The Therapist

by Helene Flood

  The response was standard, acknowledging that accidents happen. But it was also unsatisfactory. If she was so ill that she might be capable of something like that, why had nobody noticed?

  But if Pappa wanted it that way, well, that’s another thing altogether. That would explain a lot.

  There’s something else, too. That time I wet myself during the night, when Pappa came home late and put on his wedding ring – it was while Mamma was still alive. I’m sure of it. Why would Pappa take off his wedding ring? What reason could there be, other than that he was going out to meet another woman? But Pappa despises infidelity – by definition, infidelity involves putting one’s own needs before those of the family. And the family is the herd – the pack. Society’s most important component. The hearth and home of humanity and humankind. Individuals must always do what’s best for the group. Risking the eternal family for one’s own temporary satisfaction is the crowning example of selfishness. Extramarital relations are a crime against family, and the individual who commits any crime against the family should be punished. He’s told us in no uncertain terms that he believes this. Several times. This was what Annika was thinking of when I questioned her over our take-away.

  But what if he no longer regarded Mamma as a person? That’s what I was thinking, what I was really asking Annika about. Whether he thought that when Mamma got sick, she was no longer a member of the family or society, but a burden of which we needed to rid ourselves. The sick wild dog. In that case, there would have been no deceit involved in entering into a relationship with someone else. Under my father’s logic, he would have been as morally irreproachable as before.

  But is this too far-fetched? I no longer know whether I can trust my conclusions. I begin to feel so tired. The flowers on the wallpaper start to move and whir before me. I close my eyes. Just for a moment, just to rest them.

  Sigurd and I went to Tenerife. One week, departing between Christmas and New Year and staying into early January, paid for by Margrethe in the form of a loan. A package holiday to the Canary Islands. It wasn’t exactly us.

  We were picked up and driven to the hotel in a minibus, along with a family from northern Norway and two friends, a pair of women in their sixties, from Løten. The hotel was old, nice enough, although it seemed that the only renovations since the ’70s had been undertaken for the sole purpose of improving the facade. Our room featured wall-to-wall carpeting – all the air fresheners in the world couldn’t hide the smell of cigarette smoke that clung to it. But we had a sea view, and a small veranda.

  The hotel rate was all-inclusive, and since we didn’t have any money, eating all our meals there was the obvious strategy. There was a pool, tennis courts, a small sandy beach and a gym at the hotel. The so-called spa was just a sauna and jacuzzi. The local shopping centre, advertised by the hotel, contained nothing but a cheap jewellery shop, a Chinese restaurant, a bingo hall and a Scandi-navian pub. Once we’d seen all this on our first day we looked at each other searchingly and tried to laugh a little, pretend that we didn’t both see the entire holiday collapsing before our very eyes.

  And then the opposite happened. Despite the circumstances, we ended up having a really great time. We slept in late, made love in the mornings, Sigurd holding me tight. We’d go downstairs and raid the breakfast buffet, then sit on our veranda and eat. We played tennis every single day – we were both terrible at it, but we laughed until we cried. One day we rented a car and drove around the island; on another we borrowed bicycles from the hotel and cycled along the waterfront. We even went to the godforsaken shopping centre, ate dumplings and sweet-and-sour chicken at the Chinese restaurant, and played a round of bingo. We spent much of our time lying by the pool reading books, each reading aloud excerpts we thought the other would find interesting. We swam in the pool, gliding up alongside one another and putting our arms around each other under water. Sigurd sneaked a bottle of beer from the bar into the spa, and we sat in the jacuzzi and watched the sunset, a little tipsy and giggling. We had long, deep conversations at the dinner table and I was convinced that everyone in the restaurant must envy us; we were the most infatuated couple there. We bought drinks at the bar and sat by the pool after dinner, or played cards and drank white wine and got drunk on the veranda of our room. There was no boundless elegance or luxury; the hotel wasn’t refined. But it was exactly what we needed. Wall-to-wall carpeting and all.

  I’m dreaming about when Sigurd and I went to Tenerife, but in the dream the holiday isn’t as it was. This is another hotel, whiter, with shiny, carpetless floors. I’m there with Sigurd, but Sigurd is dead. He isn’t dead in the way that people are dead in reality – he walks around beside me, doing the things I do, but he’s so pale, almost transparent, and says nothing. I decide that we’re going to go on holiday regardless. I decide that nobody will notice it. I speak for him, on behalf of us. He sits there with me, is beside me, there’s no reason to worry about the fact that he’s no longer alive. I order for him in the restaurant – he’ll have the steak, please, I say, and a glass of red wine – and the waiters look at us with concern. They say nothing, but I shrink under their collective gaze. I’m more anxious that they can see us than I am at the fact that Sigurd is dead. I smile as best I can, so they won’t see how unhappy I am. I stroke Sigurd’s cold hand, which isn’t completely real, isn’t completely touchable. He says nothing. He looks irritated, but I can’t manage to make eye contact. I can’t get through to him at all, and yet I pretend that everything is fine – I smile and laugh, conducting both sides of the conversation so that nobody at the hotel will understand just how bad things are.

