How to Be a Good Wife (2 page)

My apron strings catch on the kitchen door handle and I stop to free myself, noticing a smudge low down on one of the panes of glass. When he was a child, Kylan’s finger marks were always there, like ghosts. Now, it looks as if someone with dirty hands has smeared them across the whole bottom panel. I fetch the polish from under the sink, feeling strange that I haven’t noticed something so obvious earlier, and rub until the glass comes clean.
You must persevere when cleaning glass, mirrors and silver. The smudges cling on: they do not want to be removed.

As I scrub at the panel, an image forms like a developing photograph. Hector nervous, standing over me, telling me I have missed a spot, to hurry up, to make sure the house is perfect before his mother arrives. Before we were married, she used to visit on a Sunday to clean the house and cook Hector’s dinners for the week ahead, kept in Tupperware containers in the fridge. The first time I met her, Hector had insisted that we clean the house from top to bottom, and though it seemed pointless to me if she was to do it all over again, I did as he asked. Everything needed to be perfect, he repeated, she would notice the slightest mark. It was only later, his mother tutting under her breath as she corrected my work while Hector stood with his fists clenched, that I saw he had involved me in a lifelong battle between them.

When we heard the doorbell, he pulled off my apron and rubber gloves and we went into the hall together. I see him now, telling me to smile, as if it’s happening all over again. The way she looked me up and down, shook my hand and smiled tightly. She asked me where I was from, where I went to school. Did I want children? Hector answered for me. I only nodded.

I hear their voices, through the kitchen door. I am on the other side, out of sight.

‘She’s very young, Hector.’

‘She looks younger than she is.’

‘Where did you meet her?’

‘We met when I took that holiday to the island.’

‘Does she live locally?’

‘She’s staying here for the time being.’

She breathed in sharply. ‘Staying here? How long for?’

Hector sighed. ‘I don’t know, Mother,’ he said. ‘Her parents died recently and she doesn’t want to be on her own.’

‘Well, if you’re sure. It just all seems a bit fast. But then, you’re not getting any younger.’ A pause. ‘She’s very thin. Is she ill?’

‘She’s been through a tough time, with her parents. She’s a good girl.’ There was a silence. ‘I’m going to marry her.’

Now, I am here still, standing with my head resting against the closed kitchen door. My heart is hammering. The words seem to have come out of a place I don’t go any more. Yet I heard them, as clear as if I was hearing them in that moment. I can’t lose the feeling of something in the wrong place.

I go to the tall wooden cabinet in the hall where I keep my china dolls. Hector has bought me a new one each year since we’ve been married. Twenty-five dolls for twenty-five years. I keep them away from dust, looking at them only through the glass panes, opening the door as little as possible to keep them preserved. Brunettes, blondes and redheads, each face perfect in its own way. My favourite is a blonde-haired doll, sitting in pride of place in the middle row, her perfect curls and pale grey eyes catching the light. I look for her now and for a moment I am confused by what I see. She is facing the wrong way. I feel my throat tighten. Hector knows not to touch my dolls. I wonder if this is his idea of a joke.

Opening the cabinet, I pull on my white gloves. Lifting her out, I tilt her up and down, watching her eyes flick open and shut. I trace her lips with my fingers, always slightly parted, always smiling.

I hear something on the other side of the front door. Startled, I drop her. Looking over my shoulder, I bend to pick her up, my heart thumping. She has landed on her head, but there is no visible damage. There is a noise at the front door again, and my head rings, as if it was me who took the fall. Slipping her back into the cabinet, I walk quickly through to the kitchen, shutting the door behind me. I slide a knife from the draining board and wait.

The front door creaks open, and then shuts. Steps travel slowly across the hallway. I let my breath escape.

I open my eyes. It’s Hector, standing on the other side of the kitchen doorway, watching me.

We watch each other through the thick glass panels: we don’t smile. At the bottom, I see his brown leather brogues, the laces tied. In the middle, his corduroy trousers are pressed stiffly, his hands in his pockets. At the top: his calm blue eyes; the steady line of his mouth, slightly curved down at the corners; his greying hair brushed sparsely. He has deep creases in the skin of his cheeks.

He sees: slippers, the bottom of my black everyday trousers. The neat red apron, a pale pink cashmere jumper, the knife glinting by my side. My make-up-less face, no doubt severe in the bright daylight. My hair tied into a neat dull chignon at the back of my head, dark blonde with the beginnings of grey.
Before he arrives home, freshen your make-up; put a ribbon in your hair.

I risk a smile: as he smiles back, the lines around his eyes shift. Now that he’s here, I feel better, and almost silly that I worked myself up before, thinking someone was breaking in.

I turn, slipping the knife under the surface of the water in the sink. Hector opens the door.

‘Hi,’ he says.

I glance at the kitchen clock. Twelve thirty-five.

‘You’re home early,’ I say.

Hector nods. ‘No classes this afternoon,’ he says.

I have to look away from him, down into the water. I begin to wash the knife. The soap slips off the gleaming metal as I slide it onto the draining board.

Hector is still standing there, watching me.

‘How was your day?’ I ask.

‘It smells of smoke in here,’ he says.

‘I burnt some toast.’ I keep my hands below the surface of the water. ‘Have you been touching my dolls?’

‘What do you mean?’ His voice is slow, careful.

‘My dolls. Someone has been moving them.’

He comes towards me; I stay still. He raises his hand and I feel the warmth of his palm on my forehead, dry and papery.

‘Are you feeling all right?’ he asks.

‘I’m fine,’ I say, opening my eyes.

‘Not still feeling sick?’

‘No.’

‘Have you taken your medication?’

I shake my head.

Hector opens the cupboard above the sink. I hear the rattle of the bottle.

‘Open your mouth,’ he says.

I let my jaw go slack. The pink pill moves past my eye line, and when I feel it on my tongue, I swallow. He gestures, and I open my mouth again.

He checks. ‘Good girl,’ he says, putting his hand at the base of my neck. ‘I’m going to have a shower.’ He turns to leave.

I pick up the knife from the draining board and begin to wash it again.

Without looking up, I listen to him climb the stairs. Once I am sure he is gone, I let my legs go, sinking against the kitchen counter. Cupping a hand to my mouth, I expel the small pill, letting it drop into a gap between the skirting board and the floor. It has been so long now since I remember actually swallowing one.

I haven’t mentioned it to Hector. He would want to have a discussion, to remind me of how I get without them. Just the thought of it gives me a headache and I put my hands up to my temples, rubbing at them, pushing the pain away.

The last time I stopped taking my pills, Kylan must have been eleven or twelve. He had just started getting the bus from the end of the lane with Vara, his friend from the farm. I found that now he was away more, at senior school with its additional after-school activities, there was less for me to do in the house. When he was younger, I was so busy, I barely had time to think: he was always there, wanting me. But now, there was only the washing, ironing, dusting, and making his dinner. I had already had time to make stacks of stockpiled meals, waiting in the freezer. I started to look for the shadows of dust that fell on things.

But it wasn’t just that there was less to do and the house was so quiet. I felt him slipping away from me. In the evenings, I would meet him from the bus and ask him questions as we walked home, but he wanted to talk less and less. He kept more to himself, and I missed the shape of his child’s body, grasping after me. One day, he told me he didn’t need me to collect him from the bus stop any more. I said that I liked to, but he insisted that he could walk down the lane by himself. Hector said it was normal, that he was growing up. But it was easy for him to say: Kylan had started talking to him more.

So I stopped taking my pills because I wanted something to happen. I suppose I wanted him to notice me again. I almost welcomed the weariness that came without them: the heavy darkness I dimly remembered which begin to follow me around again. I would be doing a job in the kitchen, and before I knew it, I would be out on the porch step, numbly watching the horizon. Kylan would come in from school and find me there. Dinner was never ready, and his bed hadn’t been made. Sometimes I cried without understanding why, and couldn’t stop even with Kylan’s warm body against mine, his hair against my nose. I remember clinging on to him, whispering in his ear, waiting for it to pass.

Eventually, Kylan told Hector, and he got it out of me that I had stopped taking my pills. He said it wasn’t good for Kylan to have to do everything himself.
Children need order and routine: to be surrounded by stability.
That’s when he started to check up on me.

‘Some people just need a little help, Marta,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of.’

And now, Kylan isn’t here again and the silent house makes me want to scream. He isn’t coming back this time, and there’s no reason for me to hold it together. There is even less to do these days. Skipping my pills is like an experiment, one I allow to continue because in my worst moments, I long for something bad to happen. If it does, maybe Kylan will come back and help to take care of me.

And I like the warm, strong feeling I get from fooling Hector. It is better than feeling nothing at all.

Thinking I hear him on the landing, I make myself get up and take out the ingredients for bread. I stand, watching the neat packages of flour, yeast, butter, waiting for the whirr of the bathroom fan, the sounds of the shower. I want to seem busy, but the pressure of Hector above me makes me feel tired and after some time, I put the ingredients away again, into their proper places.

I check my watch: five minutes to one. In the hallway, Hector’s mahogany walking stick is propped against the wall. A recent addition, since his knee operation, a reminder that he is getting old. The doctor said it was only temporary, but I have a feeling Hector likes it, that it makes him feel distinguished.

I pick up the bundle of letters lying on the doormat and dust the front of them. On one of the envelopes there is a faint brown smudge, which I ignore.

The names on the letters do not seem familiar.

Mrs Marta Bjornstad. Mr and Mrs Hector Bjornstad. Mr and Mrs H. C. Bjornstad.

Before I leave the house, I put all the letters, even the ones with just my name, into a pile on the hall table for Hector.
Let your husband take care of the correspondence and finances of the household. Make it your job to be pretty and gay.

When my watch reads one o’clock, I pull on my red tartan coat and navy headscarf and leave the house.

I drive into town. The greens rush past the car window: it has been a verdant autumn with plenty of rain. Verdant. I wonder where I picked up that word.

The sun is at its brightest: it is the middle of the day. The road runs along our edge of the valley, and from the slight height I can see for miles. The sky spreads above the curve below, which is marked with patches of denser green where the mossy forest lies. I can see the traces of the roads, white crisscrossed lines in the sunlight, running around the houses and cutting through the fields. The distant mountains rise higher and darker, surrounding us: shadowed blue-green masses capped with white snow.

I make out the beginnings of the fjord, spreading across the bottom of the valley. Whenever I round the bend and see it hanging there, I am reminded of an early tour Hector gave me, just after the wedding. We were on bicycles, though I don’t recall where mine came from or when it appeared in the house. I remember I didn’t have a helmet and Hector had to lend me his: the silver hairs around his temples standing out in the sunlight. He seemed so old to me even then, though he was forty-one when we married, younger than I am now.

As I drive the same road we cycled, I tell myself again what he has always said about that day. About how happy we were. All the way, I could feel him behind me: I listened to the sound of his bicycle chain engaging as he cycled close and then fell back a little. The sun was behind us, and Hector’s long shadow fell over mine as we rode along. I looked at our shadows intertwined on the tarmac. That is my husband’s shadow, I told myself. I am his wife. I remember thinking that having Hector there made me safe.

Continuing through the valley, wooden houses pepper the roadside and spread sparsely across the land. Like Kylan’s old toy houses: reds, blues and yellows, painted garishly to counter the perpetual winter darkness. Further up, on the steep sides of the hills, the houses cling precariously. I imagine the black water of the fjord rising, washing them all away, sending splintered wood travelling through the rocky precipices towards the sea.

Soon, the sky will begin to darken again as the winter looms. Too little to notice at first, until the world is dim and we are wandering around with our eyes half closed.

I drive slowly along the edge of the water as I approach the village. The mirror of water doubles the size of the sky. Something flashes in the corner of my eye, and turning my head I see a child running away from me along the path by the fjord, her blonde hair catching the sun. She moves fast, her arms and legs wild. I look to see if she’s playing a game, if there is anyone chasing her, but she’s alone at the lakeside. Although she must be fifty metres away, I can hear her breaths, in and out, in and out, louder and louder until they fill the car.