The Last Boat Home (13 page)

‘It’s all right, Else.’ The words were sodden and slow. ‘It isn’t
as bad as it looks. You mustn’t tell anyone. Do you hear me? Your father will be starting a new job soon. Things will get better then.’

‘What job?’ Else said.

‘At the shipyard,’ her mother said. ‘I spoke to Karin after luncheon the other day. Haakon has found him a position, though goodness knows it isn’t an easy time to be handing out work. We’re very lucky. Your father will see that soon.’

Else imagined her mother in Karin Reiersen’s parlour trying to phrase the request while her coffee grew cold. She knew what it must have cost her to ask the favour of her old school friend. She sank onto the edge of the bed, sore with the thought of it, just as the idea of her family accepting charity from Lars’s parents made her want to scream. She pictured her father, sloppy with drink, handling a welding torch in one of Reiersen’s construction sheds. She saw him throwing a fist and slamming her mother to the floor.

‘What about the insurance money?’ she asked.

‘There’s no money,’ her mother said. ‘He hasn’t paid the Hull and Machinery insurance in years. It was too expensive, he said.’ The corners of her lips quivered in a sad smile. ‘We’ll be fine, Else, once your father starts work. And Karin has ordered a new dress. That should keep me busy for a while.’

Else wanted to ask where it had happened. Had her mother been in the kitchen peeling potatoes for their dinner? Or sewing in the dining room, or dusting in the Best Room? Was this the first time, or had he hit her before?

‘As soon as he starts work,’ her mother said, ‘everything will be fine, you’ll see.’

Else nodded at her mother’s bruise. She felt her hand pressed by cold fingers and she squeezed back and said nothing.

Johann returned from his fishing trip having caught two coalfish, which he gutted and cleaned while kneeling on the pier. Dagny
pan-fried the fillets and prepared a sauce and the family sat together around the dining table to eat their meal. Else picked at the fish until dinner was done, when she scraped the leftovers into the bin.

She used what was left of the day on her chores and was grateful for a reason to stay busy. After filling a bucket with soft soap diluted in water, she scrubbed the floor and the surfaces of the kitchen. In the Best Room, she flung the windows wide as she dusted and sweated in spite of the wind. She tore the cobwebs with her cloth and thumped the cushions with clenched fists. She polished the furniture until the wood gleamed and her hands ached with the effort.

At half past nine, as she pierced the heel of a sock with a threaded needle she had chosen from her mother’s sewing box, Else remembered Lars. He and the boys would be at the paddock by now, sipping moonshine and wondering what had become of her.

T
HERE WERE NO
stars in the December sky on Johann’s first morning of work at the Reiersen shipyard. Else lay gazing at the ceiling beams over her bed and waited for the day to begin. Her parents’ bedroom door creaked before her mother’s clogs click-clacked in the corridor and on the stairs. Pipes groaned. Her father coughed through the wall. Else stayed under the covers for as long as she could.

Once she was up, she milked the cow and returned to find her father in the dining room. His hair had been combed into a side parting. The outbreak of whiskers had been shaved from his jaw. She left him chewing a banana sliced on bread and climbed the stairs to wash in the bathroom. As she brushed her teeth, she studied her face in the mirror and saw nothing pretty in the high forehead and straight nose inherited from him.

The kitchen smelled sweet with roasted chicory when she
reappeared, feeling the cold in spite of her long johns and woollen sweater. She buttered a crust of bread, though she had no appetite for breakfast. She ate it on the spot while, beside her, her mother packed two sandwiches in greaseproof paper.

‘Can’t I pour you a cup?’ her mother asked.

Else shook her head at the yellowed remains of the bruise which had been camouflaged with powder. Her mother followed her into the hallway, where her father was searching the closet.

‘Where’s my coat?’ he asked and his wife unhooked it from its peg. Johann pulled it on, then zipped the sandwich that she offered him into his pocket. He drew a hat down over his ears.

‘Don’t forget your thermos,’ Dagny said and handed it to him. ‘Good luck today.’ Johann trudged outside.

Else dragged herself into the dark that shrouded the lawn and up the hill to the frosted road, trailing after her father at a distance that she hoped would keep her safe from conversation. The earth was frozen stiff all the way to the public dock, its pores plugged with ice and rotting leaves. A crowd had gathered on the pier. The shipyard’s labourers outnumbered the passengers who watched for the ferry to town. The workers huddled together as if for warmth, gazing at the shipyard’s boat that came for them from across the fjord, its navigation lamps sparking against the black water.

