by Karen Swan
She went to close down the images file but saw there was yet one more. Another one from outside? Was it better?
But as she clicked on it, she drew a breath and sat back in the chair.
It was of her, taken from behind again through the gap of a pushed-to door. She was lying in the bath, her long hair balled up in a messy topknot with tendrils dropping down at the sides. Her head was tipped back, one slim arm lolling lazily over the side of the copper tub, her tanned toes peeking from the water. Again, it was another beautiful image, encapsulating everything their followers tracked them for: something rustic yet chic, sensuous yet simple. Lenny’s cherished ‘engagement rate’ would go through the roof but she didn’t care – before she could check herself, she reached over and pressed delete.
She wandered outside with her phone, the yellow jacket back on. They had been here less than twenty-four hours and already it had proved its worth. In a climate and landscape such as this, warmth became a matter of survival and she sensed how ever-present and close that prospect was here. The sky was cloudy, the light completely flat, and the water lay heavily like a dark inert body nothing could move. According to Lenny, today was supposedly ‘mild’ but the chill had a biting edge to it, even though it was now just after midday and about as warm and bright as the day was going to get. The sun didn’t appear to be rising beyond the top of the mountains but rather bobbing below the ridge line like a half-deflated balloon.
She wandered around the little farm, poking her head through the stable door downstairs – as Signy had told them, there was just an old barbecue and a few rusty bikes down there. She tried to peer in through the storehouse windows as the door was locked, but the storehouse was set off the ground on stone pillars, supposedly to keep animals and rodents from getting in, and she couldn’t quite peer over the ledges. She took some arty close-ups of the weathered stones and blackened timbers instead. She found an old wooden barrow half buried in the long grass, a thickly rusted rake and some sort of stone wheel covered in moss, and shot those too. Everything here felt aged and long-forgotten, as though this spot had somehow slipped from the bonds of time to remain rooted in a fixed spot from the past, decades earlier than now.
Overhead, the sudden shriek of a bird made her look up. She didn’t know what it was – an eagle? A buzzard? A hawk? – but the wingspan was immense, the pale-bellied bird wheeling in looping circles through the silent sky as though patrolling the fjord.
The sudden company made her realize how alone she was up here. It was a disconcerting feeling – seclusion and isolation were two entirely different experiences. On the plus side, it meant she had peace and quiet for recording some video footage for the Instagram ‘stories’ function – the other job Zac had tasked her with as he and Lenny headed off into town. She preferred doing these short videos to the photos precisely because they only remained up for twenty-four hours. Each short was only fifteen seconds long and she felt she could be more natural, relaxed, breezy, herself in them. There was something so judgemental and defining about the photos they posted to the squares: logged there for eternity, they seemed to stand proud as a visual record and testimony of what her life was. It felt like anything that went on there had to matter so much more, had to stand for something. Sometimes, usually when stuck in an airport, she would scroll through the feed herself, trying to see what other people saw: a young couple in love, laughing their way around the world, their hair too long, their tans too dark, their eyes too bright. Did they ever guess at how mundane their lives really were behind the squares? The travelling, the trekking to the photo locations, the hours of internet research . . . Those images didn’t just happen. They were planned, edited and curated.
Yes, that was it. She was a curator of her own life.
Tossing her hair back from her face, she held her arm up in the air, the phone angled down towards her, the fjord at her back. ‘Hey, guys,’ she smiled to her own image on the screen. ‘So we made it!’ Bright smile. ‘It’s been a crazy few days – getting on planes, getting off them, getting on some more. But it was so worth it, because look where we are now: on a gorgeous little shelf farm in central western Norway.’ She angled the phone so that it could sweep a panorama of the view. ‘But we’re settled now and see these buildings?’ She angled the phone towards the cabins. ‘That’s our Home Sweet Home for the next few weeks. They’re hundreds of years old. No hot water. No electricity.’ She widened her eyes to camera. ‘I know, right?’ She laughed. ‘But seriously, I—’
The phone stopped recording.