  And because I wake up so suddenly I remember the dream, so short and bizarre. We’re on holiday. Sigurd is dead. And I act as if I’m unaware of this.

  There’s a buzzing noise. I hear it in my dream. At first I think I’ll just ignore it, that it’ll disappear if I pay it no heed, but as soon as the thought of the buzzing has occurred to me it seems to get louder, and then it’s too late. I realise it’s my mobile. I wake up, blinking, looking around me.

  I’m lying on the bed in my childhood bedroom – it takes me a moment to understand this. Evening is falling – the sun must have already set, or be on its way down. The shadow the window casts against the wall is long, and it appears to be dusk around me. I fumble around with my hand and find the buzzing, trembling mobile beside me on the bed.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, it’s Arild here,” the telephone says, “from Arild’s Security.”

  “Oh. Hi.”

  “Well, we’re almost done up here. Took a little longer than expected – we had to wait for the locksmith and such – but everything’s installed now. We’re just packing up, but, I don’t know, are you far away? I need to show you how the system works.”

  “Yes, of course,” I say, glancing at my watch and realising that it’s almost six o’clock. “I’m in Smestad, I – well, actually I fell asleep – I didn’t get much sleep last night. Anyway – I’ll head home straight away. I’ll be with you in around twenty minutes, thirty tops.”

  “O.K., great,” he says.

  I sit up in bed, rub my eyes, experiencing the uncomfortable sensation of having lost track of the time – I’ve slept deeply, as if it was night, and then woken to early evening. Perhaps Pappa is already home. The unpleasantness from before I slept churns in my stomach. I would prefer not to see him now. I sit with my mobile pressed to my ear, and it occurs to me that Arild is still on the line. It seems as if he’s hesitating.

  “Was there something else?” I say.

  “Actually, yes,” he says. “There was one more thing.”

  He falls silent again. I rub the back of my hand across my face and wait.

  “I just wanted to ask you . . . Were you aware that there’s surveillance equipment in your house?”

  “Huh?”

  “I mean, you know – cameras,” he says. “And
microphones. Surveillance equipment. I just wanted to ask you, because I thought, well, it might have been you who installed it.”

  “What are you saying?” I say. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

  “We’ve found surveillance equipment,” Arild says again. “A camera in your front hallway, a camera and microphone in the kitchen. If they’re not yours, then it looks as if someone has been watching you.”

  “Oh God,” I say, and then I say nothing further.

  “Is everything alright?” asks Arild.

  I imagine hundreds of minor situations. Me waiting for Sigurd. Me drinking coffee in the kitchen. Me, perhaps picking my nose. Julie snooping around down there. Annika trying to get me to talk. Gundersen slapping his search warrant on the kitchen table. All kinds of embarrassing, private things. Have I gone downstairs to get something to eat in my underwear? Been singing songs to myself? Plucked my knickers from between the cheeks of my bottom through my clothes, or scratched my crotch? Have I cried over Sigurd, have I screeched in anger or broken anything?

  “Do you know how long it’s been there?” I finally ask Arild, my voice thick and dry.

  “It’s impossible to say,” he says. “Maybe two days, maybe two months.”

  “Perhaps it’s the police,” I mumble, more for my own sake, but Arild says:

  “I doubt it. I think they’d use better equipment. This is the kind of stuff anyone could get hold of. You can buy most of it for a few hundred kroner. There’s several stores that carry these kinds of things in Oslo, or you can order them online.”

  A shiver travels the length of my spine. The kind of stuff anyone could get hold of. I clear my throat. Try to breathe, and start again.

  “Arild,” I say, “have you checked the whole house for equipment?”

  “I’ve got a pretty good overview of the cellar and ground floor.”

  “Could I ask you to do something? Could you search the entire house? Go through the rooms as thoroughly as you can? I’ll pay for the extra time – I just need to know that nobody can spy on me.”

  “Of course,” Arild says.

  “I’ll see you soon.”

  “Yes. See you.”

  I’m shaking so much my knees threaten to buckle under me as I get up and cross the floor of my room. If I didn’t want to see my father before, I have even less desire to do so now. Two days or two months. Two months is an eternity in a life as it plays out in the kitchen; how much might someone have learned about me, about us, from spying on us for two months? All the things we talk about. All the things we don’t talk about. All the tense, uneasy silences, all the hints that go unacknowledged – half-questions, half-complaints, a half-joke that doesn’t quite manage to hide the pain and sadness beneath the surface. That go unanswered. Me with my invitations, asking Sigurd, “Are you coming to bed soon?” Him answering, without looking up from his computer, “Yeah, I’ll be up soon.” And then it takes two hours for him to get up, to move. And someone has been able to sit and watch all this.

