The Clerk continued her statement from memory, and Toby could have lip-synced whole swathes of it.
‘...So, to declare. From the opening of this meeting we are under Winter Jurisdiction, as enforced by the Sheriff and his men. This state will continue until such time as the snow and the sickness have passed. This is how it was agreed by the founding Council of the town, and is re-instated at the meeting held at this time each year since.
‘The provisional dates are thus: Winter Jurisdiction is enforced from ten p.m. today, Friday November Sixteenth. Roads are to be closed once sufficient snow to justify this has fallen, date unknown but expected to be sometime early next week, possibly as early as tomorrow, and certainly not after Saturday November Twenty-Fourth. Telephone lines are to be disconnected immediately subsequent to this date. That is if the snow hasn’t brought them down already.
‘The fall of Winter Jurisdiction brings with it the Winter Restrictions. These will be known to many of you, I know. But to re-iterate, it forbids any but townsfolk entry to the town from the time of enforcement, and also bars any townsperson from leaving.
‘Those unfamiliar with any detail of the Winter Restrictions can be reminded of them at any time by the Sheriff or his Deputies.’
This brought a low rumble of laughter from the crowd.
The Town Clerk was nearing the end of her statement, with only a few formalities and points of order remaining,
‘Efforts should have been made throughout the preceding weeks for all activities involving out-of-town workers to have been brought to an end, and their contracts closed.’
The Clerk looked down to the Foreman of Works at the pipeline station, who briefly stood to declare that this was so.
‘And all such men now left town?’
The landlady of the boarding house stood to say that this was also so.
At that moment, the Clerk called across the room,
‘Is anyone aware of any non-townsfolk resident, for whom transport and excuses for departure need to be arranged this weekend?’
None in the town were stupid enough to be in a position where they’d answer ‘Yes’ to that, were they? So thought Toby, before realising he’d been speaking to such a ‘non-townsfolk resident’ only minutes earlier.
His stomach sank, his legs nearly buckled. Stood there among the brothers of his order, he realised with full clarity of awareness that he had become a double-agent. He was a force of one, had no one on his side. It was a new feeling for him. He may not have told the truth of his life to his friends in Carvel, but at least he could come back to Stove and be honest with all the other liars. Yet here he was, up on stage, lying to the liars. Lying by omission, lying by being silent.
But Jake had been right, Toby wouldn’t tell. Though Toby wasn’t sure how Jake knew this.
The Clerk went on,
‘Then it falls to me now only to me to re-iterate (she liked that word, Toby noted) our responsibilities to the Sheriff and his men. And to acknowledge the efforts they take each winter on behalf of our town and our children. What befalls our youngsters will be difficult, but the Deputies are best placed to help them through it. We are fortunate to have them. They have experience and training, and do this work unpaid each year, leaving other lives behind. This is an act of pure benevolence, for which we should never forget to be thankful.’
There was a murmur of approval throughout the room.
‘It is only through the Town Fund that we can compensate them, and those who keep and board them.’ The Clerk looked at the landlady as she said this. ‘So, as we do every year, we ask for your donations as you leave the Hall tonight. Our collectors will be stationed at the door.
‘And now, I will release you all to your duties. As ever, we finish with the Lord’s Prayer. Mr Mayor, you’ll lead us?’
The Mayor stood, the audience rising with him. Every line he spoke was echoed by the crowd,
‘Our Father...’
‘Our Father...’
‘Who art in heaven...’
‘Who art in heaven...’
Chapter 16 – Reunions
As the meeting broke up, Toby took time out to greet and shake hands with those Deputies he’d known best from previous years.
‘Hello, Toby.’ This was Fitch, nervous little Fitch, but such a town servant, and so unexpectedly brave when called upon.
And Job, tall rangy Job: a good Biblical name that, Toby had always thought. Though no one knew how to pronounce it any more, that it should be spoken as if it had a final ‘e’, to rhyme with robe.
