Lullaby Girl (27 page)
‘Put your hands together and close your eyes,’ says Mrs Laird. We do this. She clears her throat and reads out the first prayer on the programme. At one point someone sobs, and I glare across, expecting it to be Jess. But it’s Mrs Bell. Good old Mrs Bell, in her black coat. She blows her nose loudly into a cloth handkerchief. Someone pats her on the shoulder, and then Mrs Laird continues. It’s a very long prayer, and when it’s over everyone says Amen.
Next, Joyce steps up. She tells a long, cryptic story about a child losing her way in a forest, and how the shadows she had mistaken for bears were actually cast by herself. Nobody sobs during her story, and nobody says Amen.
We sing ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ and the second prayer follows. Then Mrs Laird asks if anyone else would like to say something. She’s looking at me, but I daren’t raise my eyes to her gaze, so the moment passes. On the journey back to the mainland, I dwell deeply on this. Did I let Mary down?
To the portside, the clouds seem to be lifting. I rest my chin on my hands and watch. A shimmering slab of droplets hangs across the waves, neither falling nor rising. It looks like time has stopped over that small portion of the world. My heart flutters, and as it does so it seems like a vast white lid has opened above the sky. The shadow in my heart lifts with it, tugging me upwards. I turn my eyes down and circles rush out of the waves. Illuminating me like a Blackpool ballroom dancer. I breathe in deeply and taste the salt. Something in me sways. Then the bad feeling begins.
No. Please. Don’t
.
Everything starts going too fast. Dancing. Diving. Reflecting. I lean back. But it’s too late to stop. My heartbeat rises high from my chest in a solid, rushing column, and as it spews out I must tip my head back to make way for it. My heart gasps open and the whole world plunders in. Concentrated. Reversed. All the dots, and the dark, and the ice. I see Mary’s face. I see Magnus. I see my mother. I claw at my burning neck, and with a clack the weight catapults from my back. I am coming to the bright place, where I was before they pinched me back. It was the pure thing to do. Beautiful. Logical. I recognise it. Can’t believe I forgot. I strain to the patterns. Stroke at my fingertips. Then the wind swoops to catch me, and I dive into the ice.
Darkness. Salt water in my mouth. I sink down. Down. Bubbles pummelling my face. I look up and see the side of the boat. So far. A cluster of heads, plastic clad. Red. Yellow. Blue. Their mouths chorus my name. Then a wave curls between us, and I go down.
#
There you are my love come run with me it’s all right it’s all all right and it does not hurt. Your arms are reaching, dark like pins, through the long deep hole … reach and reach and never touch … ah but closing … over it goes and the light slams out … I know you are there … you still listen … you know it and you feel my pain but you will not take credit … you say you love but not me enough … never you never did … know that now i know … i do … and it’s all right …
Hi Dad … Oh la-di-da … get yourself on a plane why not? she’s on life support … Well bring Magnus … well come alone … this is serious … but no why what’s wrong with you … what kind of daughter … but how can i … how can … no i can’t ever leave he will find … will find me … Stai-tunn Street. Eleffen Stai-tunn Street … see? but … but lots of couples … but … no Dad I can’t make it … this is it … bastards just drove off … doctors say this is it … what kind of daughter are … he will kill me will kill me too will always find … lots of couples … can’t hide … not anywhere in the world … can’t …
She’s been asking for you … one last time … pity’s sake … come say goodbye …
#
I don’t know which day it is, but I think I’ve been in bed my whole life. I watch the pink covers an’ taste the tang of sedatives. Sometimes I wake full of tears an’ can’t remember where they came from. I watch myself from the inside, fillin’ an’ emptyin’. My throat stuffed with wind, then sandpaper. But I’m far below the surface now. I’ve stopped tryin’ to join in. Instead, I focus on simple things. The patterns an’ the flowers an’ the waning light. Sometimes arms hold me. Sometimes there are syringes. Sometimes tablets. Sometimes I shiver an’ sometimes I slur.
A hobbling block fills my chest. Heavy as an anvil. I feel it – always there – draggin’ my face into the pillows. I think it’s the only thing holdin’ me in place. Without the block I wouldn’t have made it this far.
Sometimes, a woman’s face. Her old eyes crinkle shut. When she comes close I smell the sea. I think the arms that embrace me are hers.
You’re safe now. You had an accident. But you’re all right
.
There’s no longer anythin’ I want. I breathe, an’ I look at the pink, and I feel the block. I think I used to want things. I recognise the memory. But now there are no victories or failures. In here they’re not needed. The bed has become my world.
