by Agnes Ravatn
I returned the tools to the shed, banged the work boots against the wall beneath the veranda to remove the clumps of earth stuck to the soles and made my way upstairs to my bathroom. I filled the tub and slipped into the water, scrubbing myself clean of dirt and earth, uplifted by the new possibilities of my existence. Good, hard work beneath an open sky, the feeling it left in my body, the act of drawing fresh air deep into my lungs. I had never thought change was possible. Not of one’s own doing, anyway. Never. The idea that I could transform myself had been nothing more than a notion I occasionally turned to for comfort only to find it depressing when I was forced to acknowledge that I didn’t really believe in it. But now this. Committing myself to this: to the work in the garden. Clearing space, making things grow. There was salvation to be found, I could create a sense of self, mould a congruous identity in which none of the old parts of me could be found. I could make myself pure and free from guilt, a virtuous heart. I pulled the plug and watched as the water was drawn down into the plughole. I rinsed my body and hair with the shower head, then stepped out of the bathtub. I heard Bagge’s footsteps on the floor downstairs – could he be pure? – then dried myself off, dressed and entered my room.
From my window I watched him head down through the garden, on inspection duty, perhaps, the heavy soles of his boots crunching over the dry tufts of straw, the sight of his broad back as he marched past the fruit trees and carried on, disappearing down the steps to the jetty. I felt a flutter in my stomach. Men, I thought, such beautiful creatures. Some of them, at least. Their voices, their backs. Quickly I left my room and tried the door across the hall. It was locked. I stopped at the top of the stairs and considered running down, hurriedly snooping around; the thought made my heart pound within my chest. I let it be.
His bathroom was to the right, just off the hallway: an old-fashioned tiled floor, an ordinary toilet and a simple shower concealed by a curtain. My instructions were to clean the room and mop the floor once a week. I could decide for myself which day I preferred to do it, he had told me, but had added that he liked to start the weekend with the scent of soap in the house.
As I filled the bucket with water in the kitchen, I saw him walk through the garden. He was tall and broad-shouldered and bowed his head automatically as he walked in and out of rooms. Outside he stood erect in his heavy hiking boots and walked at a slow pace, always moving silently in spite of his size. For no apparent reason as I watched him move through the garden in the way he did, I was reminded of the Norse god Balder. I liked to gaze at him as he walked away, to observe him from afar. He always wore button-up shirts, and when it grew cool in the evenings he would pull on a coarse, dark-blue woollen jumper. He was entirely uninterested in me, uninterested in everything. Everything besides whatever it was that was going on in his workroom. I tried to rein in my curiosity, to mind my own business, to concentrate on what I was doing in the garden that I had already begun to think of as my own, to focus on the task of meal-planning. In the evenings I wrote lists of what I had, what I needed, what I could cook and how I might best make use of the leftovers. It was the kind of task to which I could anchor the stream of thoughts that otherwise drifted so easily to darker places.
The door to the bathroom cabinet clicked softly. Inside were painkillers, plasters, mosquito repellent, a beard trimmer and a common brand of deodorant. It surprised me. I had almost taken for granted that he must be on some kind of medication or other. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I wiped it down. It was clear that the person staring back at me had just done something that she knew was irrational; it was a look that I had seen a hundred times before. That’s quite enough of that, I thought; be pure.
I had been fortunate enough to find a gardening book on the shelf, but the information in it was sketchy, to say the least. It said that the bushes should be pruned before buds formed, but nothing about when buds might be expected to appear. I sat on a stool beside one of the nearest blackcurrant bushes and peered carefully at the branches. I had fallen into the habit of engaging in an endless inner dialogue with myself as I worked in the garden. I covered a whole range of topics. I’d always been sure that, if I ever went mad, I’d never be the type to wander the streets and talk aloud to myself, because I wouldn’t have anything to say; but here, in this silence, my hands plunged deep in the cold, damp earth or running along dead branches, I found myself simmering over with chitchat, endless conversations with myself, occasionally even imagined dialogues with others, discussing and debating for hours at a time. I lost each and every one of these internal disputes, listening more intently to my imaginary opponents than to myself, their arguments always holding more sway than my own. Other people had always been more reliable than me.