‘Dammit,’ she muttered, pressing upload and reset, tossing her hair back again and holding her arm back up. Bright smile again. ‘Seriously though, it’s amazing to be here and it feels so good to actually be cold again! Things you never thought I’d say, I know. I’m always the first to get my bikini on when the sun’s out, but I’d forgotten how sort of pure the cold makes you feel, instead of that . . .’ she pulled a face. ‘Ugh . . . sticky, sweaty feeling. And of course Zac is like a freakin’ puppy, bounding around and wanting to get back up a mount—’
‘Dammit,’ she said again as the screen flashed black once more. Oh well, that would have to do for the moment, she thought, pressing upload and wandering over the grass towards the boundary where the woods started up again. The gradient on the grassy expanse here was shallow but immediately below it, with the trees, the pitch straightened sharply again into an almost vertical drop and her stomach lurched at the sight of it.
She wondered when the boys would be back, her eyes falling to the mountains on the other side of the fjord, the waterfalls still tumbling endlessly, albeit silently from here.
‘Hello?!’ she cried out suddenly, liking how it felt to raise her voice. Release, of sorts. ‘Is anybody there?’ she asked into the void. But there was no echo. This place was too vast for that.
She turned to go back into the cabin. It was too chilly to stay out here for long and she needed a coffee to warm her hands against, but as she began to walk she heard the distinctive judder that had woken her that morning, and within moments the helicopter glided back into view through the thick clouds. It was like a giant fly with a bug-eye-shaped cabin, the landing rails like spindly legs.
She ran to the path between the two cabins, keeping well out of the way – she wouldn’t be surprised if it blew her off the shelf – her hair blowing around wildly as she watched Anders land again. He really was a very good pilot – competent, confident, steady. Bit like him, as far as she could see.
She waited for the blades to come to a stop before she dared approach.
‘Hi,’ she said as Anders ran around the helicopter to help his grandmother out.
He glanced across. ‘Oh, hey.’
‘How was your trip into the village?’
He nodded. ‘Fine.’ He opened the door and Bo watched as he slid his grandmother’s arm around his shoulders and lifted her easily from the seat. He managed to carry her all the way up to where Bo was standing before the old woman, in stern Norwegian, demanded to be put down.
She really was tiny, only coming up to Bo’s shoulders. Of course, she was hardly standing straight; the stick in her hand wobbled like a joystick and the old woman reached out, grabbing for Bo as she peered up at her through inquisitive eyes.
‘Give me your arm,’ she commanded and Bo obliged. She didn’t dare not. Anders – having been effectively dismissed – walked back down to the helicopter and began to unload it.
‘How was your trip?’ Bo asked her as they began to walk in tiny pigeon steps up the uneven grass path between the two cabins. She wondered how Signy wasn’t shivering in the cool air, as she had only a woollen shawl knotted over her shoulders.
‘A waste of time. That doctor isn’t old enough to tell me the time, much less read a blood result.’
Bo wasn’t quite sure what to say in response. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘You enjoyed seeing Kristine though,’ Anders prompted as he walked past them both, bulg
ing bags in both his hands.
‘Kristine?’ Bo asked politely.
‘My hairdresser,’ Signy said, her eyes on the grass, and concentration on her face with every small step. ‘She sets it for me twice a week.’
‘How wonderful. I’d love to have someone do that for me.’
‘You?’ she scoffed. ‘What do you need it for? . . . You’re a young woman. Your hair looks beautiful down,’ she said, panting slightly from the effort of walking and talking at the same time. ‘My hair . . . used to be beautiful once. My pappa said it was my . . . how do you say it . . . my crown?’
‘Crowning glory?’ Bo suggested.
She grunted. ‘I still remember . . . the day I first . . . put it up . . . I felt so sad . . . It meant I was no longer young.’
Anders, having deposited the bags inside, marched past them again, a trace of bemusement in his eyes as he passed.
‘But you must still have been beautiful though? You’re a striking woman, even now.’
