Alastair Macleod 
The Night Class 
and other Russian stories

‘Resentfully the women pulled on hats and gloves. Always after class they wanted to talk, to sit and drink tea, to let the session reach a natural end.
This abrupt turfing out thrust them back to a reality they had escaped for a moment.

Tanya watched the dark figures in ones and twos disperse along the street.
Behind her the door shut with a bang. Semeon turned the lock.

That sound, the sound of the bolt shooting home, clutched at her heart.

There were two cold places, the physical cold and the cold of her relationship.

The ground was rock at 40 below; lakes and streams still and solid; icicles daggering from eaves. A tree could explode like a pistol shot as it’s freezing sap burst out its body. Birds could literally fall out of the sky, their heart muscle finally stiff and cold.

In the forest green things had retreated inwards, underground, sleeping, waiting.

Like the forest she had retreated deep into herself, trying to keep some of her spirit alive.’