This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2015 by Tiden Norsk Forlag, an imprint of Gyldendal Norsk Forlag AS
English translation copyright © 2017 by Tara F. Chace
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Previously published as Ingrid Winters makeløse mismot by Tiden Norsk Forlag in 2015. Translated from Norwegian by Tara F. Chace. Published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2017.
Published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle
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Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonCrossing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503942615
ISBN-10: 1503942619
Cover design by Faceout Studio
To my family
CONTENTS
START READING
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Where are you heading? Everything is already here.
Ted Hughes
1
The marimba ringtone was not to be ignored. I tried mental calisthenics for a couple of minutes to see if I could block out the noise with brainpower, but I fairly quickly conceded. I opened my eyes and tried to figure out what day it was. It felt like Wednesday, a little too far into the week and still too far to go until the weekend.
I rolled onto my side.
“Are you going to shower first?”
“No,” I said.
“Why not?”
“I’m going for a run.”
“You are?”
Pause.
“No.”
I hung my nightgown on the already overcrowded hook on the back of the door, climbed into the tub, and just managed to back away from the spray of cold water. The original floor plans had included a shower enclosure across from the tub, but we had nixed that.
“We want to put the shower in the tub,” I had explained to the plumber at the planning meeting, “to save space.”
“Are you sure?” he’d asked me.
“Yup.”
“Well, you should at least put in the underlay for the shower stall,” the plumber had objected, “in case you ever sell the place and the future buyers want a shower. It’s smart to think down the road a little bit.”
I remember I’d considered calling Bjørnar to see what he thought, but he had already made it quite clear that he was too busy to attend these meetings. So I had carte blanche to do as I pleased.
And I knew what I wanted. Our future was in this house. This was the end of the line. We were building a home right where we wanted to live, one with the perfect number of bedrooms and living rooms and a small yard where we could grow rhubarb and plant roses and a cherry tree.
So I’d smiled at the plumber a little condescendingly and reiterated in a decisive voice that we wanted the shower in the tub. With no underlay for a future shower stall. Period.
Then a year after we moved in, Alva was born. Suddenly the house felt crowded and loud, as if we were all up in each other’s business all the time. This feeling was reinforced when Jenny had to give up her room and move in with Ebba when Alva turned one. There had been arguments every night since then. Should the window be open or closed? Did they want the light on or off? Were they going to read or not? Who was the quietest sleeper?
“Ebba breathes too loud when she sleeps,” Jenny complained. “It’s gross!”
“Well, Jenny farts! Yuck!”
Plus it was impossible to get the rhubarb to grow big and luscious. No matter how much I fertilized it, there were only a few tough, skinny stalks that no one ever ate. And I couldn’t get the roses to bloom. We never even got around to buying the cherry tree.
And exactly two weeks after we moved in, Bjørnar brought up that business about the shower stall.
“A shower stall,” he said. “We should have put one of those in. Why didn’t we think of that?”
I stood there staring at him, but didn’t say anything.
“A shower stall,” I finally repeated.
“Yeah, that would have made sense. Did you know the neighbors have one? They said it was included in the original floor plans. Did we veto it or something?”
“No.”
“It wasn’t in the plans?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm, well, it should have been. I don’t like showering in the tub.”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t like it, standing in the tub. It’s not . . . pleasurable. Plus you have more arm room in a shower stall.”
“Really? But what about all the room we have now? I mean, now we could fit a cabinet or some shelves in here. We wouldn’t be able to add those if we had a shower stall.”
“We should’ve put in a shower stall.”
As this grew in scale from a mere disagreement into a full-blown argument, the way these things do, I started to doubt that this house really was the end of the line for us. Maybe it wasn’t the home we were going to grow old in.
In the beginning I only checked “Houses for Sale” once a week, but soon the online real estate listings became the first thing I clicked on in the mornings and the last thing I looked at at night.
Not that it made any difference. It was always the same houses in the same neighborhoods at the same prices.
We agreed that the lack of selection wasn’t a problem and that we had plenty of time, but secretly I was starting to worry it was already too late, that we’d passed too many restaurants and now we were going to end up at McDonald’s.
The warm water ran down my body. Some of it formed puddles around the outside of the tub. I closed my eyes and tried to empty my head as I walked my fingers over my breasts to check for lumps. As usual it was impossible to tell what was normal mammary tissue and what wasn’t.
Bjørnar came into the bathroom.
“You should mop up that water!” he said. “I don’t know what we were thinking. Why didn’t we put in a shower stall?”
