The summer snow

Source: an original fiction extract.

Snow covered the market square on the hottest afternoon of the year. It lay in smooth white banks beneath the fountain and against the doors of the bank. Lorna stopped her bicycle at the barrier. A man in shorts asked her to wait while a woman in a heavy coat crossed the square carrying an empty suitcase. Behind the woman, three children threw snowballs without making a sound. The man said, 'Cut,' and the children dropped their arms. Someone brought the woman a bottle of water with a straw.

Lorna had known a film crew was coming, but not that it would borrow winter. The snow was paper and foam. Behind the fountain stood a fan large enough to trouble a small aircraft, and the bank had become a hotel through the addition of a wooden sign. She watched an assistant brush the woman's footprints away. Another person retrieved the thrown snowballs and placed them in a bucket. Nothing that had just happened was allowed to remain happened. The woman returned to the beginning of her journey and lifted the suitcase again.

Lorna's grandmother had told her about the winter when the square really froze. People had crossed it holding the railings, and a lorry had delivered bread until its wheels stuck beside the fountain. In her grandmother's account, the cold was not beautiful. It split fingers and stopped pipes. Lorna looked at the film's perfect white surface. There was no dirty slush around the drains, no frightened balancing on polished ice. When the fan began, flakes rose in a careful storm around the woman. She walked slowly, as though the suitcase were heavy.

Between takes, an assistant asked Lorna whether she could move her bicycle farther from the barrier. They needed the corner clear. She wheeled it beside a group of spectators and found her grandmother there, leaning on a shopping trolley. Lorna pointed out the fake snow and the empty case. Her grandmother said she could see. Then she watched the woman cross again. Halfway to the fountain, the actor paused and adjusted her grip, just as Lorna's grandmother did when a shopping bag pulled against her fingers. Her grandmother's expression changed. She said that part looked right.

By evening, the snow was being swept into sacks. The hotel sign came down, and the bank returned without anyone opening an account. Lorna rode across the warm paving after the barriers were removed. A white fragment caught briefly in her front wheel and blew away. At home she asked her grandmother about the lorry stuck in the ice. This time she asked who had carried the bread from it. Her grandmother named a man Lorna had never heard of and described how he had balanced the loaves against his chest. Lorna listened to the weight of them.

Consider the whole source. Analyse how the writer structures the text to develop Lorna’s ideas about what makes a scene convincing. Support your explanation with references to the source.