‘You made it back then, Job?’
‘Only after six hours on the Freeway.’
‘Everything tied up for winter?’
‘Yeah, after pulling an all-nighter to get the last job finished.’
Job was a freelance shop-fitter, he moved around a lot. He almost had to restart his business each spring after being ‘out of town’ for so long.
And there was young Tort, though not so young now. Twenty-one, Toby would guess at, though not looking a day over nineteen. He was a year-round resident (as was Fitch), and training with the Sheriff in civil life.
Someone was missing though, thought Toby. Though not someone Toby was missing. Crawley. Where was Crawley?
To Crawley, Toby bore a selfishness. The presence of that college football linebacker gave the Sheriff’s Office real heft that time of year. Nothing reassured a struggling Deputy, his sick kid out of control, like Crawley’s brooding presence appearing in the doorway of a shattered room.
Yet Toby could not love him, could not hero-worship him as the other Dep’s did. Partly this was through Toby being his senior, when at twenty-eight most of the Sheriff’s Office were younger than Crawley now. Partly it had something to do with the shift in influence that had taken place in the three years that Toby had missed, and the Sheriff coming to rely on Crawley instead. Toby wasn’t sure.
And then at last, after a dressing down from the Sheriff for turning up late, Toby had a chance to talk with Eddy. Good, broad-shouldered, uncomplicated Eddy, who could keep a tormented eighteen-year-old on the floor unharmed for six hours straight, not a bruise on him. He and Toby had been childhood friends, running up and down the mountains together, always going further than their parents had permitted. Yet something got in the way now, stopping them from being completely open. Perhaps it was only adulthood, the passing of the years?
Eddy had found his way to Toby,
‘Good to see you, Toby,’ his comrade in arms began.
‘You too, Ed. You too.’
‘How’s the College?’
‘Good, good.’ How Toby already missed it. ‘The business?’
‘Even better. There’s been a whole new fence put up around the pipeline, with huts every hundred yards. We’ve never been busier.’
Eddy’s father ran the sawmill, and his son had not left town.
‘Linda and the girls?’ asked Toby.
‘And a boy now. He popped up in August.’
‘I’ve missed so much.’
‘It’s always the way, bud.’
‘So, Edward Junior?’
‘No, we named him after my dad. We thought it might cheer him up. He’s not been so well this year.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Toby truly. They were a good family. But Eddy sensed more,
‘Something up, Tobe?’ he asked.
‘Well, look at our numbers.’
‘Returners’ Weekend hasn’t happened yet.’
‘It might not,’ shot back Toby. ‘It might not have a chance to.’
‘Then it’s a good job they’ve got us pair, eh?’ His friend was eternally jovial – Toby had forgotten how he had relied on that to get him through their early winters as Deputies.
‘But it’s not just numbers, is it. It’s who’s missing.’
Eddy clocked, ‘Oh, you mean Crawley? Don’t worry, he’s confirmed. He’s on the train tomorrow.’
‘But what if he doesn’t make it?’
Eddy laughed, the way they all laughed when they spoke of their absent colleague, as though someone would notice if they didn’t, ‘Have you ever known Crawley be put off by a bit of snow? Of course he’ll make it.’
Toby realised he didn’t want him to. Perhaps Eddy sensed this, for he asked,
‘You’ve never got on, have you?’
Toby didn’t need to answer, his friend explaining,
‘You really can trust him, you know. You really can,’ and in Eddy’s voice was something like paternal pride.
Toby smiled, and bid his friend goodbye for now. Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling. For there was something else about Crawley, something Toby didn’t like to think about. Especially not now, dressed up in their shared uniform. It was something to do with the final of the three years that Toby had missed, and the reason why he’d missed no more after that. Something to do with why they called it the Worst Year.
Toby and some others found their landlady waiting on the floor of the Hall, for it was the custom for those staying at the Stovian Sunset to walk her home from Council.
