1
Stockport was thick with snow. The heaviest it had been for years. The red-bricked buildings were edged in a thick white covering that twinkled under the streetlights and hid the dirty grey pavements. There was no sign of it stopping either. It was relentless. Fat white flakes that slid down the windows and piled up along the window ledges. The trains had been cancelled and some of the schools were closed. Snow fell on impacted ice and a biting wind howled through the streets.
On the east side of Lyme Park, a couple walked their Boston terrier up the steep path that overlooked the Cheshire plains. The man’s stomach rumbled at the thought of the roast beef slow-cooking back home, as the dog ran on ahead. They continued higher, over the powdery snow and up towards the old Elizabethan hunting lodge, known as The Cage.
The Cage stood on top of the ridge: an imposing structure, three storeys high, with four towers and a series of black rectangular windows. The dog barked and the woman walked after it, her long blonde hair blowing in the wind. Down below, two black ravens hopped up onto the bench in their search for food – the sound of their caws, the only noise in the deserted surroundings.
It was difficult for her to catch up to the dog on the uneven ground, but as the woman got nearer, she could tell that it had found something. It ran in a circle around something dark on the snow, the size of a dead bird or a large rodent.
‘Badger. Get here now!’ she shouted, as she got closer.
‘What’s he found? Not deer poo again?’ the man laughed, from further behind.
The dog barked again as the woman grabbed its collar and clipped on the lead. She tilted her head, trying to make sense of what it had found, while the dog pulled against the lead.
As she got closer to the object on the ground, she saw that it was a doll – a child’s toy left up there – but as she moved closer, it wasn’t like any doll she’d ever seen. It was propped upright, sat in the snow, arms by its side and head flipped back. The blue checked shirt it was wearing had been stitched with a thick black thread. The stitching was clumsy, but painstakingly done, and on its knee was a single white porcelain flower.
She looked at the handmade clothes and shivered. The figure was untouched by snow, despite the recent downfall, and that it had been left there recently unnerved her. She looked over her shoulder at the surrounding fields to see if anyone else was around, but they were empty – just a featureless expanse of white.
The figure looked up at her from the ground, with eyes of palest blue, as the wind blew through its hair. She wouldn’t have expected the hair to move like that, it was too realistic. Something wasn’t right, there was a thick ridge around the doll’s head and the woman leant over to get a better look. It looked like the hair of the doll was attached to a thick layer of skin that was edged in dried blood. As she took a step backwards, the doll appeared to smile and she almost lost her footing on the icy ground.
The chill of the wind cut through her coat as she stood there, face as pale as the surrounding snow and eyes fixed on the doll. By the time the man reached her, she knew that this was no ordinary doll.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked, but all she could do was stare at the grotesque little figure on the ground. ‘What is it?’
‘I think it’s real skin,’ the woman told him.
He took a step nearer as a gust of wind sent the hair up off the doll’s face. The man frowned as he bent down to get a closer look. As he did, the dog started to bark again and the noise sent the ravens flying back up to the safety of the trees.
*
On the other side of the town, Mr Anderson was taking a walk. He left behind a trail of impacted footprints in the snow as he walked beside the snaking lines where the kids had dragged sledges over the pavements. The slow crunch and gentle creak of the snow as a pair of Doc Martens crushed it with a thick-ridged sole was the only sound tonight. Everyone else was indoors.
Mr Anderson always took a walk in the evening. He loved the darkness. His nine o’clock stroll would always happen, without fail, come rain or shine. Even when he was sick, he’d still attempt it. He liked the weather at the moment: the chill of it. The way it cut into his throat as he breathed. He liked how his breath hung like a cloud as he paced the streets. Here, and then gone again, into nothing.
He preferred this time of night, because there were few people out and the weather had improved things further. Mr Anderson disliked the people that filled the streets, the sound of their voices and the way they moved over the concrete – an army of blank faces. Stockport was much improved without them and now the snow made everything clean. It cleared his mind of the incessant noises from the day, the tapping feet on the pavements and clicking of tongues. He inhaled. It was perfect.
This was the time that he could finally get his thoughts in order. He knew what he had to do, but it had taken a while for him to get things ready. It was only when the snow had come that he’d known it was the right time. The white purity of it was perfect, as though someone had thrown a sheet over the dirty, stained town and transformed it into his own blank canvas. Stockport had been waiting for him, lying dormant until it was ready to be cleansed. He had been ready, just waiting to start.
The numbers had been increasing. The homeless were everywhere; when he travelled into Manchester, they were scattered on every street corner. When he started out, he never thought that there would have been so many, but almost every day there was someone else of interest – so many people without a family to look after them. With the falling snow his eyes had been opened to new possibilities. It had been a long time coming. The time had come for him to start his family.
When he got home it was mildly warmer than outside. He didn’t put the lights on or the fire. He did not like waste. Time was precious too and the time was his now. ‘A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life,’ his mother would tell him. There was no need for light anyway. He had spent many an hour alone without it. It was calming and he was comfortable in the silent darkness.
His mind was detached from all the day’s happenings and the happenings of the past. The house was his now. There was no need to feel odd about being out of the cellar anymore. Recently, he’d been feeling the need to go down there again, but he’d fought against it. It wasn’t something that he wanted to ever return to. Mr Anderson went over to the wooden chair in the living room and sat down with his back against the wall. The hard-backed chair dug into him as he stared into the darkness until he could make out the shapes of the furniture in the room.
The clock in the corner clicked and chimed through the minutes as he listened to the people next door. The television hummed through the thin walls as he heard them move around. He leant back and placed his palm against the wallpaper, knowing there were only a few bricks separating him from them, they were so beautifully close. If the wall wasn’t there, he could take a step and be in their living room with them. Sit down and hear what it was that made the woman shriek with occasional laughter. They were a family and he wanted it.
He strained to listen for the sounds of a childhood that he had never had, the voices of the people who ate and talked together and went out for walks with their dog. Sometimes the sounds of their plates clinking would remind him that he was hungry and he’d go to the kitchen himself to make something: a modest meal that he would eat alone.