‘Even now. Huh,’ she grunted again, a wry note sounding in her voice.
They reached the cabin and together they shuffled in slowly, Anders at their backs again. He was a fast walker – especially for one carrying several gas cylinders. He put them down with an exhale, kicking the door shut with his foot before going straight over to the stove to stoke the fire. Bo helped Signy into the rocking chair by the far window, quickly plumping up the dandelion cross-stitch cushion before she sat back against it.
‘Here,’ Anders said, coming over a moment later with a glass of water and holding out some pills in his hands as Signy unknotted her shawl. ‘Take these now while I am here and can be sure you have taken them.’
His grandmother replied in Norwegian so Bo didn’t understand what she said but her tone was clearly one of indignation; though she took them from him and obeyed, nonetheless.
Anders’ eyes met Bo’s as he turned away, a slight flashing arch of his right eyebrow betraying the level of patience that was required when dealing with his stubborn grandmother. ‘Coffee?’
‘Takk,’ his grandmother nodded, closing her eyes and beginning to rock the chair gently.
Anders gave a wry grin as he looked back at Bo and she became aware that there was an air of expectation in the room. ‘Oh, who me? Uh yes, that would be lovely . . . if you’re sure it’s not a problem.’
‘It’s not a problem,’ he said, turning away to fill a Bialetti coffee pot with water.
Bo shrugged off the yellow jacket. ‘So do you have any other family in the area?’ she asked, putting the question out to either one of her hosts as she sat down at the table, her hands absently smoothing wrinkles from the embroidered linen cloth.
Anders’ gaze slid over to his grandmother quickly before he replied: ‘No, it is just us. My parents died in an accident when I was very young. My grandmother raised me. Here, in fact.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ she said quickly, before adding, ‘I mean about your parents, obviously; not . . . not growing up here, that must have been lovely.’
He shrugged, reaching for a large enamel tin and shaking out some coffee beans into a mortar dish. ‘Mainly. It was lonely too though, sometimes. When you are a seven-year-old boy, all you want is to kick a ball with your friends. But here . . . ?’
‘Oh, right!’ Bo agreed, fully able to imagine the futility of kicking a ball about on this shelf. ‘You would have lost a lot of balls.’
‘It could have been worse. We are lucky to have this plateau. Some of the old shelf farms are on land so steep, the farmers had to tie both their children and animals to railings when they were outside.’
‘To keep them from falling off, you mean?’ Bo gasped. ‘Seriously?’
He nodded.
‘Oh my God!’
He cracked a half-grin, seeming amused by her wide-eyed astonishment. ‘And you? Where did you grow up?’ he asked as he began to grind the beans with the pestle.
‘Oh, a place called Dorset, in the south of England,’ Bo said, watching, fascinated. She’d never had her coffee ground for her by hand before. ‘Nowhere as exciting as this.’
‘I know Dorset.’
She looked up in surprise. ‘You do?’
‘I once had an English girlfriend from there. Sherborne.’
‘That’s not far from where I grew up,’ she said excitedly. ‘Do you know Wimborne?’
He stilled, seeming to think for a moment. ‘I think we went there once. A horse race.’
‘Yes, at Badbury Rings. A point-to-point, we call it. We always used to go to that.’ She sighed happily at the memories as they rose, unbidden by this unexpected turn in the conversation. ‘Do you know I’ve been all over the world and never once met anyone who knew my home town?’
He continued to grind the coffee. ‘Do you go back often?’
It should have been an innocuous question. Instead she felt as though the ground had been whipped from under her. ‘N-no,’ she stuttered. ‘No, I . . .’ Her voice trailed off. She bit her lip, trying to gather herself. ‘I really ought to. I keep meaning to. But the time just seems to . . . disappear, doesn’t it? One minute, you’re setting off on a six-month backpacking trip, the next thing you know, it’s been four years.’ Her voice rose shrilly at the end of the sentence and he glanced at her.
‘Are your parents still living there?’
