Miracle on Morton Street

My friend Annabelle, who means well, bought me a tea-towel last year, only it’s not the kind of tea-towel you dry up the pots on. I mean, you could, I don’t doubt it was perfectly serviceable, and not like one of those ornamental teapots that don’t hold water, but it was obviously designed to be decorative, not functional. And not merely decorative, but inspirational. It had that little tale on it about footprints in the sand – you know, where it turns out there was only one set of footprints at the hardest times because the Lord had carried you. It was a touching gesture, as I’d just been through a bit of a bad patch, even though Belle, as we called her, wasn’t, so far as I knew, especially religious, though she was convinced that her beloved cat Mortimer was waiting for her at the Rainbow Bridge. I had been very fond of Mortimer myself. He was a comfortable, quizzical cat, with large almond eyes that seemed to have just a little his orange fur reflected in them, and his only token nod to feline perversity was an apparent wish always to be outside when he was inside and the reverse. I could quite believe Belle when she said she could still see him sitting on the window sill or by the front door looking wistful but stoic.

     But if I were to say that it gave me purpose and peace of mind just by looking at it, then I’m afraid that would be somewhat wide of the mark. I also, irrelevantly, reflected that the person who made the footprints appeared to have very big feet. And at least where I live, footprints in the sand don’t last that long anyway.

     All the same, I couldn’t help giving at least a passing thought to that tea-towel as I set out along Morton Street (that a certain much-lamented moggy probably thought should have been called Mortimer Street!), not in the sand, but in the snow. It had come overnight, and though it was still dark, it glistened in the phosphoric gleam of the street lights. I know that kind of street light isn’t especially environmentally friendly, but they certainly look good reflecting on the snow. It was just the right kind of snow, to parody that famous and possibly apocryphal remark made to explain the late running of a train. Crunchy, not soggy and sloppy, but with a granular crust to it that stopped it being too treacherous and slippery. Further flakes were falling, proper snowflakes as I used to call them when I was little (and still did!) like fluttering, frigid feathers, the kind that make children want to catch them on their tongue. It was the kind of morning that turned a suburban street into, if not quite a magical place, then certainly a beautiful one, and when you weren’t sure whether sounds were softer or louder than usual. There is something satisfying about the crunch of footprints in the snow.

     At first, the way you do, I thought it must be my imagination, or the distorting effect of the gleam of the footlights. Or maybe the snow was falling more heavily than I’d realised and was covering my footprints behind me. We say we want things that are inexplicable and thought-provoking in our lives, but when they come, we try to rationalise them. But I couldn’t get away from the fact; no matter how much I tried to explain it rationally, there were no footprints in the snow. I was making no impression whatsoever. You are not floating, I told myself, be sensible. You can feel and hear the crunch of your boots in the virgin snow. 

     I wasn’t afraid, not exactly, but I had the sensation of the world shifting out of kilter, and of having passed both out of reality, and into a different reality. This is exhilarating, I told myself, and you will remember it when you are an old lady, so make the most of it and don’t out-think yourself. 

    The irony is that I didn’t stumble while I was walking, even with my mind all over the place; I stumbled when I stopped, almost decorously slithering down onto the pavement. It was as if I had tripped over something, but I could no more see the obstacle than I could see my footprints. I quickly established that I didn’t appear to be hurt, which was something to be grateful for, and had not even damaged my glasses which I had in my pocket (okay I know it’s a silly thing to do but I’m not the only one who does it!). Get up, I told myself. You’re not hurt and you don’t want to get hypothermia! I held out my hand to the low wall by which I had fallen to help me, and even though my hand was encased in a thick glove, I could tell that it was not touching brick or snow. At first it felt more like moss, but that wasn’t quite right, either. For something that seemed to be yielding, it was surprisingly stable – and even through my glove, I could tell it was warm, with a pleasant, pulsing warmth . Though I didn’t appear to have strained or pulled any muscles in my fall (well aware I might have a nasty shock the next morning!) I felt as if, if I had, that warmth would have eased them. It was weird, but if not precisely wonderful, then – and I WILL use that maligned word – rather nice. It made me pause for a few minutes, collecting myself, but my increasing calmness was shattered by the noise of clattering metal on frozen concrete. It was a shocking, shattering noise, the kind of noise that makes you think, with a pit of the stomach and quickening of the pulse feeling, that this is not going to end well.

     It was the kind of noise that brought people from their warm houses, some of them even still in their nightclothes although it was a snowy morning, and that, at least temporarily, made curiosity and concern eclipse their shivers.

     It soon became clear what had happened. An artic with a trailer bearing metal girders to a construction site on the edge of town had jack-knifed out of control in the snow, shedding its load all over the road – and all over the pavement.

     To cut a long story short, it was a lucky escape – some even used the word miracle. Nobody was killed, nobody even badly hurt, though the driver had a concussion. There was an inquiry into it, of course, but it was agreed that nobody was at fault, it was just one of those things, though it gave more power to the elbows of those who said there should be a ban on heavy traffic through the town centre.

     I may as well admit that I wasn’t one of those rushing to the scene of the accident, though enough people were. I had realised that had I not stumbled and had I gone on my way as I should have done, and had planned to, I would have been in the path of that mass of metal crashing down onto the snow-crusted pavement. 

     Daylight was breaking, and the streetlights extinguished one by one. It looked as if the day might even be sunny. And then I saw a spectrum in the snow, shimmering and clear, but with a softness and clarity to it. Before my eyes, it arched up into a rainbow, and once more I felt the comforting warmth – the warmth of another creature, nestling up to me. I looked down into the snow, and I still could not see my footprints behind me, though I knew now that I would see them ahead of me as I went on my way. But what I did see were the prints of neat, padding, paws. I knew what I had stumbled over, and I knew who had saved me from harm.