Snowman-A Love Story by Jessica Patient

There was a woman down my road who fell in love with a snowman.

Margot wore only a thin nightdress and her slippers on the morning I found her transfixed by the snowman in my neighbour’s garden. The stout old woman was usually only partial to high heels and rouge lipstick. She scuttled back to her house, not even waving or saying ‘hello’ like she did every morning. Margot glared through the frosted glass. She did not take her eyes off me until I had walked past the wonky-mouthed snowman.

“…They wanted one that would come alive and take them away in a

Raymond Briggs style fantasy…”

________________

It wasn’t even her snowman. The boys next door had spent their weekend making snow sculptures. They wanted one that would come alive and take them away in a Raymond Briggs style fantasy. Half rolled balls abandoned on pathways, collapsed boulders and craters in the gardens. The boys wanted their snowman to be like the ones from the movies. They did not want mushy grey snow or bits of grass sticking out from its body. Starting from one end of the street with a ball the size of an adult’s palm. Following the bend in the road and down the hill, picking up speed as the ball grew and grew until they could hardly see over the top. It took three nine-year old boys to roll the snowball up the kerb and into their garden. They even had to drag their old brother away from his computer games to help lift the head onto the body. Their dinner was ready before they had a chance to add facial features.

Margot kept marching up and down the path outside number forty-one. Normally she was tucked away in her bungalow and only came out to put out her rubbish or to shuffle around to the corner shop for milk and teabags. She did not like leaving her husband.  Margot lingered at the fence, staring at the snowman as if he were a museum exhibit. In her hands she carried a spare tartan patterned scarf and a tatty bowlers hat.

“Can I ‘elp ya?” The woman said, standing on her doorstep with her arms folded and a cigarette hanging out of her mouth.

“No, No. I think I forgot something,” she said, hurrying back to her house.

The woman tutted.

“Think she needs ‘elp,” the woman said to her husband as she slammed the door.

Fresh snow covered Margot’s tracks. It was like being trapped in a constantly shook snow globe. News reporters kept talking about people being trapped in cars, buried alive on their farms or frozen to death while waiting for the shops to open. Nobody dared leave their homes. Margot’s curtains twitched on the hour and also the half hour. Steam on the windows from heavy breathing. Her surveillance from behind her net curtains last all night.

Melting with every shower of rain and shrinking in the glare of the low rising sun. The snowman shrunk to the height of Margot. They were a perfect match. Margot had no time to lose. She crept into next-door’s garden while they slept and used a rusty shovel and her husband’s redundant wheelbarrow. Parts of the snowman crumbled and his hat fell off. Margot came back with a dustpan and brush and cleaned up every flake, exposing the soggy grass underneath. The snowman had pride of place in her front garden. His carrot nose pressed against her bedroom window. Any lumps were smoothed out and she padded him out with extra snow around the bottom.

“…Every day the snowman shrunk further out of view…”

___________

She went around the neighbourhood with her wheelbarrow and shovel, collecting any fragments from snow from other people’s car roofs, down shady garden paths and shook tree branches. Massaging the snow onto his body, trying to add more layers. Margot spent the whole afternoon picking out bits of grit, dead leaves and grass from his body. She even wrapped him with cling-film to try and slow the melting.

The boys from next-door declared war by firing snowballs over the garden fence. They aimed for her living room window and even knocked the carrot nose off the snowman. The youngest even snuck through the gap in the hedge and tried stealing the hat. Margot charged out of her bungalow with her husband’s old walking stick and shouted threats over the fence. She even made a ‘keep out’ sign from an old cereal box and a plant stick. The bedroom light stayed on all night as she kept watch over her precious snowman. The boys got reinforcements from the flats at the bottom of the road. Ten boys with slingshots and tennis rackets crept into the garden. As soon as they stepped near the snowman a security light flashed on them. Margot came out of the house, waving a frying pan. As soon as she had chased them off she went inside and came out with her wheelbarrow.

I could see over the top of her bungalow from my bedroom window and into her unruly garden. Her husband used to do all of the weeding and planting but now it was overgrown and the vegetable patch was full of ice and rotting potatoes. Propped up against the washing line to stop the snowman toppling over. Mittens balanced on the end of his new twig arms. A blackbird bounced along one of the arms and peeked at the carrot nose. Margot burst out from the kitchen with a broom and chased the bird out of the garden. She stroked the snowman’s cheeks as if she were soothing away the trauma and gave him a kiss on his hunched shoulders.

More winter sun melted away the last remnants of snow from the gardens. Ice dissolved into puddles. Every day the snowman shrunk further out of view. I tried standing in tiptoes and leaning out of the window but all I could see were bed sheets blowing in the breeze.

Margot was dressed all in black when she finally opened her door. Neighbours, social workers, even her friends from the Bingo Hall had tried knocking on her door. She only answered because I tempted her with a bottle of brandy. A frail version of Margot greeted me. No wig, no theatrical make-up or high heels. Just an old lady in an apron, slippers and the snowman’s scarf.

Sitting by her husband’s urn, on the mantle piece, was the snowman’s bowler hat.

____________________________________________

Jessica Patient was born in the year of Live Aid and the first British Glow Worm day, 1985. She won the WorldSkills Uk Gold Award in Creative Writing in 2008 and has several short stories published, including 3:AM, The Beat, Metazen and Sleepy Orange. Links to her published work and updates on the progression of the novel she is writing can be found here, www.writerslittlehelper.blogspot.com. Jessica lives in Bedfordshire, England.

© 2010, Metazen. All rights reserved.

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Tags: March 2010

This entry was posted on Friday, March 5th, 2010 at 4:00 am