“I don’t know,” I mumbled. “It really should have been included in the floor plans.”
“Anyway, we’re late,” he said. “Are you going to wake up the kids?”
“Could you feel this one breast? I wonder if there’s a lump in here. Kind of over here, right by the armpit.”
“No way! Now go get the kids up.”
I shook the two eldest awake and carried a half-asleep Alva, who still smelled like a babyish mixture of milk and rubber, downstairs.
Inexplicably, Bjørnar h
ad already had time to set the table, put out an assortment of fruit, and place slices of bread on each of the plates.
“TV,” Alva mumbled, her pacifier still in her mouth.
“No TV now, honey. We’re eating breakfast.”
“I’m not honey.”
“I know that, sweetie. But you have to eat up now, because we’re going to preschool soon.”
“Is it Monday?”
“No, it’s Wednesday.”
“Thursday,” Bjørnar corrected me.
“Thursday. And tomorrow is Friday, and then it’ll be the weekend.”
“When’s tomorrow?” Alva asked.
“After today.”
“Tomorrow is after today?”
“Yes.”
“Huh. Can I use the iPad?”
“OK.”
She zoned out, focusing intently on the screen while raising spoonfuls of Cheerios to her mouth with one hand and holding the other under her chin to catch any dribbles. Jenny stared blearily out the window. Ebba was putting cherry tomatoes into her lunch box one by one. Bjørnar was reading the paper across the table from me and wrinkling his nose at the fair-trade coffee. It did taste like muddy water.
I drank them in with my eyes.
This was it.
Right now, when everyone was relatively content and no one was screaming because they had to put on their jacket or shoes. Right now, when everyone was present and no one had remembered they had PE or swimming yet. This moment of harmony and peace. Of security. I wanted this to go on and on, to last.
But then I started thinking that someone actually did have PE or swimming today. And then I noticed Bjørnar glance at the time and I knew the moment was already over.
The way it’s always already over.
2
It turned out there was at least a glass of Barolo left in the wine bottle that I had added to the bag to return for the deposit, and when I hoisted the bag into the car, the deep-red liquid drenched my jacket sleeve.
“What’s that wet stuff?” Alva asked as I fastened her seat belt.
“Mama spilled some wine.”
“Yuck,” she said, wrinkling her nose.
I opened both car windows all the way to air out the alcohol smell, which quickly permeated the car.
“Close the windows! I can’t hear my show,” cried Alva. “Close the windows!”
I didn’t close the windows until we were on our way up the last hill, approaching the preschool.
“I didn’t get to hear about the spider,” she whined as we walked inside.
“You can play it again when we drive home,” I replied and set her boots in her cubby before we walked into the classroom.
“Good morning,” I said to the teacher in the cheerful voice I always reserved for those whose goodwill I depended on.
“Good morning,” she said. “What did you bring to school today, Alva?”
“Was she supposed to bring something?”
“Oh, no, she didn’t need to. But she could have brought something, because it’s show-and-tell today.”
Alva shuddered and a rock sank in the pit of my stomach.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I said in a way I hoped sounded casual, running my hand over Alva’s cheek. “We’ll just bring something the next time.”
“But I wanted to bring Fluttershy!”
“I know.”
For a few seconds I considered going home and getting the plastic horse she was referring to, but I put it out of my mind.
“We’ll just bring an extra toy the next time you have show-and-tell,” I told her.
She stared up at me with her big, wet eyes. I smiled encouragingly, set her on the teacher’s lap, and practically ran out into the hallway, where Alva’s classmate Rachel was busy pulling things out of her bag and putting them into her cubby.
“Look what I have,” she told me, and proudly pulled out the red horse with the green mane whose twin lay abandoned and alone in the toy box in Alva’s bedroom.
“Fluttershy,” I said.
“What did Alva bring?”
“Nothing.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want to see what I can do?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s that smell?”
“I don’t know.”
“I smell something . . . Yuck, what is that?”
“Wine,” I said tiredly.
“Wine?”
I was about to explain about the bottle and the deposit and the Barolo when the teacher stepped into the hallway.
“Are you still here?” she said to me.
“Apparently so.”
“Alva’s fine. Karen brought two ponies, so Alva can borrow one of hers.”
“That’s great news! Next time I’ll have to put show-and-tell day on the calendar,” I said with a laugh.
She smiled back, but it didn’t seem entirely genuine. That made me nervous.