Johann struck a match to the leaking end of a rolled cigarette. He scowled through the fog he exhaled and wiped his nose on his glove. Else licked her chapped lips and anticipated the moment when her father would turn around for home. When the boat put in at the dock, the labourers arranged themselves in a queue and each took their place in the cabin. Johann smoked until the last man had stepped from the pier. He hurled his cigarette into the water.

‘Goddamn it,’ he said.

He climbed aboard and soon the motorboat was arcing away from the shore. Johann pressed himself into a corner on deck and
bowed his head to his tobacco pouch. Else shuffled her feet. The ferry was late; there was still no sign of it. The air smelled of burning logs and she imagined the farmhouses nearby made snug by their blazing ovens. The circus men must be cold in their trailers. She thought all at once of the strong man standing in the manège, of his defiant look as he faced the howling audience. She shivered under her clothes as a wrack of cloud shed the winter’s first flurry of snow.

Now

Summer, 2009

ELSE WAITS FOR
Liv to shoulder her rucksack before she gives her the bus ticket.

‘So. You know which stop to get off at, right?’

‘Don’t worry, Mormor,’ Liv says. ‘I know where I’m going.’

Liv climbs the stairs to the coach and, while the conductor checks her ticket, waves at Else, who swallows the lump in her throat. However often her granddaughter leaves to visit her father, it never gets easier to see her go. This time, Nils has a month off from the North Sea oilrig where he works in the canteen for Statoil employees. Liv will stay with him for two weeks, before he takes his family on holiday to Cyprus. She does not seem to mind about not having been invited.

‘Why would I want to go with them to Cyprus?’ she said. ‘The baby has colic. It’d just be somewhere else for me not to get any sleep.’

The driver starts the engine and the coach trembles as it reverses out of the depot. Else waves at its rear window’s tinted glass, unsure if Liv is watching but carrying on nonetheless. When the
bus is out of sight she walks down the hill and through town to Lyngveien, disheartened by the thought of the weeks that lie ahead. She hopes that Liv will call her once in a while, or she will have to rely on updates from Marianne.

Else slips into a side street, where she pushes through a revolving door into Meny. The supermarket smells of chickens roasting. She hangs a basket on her arm and opens a fridge for a pot of yoghurt and another for a carton of semi-skimmed milk. At the rotisserie stands Pastor Hansen, the new minister since Pastor Gonsholt retired to Spain. He nods his thanks when the attendant hands him a wrapped lunch cake and places it in his trolley.

Else prods the oranges and chooses two for her basket, then picks a leek, a courgette, a red bell pepper. Dinner tonight will be for one. Marianne has agreed to work double shifts while Liv is in Stavanger. She is saving up, she says, though goodness knows what for. Since she started waitressing, Else has barely seen her.

But she takes herself in hand as she approaches the cold cuts: she is being petulant, when she should be pleased Marianne has stuck with this job. She has long wished that her daughter would find a vocation she loves as much as Else does her own. Twelve years have passed since Ninni Tenvik’s first stroke, when the older woman’s physiotherapist volunteered to show her some simple massage techniques. While Else checks the price of frozen shrimp at the fish counter, she remembers what it meant to feel Ninni restored by her touch, as if, during the minutes of their first session together, she had succeeded in unlocking the source of her pain. She began to save up for courses in Oslo, catching a coach there and back, sometimes spending a couple of nights in a hotel. As she collected qualifications, she discovered that her fingers could do more than sew. ‘You have healing hands,’ Ninni told her once. Before she died, she and Tenvik persuaded Else to accept a loan to set up the spa.

Someday soon, Else hopes that her daughter will experience
this kind of fulfilment. Until then, a job is a job. It has been a while since Marianne last had one. In the International Food Aisle, Else inspects the jars of sauces arranged on the shelves. Mexican. Indian. Thai. She selects a sachet of oyster sauce to add to her pile, then considers the cellophane packs of noodles as fine as jellyfish tentacles. She lifts one gingerly and skims the instructions on the back.

‘Branching out?’ says a man’s voice close by.

‘Petter,’ says Else. ‘You startled me.’

