Matter Of Heritage

The snow was falling thickly outside of the window, filling in the grooves carved out as he drove onwards into the dark. The moon lay shrouded in clouds, giving the thick blackness a heady roof of dappled grey and silver. The stars as pinpricks in the deep velvet of the heavens. Looking down onto that country lane one would have seen only a mirroring of the darkness above save for two parallel beams that, vainly, tried to split it as they fled, black filling in the space left behind like the snow that swirled all around, adding only texture to the night. With cold hands he clutched the steering wheel, finding masochistic pleasure in the bite of metal on his exposed fingers. Bar the rumble of his engine he imagined that the world outside was silent, the snow seeming to dampen even the sound of its falling. He felt alone. And he was alone.

The acrid warmth of cigarette smoke still seemed to curl into his nostrils from the scorch marks that seemed to dot the interior. They were old, but despite their age they never failed to release their heady fragrance with each movement on the seat, or each rising degree in temperature. He saw now the red glow of a butt, dangling forlornly from the corner of a hard jaw, enveloping a face in a halo of red and ochre, lighting the way better than any headlamp on long drives to the seaside as he sat, drowsily, smiling in the backseat. With each breath, the burning haze creeping closer and closer until with a deft flick of a wrist ash was scattered out into the air, seeming to spiral and pirouette too briefly before being dragged out of the open window into the cool grey of morning. He wound the window down, the bitter breeze roaring through the car seemingly preferably to that almost comfortable tang.

The headlights glinted off of the snow ahead, catching the falling powder and holding it fast in its gaze, making a chandelier patchwork of white and silver as the wind caused it revolve and flash all around. There goes a bird, flitting across the tableau in a darkened blur as shears tearing across fabric, exposing the gaping blackness behind, its speeding flight making a mockery of his own pace. He could scarcely imagine the freedom of it, to be able to feel movement through the rush over your own skin and not just the vibrating hum of an engine. He shut the window, the wind seeming to whistle at him from the gloom. Chiding him. Chastising him. He heard the taunts in his ears, saw the swirling faces of old classmates blending in and out of the white-black storm that swirled in eddies around the windscreen. Felt the burning shame in his face, spreading like ink drops through water, as they tore and trampled over his precious books. Felt that hot tear squeeze itself involuntarily out of the corner of his eye, its wet trail scalding him acid-like as they jeered in adolescent glee, delighting in the tall, softly spoken boy who carried books with his rugby kit. He winced, the sudden cold it seemed, bringing a glow to his cheeks.

The car skidded slightly on the road, causing the back to swing out, imperceptibly, yet just enough that he felt his heart quicken its step. He felt its steady metronome alight inside him, jerking him out of his stupor, seeming to kick him in the chest where he sat. His breath jolting and unsteady. He saw her before him, the diamonds of the falling snow as the twirling breath of a ball gown in January, weightless and effortless as the flakes that blew now so unmindful in the half light. The rustling of fabric and the soft clip of heels on parquet floors conjured out of the innumerable noises that seemed to assail him from the maelstrom. He felt his hands not on a steering wheel but wrapped again so gently around a slender waist he’d feared he’d break. The seatbelt no longer there, just the soft caress of auburn-black hair of innumerable shades draped over a naked, white neck nudging slightly against his chest. So gently. Spotlights shrouded in blue and yellow smouldering above, coiling and winding the light around them. He’d kissed her on a crowded dancefloor, the sweetness of her wine-stained breath mingling in the sweat of the hall into an orgiastic gasp that curled and wormed its way into his breath, filling him and consuming him. As they swayed softly as dappled boughs in a midsummer breeze, her head seeming almost to listen to the racing of his heart, nudging softly against his straining lungs, he’d felt, in all the egoism of youth, that that was the happiest he’d ever felt. One week, one dinner, one denial later he was left right where he’d begun. Alone. His pulse slowed, his breathing resumed its regular pace and he continued, seemingly unperturbed on his course, the trace of perfume in his nostrils as flowers left over from summer in a forgotten room and found again in winter, overlooked, wilted and embalmed, even the very memory of their sweetness almost faded, just a single quavering note left scattered on the air among the discarded heath.

He eased the car gently around the final bend, turning it into the drive, the house, though not yet visible, in his view nonetheless. The trees and subtle bushes marking out the final stretch, a path so well-trodden in his mind that he could sense the house before him, the warmth and solidity ahead unruffled by the seething storm outside. He smiled as he pulled the car to a stop and opened the door, the twinkling of orange glimpses between curtains winking out at him through the windows, almost candle-like in their flickering. He pulled his jacket collar up, feeling the rasp of wool against the stubble already beginning to peak through his chin. He walked, slowly and sedately, enjoying the soft crunch of his shoes into the snow below, flexing his toes after their long constraint. Stepping lightly onto the porch he turned the door handle and entered, the heat startling him out of his haze. “Regrets, I’ve had a few...” Frank Sinatra mingled with the roar outside and the gentle clattering of pots in the kitchen, the sounds vying with each other in the still swirling tide that surrounded him. He closed the door gently behind him.

Back on the road, the tracks left behind were already beginning to be filled in, their deep grooves lightly dusted by powder, the tarmac flecked with black and white like struck paint on canvas. The stars wheeled in the sky above, sentinels, ever watchful, carving their own paths in the heavens. Their paths just as invisible as ours below. They being, like us, just as bound by their experiences. Just as tied to their past. Just as formed by their heritage.