I started by removing the blackcurrant branches that looked as if they’d died over the winter, and after that all those at ground level. I finished by pruning the oldest branches on the bush. The growth rings on the cuttings suggested that the bush hadn’t been pruned for at least seven or eight years, and I found it odd that Bagge and his wife had neglected the garden the way they had.
When I finished, I took the loppers with me up the rocky bank to where I’d found hazels growing. If I pruned them now, they might produce a decent yield of nuts later. Shuffling around the garden and carrying out these little jobs to the best of my ability was a delight, but it also involved navigating a narrow path of self-understanding. If I’d had any horticultural expectations of myself before coming here, these had now been quashed, for I now had to admit to the fact that my knowledge of gardening and plants and soil was uniquely lacking in comparison to everyone I knew. I was clueless; in truth I harboured a major inferiority complex where the subject was concerned. Perhaps I should have shown more interest, but the fact that earth couldn’t simply be left to be earth, but had to be fortified with manure or nourishment of some kind, the fact that nature couldn’t work things out for itself – these had always been the major obstacles that stunted my enthusiasm for the whole thing. In the tool shed I stumbled across a selection of old seed packets, but the text on the back was incomprehensible to the average person, all about thinning distances and who knows what else, all conveyed in a language the likes of me found difficult to grasp. I memorised short passages from the gardening book, and went out the following day to put what I’d read into practice, attempting to visualise the contents of my memory: Like this? Is this what they mean? I froze as if to ice whenever I was struck by the thought of Bagge watching me from the window, standing there, scratching his head: What on earth is she up to now? No, no, not that one! At first I didn’t dare attempt anything more advanced than a haphazard spot of weeding in the recently discovered beds. But now I had pruned the perennials as I thought they ought to be pruned, and I was even considering planting some bulbs, though the author of the gardening book seemed to assume that everyone on the planet already possessed both the requisite knowledge and his or her own tiny arsenal of bulbs, primed for deployment when spring came; I was at a loss.
I raked up the hazel cuttings and lifted them into the wheelbarrow, then trundled over the lawn and dumped the contents with the rest of the green waste. Light suddenly pierced the dark sky, the rays unexpectedly warm and intense. I perched myself on the dry stone wall for a break, the warmth of the sun on my brow, then closed my eyes and turned to face it, my back to the house. Sighed. Perhaps gardening was for me after all; perhaps I just hadn’t had a chance to find out before now, hadn’t ever learned how. I’d pick it up, it’s hardly as if I had learning difficulties, I’d always been quick and there was no reason to assume I was some kind of horticultural dyslexic.
Stay perfectly still, Allis, I suddenly heard just behind me, his voice strangely quiet.
Without thinking I turned my head and looked at him, inquisitive. I screamed as he leapt at me, a pouncing lion, springing at me with one decisive, snarling, crushing blow. I fell forwards, down onto the grass, no notion of what was happening or why, shamefully lingering
there on all fours like a dog.
He dropped the rock he had been clutching, took my hand and helped me up, I was dizzy with adrenaline, my breathing panicked, shallow. There, on the dry stone wall where I had been sitting, lay a coiled-up adder, its skull crushed.
I didn’t mean to frighten you.
I couldn’t utter a single word. My heart thumped as I took an unsteady step back.
We gazed at the adder, steam rising gently from the animal’s body, a long, patterned muscle in cramp, only a glistening, wet void where the head had once been. I shuddered.
Not bad, I squeaked, conscious that I was breaking out in a cold sweat.
He picked up the snake by the tail without a word and strode up the bank as it dangled from his hand, making his way to the edge of the forest. I saw him crouch down and place a rock on top of its body. He walked across the garden towards the house, grasped the door handle and was gone.
The evenings had started to become noticeably brighter. I took the bicycle out to investigate the local area, though there was nothing to see. There were scarcely any houses, only the main road, cars whizzing by. The grocery shop was my only contact with the outside world, and there were still no other customers to speak of, only the same old woman behind the counter, glaring at me over her crooked beak.
