White Musk

The moonlight shimmers on layers of snow; it rests on trees, their naked branches claw- like in the gloom. The covering of snow is heavy and tufts of grass show dark on the lawn. A sparrow chirps. Suzanne watches the sun slowly rise above the chimney pots, one already smoking, the fire lit for early risers. She breathes on the cold window pane. She steps back and watches the condensation fade into the glass and thinks about the uncanny timing of the letter which now lies on her bedside table. She barely slept last night, the blue paisley duvet lies crumpled in the middle of her bed. The click of the radiator and gurgling pipes seeped through her dreams as they worked on warming the smallest bedroom in the house. Built over the garage of the white washed house a year after Suzanne’s unplanned birth, twenty two months after the arrival of her sister with her sweet gurgles and gentle temperament, it is often chilly.
The light from the kitchen to the right of the garage comes on, a chair scrapes on the black and white quarry tiles and the silence of the early dawn is broken. The moon, not quite full is hidden for a while before a veil of mist moves away. Snow starts to fall again.
‘Unseasonably cold weather’ the weatherman had said, a broad smirk spreading across his waxen face. ‘A weather front from Siberia’ he’d added, and the map showed a swirling mass of cloud.
Suzanne takes her wedding dress out of the wardrobe and holds it against herself in front of the mirror. She moves closer to her reflection, glad that she chose a milky ivory instead of traditional white. But still she finds the arrival of this day hard to believe.
Her brown eyes stare back at her, a little red rimmed from last night’s sleeplessness, but nevertheless, her best feature; almond shaped with long lashes that curl in the corners. She thinks of her sister with her creamy skin and rose tinted lips. Suzanne used to watch her sister sleeping; a princess waiting to be woken and kissed by a handsome prince. Or one of the boys who hung around the youth club, panting adolescent hormones, ointment painted on spotty faces. They would ask Susanne where Diana was, her beautiful sister with the voluptuous figure and long luscious hair.
A clock chimes six o. clock; five more hours of being single. Her wedding dress is lacy like the patterns drawn by Jack Frost in the Yorkshire winters, or in this week’s Arctic freeze. She tries her veil; it is small with silk snow drops woven through the band. She watches herself in the mirror, lifts her face up, pats the dress down, rubs her cold cheeks. Strange coincidence that the week she met Ed there was a similar, unusual cold snap which froze lakes and all fish that swam near the surface; they lay beached on the shores, their eyes glassy, their gills still, though it was in Turkey and during May.

Suzanne trained as an archaeologist; she’d studied at a north eastern university where the cold winds blew hard from the North Sea, and her underwear, hanging on the clothes line, would turn stiff and frozen, blocks of ice in her socks like the bulge of tangerines in a Christmas stocking. Although her grades were good, she didn’t think they’d accept her on the dig in search of artefacts from a Roman citadel where all the recognised archaeologists went to discuss their research projects, to congratulate each other and whistle in the amphitheatre, or strike matches and wonder as the sound travelled around, like echoes in a vault. But Suzanne‘s application was accepted; a surprise letter received on a cool spring day. And so, she borrowed her father’s tent and flew out the following month. She’d expected a white heat out here in the sun bleached mountains of Kurdistan, but was taken by surprise by the cold, had been shivering and blowing on her reddened fingers when a man wearing a blue fleece came over.
‘It’s heading towards us from the snowy mountains in the north,’ he said as he offered a steaming cup of coffee in a metal mug. ‘It’s usually reasonably warm, but you can never tell.’
He winked at her; she blushed. ‘I didn’t come prepared for this icy weather.’ She hugged herself in her thin grey anorak.
‘You can borrow my sweater if you like.’ He stripped off his fur lined jacket, pulled his red and blue striped sweater over his head and handed it to her folded, a package. Or was it an offering?
Unused to male chivalry, she hesitated.
‘Take it’ he said and studied her carefully. ‘Where’s your tent?’
She pointed to her father’s green one man tent, caved in and leaning.
‘I’ve got a large tent with thermal lining.’ He laughed. ‘You’re welcome to share if the wind blows a freezing gale again.’
Suzanne, flustered, combed her fringe with her thawing fingers and started to
gnaw at a fingernail, then pulled on his sweater and was almost consumed by the huge
turtle neck
‘Your eyes change to green’ he said. ‘When you wear blue.’ He looked up at the sky. ‘You should wear it more often.’
Ed was a lecturer at a southern university situated on gentle downs, tidy, with squares of green and bright yellow, the landscape of the Normans. He’d had years of experience preparing for the variable weather of archaeological digs: from the raw sand storms of the Gobi desert, to the sweltering Mexico plains or the mosquito coast of the tropics. He’d pitched a tent where dunes with patches of scrub dotted spasmodically around, resembled snow-capped hills. He had all the equipment, even for the unseasonably biting winds of eastern Turkey. He told her of a dig in the Cyprus mountains where the temperature dropped to several degrees below freezing at night. And Suzanne wondered with whom he’d offered to share his warm and cosy tent with on that occasion.
‘This is my first dig outside Europe’ she said.
‘I’ll show you a sight you won’t forget. A wonder of the ancient world,’ he said. ‘I’ll come and find you at five o’ clock.’ He reached for his rucksack and walked off towards a group of bearded men. Suzanne watched him pick up the conversation as they pointed to a site where another group of men crouched, marking out an area with white chalk.

