Daddy did not come back for lunch. This was unusual, especially on such a cold day. At one point I peered out the window to see if he was on his way, but he was not and I served up the vegetable soup I had made for me and Cathy anyway. We briefly remarked on Daddy’s absence but other than that the meal passed in contented silence.
As the afternoon proceeded and it started to fall dark, I began to worry. It was not that it was late. It was not yet four o’clock and it was that time of year when it seemed to get dark again almost before I could say I was truly awake. But it was rare for Daddy to stay out all day until dusk without coming home once for a bite to eat. If not lunch, then cake or an oat biscuit. And it was Christmas Eve. I had prepared a feast of hot pies and braised onions to keep us going until tomorrow when our main meal was to be goose. Cathy had stayed in especially and practised carols on her violin. Her bow strokes bounced over the strings, more like she was playing a sea shanty than a hymn, but I could recognise the melodies nonetheless and hummed along when she really got into her stride, lifting my voice to its full extent where I knew the words.
When darkness fell completely I thought about going with a torch to find him but the world outside was huge and everything looked different in the snow. Even though I already knew the copse well, I could not be certain I would be able to find my way through it with just a small light held in my hand, reflecting off the bright white that obscured the familiar colours and the precise shapes of the landscape. And I could not be sure that Daddy was in the copse. That is where he usually went, but not always. And although he had said he had got work to finish up there he also said he would not be long.
I thought about the tools he used out in the woods. Sharp axes and machetes and saws. I had a vision of him slipping suddenly and cutting open his thigh, where the thick, deep arteries ran, and of him passing out in the cold, his blood at first melting the snow around then freezing again within it.
I had already put on my coat and boots when Daddy appeared in the door frame. The hall was dark as I had shut the door to the kitchen to keep the warmth inside, and Daddy was illuminated only by the stars and by the golden light of a lantern he was holding aloft with his right hand.
‘Going out?’ Daddy asked.
‘Just to see where you’d got to.’
‘Where’s your sister?’
He did not wait for an answer but called her name. The carols stopped abruptly and she came out into the hall.
‘Both of you come with me,’ said Daddy.
Cathy slipped her feet into her boots before hopping over to the coat hooks and wrapping herself in woollens, rounded off with her navy-blue mack. We followed Daddy out into the cold, shutting the front door firmly behind us. His deep footprints led from the edge of the copse and we followed them back exactly so as not to disturb more of the snow. The ash and the hazel were bare and shivered against the wind each time it blew. Their branches were frosted and held a delicate collection of snowflakes. The hazel particularly, which had been coppiced many years ago, had many surfaces and alcoves in which snow could collect and sit, compacting into itself and freezing anew. Icicles dripped from many of the higher branches where the snow had met the midday sun and slowly melted and found a gradual path towards the earth before being caught for a second time by the cold.
We arrived at the treeline and continued to walk. Daddy’s lantern swung in his hand as we bumbled along, and the spindly shadows cast by bare deciduous branches swung and bounced too. When we passed evergreen pines the shadows became furry as the light gathered and parted their needles like water soaking into a dog’s coat.
Then the light began to change, and the spindly shadows turned to point towards us, sent by a light that appeared straight ahead, through the trees, growing stronger than Daddy’s lantern with every step. The light became brighter but still its source was not clear, obscured on all sides by the trunks of trees and the thick woodland vegetation, blanketed by snow. Indeed, the light reflected off the snow in such a way that as we got closer everything looked bright.
We rounded a huge pine and saw where the light had been coming from. Another pine, much smaller, not much more than a sapling, smaller than Daddy, was covered with lanterns. I looked more closely and saw that each lantern had been fashioned from a milk bottle with a wire hoop tightly wound beneath the bottle’s lip and another bent upwards to catch onto the fronds of the tree. Each bottle had oil in its bottom quarter, with a thin metal covering over the top, through which a thick wick poked. The coverings stopped all the oil catching fire at once, but allowed a little to seep up the wick and burn at its tip. The upper three quarters of each bottle-lantern allowed air to move around the flame, and each glowed rich amber, while the light from their fellows allowed the bottles’ oil to glimmer too, dancing and refracting as the oil slowly swirled to follow the current up the wick and to the flame, as slow as still water shifting with the earth’s tilt. It was a beautiful spectacle.
We stayed out there for half an hour or so, watching the lanterns, playing with sparklers, smoking and chatting, breathing in the cool woodland air. When we walked back to the house we did so in silence, having already got out all our words for the day. I was especially snug in my bed that night. The blankets were warm and close in contrast with the biting open outside. I pulled them up to my nose and went to sleep with that warmth and the scent of worn linen in my nostrils.
Christmas morning came with a bright, white light and left with a slurry of sleet. The landscape had shone with snow and the sky had been glossy. By noon everything was matte.
We roasted and ate the goose and Cathy played her violin.
We went out to the Christmas Tree again that night, and the next night, and every night after that until the twelfth was up, just as Daddy had said. He refilled and relit the lanterns before we got there so the image we saw was identical each time. The grove smelt of paraffin and pine needles rising with the hot air. Timid popping and fizzing emanated from the burning oil.