The house was as quiet and empty as always. Knowing there was another person here but seeing no sign of him other than at mealtimes made it feel all the emptier. I washed the vegetables at the kitchen sink and began making stock with some leftovers. I was out of ideas about what I might make him for dinner the following day. If I had properly thought things through before getting on the bus a month ago, I might have had the sense to pack a recipe book. I ambled over to the bookshelves to see if there was anything resembling a cookbook hiding between the volumes on show, but examining the spines I found nothing. A house without recipes, what kind of home was that?
I opened each of the kitchen drawers in turn, then the cupboard doors. Slipped in alongside the spice rack I found a slim, blue volume that I hadn’t noticed before. I pulled it out and carefully leafed through its pages. Recipes scrawled in fine, black script. Beautiful, cursive handwriting describing casseroles, soups, cakes. I pictured her, an indistinct, slender figure standing with her back to me, the nape of her neck tanned, her dark hair coiled in a bun with a few curly, flyaway strands by her ears. A beautiful, mature woman. A queen. Mature, I thought, am I not mature? No, a lost child, that’s what I am. I stopped at one recipe, an Asian fish soup, realised that I had most of what I needed to make it and decided to cook a small batch, a trial run for dinner that evening. I warmed oil in a pan and added spring onion, chili, ginger. The scents drifted upwards. I added stock and placed a fillet of cod in a separate pan to poach. Just as I was preparing to lift the fish from its pan and add it to the soup, I heard footsteps, the door opening. I blushed and cursed inwardly; I had disturbed him. He stuck his head around the door; I pretended not to notice him.
It smells good in here.
Just a little soup…
I see.
There’s plenty here for you too, if you’d like to try some.
Confounding my expectations, he entered the room and sat down at the table as if in anticipation of what was to come. I grew clumsy in his presence. Hurriedly I slipped the recipe book between two chopping boards, ladled the soup into a bowl and placed it on the table before him. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply then looked up at me, surprised. I ate my own portion standing at the kitchen worktop while he sat at the table. Neither of us spoke. Watching him eat left me with a sense of calm, a warmth. He devoured every last morsel, then took a slow, deep breath and pushed his chair back from the table. He stood up, picked up his empty bowl and walked towards me, stopping directly in front of me and placing the bowl on the bench beside me. Hot-cheeked, I looked down until he had returned to his room.
The kitchen windowsills were teeming with herbs, which I eagerly anticipated planting when the warmer weather arrived. I had already cleared a space in a small, sheltered corner of the garden.
I worked my way through the recipes in the book I had found, and several times now he had opened his bedroom door, peering out as the aroma of the soups I prepared on those evenings reached him, always wearing the same expression of wonder. We would share the dishes without speaking, him sitting at the table while I stood at the kitchen worktop.
There tended to be a fairly dismal array of items on offer at the shop, but once in a while I would discover something on display at the fresh food counter that I couldn’t resist taking home with me. One day I came across a whole chicken, feet and all, no doubt sourced from some local farmer or other. It looked fat and happy, and had obviously enjoyed a life spent frolicking around in the great outdoors. I wedged it into one of the saddle bags and cycled back. Safely home again, I chopped off the legs at the knee joints and stored the feet in the freezer for making a stock at a later date, then salted the chicken and squeezed it into the fridge. I prayed to God that Bagge wouldn’t want anything from the fridge that day; he’d told me he didn’t want any unnecessary fuss.
He didn’t say a word as I prepared his breakfast the following morning. Once he had returned to his workroom, I removed the chicken from the fridge, heart pounding, then placed it on the kitchen worktop and left it to come up to room temperature. Carrots, half an onion, a stalk of celery, I chopped everything roughly before tipping it into the pan. I snipped a few handfuls of parsley and sprigs of thyme, then added some garlic and bay leaves, placed the chicken in the pot and poured water over the contents. The pan came to a simmer, and I skimmed off the fat that formed on the surface at regular intervals. I added half a star anise when it was almost ready, steam rising, moisture trickling down my face, the aromas seeming to erupt as they hit my nostrils, and, just as I lifted the enormous chicken from the pan, he emerged from his room.
What on earth…?