“Time for breakfast,” she said, diverting the owner of Fluttershy, who ran up to her, whining.
“Bye,” I said. As I walked out the door, I just barely overheard Rachel saying, “Alva’s mommy smells like wine.”
Traffic on the highway was backed up and only creeping along. When I finally reached the office, I immediately stuck a note on my door that said “Testing in Progress” and started writing the conference paper I was already late submitting. I heard people approach my door several times throughout the morning. I listened to their shuffling footsteps and could sense their desperation as they stood outside my door. Desperate for someone to talk to, someone to complain to about lazy students, the bureaucratic nature of the administration, dishonest colleagues, rejected manuscripts, or inhumane workloads.
Sure, Monday was usually the worst. Over the weekend, a backlog of agitation and anxiety would build up, and faculty members might need long-term paid sick leave to recuperate if it didn’t get vented. And yet Thursdays were bad, too, because they were so close to Saturday that they got people’s eyelids and the corners of their mouths twitching. Which is why there was an unwritten rule in the department that Thursday was the day for encouragement and collegial camaraderie.
Usually I made time for it, because being a part of this workplace demanded small talk and commiseration. But not today. Today I broke the rules and sat silent as a mouse, holding my breath, waiting for the desperate people to shuffle along. Maybe that was wrong of me, but I just wasn’t up to their doom and gloom today.
The ones in high heels moved on right away, but the most pitiable ones—the ones in sneakers, loafers, or sandals with socks—stood there for a while. I could hear their breathing through the door as they lingered, listening to make sure there really was testing in progress, until they eventually sighed heavily and moved on toward the break room or the copy room.
Despite these measures, I only finished about half of what I had planned to get done, and when I left I had to stuff my organic cotton bag full of folders and books so I could do some more work later at home.
It wasn’t until I walked past the open door to the meeting room and noticed Peter Walsh in there carrying teacups that I recalled the reminder that had been blinking in my calendar for a good week.
“Ah, we seem to be the first ones here,” he said to me.
“Huh?”
“Everyone else is late. Late! I don’t know why we don’t just set all the meetings to start at a quarter past. We’re brainwashed into thinking only in academic quarter-hour blocks of time. Why don’t we just accept that?”
“Oh, right . . . ,” I said. “The meeting. Actually I have to, uh . . .”
“There you are!” said a voice. “In you go.” The chair of the department gave me a gentle nudge from behind so I stumbled into the windowless meeting room, where one by one the rest of the department quickly materialized. I knew I had to speak up now, right away, and say something. I could
not be a party to this. I opened my mouth, but then closed it again.
I hated meetings. I hated the pointless discussions, the trite, predictable sense of humor, the endless digressions that dragged on ad nauseam, and the crazy compulsion to bring up and discuss every last little thing and squeeze it in under “other matters of business.”
That’s why we hardly had a single meeting when I was the faculty coordinator for the department. I received almost daily e-mails back then questioning why we never had any meetings, along with suggestions about topics we could meet about, but I just hit “Delete” and pretended I hadn’t ever seen them. They should have been as happy as clams to get out of all those meetings. They should have thanked me for making the tough decisions on my own and letting them spend their workdays working: writing, publishing, providing guidance, and teaching, all the stuff we were actually being paid to do.
The result was that I was stripped of the title.
“I think it would be best if we let someone else take over as faculty coordinator for a while,” the chair had said contemplatively. “There have been complaints, you see, reports that people’s sense of community in the department is taking a hit. People miss having a forum for dialogue.”
That’s because people use these meetings as an excuse for not working, I thought. And I wouldn’t have it.
I hadn’t attended a single meeting in the department since being asked to step down as coordinator. Until now.
I stared lugubriously across the table, where Ingvill was taking her seat. Her hair was gathered into two scrawny braids that hung limply from either side of her head. They dangled when she leaned forward, like little mouse tails. She set down her phthalate-free thermal travel mug, which she had bought at a conference in Germany and which could almost be considered a bodily appendage.
During my stint as faculty coordinator, she had implied several times that I ran things with authoritarian tendencies. The chair had mentioned that as well.
“I’m not saying that you do,” she had said, “but if people perceive it that way, we have a problem.”
“Ingvill thinks everyone has authoritarian tendencies,” I’d said. “That’s what her life is based on. She’s a perpetual victim.”
“Who said we were talking about Ingvill?” the chair had responded.
The Marvelous Misadventures of Ingrid Winter (The Ingrid Winter Misadventure Series) Page 1