#
My first week passes painfully slowly. I spend most of it in my room, sittin’ in a chair by the window. They check on me once an hour an’ leave a baby monitor in here the rest of the time. The newspapers were here last week, but to Mrs Laird’s credit she wouldn’t let them through the gates. Fucking vultures smelled the drama an’ came running. I bet the guy with the boat told ’em. Or maybe it was the coastguard.
I think it’s Saturday today, cos earlier I heard singing. It’s the only thing to set this day apart, since this routine took over my life. At three o’clock someone comes to change my dressings. They ask how I feel. I say fine. At five o’clock my food tray comes. I won’t eat it. At nine o’clock my pills come. I swallow them. Then my evening will dissolve into a patchwork landscape, and Magnus will return to my side.
In the mornings they send someone in to ‘chat’, and thankfully that’s mostly been Mrs Laird. I don’t know why they make me talk at that time of day, when I’m still so high on the drugs. Half the time I don’t even realise what I’m saying. I’ll wake up in the middle of a sentence to find Mrs Laird scribblin’ my words down. Maybe that’s the point. Fuck it. Of
course
it’s the point … But I don’t care any more. Not in the mornings. The drugs make it hard to care …
#
Stop it,
you’re saying
. Stop it.
Shaking me. I’m shaking anyway, all by myself. But …
Stop it!
And you shake me again. Black shapes fall across me. Forming patterns, pathways, windows. So dark I can barely see out. My body howls, and I know I must stop. Across the room, your boys are asleep. Only metres between us. But my body is in charge now. I have never been more injured in my life, and the pain must escape from somewhere. Like a burning photograph, I curl smaller. Harder, frailer. Please, let the bed swallow me up. Eat me alive and get it over with
.
Shut up!
This time you shake me so hard my teeth clack. I gulp and fall down. Down, down, down. Past your stretching hands and the pine-clad living room. Through the black window like a bullet, and as the glass shatters around me, the whole scene switches off
.
#
When I open my eyes, I can still hear Magnus singing. The sound darts around me for many minutes, mocking my pain, and with growing anger I realise just how long that song has been mocking me. That nugget of suffering, veiled in the promise of love. Saint Magnus bequeathed it to me as his mother did to him, and God, how I clung to it. Night after night, drowning myself in that poisonous little coping mechanism.
But there’s more to this than heartbreak. I know it, deep in my gut, and I’m dreading the day when the full truth returns. It tickles the corners of my memory, like a hair in the eye. Magnus.
Hans
. They’re like performers in a play who only know their lines for the first act. I remember the beginning. My love for Magnus. My banishment to the south. I remember hating Hans. But that’s as far as it goes. The worst is yet to come, and it terrifies me that I don’t know what to expect. Suddenly, I feel unsafe. My stopped-clock life ready to burn down around my ears. New monsters lurk, and I must equip myself to deal with them.
Wake up, Kathy
.
It’s time to talk
.
September 17th, 2005.
Lina and I are mopping the floor when the Porsche pulls up outside. ‘Oh God,’ says Lina as Hans stumbles out of it and bangs, shoulder first, into the glass door of the shop.
‘What?’
‘Drunk again,’ she says, rolling her eyes. I look back at Hans. Lina disappears with the bucket of dirty water.
‘Ladies!’ trumpets Hans as he swaggers through the door. Arms outstretched, he makes a beeline for me. In the back room I hear Lina stifle a giggle.
‘Ladies! What are your plans tonight?’
‘Uh …’
‘Well it don’t matter. You both coming out to dinner. Both of you. Okay? I am paying.’
Lina sticks her head round the corner, catches my eye and makes a
shoot me
gesture. She wipes her hands on her apron and walks out, smiling, to join us. But at that exact moment, the shop door swings open and a second man walks in. Lina makes a strangled noise in the back of her throat. I turn to find her frozen, mid step. She opens her mouth, once, but no words come out.
‘Kathy,’ announces Hans, ‘I want you to meet Kolbeinn, my business associate. Lina already knows him, don’t you, Lina?’
‘Actually. Katherine and me. We had, we were, already had …We are going to eat with. My boyfriend. In Oslo.’
My heart jumps. I shoot Lina a glance before turning back to the newcomer, who has barely moved from the doorway. Though he is not tall, he has a foreboding presence, and it’s clear that – unlike Hans – he has not been drinking. His face is thin, wizened by age or harsh weather, with icy-grey, inquisitive eyes and perfectly combed white hair. His clothing is sombre, made of expensive-looking cloth, and on one hand he wears a sand-coloured driving glove.