The sound of water dripping from the thawing icicles in the eves breaks through her thoughts. There’s a knock at Suzanne’s bedroom door, she’s quite forgotten where she is. Her sister Diana walks in. Her nightie is white, frilled with a blue ribbon threaded through the neckline; her breasts are visible through the sheer fabric.
‘Darling’ she says.’ It’s your big day. You’re a star, sis’ she whispers. ‘You look as fresh as a daisy.
There’s scent of nectar from Alpine flowers mixed with a deep musk; the aroma
fills the room with every movement Diana makes.
Suzanne sniffs the air. ‘That’s a nice perfume.’ She frowns. ‘It’s so familiar.’
‘Oh it’s a sampler I picked up the other day.’ Diana’s eyes glisten. ‘You can have it if you like.’
Suzanne isn’t listening. She stares at her refection. ‘I have a nagging feeling…’ She stops herself from saying more about her fear of losing her independence, of turning into a production line of babies and dirty dishes, instead of the excitement of the dig. And yesterday, as if to taunt her, was the arrival of another unexpected letter.
‘You look fabulous.’
I’m just not quite…’
‘What? Sure about getting married? Diana’s eyes widen. She moves closer to her sister, her scent moves with her. ‘Ed’s a good man, a good catch; you’ll make him very happy.’ She fingers the veil, her nails are painted the colour of strawberry ice cream.
‘Just pre-wedding nerves, I suppose.’ And she wonders about happiness. Glancing down at her bedside table, she sees Diana following her gaze, looking at the open letter, the top of a crest on the page. She watches her sister, expecting her to query it, but Diana says nothing, merely tosses back a lock of hair.
‘I’ll help you put your dress on when you’re ready.’ She gives Suzanne a kiss on the cheek. ‘You’re so cold’ she says. ‘Not for much longer though.’ Her laugh is like silver bells..

At five ‘o clock in the afternoon Suzanne had met Ed, he’d found her digging in the
barren soil, a blue cap pulled down over her ears. She was so engrossed in her task, she didn’t hear Ed call her name. She had already found a large pot fragment; it lay on its side desolate in its half state.
‘Let me show you something I promised earlier,’ he said.
Suzanne brushed the mud from her jeans, and wiped her hands on his borrowed sweater.
He smiled, beckoned and she followed. His strides were long, purposeful, unlike her short steps. But she kept up with him, her two paces to his one. They reached the remains of a temple. He moved to the middle of the ruin, between two columns and looked up towards the mountain, as it darkened in the dying light. Standing together, they watched the sun set over the pinnacle of the snow topped peak, the ice turning red, the sky changing from pink to purple. She turned to him.
‘They knew a thing or two didn’t they, the Romans?’
He didn’t reply at first, kept on looking towards the setting sun. She took the opportunity to study his features, his unshaven face, the black strands of hair peeping out from beneath his woollen hat, his ruddy complexion, the chubby cheeks. He turned to face her.
‘I thought you’d like it’ he said.

Suzanne eats a hearty breakfast, sausages, eggs, tomatoes and fried bread, unlike her usual coffee and toast . Silly tradition, hen and stag nights, worse when it meant she had to stay away from the home she shared with Ed, to return to her parent’s matching curtains, cushions and place mats, the piano which is never played, but polished to a high gloss every Saturday. While warming the coffee pot she looks out through the embroidered net curtains, as white as the frosty looks her mother had given her when she said the reception would be in the local pub. Bubbles of doubt, encouraged by her lack of sleep were pushing through to the surface of her mind. Was it possible to ever return to the magic of their first meeting in Turkey? Could this ceremony bring it back? She fiddles with the petal from a white miniature rose, the container sent from her cousin, and remembers the feeling of conquest when she told Diana of her plans. But that pride, that sensation of having won had faded in a week. What did it matter that she was the first to marry? Who cared? And for too long, she’d allowed her concerns fester while she busied herself with research.
Her mother appears at the door. ‘Have to get your dad to clear the drive of snow and ice.’
Suzanna nods and pours herself another coffee.
‘Big day then?’
‘Yup. Big day.’
‘You could look happier about it.’
‘Tired.’
Her mother tuts and busies herself making tea for Suzanna’s father. ‘Never thought it’d be you before our Diana. Last thing we expected. And now here it is. Your big day.’ She brushes her lips on Suzanna’s hair and makes her way up the stairs.
Diana comes in to the kitchen. She is humming. She touches Suzanne’s shoulder. ‘It’s time to put your dress on, little sis.’
Suzanne’s gets a whiff of her sister’s perfume. She sniffs again and remembers the scent. Like a sudden snow storm, the realisation hits her full on. Her fingers loosen and the porcelain coffee mug drops; she sees it in mid-air the pink and white roses blurring as it nears the floor. The smash of china resounds around the kitchen, coffee spills out across the black and white tiles and a splash lands on a white miniature roses that had drifted down from the table. Fragments of porcelain scatter around the room, into corners, under cupboards and the table where they’ll be found in the weeks ahead.

