Witless Woman in the Wilderness

There were a great many movie and TV clichés that grated on Sylvia Murray’s nerves, but if she’d have had to pick her worst bugbear it would have been the one she termed Witless Woman in the Wilderness. Otherwise known as the one where Our Heroine, in mortal danger, retreats to a remote cabin cut off from all access to the outside world and often with a very iffy lock in the bargain, and if there were neighbours, the kind that made the Addams Family look like The Waltons.

But that wasn’t what she was doing. That wasn’t what she was doing at all. To start with the wasn’t in anything resembling mortal danger. George was merely irritating her. She knew he was one of the most good-hearted men who ever lived, but she still was in serious need of time out from him before she either decided that she couldn’t live without him or it was time to let him down as gently as possible. She was more inclined to think it would be the latter. And though Lakeside Cabin was technically – well, a cabin! – being made of pine, it was a cabin with all mod cons and, she was assured, an excellent Wi-Fi signal.

There was no panic or last minute dash about it. Even though it was only a long weekend she cancelled her newspaper delivery – she was frankly thinking of giving up the weekend papers anyway. She emptied the kettle so there would be no standing water in it, unplugged her TV but left the heating on a timer setting. After all, for the duration of the weekend she was leaving behind her tuneful and high maintenance lovebirds, Amy and Sheldon. Her neighbour Alison, a lover of our feather friends herself, was entrusted with the key and Sylvia knew she could trust her completely. Of course she would be treated to the sulks when she got back, but it would pass. Eventually.

She was surprised when it started to snow as she headed northwards and westwards. It was only November, and that was unusual. She had a memory about snow in November, and it wasn’t a happy one. But she determinedly tried to look forward instead – after all, that was what you were supposed to do – and tell herself that this was an added bonus. If there was one thing that would make a log cabin look even prettier, it was a fall of snow. They were proper flakes too, the feathery kind, the kind that used to make grandmas and infant school teachers tell you that God was shaking out a goosedown quilt.

There are properties that call themselves Lakeside when you would have to be standing on top of a very tall skyscraper brandishing a very strong telescope to as much as catch sight of a duck pond. But in this instance the name was entirely justified. Lakeside Cabin was right on the shores of the kind of oval lake that looked almost too perfect to be natural, but was. Sylvia was relieved to get there. She wasn’t scared of driving in the snow, but the roads hadn’t been gritted and she had also realised that the heating in her new(ish) car didn’t work as well as it might. In his usual tactful and earnest way, George had pointed out that though the second hand little Alfa Romeo she had bought just under a year ago was a “lovely classy little motor” (for some reason he always said “motor” instead of car) it “might not really be practical, love.” It had also seemed “too cheap” for its brand and year. He had a manner of saying such things that you wasn’t at all nasty and you couldn’t even really call condescending but was just – well, one of the reasons that she was taking this weekend away to have a think about her relationship with George. He had an ancient, entirely sensible Range Rover.

She had planned to go out for a walk in the conifer forest after she arrived at the cabin, but decided against it. She supposed she really should have brought some different footwear with her, not to mention a decent coat. Oh, she wasn’t the kind of person who took cocktail dresses and high heels to spend a weekend in a log cabin, she had more sense than that but – oh well, who’d have expected that snow? Anyway, an evening in would be just as nice. She was relieved now that she had decided, in the end, against an alternative weekend hideaway (though of course she wasn’t hiding) that actually had log fires. They undeniably looked gorgeous, but you also had to light them, and especially after her trip in the chilly car it was so much easier to put on the central heating. She had food and wine, and admired the view through the double glazed windows as the icy, marled, pink and purple sky darkened and the full moon rose, a frost ring around it. She decided on an early night, but listening to a couple of podcasts as she snuggled under the duvet, leaving the heating on too.

She awoke to silence, shivering with cold. She automatically flicked on the switch of the table lamp by her bed, and nothing happened. She snuggled the duvet round her as if she meant it this time, for warmth, not just for that pleasant feeling of cosiness. Her phone was dead. Well, maybe it just needed charging. She remained shrouded in her duvet until dawn began to break – the frosty moon had long since disappeared, then shivered her way to the lounge, touching each cold radiator as she did. Power Cut.