Once under way, as the younger members shared their generation’s jokes, so Toby instead matched their landlady’s slower pace of walking, the better to take in the view.
‘No stars tonight,’ he noted.
‘That’s the snow-clouds coming,’ she suspected.
Toby looked at the scattering of buildings that made up the town, running through the relative flatness of their gap among the spiking mountaintops – houses, shops, stores, workshops – all ready for the snow with their toughened, pointed roofs. The roads were busy now with people heading home from the meeting.
‘Eddy and Linda have a boy,’ announced Toby to his walking companion.
‘He’s a lovely lad,’ she answered, possibly referring to either father or son.
‘And Crawley’s twenty-eight now.’ For Toby’s thoughts had brought this fact home to him.
‘Time flies, doesn’t it.’
‘I remember him at eighteen,’ mused Toby.
‘I remember you at eighteen. You can’t go on for ever.’
This hit Toby like a revelation. He’d been so wrapped up his hated duties that he had quite forgotten that, like athletes and astronauts, every Deputy had his day. ‘You can’t go on for ever’ – a man would hit an early-mid-life crisis and the injuries started aching, his heart started weighing him down. He could retire. He could feign an injury, or at least its seriousness... Lor, he’d had enough scrapes over the years to have had a horse put down. Toby suddenly realised that this was his last year, and it brought him pure joy.
‘Are you okay there, Toby?’ asked his landlady.
Not for the first time that evening he had almost collapsed.
‘Just a shiver.’
‘I thought I saw you going on stage. Why do they make you stand all through the meeting?’
‘Sorry, it’s been a long day.’
‘Of course, you thought you’d have a rest after travelling. Well, tomorrow morning should be quiet. I’ll bring your breakfast up at nine.’
‘Make it ten,’ he said.
Just then, the very first flakes of snow began falling.
‘When it starts, it starts quickly,’ observed the landlady, as they hurried to catch up with the younger Deputies.
Chapter 17 – Under the Club / Violent Season
Four weeks later...
The snow was thick beneath Toby’s leather boots as he neared the house. It had been falling all night to re-whiten even the turned-over pathways. It was bright that day, and Toby knew he struck a stern figure striding through the uninterrupted colourless drifts.
‘He’s in here!’ called Fitch from the doorway of a tall, old-style house. If there were civilians around, then they were keeping a safe distance. Only professionals were at home.
‘What needs doing?’ asked Toby as he joined him. His colleague’s continual edginess made it hard to judge how much worse a situation might be from normal.
‘Young Frank Hinklin, he’s spiking. He’s pushed his father over, broken his arm. His mother can’t hold him.’
‘Then why aren’t you holding him?’ asked Toby.
‘Job’s got him now, but he’s had him for an hour. We’ve been taking turns. We’re exhausted, we can’t wear him out. I’ve been calling and calling.’
‘There was no one answering the phone when I got to the guesthouse,’ explained Toby. ‘She was delivering another message, the place was deserted.’
Fitch had a cut on his cheek, and his jacket sleeve was ripped, its silver button missing. The cut to his cheek was fresh, but the jacket tear could have happened any time during the previous weeks. Fitch was self-justifying,
‘I’d have taken over again if you hadn’t come. I’m not being lazy.’
‘I know, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I didn’t know Job was here.’
Toby banged the snow off his boots on the front step, and took off his cap. Once indoors he felt hot from the walking, and undid the top button of his jacket. From one of the other rooms came the sound of groaning.
‘Frank Hinklin – do I know him?’ asked Toby as he psyched himself up.
‘Seventeen,’ answered Fitch. ‘Average build, a good runner. There are medals – there were medals – on the sideboard. He’s had his moments other winters.’
‘Haven’t we all.’
‘But never this bad.’
A woman’s voice sounded then, Toby turning to see the sobbing figure of the boy’s mother. Her dress was torn, and she was holding it together with her good hand. The other arm was black and blue with bruises. She also had the start of a black eye.