Without a word I slapped the chicken down on the worktop, as if it were the chicken that was responsible for the unnecessary fuss rather than me. He sat down at the table and invited me to join him with a fleeting wave of his hand. This ambiguous kitchen ritual had snuck up on us, and I didn’t know quite how best to explain it.
This is a far cry from where we started, Allis. I said three simple meals a day.
He waited for me to speak. His hands rested on the table, rough, not the hands of a man who spent his days behind a desk.
I swallowed. Steam rose from the hot chicken on the kitchen bench.
I was quite clear from the start. I need to be able to keep on top of expenses.
I looked down.
What are you making? He nodded at the chicken.
I have a nice recipe, I mumbled sheepishly.
He stood up, tucked his chair back under the table and returned to his room, closing the door after him. I rose and for a few seconds I stood there gazing at the door, then took a deep breath and turned around, my hands trembling slightly as I prised the hot meat from the chicken carcass.
I served him the breast for dinner that evening with vegetables and a creamy garlic sauce, I had followed the book’s recipe to the letter. His chin glistened. He let out a long, slow sigh and pushed his chair back from the table.
If you come across any more where that came from, don’t hold back, he said curtly, before standing up and walking back towards his room.
It was pelting down with rain outside. He left the table and brusquely thanked me for breakfast. I wiped the few stray crumbs from the table with a cloth.
Uh, excuse me? I blurted. He paused in the doorway to his room.
I don’t suppose you have a pair of boots I can borrow?
Unfortunately not, he replied tersely.
Your wife doesn’t have a pair I could use?
A peculiar expression crossed his face before he shook his head.
You can wear mine with a pair of thick socks.
He swept past me through the hallway, returning w
ith the green, knee-high wellington boots in one hand. He placed them on the floor at my feet. I thanked him. After he had returned to his room, I realised that I’d also need a waterproof coat. I knocked reluctantly at his door. He opened it in an instant.
There isn’t a raincoat here that I could…
No.
She doesn’t even have a raincoat. Out here, I thought, in these conditions. She doesn’t exist.
What size are you? he asked after I had turned around.
What?
Since you’re going to be working out in the garden.
He waited for an answer.
You’ve seen the kind of weather we get out here. I’ll go into town and buy what you need.
Wasn’t it a surprisingly drastic, almost aggressive response? He seemed to be at pains to demonstrate that he didn’t want to deal with any matters like this in future, and he was willing to buy me one of absolutely everything I might need if it meant that he’d be left in peace.
You mean shoe size?
Shoe size, coat size, whatever it is you’re going to need to live and work out here.
I couldn’t think of anything else.
Trousers? he added.
I nodded.
He disappeared into his room and returned almost immediately, pulling on his coat and shoes and stepping out of the front door without a word.
At first I didn’t dare move; it was possible that I’d misunderstood, but when he hadn’t returned by lunchtime I realised that the coast was clear. An hour and a half into town, an hour and a half back again. I glanced up at the clock on the wall and estimated that it would be at least an hour before he returned. My first impulse was to try the bedroom door. My heart was beating so fiercely that I felt my eardrums bulge with each pulsation as I pushed the handle and felt the door ease open. Paling at the thought of him returning home unexpectedly, I quickly leapt over the threshold – a bed against the wall to the right, neatly made-up, a chair, another door across the room. I tiptoed over and tried the door, locked, my curiosity so intense that I felt sick at the thought of what lay beyond it. Constantly convinced I was hearing things, I backed out of the bedroom and closed the door behind me, but was gripped by a sudden fear that he might have scattered a layer of dust across the room to check for tracks upon his return, so I opened the door again, crouching down to see if it were true, to check if he were really so unhinged. The dark floorboards gleamed, not a trace of dust to be seen. I stood up and felt a hand on my shoulder – let out a scream! – but it was just the door handle, which my shoulder had brushed against as I had risen to my feet. Hands shaking, I closed the door and decided never to do this again. Wherever I looked I saw shadows, convinced that I’d spotted him lingering by a window, or passing by outside, the back of his head forever disappearing out of frame, a constant dread deep within me. It wasn’t worth it.