Page 107 of The Words Beneath the Noise

“I committed biscuit theft.” He looked enormously pleased with himself. “In my defence, they're ginger nuts, and ginger nuts are worth a life of crime.”

He opened the bag and offered it to me. Inside were indeed ginger nuts, slightly misshapen but smelling of spice andwarmth. I took one, bit into it, and the taste of Christmas flooded my mouth.

“Good?” Art asked.

“Perfect.”

We ate biscuits and watched the ducks and didn't talk about the war or codes or anything that mattered. Just sat there like two ordinary people enjoying an ordinary morning, and the simplicity of it felt like a gift.

“I want to try something,” Art said eventually, brushing crumbs from his coat.

“What kind of something?”

“The ice looks thick enough to walk on. At the edges, at least.”

I looked at the lake, then back at him. “You want to walk on the frozen lake.”

“I want to see if it holds.” His eyes were bright with something that looked almost like mischief. “I've never done it before. Frozen lakes weren't exactly common in Hampstead.”

“And if it doesn't hold?”

“Then I get very cold and very wet and you get to say I told you so.” He was already standing, brushing snow from his trousers. “Come on. Where's your sense of adventure?”

“I left it in Normandy along with my sense of self-preservation.”

But I was standing too, following him down the gentle slope toward the lake's edge. The snow was deeper here, drifted against the bank, and Art's shoes weren't really suited for it. He stumbled twice, grabbed my arm for balance, and didn't let go even after he'd steadied.

We reached the edge where ice met land. Art crouched down, studying the surface with the same intensity he brought to ciphers.

“See the colour?” he said. “Darker ice means thinner. We want the pale blue sections. Those are solid.”

“How do you know that?”

“I read it somewhere. Or made it up. One of the two.” He straightened, grinning. “Shall we?”

He stepped onto the ice before I could stop him. One foot, testing, then the other. The surface held. He took another step, then another, moving carefully toward a patch of particularly pale ice a few feet out.

“Art. If you fall through, I'm going to be very annoyed.”

“Noted.” But he kept going, arms slightly outstretched for balance, feet shuffling in small careful movements. “It's solid. Come see.”

Against every instinct that had kept me alive through three years of combat, I followed him onto the ice.

It was strange, walking on water. Even frozen water. The surface was slicker than I'd expected, and I had to concentrate to keep my footing. But Art was right. The ice was solid here, thick enough to hold both our weights without complaint.

“This is mad,” I said.

“This is wonderful.” Art had stopped a few feet ahead, standing in the middle of a smooth patch that reflected the sky like a mirror. “Look. You can see the clouds.”

I looked down. He was right. The ice was clear enough in places to show the sky above, pale blue scattered with wisps of white. Like standing on glass. Like standing on nothing at all.

“When I was a boy,” Art said quietly, “I used to dream about walking on water. Not in a religious sense. Just... the impossibility of it. The way it would feel to do something that shouldn't be possible.”

“And? How does it feel?”

He looked up at me, and his expression made my chest tight. “It feels like this. Like us. Like something that shouldn't be possible but is anyway.”

I didn't know what to say to that. Didn't have words for the feeling that swelled up in me, too big for language. So I just stepped closer, until we were standing face to face on our impossible mirror of ice and sky.