‘I prefer Italian.’

‘Well,’ she says. ‘So do I, if I’m honest.’

She laughs and feels awkward about having laughed. She rereads the noodles’ cooking times, leaning away from the arm that Petter reaches in front of her. He grabs a jar and studies the label with its bouquet of tomatoes and herbs before putting it in his basket.

‘Are you cooking for the girls?’ he asks.

‘Not tonight,’ Else says. ‘Liv’s away. She’s visiting her father.’

‘And Marianne?’

‘Working,’ she says. ‘At the Hong Kong Palace. She’s got herself a job.’

‘Good for her,’ Petter says.

‘I thought I’d try something new.’ Else shrugs as if admitting to the absurdity of the idea. She replaces the noodles on the shelf and peers into her basket.

‘Well,’ says Petter. ‘I’ll be making enough lasagne for two.’

‘I’ve never tried to make lasagne,’ Else says. ‘Is it difficult?’

‘If you’d care to join me?’

‘Oh. I wouldn’t want to trouble you.’

‘It’s no trouble,’ Petter says.

‘I’m sorry, but I can’t. I have a pile of paperwork to do.’

‘That’s too bad,’ he says. ‘Well, have a good night.’

He walks away, then returns for a box of lasagne sheets. When he is gone, Else stays in the International Food Aisle for several
minutes longer than she needs to. She decides on a jar of sweet and sour sauce and the bag of rice noodles she had been contemplating earlier. Afterwards, she spies Petter in a queue at the tills and takes a detour through Frozen Foods back to the fish counter.

By the time she pays for her groceries, she has to ask for two plastic bags in addition to the canvas tote she has brought along. She retraces her steps to Torggata, her pace slow with the load of her shopping. A raindrop hits her arm as she nears the Hong Kong Palace. She pauses by its window and steps close to the glass. She has heard that the restaurant is popular. Even so, she is surprised to see it so busy this late in the afternoon.

She spots Marianne waiting on a table, a notepad in one hand, a pencil in the other as a table of diners place their orders in unison. Her hair has been scraped back from her face, showing off the high forehead that screws up in panic. The pencil hangs in the air. An impulse to help her propels Else towards the door, but she stops herself from marching in. Marianne will not thank her for interfering. She continues up the hill that will bring her home.

At six o’clock, she prepares her dinner. In spite of the rain that is falling in the yard, she leaves the door to the garden open, inviting in a damp breeze to escort the smells of her cooking out. She adds the chopped vegetables to a wok and they sizzle while the radio plays. Else hums along to songs she does not know. She pours in the sauce and decides in an act of rebellion to serve her food in a bowl.

At the corner table, she lights a candle before taking a seat and spreading her napkin on her lap. She jabs her fork into a pile of noodles and twirls its handle, wrinkling her nose when they slither off its prongs. Else spears a courgette baton and lifts it dripping to her mouth. She washes the taste away with a gulp of water. She braves another bite before putting down her fork, standing and crossing the floor to the oven.

The ringed binder is in the cabinet above the hot plate, set against the wall at the end of the spice rack. Else pulls it from the shelf and leafs through the recipes she has collected over the years. When she finds what she is looking for, she slips the plastic folder from the metal hoops and brings it with her to the table. There she sits and empties the folder’s contents onto the Formica top.

She examines the brochures one at a time. There is a three-week tour that is high up on her list: ‘The Great Wall of China * The Terracotta Warriors * The Three Gorges * The Yangtze River’. Next come the Pyramids – ‘Visit the Tomb of Tutankhamun’ – and then the waves of the Greek archipelago. Else places a slice of leek in her mouth. While she chews, she smoothes the spine of the catalogue flat with her thumb. The water sparkles on the page. How different it looks, the greens and blues and their gentle, clean peaks. It is unlike anything she has seen, though she has spent her life staring at the sea.

A coating of sauce remains on her tongue once she has swallowed the leek. She pushes her plate away and, standing again, switches off the radio. The kitchen’s four walls seem to throw back the silence, amplifying its loneliness. Else blows out the candle and tidies away the brochures. She scoops her dinner into the bin and goes into the hall, where she fluffs her hair in the mirror and runs her tongue over her teeth. When she has rubbed at the shadows under her eyes with a licked finger and applied her lipstick, she leaves the house, locking its silence up behind her.