by Agnes Ravatn
He looked at me sternly. Then his expression suddenly changed. He grinned.
I’m only teasing.
He stood up and walked off. I pulled on my t-shirt and started getting up to follow him, out of sheer habit, before stopping in my tracks and sitting back down. The sun was still high in the sky above the mountain across the fjord, my face tingling pleasantly with its warmth. All of a sudden I heard his footsteps on the grass behind me. He sat down in the chair beside my own and placed a glass on the table beside mine.
Can I tempt you? he asked, holding up another bottle of white wine.
I replied that yes, it was certainly possible. He opened the bottle and poured a little in each of our glasses. An intense thudding surged throughout my body. I controlled the urge to propose a toast and instead brought the glass to my lips, sipping its contents without a word. I stared straight ahead. His profile lingered in my peripheral vision, his chest rising and falling with each breath he took.
Lovely evening, he said suddenly, still looking away.
Yes, I quickly replied.
The wine was cold, lethal, I tried not to drink too quickly. A dry white, it felt crisp and cool on my palate.
May I ask you how old you are?
I’m thirty-two.
He said nothing.
And you?
He turned to face me.
I think you already know the answer to that.
I grew instantly red-cheeked. I wanted to explain, but he stopped me.
Don’t worry about it.
He leaned over to pick up the bottle and topped up each of our glasses. For a while we said nothing.
How was it in town? I asked, immediately regretting the question that had slipped out.
The same as ever, he replied, bristling slightly.
Silence resumed.
It’s getting cool, he eventually said, standing up and leaving without another word. I thought he might be heading inside to fetch a jumper, but he didn’t return.
The half-empty bottle remained on the table. I stayed where I was, demonstrating my free will. The hairs on my arms stood up, I had goose bumps. With unexpected alarm I realised that I was crying. It felt perverse to sit here, weeping in solitude; I quickly stopped myself. I sat a while longer before slipping the cork back in the neck of the bottle and heading inside, where I stole upstairs and turned in for the night.
The morning breeze blew warm against my face as I opened the veranda door after breakfast. He was in his workroom as I made my way down to the tool shed and carried some old flowerpots out into the garden. I filled them one after the other with earth and carried them up to the veranda, where I planted herbs in them and positioned them where they’d be sheltered from the wind. Thyme, rosemary, tarragon. Parsley and lovage. When I was finished, I made my way down to the jetty. Halfway down the steps I saw that he was at the water’s edge, sitting on the boathouse step, his body half-turned away from me. I stopped in my tracks, unable to understand how he could have walked past without me noticing. I was just about to turn back when he looked up at me, and I had no choice but to continue down the steps and pretend as if nothing were amiss, all with a creeping sense of unease. When I reached the jetty, I stood and gazed out across the fjord. The greenish-black, salty seawater rolled gently towards us, over and over again. He said nothing. I felt irritation swell in the silence between us.
You shouldn’t come down here so often, you know, he said suddenly.
Why not?
Fleetingly, almost imperceptibly, he shrugged his shoulders.
You might fall in.
I can swim.
Are you sure?
I nodded.
That’s no guarantee of anything, he replied, his face turned away from my own.
I’m going up to make your lunch.
He gave no reply. I climbed the one hundred steps and made my way back up to the house, where I started putting together a salad. I roughly sliced a few tomatoes. I was beginning to grow tired of the formality that he insisted upon. It had started to feel forced. I had been living here for almost two months now, under the same roof, and I was just as cut off from the outside world as he was. I decided to punish him by going into town that weekend. He could stay here and make his own meals for once.
At one o’clock on the dot, he walked up through the garden before sitting at the table beneath the cherry tree with his back to me. I made my way over to open the veranda door, inquisitive.
I’ll have my lunch out here, he announced without turning around. With a glass of white wine.
The table wobbled as I set down his plate and cutlery and poured his wine. He bowed his head, a deep nod of thanks, as if he were mocking me. Silently I stood behind him and stared intently at his broad shoulders. He didn’t touch his food.
I’m going into town this weekend, I said.
You’re well within your rights to do so.
I’m going this afternoon and I’ll be gone until Sunday evening.
Duly noted, he replied, and began eating.
I turned and made my way up to my room. I packed a bag, mumbling frantically.
When I stepped out onto the veranda to say goodbye, he barely glanced up from his plate before continuing his meal.
Sitting on the bus, I regretted the whole episode. I rang the bell and got off at an earlier stop, far from the centre of town, and began marching in a random direction, as if I knew exactly where I were headed, just in case any of the passengers on the bus happened to be watching. I couldn’t go into town, couldn’t bear the thought of people seeing me. There were crowds of unruly teenagers roaming the streets on their way to various parties, tanned and scantily clad.
After a few hundred metres I decided to seek shelter in a hardware store, but in that same instant my punishment came crashing down upon me.
Allis! someone exclaimed, in a tone of surprise and delight.
I spun round, my hand still on the door of the store, and recognised the face of an old friend from university.
I froze before her with what I knew was a peculiar smile plastered across my face. Neither of us dared hug the other.
I can’t believe it’s you, she said. What are you doing here?
