Cover

Midnight
in the
Snow

KAREN SWAN

Dedication page

For Caroline Hogg

Who is far more brilliant than she knows

Prologue

Clover Phillips Tell me what it was like.

Cory Allbright (Pause) It was like . . . being inside a washing machine. You’re getting thrown about. You don’t know which way is up and which is down. The pressure is immense. The wave slams you down and crushes you. Then it sucks you back up again . . . When the wave is on you, everything’s dark. It’s like the sky is falling.

C. P. How long were you under for?

C. A. From the first one? Two minutes twenty, forty.

C. P. That’s a long time to hold your breath.

C. A. We train for it. But it’s different when the wave’s got you and you’re being tossed like a rag doll. You’re getting grilled. You’re not in control of what your body’s doing. All the forces are coming from outside your body.

C. P. Were you able to orientate yourself?

C. A. Not at first. When the wave’s on you, it’s like an avalanche – weight, pressure, noise. You have to let it extinguish itself before you can even try to get out, you’ve gotta wait for the trough before the next wave. I had been upside down but I got myself right and when I could see the brightness of the sky, I knew I could kick up. But before I could surface, it got dark again. I felt the water sucking back.

C. P. How far were you from the surface?

C. A. A metre?

C. P. And the second set came?

C. A. (Nods)

C. P. What could you see?

C. A. . . . I saw hell. I saw my life being taken from me . . . I could see the wave coming down, it was like watching a building fall on me . . . There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t get out of the way. I knew I didn’t have the breath to stay down for a double.

C. P. What’s the last thing you remember?

C. A. Spreading darkness, and then pressure. The wave crashed down on me and threw me onto the seabed. I was knocked out. Next thing I knew, I was waking up in a hospital bed, a day later, with a broken arm and a TBI.

C. P. By TBI, you mean traumatic brain injury?

C. A. (Nods)

C. P. But that isn’t the only lasting damage, is it? According to your doctors, you were under the water for four minutes twelve seconds before you were rescued. You suffered hypoxic brain injury as well and as a result of inhaling sea water, you have acute respiratory distress syndrome.

C. A. . . . Yeah.

C. P. What has the impact been on your family?