The fluttering feathers of snow had banked up and solidified and reached half way up the windows of the single story cabin. The sky at dawn, in stark contrast to the sky at dusk, was a sickly shade of beige grey with the tiniest hint of yellow, the colour of rancid mustard, in the mix.

Well, this isn’t how it was meant to be, thought Sylvia. She couldn’t so much as make herself a hot drink, couldn’t make a phonecall, and she suddenly saw the lovely classy little motor through George’s eyes.

When she spotted an ancient AM transistor radio, she leapt on it with an enthusiasm that would have made Parsifal finding the Holy Grail seem positively low key in comparison. It sluggishly stumbled into temporary crackling life. It was tuned to a local channel and the batteries lasted just long enough for her to hear about the freak snow storm that had affected the area, leading to drifting and power cuts and Wi-Fi signals failing. A lot of roads were impassable, too, though the local authorities were, of course, doing their best.

I will see the funny side of this later on. But she certainly couldn’t see it now. She retreated to her bedroom and her duvet, but still shivered. And she had a little weep. What did it matter? Nobody could see her or hear her. Intermittently some crows cawed overhead and some little birds hopped on the snow, but even they seemed only to want to find what warmth they could. She remembered a poem she had learnt as a child (probably from the same infant school teacher who had told them about God’s goosedown quilt) The North Wind doth blow, and we shall have snow, and what will poor Robin do then, poor thing? That made her have another little weep, but she would have to admit that her tears were for herself and not for poor Robin.

Now come on. Stop being such a wimp. It’s not nice and it’s certainly not how this weekend was meant to be, but it’s hardly an earth-shattering tragedy. But oh, if only she could at least have a hot drink! She realised that there were few things as futile and frustrating as a kettle that wouldn’t boil.

She did, at least have a few books – and as for all reading addicts, generally speaking, so far as Sylvia was concerned there was never any at least about books. But it was evidently going to be one of those days when it never got properly light, and though it was just about possible to read by a window, there was no pleasure in it, and she couldn’t concentrate anyway. Plus she had to keep taking her hands out from under the duvet and had discovered that while her new turquoise gloves with a little glittery pom pom looked pretty, they didn’t score over well in the warmth stakes. She searched the drawers in the kitchen for a torch or replacement batteries for the radio, and found neither. I suppose I should be glad I at least have a wrist watch on so I can keep some track of time. But all that did was reinforce the fact that it passed very, very slowly. Surely the power would come back on soon. Wouldn’t it?

At two in the afternoon she heard a vehicle pull up, that unmistakeable tyres on snow sound. She weighed up two possibilities in the few seconds she had. It could be the owner of the cabin bringing her emergency supplies (and as she thought that thought she realised that she needed some food, too) or it could be the weird neighbour. Given my luck this weekend it will be the latter.

Someone knocked on the door. Someone called, “Sylvia, it’s only me!” It wasn’t someone. It was George. And in the half light she could make out that sensible – that oh, so blessedly sensible – ancient Range Rover of his. She opened the door and fell into one of his awkward hugs. “Oh, I’m so relieved you’re okay, love! We heard all about the extreme weather event – they always seem to call them weather events now – out here and, well, I may as well be honest, I persuaded Alison to tell me where you were staying.”

And there was not one word of resentment that she hadn’t told him. Not so much as a tone of voice. “Would you like me to take you home, Sylvia?” he asked. “I think the old war horse should be fine. Once we get outside this bit, the roads have been cleared, well, most of them.”

She had never wanted anything more in her whole life. And she knew that though the weekend most certainly hadn’t turned out as she’d planned, it had achieved its aim in helping her make her mind up. And it had taken a worry off her mind, too. She wouldn’t have to wonder about how to let him down gently.

Because she wasn’t going to let him down at all!

And thermos flask coffee had never tasted so wonderful before.