidly decreasing phone battery, alongside a housing estate. She followed it, trying to pull up a map on her phone – and gradually she recognised where she was.
Ormiston. Why did she recognise that name? Ormiston. She sniffed.
Of course. His favourite tree. And now he was gone, all the way to the other side of the earth, unimaginably far.
She stumbled forwards. Where was it? She could shelter under it and call a cab, surely. There must be one somewhere but her hands were too cold to press on the phone and the battery was running out.
Increasingly chilled and starting to get frightened in the dark, as the street lights popped on above her, she couldn’t figure out what to do. Federico could drive out and get her but he needed to be there with the children. Her thin woollen gloves were not helpful, especially as she kept having to take them off to try her phone. Her hair was covered in white flakes; her cheeks streaked with tears.
She stumbled down the track, remembering the instructions: keep left. The snow was higher than her boots; she was starting to shiver. It was so dark, just the lights from remote houses leading her on through a wooded lane, deeper and deeper.
Finally, in the fading light, she turned her head round to a path stretching to the right – and she saw it.
There was the tree – huge, broad, all-encompassing – ahead of her. It was beautiful, extraordinary.
She would sit inside, she told herself sensibly, even though it was not at all a sensible thing to do and, sleep-deprived and chilled she was not thinking remotely sensibly, get out of the snow and the wind, use her phone properly and figure out how to get home. She could go home and head into her little bedroom and maybe take the baby for a cuddle and cry a lot. If the baby was crying at the same time, well, all to the good. Then she would make some hot chocolate and pretend it was for the children. Another run on The Muppet Christmas Carol might not go amiss.
She felt, absurdly, like the little match girl, but without a match to light.
The smell of the deep ancient green made her think, and pause, and take in several deep breaths as she crawled through the narrow alleyway to the tree, a space cleared in the huge overhanging boughs. She was deeply, deeply cold, she realised. But here the wind was stilled; the snow could not penetrate the huge ancient branches, the heavy canopy of leaves. It was a cathedral of high green struts; stained green glass, brown-timbered pews. It was a place of worship. She slumped against the thickest of the multi-stranded trunks.