Dark Winter by David Mark Page A

back on the hook. It’s a pencil sketch of a hillside, done in a shaky hand. It meant a lot to McAvoy once, back when images of his childhood had been the emblem of his happy times. It doesn’t matter so much now. Not since Fin. Not since her.
    She’s beautiful, of course. Slim and dark-haired, her skin an almost sand-blown tan that betrays her heritage. Mucky, his dad had said when he first saw her, but he hadn’t meant it in a bad way.
    She’s wearing a tracksuit that hugs her figure and her hair tumbles to her shoulders. She’s only wearing a small pair of hoops in her ears today. She used to have row upon row, climbing up both ears, but Fin developed a liking for pullingat them and so she has limited her adornment in recent months. It is the same with the gold that dazzles at her throat. She wears two chains. One bears her name in copperplate: a gift from her father when she turned sixteen. The other is a simple pearl, a captured raindrop, that McAvoy presented her with on their wedding night as an extra present, in case his heart hadn’t been enough.
    Without being asked, she hands Fin to his father. The child beams, opens his mouth like a capital O and then begins aping McAvoy’s facial expressions. They frown, grin, pretend to cry, aim monster-like bites at one another, until they are laughing and Fin is wriggling with excitement. McAvoy puts him down and the child runs off with his bow-legged cowboy gait, adorable in his blue jeans, white shirt and tiny waistcoat, chattering to himself in the made-up language that McAvoy wishes he better understood.
    ‘You waited,’ he says to his wife as he looks around the living room. Roisin had been planning to put up the Christmas decorations today. They have a plastic tree and a box of baubles, half a dozen cards to stretch on a wire over the fake-coal fireplace, but they remain in the cardboard container by the kitchen door.
    ‘It wouldn’t have been any fun without you,’ she says. ‘We’ll do it another day. As a family.’
    McAvoy takes off his coat and throws it over the back of an armchair. Roisin comes forward for another hug, the better to feel his body without the impediment of his bulky waterproof. The top of her head comes up to his chin, and he leans forward to kiss it. Her hair smells of baking. Something sweet and festive. Mince pies, perhaps.
    ‘I’m sorry I’m later than I said,’ he begins, but she shushes him and pulls his mouth to hers. He tastes cherries and cinnamon in her kisses, and they stand, framed in the window, mouth on mouth, until Fin runs back into the living room and begins whacking his father on the leg with a wooden cow.
    ‘Grandpa sent it for me,’ says Fin, holding up the toy as his father peers down. ‘Cow. Cow.’
    McAvoy takes it from his son’s grip. Examines it. He recognises the workmanship. Can picture his father, wood shavings on his glasses, knife and rock-hammer held by white hands sheathed in fingerless gloves, sitting at the table, mouth ajar, concentrating on every minute detail, breathing life into wooden toys.
    ‘Was there a letter?’
    ‘Just the usual,’ says Roisin, not looking up. ‘Hopes he’s getting big and strong. Eating his vegetables. Being a good boy. Hopes to meet him one day soon.’
    McAvoy’s father addresses all of his correspondence to the boy. He has not spoken to his only son since a falling out around the time Roisin fell pregnant, and McAvoy knows him to be stubborn enough to go to his grave without ever making amends. Were he to think unkindly of his father, he would wonder who the daft old sod thought was going to read the letters to his four-year-old grandson, but he has trained himself to blink such traitorous thoughts away.
    McAvoy feels the toy’s smooth edges. Tries to soak up some of the wisdom and experience of the old man through the things he holds in his hand, but no answers come. He hands it back to his son, who runs away again. McAvoy watches him go, then turns to