On the Ice at Christmas

A couple of nights ago I visited the holiday skating rink at Somerset House to make some photographs and enjoy a glass of mulled wine. Where in July I lounged and sipped G&T’s during lingering summer twilights, now sat a broad square of ice, branded on every clean surface with the exclamation “Skate!” and with a cosy cafe on one side. I queued up for a drink in the cafe and three women at the table beside me discussed the proper way to brew mulled wine. They freely (and repeatedly) admitted they really didn’t know how to make it themselves, but each knew someone expert in the craft. They all agreed it involved cloves and wine, but “this cheap stuff? Too much clove. It’s never as good as fresh, don’t you know.” “Thank God for mulled wine,” said the youngest woman and she weighed the effect of another glass on her ability to keep her bottom off the ice against the sheer pleasure of the thing.

The oldest of the three received a text. “Your brother says we shouldn’t drink so much before we skate!” They cackled in unison and padded their feet on the floor as if they were scraping their blades against the ice. The women knocked back the balance of their wine and filed outside to pick up their skates. The last few words I heard from them as I placed my order with the distressingly efficient young man at the till was, “You remember Mary, don’t you? She used to iron her hair, just put it on the ironing board …”

I peeled my scarf off and leaned against the broad windows to watch the skaters on the ice. One fellow in a fedora wore a scarf tucked into a brown leather jacket and he looked very much like my father did twenty-five years ago. I suppose I’m nearly the same age as my father when I first saw him take to the ice. I don’t remember Dad’s gait as particularly graceful and yet the elegance and deftness with which he skated belied his bulging middle. Although photographs show that Dad looked whippet-thin as a youth, he developed a bit of a belly in later years. Despite the extra weight, my father circled around the ice effortlessly. Most wonderfully, the man could skate backwards, which astounded me. I could skate fairly well (and still can pretty much go in a forward direction without cracking open my head), but with nowhere near the grace I remember in Dad’s turns around the rink.

A few table-lengths away, an older man shepherded a woman I took to be his daughter into the cafe. She wept freely and without shame in the arms of her father. I’m certain he hadn’t seen his daughter cry like that for many years. The woman, in her early 40’s and dressed in a natty copper coat that matched her hair, clutched an ice pack to her elbow. The father waited patiently for her to calm down before he left to purchase a couple of hot chocolates. She sat alone for five minutes. Every so often she remembered the pain in her elbow and relived the shock of impact. She shuddered from several heavy sobs and then recovered her composure.

The woman noticed me staring at her ice pack with my peculiarly detached photographer’s stare. Do you know that look? I make a mental note of the periphery of the scene, who’s there and who isn’t, what about this interests me, who is this person, what is this thing and why do I feel manic and delighted from the wonder of it all. I see everything in an instant and I see through everything and I imagine the moment before and the moment after the shutter clicks. I always try and remember to smile. This woman met my gaze and did something extraordinary. This woman who a few seconds ago repeatedly imploded from shock and pain, looked at me and worried. I think she worried that I might be distressed by her … distress. She expressed neither embarrassment nor self-pity, but concern for how her misfortune might affect others. Whenever I’ve thought, “Oh God, I hope I don’t alarm people” I’ve either been very drunk or bleeding uncontrollably. With a reassuring smile, she held up her ice pack not from embarrassment or in a bid for sympathy, but in concern. She must have broken a bone and been in agony.

I returned a little mock wince and tried to look as tender as I could from across two tables of teenagers slurping up rum punch and mulled wine. Her smooth, pale face picked up the colours of the cafe’s blue neon tubes and pink spotlights, but tears shattered the illusory calm of her cheeks. Her father returned with two steaming paper cups. I thought the “Skate!” logo emblazoned on them might be mistaken for an exhortation to hit the ice again and summon up a fresh round of post-traumatic stress.

No, she sipped the hot chocolate and forgot her pain for a while. I needed to go and forget some things myself, so I wrapped up in my winter gear, pocketed the lens cap and went back outside to make some pictures. Very happy people soared past me and those that didn’t quite soar clung to the railing and inched along. They still seemed pretty happy too.