In Search of Mary (10 page)

If you could choose a family to be an advert for Norway, it would be Knut’s family. They are outdoorsy, they tease each other, they eat freshly baked bread together for breakfast. And they are so impossibly attractive that you get embarrassed looking at them. Knut has wild bushy hair and leaves his shirt open. His wife, Tina Bang, has high cheekbones, large eyes and the best name ever. Their son Espen is handsome, studious and interested in the world. There are also two beautiful daughters whose photos adorn the walls. Like their hometown, they are a vision of wholesomeness. They have, after all, invited a complete stranger and her baby to live in their garden while they were away on holiday.

Will and I join them for breakfast, coming up the stony path from our garden home. All of the food in the house is placed onto a groaning wooden table. Within my immediate reach I find eggs, several cheeses, fish, meat, butter, bread, jams, berries, juice, coffee and some strange things in jars. They might be baby octopuses. “So you’re writing a book? What’s it about?” says Tina Bang. “It’s about travelling with a baby,” I say, as Will thrashes in my arms by way of asking to be put on the floor. She smiles fondly as he crawls away towards some tomato plants.

I want to know more about how Wollstonecraft’s reaction to Risør might have been influenced by the events in her life at the time. “She was here looking for Ellefsen,” says Knut. “But the most interesting thing is how the psychological effects come out, how this determines what you will write. She
was extremely disappointed here. I think that explains what she wrote. If you read the Bible or history from thousands of years ago, people are writing their own subjective version.”

“I think so too,” I join in, “but that’s just my subjective version of her subjective version.”

“But, you know, Risør could have been a bad place,” adds Tina, the first person to voice this possibility. “And maybe the people weren’t so nice. Strange things happen here in Risør. It was a rich town, but the people were getting rich in a bad way: there were smugglers and a lot of monkey business. My family has been here in Risør since 1780; my ancestor had a brandy distillery.”

I recall Wollstonecraft describing the smelly people of Risør pushing the brandy bottle around all day. Espen interrupts: “They still do. That was probably our great-great-great-great-great-grandfather pushing that bottle of brandy.”

“People drank a lot,” Tina adds. “It’s a harbour, of course – because of this, I think it’s true what she wrote; I think it was not too nice when she was here. Every tree was chopped down back then. For fuel and shipbuilding. It wasn’t good: no green, and a lot of people drinking.”

“If a place like Risør used to be like that, then there’s hope for us all,” I say. “How else has it changed, compared to back then?” “Today it’s much more equal,” says Knut. “But Risør still has problems, especially in the summer. You see it when the rich people come from Oslo. The local people are happy to have guests, but we are afraid that they will buy up holiday homes. There is a law about second homes, but people know how to get round this: they give it to their children, and still
keep the place empty, while the local people cannot buy. We want to protect houses by making people live here all year round if they buy a place.”

“Is it true that you’re a communist?” I ask.

“No he’s not!” says Tina.

“Let
him
answer!”

Knut laughs: “She decides, of course! No, really – I’m not like a Soviet Communist – that was a horrible civilization I think. But I dream about a society where all people are equal. The right wing is gaining influence here: they talk of freedom, of individual politics. But this isn’t about freedom: it’s only freedom for the few. A hundred years ago we were one of the poorest countries in Europe, and then we found the oil, and today we are the richest. But when a country becomes rich so quickly—”

He’s interrupted by some gargling noises coming from Will. Perched in his baby chair, he’s stuffed too much bread into his mouth. We jump up and fuss over him. He emits a stream of sodden chunks and then smiles. I mention the young Swedish couple who gave him sweets on the bus, and how surprising it was that they were economic migrants. There is unmistakable glee at this. Tina says: “They always looked down on us, the Danish and the Swedish. In particular the Swedish. When I was young, I went Inter-railing, and in Sweden they’d say: ‘Ha ha, you are Norwegian, you smell of fish.’”

There’s a pause. “Perhaps you did,” says Knut.

