Page 67 of A Snowfall of Silver

Soon I’m sitting on the sofa in Lou’s living room, wrapped in an enormous striped woolly cardigan that Midge sent for Lou with one sleeve longer than the other. (“Stripes now,” Lou says despairingly. “She’s extending her repertoire.”) A mug of steaming tea is cradled in my hands and I am three jam tarts and two pieces of toast deep into my breakfast.

“Now,” Lou says encouragingly. “Tell me everything.”

So I do. I leave parts out, of course. I don’t tell her about Viola’s revelations. I don’t mention Russ’s unwelcome advance. I don’t mention the fact that Kit and I almost kissed or how mixed up I feel about that. But I tell her about the theatre, about my experience of going onstage, and how it all went wrong.

“I know how it feels to be lost,” Lou says gently. “I felt like that after Alice got married. I didn’t know what I was going to do with myself or who I was. I was so scared I would never find my place or what I wanted to do. But I did.”

“That was different,” I object. “You didn’t know what you wanted to do. I knew what I wanted to do. I knew who I was. There wasn’t a single doubt in my mind, not one, not for as long as I can remember, and now it’s all gone. Just like that. It feels like my idea of what I wanted to do was so tangled up with me, that without it I don’t know who I am. The entire career I imagined for myself is over.”

“Are you sure?” Lou asks. “You can do the work and improve, can’t you?”

“It’s not that I’m scared of the work,” I say, leaning forward earnestly. “If I thought work would fix it then nothing would stop me, I’d work myself down to nothing.”

“That would rather defeat the object.”

“You know what I mean. I would do anything to get better. But up there onstage – I knew, then, that it was all wrong. It wasn’t like when I would put on things at home. It wasn’t like when I did that silly audition for Mr Cantwell. I couldn’t lose myself in it. There was no … joy.”

Lou sips her tea, thinking that over. “And you think an actress needs to feel joy in performing?”

“Of course she does. If there’s no joy in it, it’s not real – for you, for the audience.”

“You seem to have a good understanding of it,” Lou says. “You clearly learned a lot on this tour.”

“Yes. I suppose I did. About a lot of things.” I lean back and bite into another jam tart. “There’s a lot of world out there, it turns out. Outside of Penlyn.”

“Yes, I know.” Lou smiles. “And somewhere in that big, wide world, is a future for you. One that fits, one that does bring you joy.”

I shake my head gloomily. “I find that hard to imagine. Acting was all I wanted to do. There is nothing else for me.”

“And I find that hard to imagine. Imagination has always been your greatest gift. Don’t give up on it now. You are bigger than this dream, Freya. You are still you, with or without the acting. And you are wonderful – clever, strong and brave. You made the last six weeks happen. You did. No one else. You took your destiny in your own hands and you built something. You can do that again.”

I try to take in what Lou is saying, I try to share some small part of her confidence. And yet, where she describes a future wide and open, all I see is a blank space.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Days pass and I do very little except mope around Lou’s house and play sad songs on the record player. I sit in the yellow bedroom and watch the street through my window. The tree that was full of vibrant autumn leaves is a skeleton now, tapping its bony branches against the glass like it wants to be let inside.

We’re only a few days out from Christmas, and there are lights up and down the road, twinkling like sequins. Robert arrives home from work one night, pink-cheeked and pleased with himself, dragging an enormous great tree that takes three people to carry it in, and which they then have to cut down by about a foot so that it will fit in the house.

“I thought the ceiling was higher,” he mutters, bewildered.

“This is exactly what you did last year,” Lou laughs, reaching up to kiss his cheek.

He and Lou string the now battered tree with lights and ornaments and put a gaudy gold star on the top. They play Christmas carols on the record player and sing along. They hang stockings, including one with my name on.

It makes me sick.

“Come on, Freya,” Robert calls. “Help us with the tree.”

“Bah, humbug,” I reply, shuffling off to my room with a tray full of their hot mulled cider and mince pies.

There’s something so awful about being miserable when the world around you is turning into a joyful, festive, carol-filled wonderland, that being miserable almost becomes its own twisted version of pleasure. I understand Scrooge now, I think, pleased, and then I remember I never need to understand a character again because I will never play a part again, and I sink into an exquisite spell of melancholy that lasts the rest of the afternoon.

When a group of carollers turn up at the door that evening I tug the pillow over my head and tell myself it would be very wrong to hurl projectiles out the window. As I listen to their cheerful voices harmonizing on “Deck the Halls”, I can’t help but feel they are placing an unnecessary emphasis on the fact that I am supposed to be jolly. I turn my mind again to my plans for the empty future gaping before me.

It is during this period of reflection that I come to a decision. After Christmas, I will go home. It is the sensible thing to do now that my artistic dreams have gone up in flames. I will go back to a quiet life on the farm. Pa will always be glad of an extra pair of hands and perhaps while I am there I will come up with a plan for what to do next. Maybe a typing course, so that I can move to a bigger town or city and find work. That could be nice. Safe and sensible, and unlikely to leave me with a heart smashed to smithereens. I pen a quick missive to Midge, letting her know.

I feel a certain sense of relief at this decision. At least it is done now and I can begin to put my childish fantasies behind me. Perhaps I will become a serious person, one who alphabetizes things. The sort of girl that even Aunt Irene will approve of. Yes, I think; now my life is devoid of all joy, who better to model myself upon? I wonder if she might like a companion? I too could dress in black and disapprove of everything. I wonder – for a startling moment – if Aunt Irene is the product of a broken dream.