‘He’s never been this bad before, Deputy. He doesn’t mean it. Don’t be hard on him.’
Fitch whispered in Toby’s ear,
‘She and the father held him for half the night before they called for us.’
The family were probably ashamed, thought Toby. He whispered back to Fitch, ‘So he’s been spiking for eight, even ten hours?’
To which Fitch nodded urgently.
This was exceptional, even in their unreal world. If there had been a system of prizes, then young Frank would be up for a medal to go with those he had for running.
A runner, Toby thought. That explained his stamina – good lung capacity. Toby remembered his own time in outdoor athletics, either going long-distance through the town, or around and around their slanted football field – it had been the biggest open space on the flattest patch of hillside that the town could find. But still, ten hours?
Chapter 18 – The Sickness
‘The winter sickness’ was an illness that affected the young people of Stove each year. Where it came from, no one knew. Why it affected only their town, again none were any the wiser. Nor did they know why it came with the snow each year and left with the thaw. Nor why it caught you at eleven or twelve, and was usually done with you by eighteen.
There had always been those of a religious bent who felt the town to be uniquely damned. However, most of Stove were far too busy for such spiritual speculations – busy in winter keeping the whole wretched business under control, and busy the rest of the year pretending it wouldn’t come back.
‘Seasonal Insanity,’ Doctor Lassiter had named it once, talking only half-jokingly with Toby. And the Doctor ought to know, suffering it himself each year through his own teenhood. ‘The teenage sickness,’ some called it, as if the very fact of being that age justified you getting it. ‘The groaning sickness,’ yet others knew it as, named after the waving nausea that settled in for that cold season and underlined all other symptoms.
These other symptoms could be nothing ‘worse’ than extreme anxiety, discomfort, an unsettled and unresting air. There were also visual and auditory ‘sensations’ – townsfolk didn’t like to use the word ‘hallucinations’ around here, it sounding too much like the symptoms of schizophrenia. Nor did they speak about the creeping of the skin, the hot and col
d flushes, the impossibility of sleep beyond a half-conscious nightmare state.
This was horrible but bearable, containable in families, kind of like a really bad flu. Yet at some point in the season almost all teenagers would spike. ‘Spiking’ was the term for a young person suffering a bout of the sickness in its most extreme form. Quite a modern term in fact, taken from the world of statistics. The term fitted: for a spike could happen rarely yet quickly, and cause an alarming increase in symptoms.
To spike was for the sufferer’s inner-confusion, and their urge to express it, to increase to levels where they would act out in quite alarming ways. Ways dangerous both to themselves and to those attempting to save them from themselves. In the maelstrom of the affected mind, all concern the teenager had for their physical wellbeing was gone, along with any human feeling for protecting others. These instincts were superseded by the need to get out of themselves the enormous, amazing thing they were containing. They were an aeroplane that pulled itself apart by travelling too fast.
Toby remembered this as he recalled his own teenage sickness, experienced quite badly in his case – and in his sister’s also. It came to him each year in a bout of throwing up. This was accompanied by the sense, niggling at first though urgent later, that something somewhere was wrong and needed putting right. Yet he had no idea of what this wrong thing was, or of how to go about correcting it.
These feelings were interrupted by almost-weekly spikes of pure rage, of which he remembered little afterwards. Only that the spikes were a relief, a roaring freedom from the groaning sickness. Even the aching of the bruises he was left with had given him something else to focus on.
That was what the Deputies were for then. Their first duty was to contain a spiking child. Their methods brought no one very much pride, for they were those of the lawman apprehending a rowdy suspect. There were coshes, there were arm-holds, there were sometimes restraints.
For when a sufferer could display a carefree disregard for their wellbeing, this put the Deputy in a terrifying moral position: if they didn’t hurt the child badly enough and soon enough, then the child could hurt themselves much more.