I explained that I was visiting relatives, and in turn she insisted that we go for a coffee, trying as best she could to drag me along to the nearest cafe. I recalled from our student days together that she had this tendency to attempt to override other people’s plans, but I held firm, telling her I had an appointment to keep. Clearly disappointed, she asked me whether it was really true that I had resigned from my job and moved out of Johs’. I nodded.
How awful.
Well, it’s my own fault, I replied, barely disguising a sigh.
At that she said nothing, her expression frozen in half-hearted, sympathetic protest.
You were so good on the telly, we watched every week.
Thanks.
She stopped and looked at me, her mouth open, not daring to mention K.
And the university? she asked eventually.
I can’t go back there, not really.
She shook her head.
I told her I had a new job, helping out in someone’s home, I didn’t say where. I could tell that the curiosity was killing her – that she was desperate to quiz me further but was unsure how. In the end she asked if my employer needed a lot of care.
No, I replied, slightly irritated. It’s just a large property. He needs help.
With what?
The garden, things like that.
The garden? she laughed with surprise. But you don’t know the first thing about gardening, Allis.
I do, I snapped, then told her that I needed to go. She hugged me, pulling me close against her rosy-red, Christian cheeks, savouring the thrill of intimate contact with such a scandalous individual, an episode with which she was sure to regale her book club the following week. Then she disappeared, strolling contentedly down the street in her patterned raincoat, heading home t
o her husband and young children, my gaze lingering on her until she disappeared from my line of sight. It was ten years since I had last seen her, and I hoped I wouldn’t bump into her again. It felt like an unpleasant reminder of from the past, but I later realised that wasn’t quite true; really it was the contrast between who I was then and who I was now that shook me most.
I made my way out of the hardware store and stopped a passer-by, an elderly man who couldn’t possibly know who I was. I asked him if there was a guest house nearby and he gave me directions to the nearest one.
The following morning I skipped breakfast and left the guest house at about eight o’clock. I wandered around until the town’s shopping centre eventually opened, then made my way into the largest of the clothes shops, where I was the only customer for more than an hour. It was so long since I had last bought anything new. Every item that I picked out I evaluated on the basis of whether or not it would suit the surroundings of Bagge’s house and garden. I envisaged myself teetering on a set of stepladders as I measured a section of the west-facing wall in a pair of trousers I had selected, or sitting under the cherry tree one summer evening with a glass of wine in my hand, wearing a dress I had plucked from the rack. Eventually I decided on a small pile of items and paid with a few thousand-kroner notes from my first pay packet.
Sitting on the bus on my way home, I mulled over how I would explain my premature return. But I arrived back to find the door to the house locked. I placed my bags down on the steps and walked around to the other side of the house. He wasn’t in the garden. I continued down the steps to the jetty, but there was no sign of him there either. The veranda door was locked. It hadn’t struck me until this point that he had never given me a set of house keys. All the time I had been living with Bagge he had been at home, apart from the two occasions he had ventured into town.
I sat at the garden table and waited. An hour passed. I walked back around the house and picked up my bags. I pulled out the clothing I had bought and quickly changed into a light skirt and blouse, the gardening outfit, as I had imagined it. It was too nice for such a task, really; I doubted I’d be able to make it look like a natural choice for the job I was doing. In the tool shed I found a pair of gloves, some garden shears and a weeding fork. I knelt down at one end of the bed and started work, constantly listening out for the sound of his footsteps. I slowly worked my way along the bed, hoping that he might find me there on my knees, bent over, hard at work. But the shame I harboured about my new outfit gradually intensified, until I felt decidedly overdressed, unnecessarily dolled up. Long-buried thoughts of Johs began to emerge. Here I was, embarking on a new life as if nothing had happened. It had been so easy for me to forget the old and move on to the new; there was something chilling about it all, about how simple it had been for me to take something I had tricked others into believing was a strong bond and tear it to pieces. Dealing in deception, lying to the point that I believed it myself. What was it that prevented me from being faithful? I recalled an impulsive fit of self-analysis early in the winter when I had looked up polyandry – females who mate with more than one male. I remember feeling indignant and rather forlorn to discover that it was only jacanas, red-necked phalaropes and seahorses that shared this trait with me. What sense of solidarity could I possibly feel with them?
I don’t know how long I spent kneeling there, but by the time I had emptied the bucket of weeds for the eleventh or twelfth time, the sun had disappeared behind the mountain and I was freezing cold. I walked back up to the house and checked both doors again. I pulled on my jacket and sat down on the veranda steps. Hunger gnawed at my insides. The fact that Bagge lived a life to which I had no access hurt me in some strange way.
When the evening had eventually turned to night, I walked over to the tool shed to fetch the ladder. I carried it across the garden to the house and lifted it up, leaning it against the wall outside my bedroom, where the window was ajar. I had always been slightly afraid of heights, and climbing the rickety old ladder did nothing to quell my fears. I had to climb so far up that my waistline pressed against the top rung as I reached for the window. I wobbled then managed to throw myself inside, tumbling down onto the floor and bumping my head against the bedside table.
