The story takes place in an alternative present; a world made small by isolation and the need to survive. A violent murder has taken place but the tale that follows contains tenderness as well as menace. It is told in turns by the perpetrator’s stepmother and brother with a beautiful honesty through which you feel their despair, anger and loss.
The question hangs in the air unanswered. Unanswerable. Everyone has averted their eyes but no one moves. Helen thinks, for a moment, of the scene in their bedroom only fifteen minutes ago and wonders how such lightness was possible. An atmosphere of unreality has hung over the house since the snow began. Over the village, and no doubt the country. With the future so uncertain, time doesn’t move forward but piles up; each day, each moment inscribed on top of one another in a ceaseless, sutured present that makes cause and effect strangers to one another.
