Out of Mind

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Maybe it is because of the snow that I feel so tired, even in the morning. Vera doesn't, she likes snow. To her there is nothing better than a snowy landscape. When the traces of man vanish from nature, when everything becomes one immaculate white plain: how beautiful! She says it almost as if enraptured. But this state of affairs never lasts long here. Even after a few hours you see footprints and tyre tracks everywhere and the main roads are cleared by snow ploughs.

I hear her in the kitchen, making coffee. Only the ochre- coloured post at the school bus stop still indicates where Field Road passes our house. Actually, I don't understand what has happened to the children today. I stand here by the window every morning. First I check the temperature and then I wait until they turn up everywhere from among the trees in the early morning, with their schoolbags on their backs, their colourful hats and scarves and their shrill American voices. The bright colours make me feel cheerful. Flaming red, cobalt blue. One boy wears an egg-yolk-yellow anorak with a peacock embroidered on the back, a boy with a slight limp who is always the last to climb into the school bus. It is Richard, son of Tom the lighthouse keeper, born with one leg shorter than the other. A sky-blue, fan-shaped peacock tail studded with darkly staring eyes. I don't know where they can all be today.

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