The Land in Winter

Rita phones Irene and invites her to build a snowman in the field between their properties. Eric tends the drawing-room fire and plans to clear the drive. Irene dresses in land-girl dungarees and meets Rita, who has brought a carrot and coal for the snowman. As they work, they discuss pregnancy symptoms. Rita mentions a Greek myth about a god whose head exploded to give birth to Athena. Irene reflects uneasily on how Eric knows more about the reality of childbirth than she does. Rita suggests they might be on the maternity ward together, which Irene finds comforting. She also mentions a pregnant woman in Devon who was evacuated by helicopter. They finish the snowman and name him David, after Tessa’s playwright boyfriend.

Learning that the trains are now running, Eric prepares to return to his surgery. Irene makes him breakfast, and they say goodbye at the door. At the surgery, Eric finds a pathologist’s report confirming Stephen Storey died from a massive chloral hydrate overdose and files it away. After making routine phone calls to patients, Eric tries to call Alison but gets no answer, which unnerves him. He notices he has written the word “asylum” on his desk blotter.

Irene notices the cottage is cold and realizes the oil tank is empty. While preparing to clean Eric’s tweed jacket, she empties the pockets and finds Alison’s love letter.

Eric borrows Gabby’s Morris Minor, which has a loudly ticking alarm clock on the passenger seat. Unable to drive down the residential street, he walks the rest of the way to Peter Gurney’s house. Mrs. Gurney and her son let him in. Upstairs, Eric finds the bedroom window open and Peter Gurney dead in his bed. He phones the undertakers who handled his father’s arrangements.

Returning home to a cold cottage, Eric finds a note on the bed saying Irene is tired and is sleeping in the spare room. He has a fleeting fantasy of showing Irene a new galaxy from a spacecraft. Upstairs, he notices a new dent in the Arnolfini print.

Bill goes about his morning chores, pouring away excess milk because the collection lorry cannot get through. The winter is being compared to the severe winter of 1947, and a mile of sea off the Kent coast has frozen. Bill says goodbye to Rita and departs for London. As he drives away, he feels both exhilaration and anxiety. At the station, he sees Dr. Parry on the opposite platform; they are wearing similar dark green caps and nod to each other.

Meanwhile, Irene wakes in the spare room and cries after hearing Eric leave. She calls her sister, Veronica, in America. The conversation is light as they discuss Veronica’s potential return to academia and laugh about Eric’s obsession with his Citroën ID’s hydro-pneumatic suspension. After the call, Irene phones her mother and tells her everything. Irene’s mother gives calm, clear instructions.

As Bill travels to London by train, Irene packs a suitcase. In Eric’s study, she takes a £5 note from a wallet and notices an unfamiliar watch in the drawer. She retrieves Alison’s letter from Eric’s jacket pocket and leaves it propped against the fruit bowl on the kitchen table. Irene walks to the station and sees Bill’s car parked outside, but finds the ticket hall empty. She swaps her boots for shoes, leaving the boots behind, and buys a ticket for a multi-leg journey to her parents’ home via Guildford.

Bill arrives at a busy Waterloo Station, excited to be back in London. He arrives at his father’s house, and a servant, Colin, lets him in. Bill finds his mother in her small, dark, windowless room, smoking and drinking. She tells him his father is waiting for him in the old air-raid shelter, which has been converted into a steam room.

Irene travels on a train to Guildford, sharing a compartment with three men. A man in a bowler hat quizzes her on the length of a surveyor’s chain; another man answers for her, annoying the questioner. When the train brakes violently and comes to a halt, Irene hits her head on the window. After a long wait in the cold carriage, feeling unwell and desperate, Irene announces to the men that she is pregnant.

Back at Water Farm, Rita begins hearing voices again. She tries phoning Irene but gets no answer. Looking from her window toward the Parrys’ cottage, she sees no signs of life. In her bedroom, Rita checks her hidden stash of pills—Nembutal, Seconal, Dexamyl, and chloral hydrate—kept in a bra in her lingerie drawer. The voices grow worse, one impersonating her father. She goes outside and crosses the field to the snowman, which has lost its carrot nose. She continues to the Parrys’ cottage and finds it empty, with footprints leading away. Looking through the kitchen window, she sees the breakfast dishes and the opened letter propped against the fruit bowl.

Bill and his father sit naked in the steam-filled air-raid shelter. Bill observes his father’s aging body and thinks he could defeat him in a physical fight. His father speaks dismissively of farmers as “peasants,” and of Bill’s brother, Charlie. He produces a bundle of twigs and beats Bill’s back, legs, and backside with the twigs in a ritual manner. The act dissolves into shared laughter.

Meanwhile, the guard on Irene’s train explains that the line is blocked, and the passengers must take shelter at a nearby school. They disembark and begin walking in the deep snow against a strong wind. Irene struggles, losing a shoe and falling behind, and she regrets her impulsive decision to leave Eric. She falls again and is helped up by a man who places his hand on her pregnant belly. Irene cries out and breaks free, stumbling onward.

Eric arrives home to a dark, empty house. In the kitchen, he finds Alison’s letter on the table. He drinks gin and talks to himself, feeling a mix of liberation and shock. Seeing a light at the farm and remembering Bill is away, he has a brief, sexual fantasy of going over to be with Rita. He takes a bath, gets dressed in warm clothes, and goes to sleep in the spare room, pulling the sheet over his face.

Irene wakes in a dormitory bed, initially fearing she has lost her baby. The baby moves inside her, and she whispers to it reassuringly. The housemother, Miss Watkins, tells Irene she has been asleep for nearly 24 hours and reveals that they are at a school for the “blind.” All the other passengers from the train have left. She chastises Irene for endangering her unborn child and urges her to read to the children, emphasizing the importance of duty.

Meanwhile, Bill’s brother, Charlie, who works for their father, drives Bill through London in his purple Jaguar E-Type. The car’s bonnet has a gibbet scratched into the paint.