She forced a smile and nodded. ‘Mm-hmm.’
He looked like he was about to say something but as he glanced over at her, taking in her frozen expression, the moment passed, his words sinking back down again, and a small silence bloomed instead.
She continued watching him grind the beans until she felt her heart slow to a steady pace again and the block in her throat cleared. He made it look easy. After a few minutes he stopped and poured the beans into the funnel of the coffee pot and put it onto the stove, keeping the ring of flames low.
A sudden snore made Bo turn, startled. Anders chuckled without turning round. ‘She always sleeps when she comes in from the village. She refuses to lie on the bed and insists she will have a coffee, but she never does.’
‘She’s lucky to have you,’ Bo smiled, turning back.
‘I am the lucky one. She is all I have. My family. My home.’
Bo stared, feeling somehow saddened by the statement. On the one hand, their closeness was touching. On the other, he was a young man, still, and she was so old. At the very best, they had only a few years left together. What was he going to do then?
‘Do you come to live here with her in the summer months too?’
‘I would like to but my business is too busy. I have to be in town, dealing with the clients. But I come up every other day at the very least. Most days I can pass by with a group to bring supplies and check she is well. The tourists like to stop and have coffee here anyway and look at the view. Sometimes, if she is up to it, my grandmother puts on a demonstration for them, making the old traditional dishes.’
As if knowing she was being discussed, his grandmother gave another snuffly snore and Bo looked across at her. ‘Do you ever get away from here?’ she asked. ‘Even just for a holiday?’
‘But what is that? When people talk about holidays, they mean escape from their own lives, from the pressures of their jobs, or being around other people, or needing to leave the city to be back in nature. I don’t need that. All of those things, I have here.’
‘So you’re saying your life feels like one long holiday?’ She smiled. ‘How lucky.’
‘Yes. I am.’ He looked up at her. ‘And you? Where was your last holiday?’
‘Well we travel so much, the concept has sort of ceased to exist for us. We live on the road. Normal life for us is what most people would consider to be permanent holidays. We’ve just spent several months in Samoa.’
He took the pot off the heat, pouring the coffee into the mugs. ‘So surely going home would be a holiday for you now then?’ he said, handing her a mug.
She gave a noncommittal shrug. ‘Ye
s, maybe.’ Her eyes opened wide as the taste hit. ‘Oh, wow! That is seriously good. Better than our Java.’
He looked pleased by the compliment, a small smile enlivening his eyes. It made him look dramatically different, as though the frost he wore had thawed, revealing colours and warmth beneath.
She sipped the coffee again, pleased herself that they had got off the topic of homes. ‘This really is awesome.’
‘Thank you.’ He watched her. ‘So where will you all go after this?’
Bo sighed. ‘Well I’m trying not to think about it yet. We’ve only just got here. I want to get my feet under the table and enjoy being here. But Lenny’s suggesting Sri Lanka.’
‘So, back to the sun again.’
‘That’s what we try to do – switch hemispheres: hot, cold, hot, cold. It’s a nightmare to be honest – I always end up with a cold every time we move place; in fact, I can already feel a tickle in my throat – but Zac says it shakes up the posts and makes the grid look varied.’
‘The grid?’
‘You know, the little Instagram squares on your feed makes a grid.’
‘Oh.’
She smiled. ‘I take it you’re on Instagram?’
He hesitated. ‘No.’
‘Oh my God,’ she laughed, astounded. ‘You must be the only human under thirty who isn’t, then!’
‘I’ll be thirty-one in June.’
‘Well then, in June, it will be acceptable!’ she chuckled. ‘But not till then.’
He smiled, tapping a finger once in a while against the mug. For all his taciturn exterior, he was surprisingly easy company. Conversation didn’t feel forced with him and silence didn’t feel stilted. He somehow inhabited the space he was in with infinite ease and acceptance.
‘Actually, I’m not being completely honest – I did open an Instagram account for the business last year, but I haven’t done anything with it.’