They didn’t have sex on the first night in his huge tent, with the fire embers glowing, the snow on the mountains just visible through the tent’s opening flap. They didn’t on the second or third either, and Suzanne’s mind ploughed through the possibilities. Did he find her unattractive? (Who could blame him if he did?) Or was she too greedy when she ate, too clumsy? But on the fourth night when the ground was hard with frost, they rocked all night, panting and sweating in the sub-zero temperatures, while bats flittedoverhead, flying across the silver moon.
Afterwards, they talked of the Roman Empire, and on that first night she knew her knowledge excited him, her intellect, her widely read mind turned him on, aroused him. In turn, she loved him as an elder, a man wiser than her father.
She dug with a new vigour. It snowed; a heavy snow which hid the landscape and slowly melted when the afternoon sun’s rays touched the sparkling surface. She removed her hat and dug some more. Two men, one with a grey moustache and a booming voice, dropped to their knees and dug alongside her. Suzanne used her bare hands; she scraped and burrowed, heaved, and gasped. She didn’t eat all day and didn’t feel the cold. Ed faded, the passionate nights a distant memory.
Soon there were fifteen people all digging until night fell and continued as the sun appeared on the horizon. Ed was confined to his tent, half-delirious with dysentery. He said he loved Suzanne the more for not nursing him, for preferring the offerings of history hidden in hard, cold soil to the confines of mopping his brow and changing the sodden sheets. And she believed him, thought she’d found her match.
The dig was extended a week, until learned men from Ankara University came to identify the find. Their journey took two days, the trucks bumped and ground over barren mountains, hostile gusty winds blowing grit and snow into their eyes. The drivers wore chequered scarves around their frozen faces like the soldiers of the Ottoman Empire. With Ed, now better, at her side, she waited to be introduced.
‘It’s a marvellous find,’ the Professor said to the Turkish academia. ‘Professor Martin’s the name. Just happened to be having a look in the area.’ He had bushy eyebrows that crossed over at the bridge of his nose.
Suzanne opened her mouth. ‘Actually,’ she said. ‘Actually, it was me.’
Professor Martin took his glasses off, squinted at her.’ Oh yes, Miss erm, Miss…?’
‘Suzanne McCloud.’
‘Yes yes, well you did a fair bit of digging.’ He put an arm round the two Turkish men. ‘Shall we have a beer, a little celebration? My tent?’
Suzanne tugged at the professor’s sleeve. ‘It was my find, not yours.’ Her voice was plaintive, like the twelve year old who washed dishes, her arms covered in foaming suds, while her sister topped up her beauty sleep. Ed remained silent. But she thought nothing of it. Not until a few weeks ago when he told her of the letter he’d written ‘to put things in order before their big day.

The clock strikes seven in the Yorkshire house. Suzanne is in her room. She is thinking remembering as facts fall into place like a data bank. Guilt, she knows plays all kinds of mind games. She packs slowly, folding her wedding dress, replacing it into its plastic carrier. Outside, the birds are singing, fox tracks mark the snow laden garden, a car revs repeatedly. Suzanne listens to the raised voices from downstairs, sees a shadow rising beside her.
‘How did you guess?’ Her sister’s eyes shine like newly formed ice. Her face is stained with tears.
Suzanne sniffs her sister’s scent again, like a skunk on newly laid snow; she’d left her calling card on Ed’s shirts, in his car, on his pillow, on the crisp white sheets he’d shared with Suzanne. She’d never questioned Ed why he’d decided to write to the university. Perhaps two causes of guilt, two wrong doings were too much for him. One was enough.
‘Oh God, what have I done? I’m so sorry.’ Diana starts to wail. Her mother rushes up the stairs.
‘You can have him sis. Is that what you wanted?’
‘It was him. Not me.’ She is shouting now. Tears stream down her face as their mother opens Suzanna’s door, shuts it deliberately, quietly behind her.
‘Keep the noise down, you two, this is supposed to be a special day.’ She looks down the packed case, the veil crumpled on the bed. ‘This is silly, Suzanne Diana didn’t mean any harm, it was probably only a little kiss.’ Her mother removes the wedding dress from the bag, spreads it out on the bed and pats the lace. ‘She wouldn’t have meant any harm.’
But Suzanne is half way down the stairs, the letter clutched in her hand. It appears that Professor Martin was mistaken, it reads. She takes the phone into the kitchen. In honour of your historical find. She doesn’t care that there was no apology, no explanation.. She re reads the last sentence of the letter twice. We would like to offer you a Professorship with full research facilities, a team of well qualified student Archaeologists and……She dials the Ankara University number. A chill runs down her spine, she watches a black and white cat pad through the snow as she waits for the switchboard to put her through to the Dean.