They laugh. Tina turns and sings a song to Will. He laughs; she chuckles and squeaks at him; he claps his hands. He does his unhinged smile, so big that you can see every one of his
teeth. Everyone stops to watch him, and I’m suddenly bathed in motherly pride. He is so eye-achingly perfect that I have to feign some modesty. I roll my eyes and tell him off: “What are you doing, fiendish tyke?” But secretly I want to burst with love.

“But there’s another side,” Knut tries again “when you get rich in a hurry, that influences your thinking as a nation—”

Will heaves the coffee jug over into a basket of bread, from where the hot black flood spreads into Tina’s lap. My smugness evaporates as Tina leaps up to get changed and we dab at the coffee with tea towels. I realize very much later that we never did find out what happens to nations that get rich in a hurry. Norway is indeed the happy owner of a whopping oil fortune, but by the time we’ve stemmed the coffee tide, we’re back onto Wollstonecraft’s journey again, and an even more unrecognized heroine.

“Wollstonecraft travelled by ship at this time, as a woman with a baby, on the North Sea, because she wanted to prove something: women could do anything men could do. And she also had a tough maid. Here is a question. Where is the history of the maid? She is just as impressive, perhaps. The maid had a tough time.” Knut pauses. “You see, there is the history of the known people, but what about the history of the people who are keeping the known people getting known? Marguerite is this person.”

Hours later, still recovering from the epic breakfast, I think about Marguerite and those unknown people who keep the known people known. Was Wollstonecraft good to Marguerite? She defends vulnerable women, but does this play out in her treatment of her and Frances’s faithful companion?
Marguerite’s appearances in
Letters from Norway
are fleeting – there’s not that much of an impression. Which is odd, because Wollstonecraft goes off all the time about how Swedish women treat their servants.

Marguerite started working for Wollstonecraft back in Paris. She gets debilitating seasickness every time they travel in a boat. She is scared of steep roads and cautious of strangers. “Poor Marguerite!” says Wollstonecraft breezily (she never gets seasick and is never cautious). Marguerite is also a first-hand witness to Wollstonecraft’s agonies with Imlay. It is she who is sent, again and again and again, to strange post offices in the hope of collecting a letter from him. There must have been many occasions to think, “
Mon Dieu
, I didn’t sign up for this.”

Towards the end, when they’re homeward-bound, Wollstone-craft, Frances and Marguerite are travelling from Denmark to Germany. They’ve been on the road for some time. When Marguerite and baby Frances both fall asleep, Wollstonecraft is relieved – they have so little in common. Marguerite’s excitable chattering about the strange foreign fashions begins to grate. But she poignantly adds that Marguerite’s “happy thoughtlessness” and “
gaité du cœur
” are “worth all my philosophy”. If only she, like Marguerite, could simply be happy…

Even if Wollstonecraft sounds high-handed, it’s unlikely that she was unkind to her chirpy companion. At least, I don’t want her to be, so I plough around for evidence. Her
Original Stories
, an early kids’ book of excruciating primness, has a worthy chapter on ‘Behaviour to Servants – True Dignity of Character’. And although Wollstonecraft certainly gave her peers the haranguing of their lives, her future husband Godwin
writes: “To her servants there was never a mistress more considerate or kind.”

She herself describes with the usual indignation how

But what Wollstonecraft doesn’t do is reflect on her own privilege in the current scenario: the fact that she is being enabled in her quest, as Knut points out, by another woman’s hard work. And what irony that, until now, neither do I. Searching back and forth for Marguerite references in Wollstonecraft’s book while capering around on a fabulous adventure. And far away back home, my own nanny, Nori, steps up whenever Justin’s sent on another foreign trip.

Remember how I resented Wollstonecraft that early morning in Kragerø – oh well, it’s fine for her, she’s got a maid – remember that? It’s also true of me, and why it’s possible for me to do this. If it wasn’t for Nori… The thought trails out and leaves me uncomfortable. We’ve all heard the breezy career mum describing her nanny as “like my wife!” This complex relationship between women, of co-dependency and hierarchy, is an untapped source.

Elephant taps on door: hello, just popping round to come and sit in the middle of your room. Middle-class women are the direct beneficiaries of this inequality: it’s a source of both
freedom and guilt. So far I have avoided looking the elephant in the eye. Something tells me this may not last much longer.