‘I’m sure Stian can wait a few hours,’ he says, without lifting his eyes from Lina. I look at her too. Her throat is trembling.
‘Let’s go,’ instructs Hans, and this time there are no protests. Like children, Lina and I are ushered into the car, and Kolbeinn roars smoothly out onto the main road.
We drive for what feels like hours. First along highways. Then down small country roads. We pass a few houses, make a right onto another highway, and follow it towards a big illuminated sign that says KRO. Kolbeinn pulls into a car park beside a cosy-looking wooden building, and we all get out.
‘Eat anything you like,’ blares Hans, as we sit down in a booth. Straight away he orders a double whisky on the rocks and a bottle of white wine for
jentene
. Kolbeinn orders water.
‘I’m not actually very hungry,’ I start, but Lina shoots me a warning glance, so I order pasta arrabbiata and hand the menu back. Everyone else gets steak. Hans fills my wine glass to the brim, then Lina’s. ‘All in one!’ says Hans, and we clink glasses. Lina and I only manage to sink half, but Hans doesn’t berate us for this. He just fills our glasses up again, and we repeat the process. I must admit, my nerves soften considerably after the first few. When they bring our food the mood is quite relaxed, and I start to wonder what all the fuss was about. My pasta is not half bad. Hans makes a joke about the antique moose head above our booth, and we all laugh. Feeling braver, I ask Kolbeinn how he knows Hans, and he replies that they ply similar trades. That he sometimes puts business Hans’s way, and vice versa. ‘So you have a salon too?’ I ask, but this time he is busy with his steak knife and the question slips by unanswered. I take a sip of wine and tell him about the kitten Lina got me last weekend. She said it’d be good company for me, and so far I must admit it’s raised my spirits. I don’t tell him that bit, of course. ‘It’s called Bobble,’ I announce, but no one raises a smile, so I go back to my pasta. This meal must be costing them a fortune. I saw the prices on the menu and the drink tab alone must be approaching a thousand kroner.
‘So I hear you are not happy at your job, Lina,’ says Kolbeinn, casually. Lina chokes. Her eyes flick up at him. I catch my breath.
‘No. I’m happy,’ she squeaks through a mouthful of food.
‘Oh. What I hear is that you’re planning to leave us. You and Stian and your bastard child. I heard you’re going to run away, through Sweden, with a fake passport, and that Stian will send the police to pay your employers a visit. Teaching them a lesson. That is what I have heard.’
‘It’s not true!’
Silence rings out. Even Hans has stopped eating now. I uncross my legs, painfully slowly, and square my feet against the floor. But there’s no point even trying to run. We’re hemmed in. That’s the whole point. It’s been the point all night. I look around the room and see we’re the only customers. There are no staff in sight, and no CCTV cameras.
There are tears in Lina’s eyes.
‘Please,’ she whispers. ‘I have a daughter.’
‘Yes. And how old would she be now?’
‘Three.’
Kolbeinn leans forward, tenting his fingers beneath his chin.
‘Such precious years.’
‘Please, Kolbeinn—’
‘She must be missing her mother. Why don’t we drive you home to her?’
Lina starts to cry. I feel the blood drain from my face.
For many moments, nobody speaks at all. I stare at the tablecloth beneath my face. Looking at the sauce stain on the edge, beside the plate. Suddenly I’m aware that Lina is on her feet. She stands up straight beside Hans, sobbing into her chest. Like me, she’s wedged into the end seat, and can’t get out unless Hans moves.
‘I need to. Go to. The bathroom,’ she stutters.
Hans’s face is stony now. He is sloshed and looks uncomfortable at the escalating situation but refuses to meet Lina’s eye. Instead, he looks straight across at Kolbeinn and does not budge.
‘No,’ announces Kolbeinn, standing up and throwing his napkin on the table. ‘Let’s just take you home now.’
The drive into Oslo seems to last hours, and for the whole way Lina grips my hand like a vice. At one set of traffic lights I see her looking to the side and realise she’s thinking about jumping out. But there are no back doors to jump out of. Just a tiny, sturdy window. Hans makes several phone calls, in Norwegian. By the time we reach Lina’s home, the sky is dim. We pull into the driveway and four men I’ve never seen before approach the car. Kolbeinn gets out to join them, just as the front door of the house opens, and two more men drag a thinner, younger man outside. His head is covered in blood. Lina shoots up.