  I creep down the stairs. I hear nothing, but I know that he’s here. I can see it down in the hallway: the smart shoes, the trainers, the ski boots. And now a pair of winter boots, too. I shove my feet into my own shoes and then, hearing the sound of footsteps somewhere, I grab my jacket, open the front door, and leave as quickly as I can without running. Take brisk steps down the drive. For a moment I think of my flight from Fru Atkinson’s apartment. As soon as I’m out on the street, I start to run.

  But it’s no use letting fear get the upper hand. It’s about staying composed; trying to understand. You often realise you know a lot if you just stop and think for a moment. For example – when I spoke with Gundersen this morning and told him that Old Torp’s revolver was missing, he asked me, almost irritated, whether there was anything else I’d forgotten. “No other weapons?” he asked me. “Hunting rifles or flamethrowers – or what do I know? No old, attractively decorated instruments of torture? No intricate surveillance systems?”

  I’d interpreted it as sarcasm. I’d hung up, thinking he was losing patience with me. But it was a peculiar example to bring up. From a revolver, via flamethrowers and instruments of torture, to surveillance systems. How did he end up there? What did that have to do with anything?

  I’ve reached Smestad station. The board indicates that my train will arrive in five minutes. A group of teenagers are standing and chatting in a cluster a little further up the platform from me. They seem absorbed in their discussion and there’s nobody else around. Fuck it, I think, and call him.

  “Gundersen,” he says.

  “What’s the deal with the surveillance system?” I say.

  “Sara?”

  “Why are there surveillance cameras in my house?”

  “Just a minute.”

  I hear footsteps, sounds as if he’s opening and closing a door, and then he says:

  “Yes, the cameras. Yes.”

  “Are they yours?”

  He sighs.

  “No.”

  “But you knew about them?”

  “Yes. Fredly’s team found them when they were searching the house.”

  That was several days ago.

  “Right,” I say, and then it’s thundering through me, the in-justice of it, of someone watching me when I thought I was alone. “And it didn’t occur to you that you ought to tell me? It didn’t occur to you that I might be interested to know someone was watching me? Listening to me?”

  He’s silent. Uncharacteristically silent, I’d say.

  “What the fuck, Gundersen?” I yell.

  The teenagers further down the platform look over at me now.

  “You let me just keep on as before, wandering around in a house that’s been broken into several times – you let me stay there without my knowing that someone might be watching me.”

  “I understand that you’re angry.”

  “You understand that I’m angry? Oh, well, that’s O.K., then. I really don’t give a fuck whether you understand that I’m angry – I just want to know who’s been spying on me! I want to know who’s installed fucking cameras in my house!”

  “Sara, just calm down. Listen to me.”

  “You mentioned it to me earlier today, when we spoke on the phone and I told you about the missing gun. You asked me. Sarcastically. Almost as a joke, I thought. ‘Any intricate surveillance systems?’”

  “Yes,” he says with a sigh. “It was stupid of me. But I wanted to check. Whether you knew anything about it.”

  “I see. And I didn’t, and so you thought it fine to leave me in a state of blissful ignorance?”

  He sighs again, heavily. My anger is starting to ebb away, too. There’s no point to any of this.

  “We did find the surveillance system. Fredly called me. I had to make a decision. Someone had set up some cameras. It might have been you, to watch Sigurd. It might have been Sigurd, to watch you. It might have been a third party, who wanted to spy on one or both of you. Or it might have been there for our benefit – you might have set them up so that we’d find them. Might have wanted to give us the impression that someone was spying on you.”

  “And what good would that have done?” I say, very tired now.

  “I can think of several possibilities,” he says. “The point is that when we found the cameras they could have meant many things. Fredly asked me what we should do with them. And my thoughts were as follows: if I asked you about them, you’d say you didn’t know anything about them. And that wouldn’t get me very far. But if I didn’t mention it, just waited to see what would happen, their significance might reveal itself.”

  “And has it revealed itself?”

  “Well,” he says, “I’m still not a hundred per cent sure why they’re there. But I’ve ruled out a few alternatives. Let’s put it that way.”

  “And while you’ve
been ruling out alternatives some sicko or other has had access to my private life?”

  “Maybe so. And I’m sorry about that, Sara. I really am.”

  “Yeah, well,” I say resignedly. “The fact that you’re sorry doesn’t help me. But while you’re being so open about all this, perhaps you can tell me how many cameras you found?”

  “Three. One in the hallway, one in the kitchen, and one in your bedroom.”

  “One in the bedroom?”

  “Yes. That one had a microphone attached to it.”

  On the train on the way home, I cry. First silently. And then not so silently.

  Nobody says anything. Nobody looks in my direction. I’ve become the woman nobody wants to acknowledge. The embarrassing woman crying loudly in public. Maybe they think I’m drunk. Maybe they would have more compassion for me if they knew that my husband died less than a week ago. But perhaps most worrying of all, I don’t care what they think. I just bawl my eyes out, all the way from Smedstad to Majorstuen, the entire time I stand on the platform at Majorstuen, and then on the Songsvann line towards Nordberg. Nobody sits next to me.