I made my way down the stairs and into the hallway, unlocked the door and brought my things inside. It felt like a violation of the rules. The house was dark and empty. It felt so different when he wasn’t there. I stood there for a moment in complete silence, then walked towards his bedroom door. I listened closely, but heard nothing to break the silence. No pine needle on the door handle this time. I tried the handle and the door swung gently open.
Hello?
The room was dark. He had never asked me to clean it. The curtains were drawn, but the light of the moon forced its way through the gaps in the crocheted fabric. Slowly I crept over the threshold. A shirt was draped over the back of the chair, but other than that there was nothing to be seen. Once again I tiptoed across the room and tried the door leading to his workroom. Locked. I turned tail, gripped by a sudden sense of alarm, springing out of the bedroom as quietly as possible, then out and over to the kitchen worktop, where I grabbed a loaf of bread. I cut a few slices which I ate with cheese, standing at the worktop. I carried my bag upstairs, used the bathroom and went straight to bed, lying there listening for the sound of footsteps outside until at long last I drifted off to sleep.
I was woken the next morning by sounds from the kitchen. I got out of bed and dressed in the same clothes I’d worn the previous day. I found him standing at the kitchen worktop spooning coffee into the machine.
My God. He looked up. Back already?
I got back yesterday. All the doors were locked, so I climbed in through my bedroom window.
I thought you said you’d be away until later today.
Yes, I replied. Change of plan. Inwardly I vowed not to ask him where he had been. Shall I make you some breakfast?
That won’t be necessary, he said, I’ve already eaten. I’m just looking for some coffee.
I nodded.
Yes, he continued, I was out. Visiting a friend.
I see.
Would you like a cup? He held up the tin of coffee.
Yes, please.
I took a seat at the table, a bold move. My eyes lingered on the table top as he added water to the coffee machine.
When the coffee was ready, he poured us each a cup and sat down at the table with me.
New? he asked, nodding at my blouse, the one that I had been wearing the previous day.
Not especially.
Without warning he reached over and brushed my upper arm with his hand. Before I knew it, he had pulled away.
Soil, he explained, lifting his cup to his lips.
I turned red. Explained that I had been doing some weeding the previous afternoon as I had waited for him to come home. He said nothing. I must just have seemed dirty. We sat in silence once again.
Looks as if it’ll be a nice day, he said eventually, glancing in the direction of the veranda doors.
Yes, looks that way. I was planning on applying some fertiliser to the lawn later.
There’s no need for you to work on a Sunday, he said, getting up.
After he had finished his coffee he went to sit outside. I went upstairs and looked down on him from my bedroom window. He sat calmly under the cherry tree, gazing out at the garden from beneath the canopy of white blossom.
I missed music. The only sounds I had heard over the past couple of months had been the distant purr of vehicles on the main road, insects and birds, the faint splashing of the waves as they lapped against the rocks down by the jetty. He didn’t even listen to the radio. In his life only he existed, and me, of course, his gardener, cleaner, cook. I cleaned my bathroom before returning downstairs and opening the door to the garden.
Shall I make you some lunch?
I’ll just have a glass of wine. White.
I sprang over to the fridge and t
ook out the open bottle, carrying his glass out to him, a restless energy building within me. He turned to look at me.
Perhaps you’d like one too?
I couldn’t tell if it was a normal, polite offer or a hint at something deeper, a dig at my careless drinking habits, perhaps.
That would be nice. Thanks.
I made my way back inside and fetched a glass. I brought the bottle back out with me and sat down in the chair next to his.
It’s turning into a nice day, he said in a faraway tone.
You’ve already said that, I thought. I sipped from my glass, savouring the crisp coolness.
Have you noticed the mice around here? he asked.
Mice?
I see them all the time.
Not inside?
No, out here. Wood mice.
Ugh.
We’ll have to properly seal up the house before autumn comes around, otherwise we’ll have a problem on our hands.
He held out his glass and signalled for me to top it up.
Have you lived in this house for long? I asked unexpectedly, before I had a chance to think twice.
Yes, he replied, since I was a boy.
And have you always lived here? I allowed the question to slip out, low-key, direct.
He nodded. I wanted to ask if he had children – he could do, after all, from a purely mathematical point of view, they could be old enough to have moved out by now – but I said nothing. We’d never had a conversation that had lasted this long before, it felt best not to push things too far.
Help yourself, he said as I finished my wine.
I poured what was left of the bottle into my glass. We sat there for a long while without speaking. I felt as if I should get up and get on with some work in the garden, demonstrate my unwavering loyalty to the job, but it felt so good just to be there, practically glued to my seat. His expression was mellow as he gazed out at the mountains across the fjord, but I knew how quickly things could change. I stood up swiftly and strode resolutely over to the tool shed, fetching the weeding bucket. I marched past him with purpose and stopped at the edge of the sloping bank. I pulled on my gloves and began pulling up the ground elder. I forced my gaze to the earth and held it there, pulling out the root and tossing it into the bucket, working my way meticulously along the bank, his eyes fixed on me. A stranger crouched before him, weeding in his wife’s gardening gloves. When I turned around to empty the bucket, Bagge was strolling over by the berries. I picked up the bucket by its handle and carried it over to the compost heap, not looking up as I passed him.