Wollstonecraft has done both sides. She was once a governess. She’s almost certainly suffering from depression, and it’s not her finest hour. The letters she sends to her sisters reveal something of a nightmare employee, and at least three of Wollstonecraft’s biographers feel sympathy with her boss, Lady Kingsborough. In episodes that have a flavour of modern kiss-and-tell, Wollstonecraft spills the nanny beans on the lisping, decadent mother who prefers to lie around in satins with her lap dogs rather than care for her children.

When Lady K tries to include her governess socially at fancy parties, Wollstonecraft sees the invitations as patronizing and enraging, and uses them to satirize her boss. (Despite her vast wealth, Lady Kingsborough was married off aged fifteen for “breeding”. She bore twelve children and had no significant education. Maybe, just maybe, her rights needed vindicating too?) The lady tries to give the governess a cheap cotton dress. Wollstonecraft not only rejects it, but storms off and sulks in her room until Lady K has to come and apologize to her.

Wollstonecraft boasts that the children like her more than their mother. Even if this is true, she relishes it too much: “At the sight of their mother they tremble and run to me for protection” and the “sweet little boy … calls himself my son”. And while sulking in her room, Wollstonecraft is also writing a book,
Mary: A Fiction
, in which the eponymous heroine’s rouge-cheeked mother packs her children off to be cared for by nurses, while she lies on cushions playing with her dogs. Beware the revenge of the nanny.

There’s something unsettling in the stand-off between a chippy young Wollstonecraft and her aristocratic new environment. Wollstonecraft picks incessantly on Lady K’s looks and beauty regime, but his Lordship rarely takes any flack. Surely he gave as much cause for anger? But he gets off lightly. It’s the yawnsome old spectacle of the catfight. It’s easier to slag women off for having childcare than to address the bigger picture. I’ve done it myself. My heart sinks a little that Wollstonecraft did it too.

If anything, Wollstonecraft’s own governess memories should make her more supportive of the loyal and cheerful Marguerite. I think again about my nanny, Nori. Like Marguerite, she is impressive. She finished her degree in a second language alongside working with us. She works part-time, and if it’s been a few days since her last shift I physically droop with relief when she walks in the door. She’s seen us through house moves, nit infestations, miscarriages, pregnancy and newborn madness. She puts up with chaos, shouty arguments and unpredictability; in exchange she provides stability and calm. In short, she delivers sanity. How do you thank someone for that?

Gratitude doesn’t come easily where childcare is involved. I’d like to blame this thought on someone else, but secretly I’ve thought it myself: childcare should be good and lovable, but not
too
good and lovable. Do mothers resent success in a carer? Of course! It’s hard enough to love your own kids all day long. How much harder must it be if they’re someone else’s, poking your bum and asking about muffin tops? I think for a while about how to be more appreciative. Then sigh with
satisfaction about my benevolent intentions. It’s easy to be a good person at long distance.

The sunlight here intensifies in the late afternoon. It’ll be light for many more hours, but this light is special. The sea, the sky and even the shadows are a brilliant demented blue. We wander along the harbour to the Risør Fiskemottak, where fishing boats unload their catch. Will discovers Norwegian fishcakes, wiping them in his hair to the delight of the people at the next table, and I drink black coffee.

What is the magic of being near water? Risør sits in a natural harbour facing a sprinkle of skerries: small uninhabited rocky islands, where families in boats potter around, fishing and paddling. The lure of these tiny islands is strong: there is magic in the notion of a miniature world, of setting foot on a child-sized kingdom. Watery adventures from childhood books spring to mind:
The Wind in the Willows
and
Swallows and Amazons
. I long and long for my other kids. Being in kid-heaven makes their absence sharper.

I didn’t expect to find so much happiness in Wollstonecraft’s erratic footsteps, and I’m grateful that they brought us to Risør. I will never forget being in this place, with scattering blue light and baby Will attacking the fishcakes. I’m plagued, however, by how dramatically our reactions have diverged. Wollstonecraft came here and everything went wrong. From Risør it only gets darker and bleaker. She starts quoting Hamlet – never a good sign. Even the usually beloved pine trees make her want to die: