Wilderness

by Roddy Doyle

  “Try,” she said.

  “Good.”

  They looked at each other. Her mother didn’t smile. She knew too – everything was vital. Every word, every expression.

  “I said it was strange,” she said.

  She lifted her hand. She waved it around.

  “What I meant was, it was strange to be back. It hit me,” she said. “I used to live here.”

  Gráinne said nothing.

  “It hasn’t changed much,” said her mother.

  It wasn’t true. The room had changed a lot. Gráinne remembered it the old way. There was a different fridge, and the counter hadn’t been there before, and other stuff. But it was the same room. So it must have been strange for her mother. Bad memories. And that made Gráinne angry. Why were her mother’s memories bad? What had been so bad, enough to make her mother leave her? It was how Gráinne had felt for years, all her life: What did I do? Why did you leave?

  “Why didn’t he move?”

  Her mother’s voice surprised her.

  “What?” said Gráinne.

  “Your dad,” said her mother. “Why didn’t he move?”

  “Move house?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know,” said Gráinne. “Why should he have?”

  “I don’t know,” said her mother.

  Because you did? Gráinne wanted to say. But she heard how it would sound; she heard it in her head. It wasn’t the way she wanted to sound.

  “We liked it here,” she said.

  It was true.

  Her mother nodded.

  The house had never been a bad place. And it wasn’t just he. It was we. Gráinne wanted to say that too. But she didn’t. We liked it here. That was enough. We.

  Me.

  “Of course,” said her mother.

  She smiled.

  “I liked it too,” she said. “Especially the garden.”

  Gráinne remembered helping her mother in the garden. She’d had her own tools. They were plastic, but they’d worked. She’d been able to dig little holes and cut twigs. She’d loved it, even on the days when it was cold. They’d come back in, for hot chocolate. They’d sit at the table, here, and drink together. One, two, three. They’d pick up the cups at the same time, and sip, and put them down so their cups tapped the table at the exact same time.

  Her mother was looking out the window. She’d lifted herself a bit off her chair. She sat down again, properly.

  “It looks good,” she said.

  It didn’t; not really. Her dad wasn’t interested. He cut the grass when it got too long for her brothers to play football. And Sandra, her stepmother – Gráinne remembered her stepmother looking out the window. She looked at the rain and said, “If that garden had a roof it would be lovely.”

  Her mother put her arms on the table.

  “I wish it was easy,” she said.

  She looked straight at Gráinne.

  “I wish I could just say a few things and make it all OK,” she said. “It would be lovely.”

  Gráinne nodded, once. She didn’t think she understood; she wasn’t sure. But she was listening. That was what the nod was for.

  She made herself look at her mother.

  “You probably,” her mother began, then stopped. She lifted her hands, and put them down again.

  “I’ve no right to say what you probably think or don’t think,” she said. “But –”

  She smiled, and sighed.

  “You probably want to know why I left.”

  Gráinne didn’t nod. She tried not to move.

  “I had to,” said her mother. “That’s all I can say. I had to.”

  “Why?” said Gráinne.

  Her voice surprised her. She sounded calm.

  “That’s where it’s hard,” said her mother. “It’s where words don’t work. I can’t give you a neat answer. Will I go on?”

  “Yes.”

  “So,” said her mother. “OK. It had nothing to do with your dad. With Frank. Not really. He’s a lovely man. I thought that when I was leaving.”

  Gráinne heard the gulp. Her mother was crying.

  “It’s so good to be able to talk to you like this,” she said.

  She pointed at her eyes, before she wiped them.

  “It’s relief,” she said. “That’s why I’m crying. Will I go on?”

  Gráinne nodded.

  “Thank you,” said her mother. “It had nothing to do with you, Gráinne. That might sound stupid, or strange. Even horrible. But it didn’t. I loved you. I love you.”

  Everything in Gráinne told her to get up now and go. She thought she’d explode or die. Push back the table. Smash it into her chest. Scream till it’s all gone. She wanted to go before she had to hear anything else.

  But she stayed still. She made herself breathe in. She said nothing. She looked at her mother. She made herself do it. She wanted to scream.

  “Will I go on?” said her mother.

  She wanted to scream, spit, grab her mother’s hair, and her own hair, and pull.

  But she nodded.

  And something happened inside her. When she nodded, it was like she’d stepped into a new place. She’d left something behind. She wasn’t sure; something had happened.

  “I just knew,” said her mother. “I had to go. I was so unhappy and confused. I was going to die. I’m not exaggerating. I still think that, looking back at it – here. I was going mad. Something in me.”

  She stopped. She looked straight at Gráinne. And Gráinne knew. She’d nod, and her mother would talk.

  She nodded.

  “You get married,” said her mother. “You have children – a child. You turn from one person into another person.”

  And now – just now – Gráinne understood her mother. Because that was how Gráinne felt. She’d just turned into another person. That was what had just happened to her, when she’d nodded a minute ago, and let her mother talk.

  “I don’t think it happens to men,” said her mother. “Not the same way. But I’m not sure. I never really talked to Frank about it. We couldn’t. We just –”

  She stopped. She looked at the window. It was starting to get dark.

  “Anyway,” she said. “I loved being your mother. I really loved it. That probably sounds – I don’t know – awful. But it’s true.”

  Gráinne nodded.

  “And I loved Frank,” said her mother. “But the old me hadn’t gone. And I felt like I was killing the old me and I didn’t want to do that. Because it was me. And I didn’t want to kill myself. And I would have. If I’d stayed.”

  She was crying again, a bit.

  “Am I making sense?”

  “Yes,” said Gráinne.

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will I go on?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good,” said her mother. “Thanks. I have to be honest here. I wasn’t confused. I knew what I had to do – what I was doing. And that was what I did. I went. So –”

  She wasn’t crying now. She wasn’t pleading. She wasn’t asking Gráinne to forgive her. She was treating Gráinne like an equal. And Gráinne had made it happen. By nodding every time her mother asked, by letting her mother speak, Gráinne had decided that this was going to happen.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Their mother wasn’t there. The boys saw that quickly. She wasn’t in the big room.

  They could smell hot chocolate.

  They looked behind them. She wasn’t coming in. In fact – they both now thought of it – they hadn’t seen
her out there. Johnny went back to the door. He went out to the veranda. Tom followed him. They looked across the yard, and down the tree-lined path. There was no one out there, only the dogs.

  They went back in. She might have been in a smaller room. She might have been behind all the other people.

  But she wasn’t there.

  “She’s hiding outside,” said Johnny. “Having a smoke.”

  But everyone there was looking at them, and some of them were smiling, the way you smile at sick people.

  “Where’s our mam?” said Tom.

  Aki stepped forward. He was putting on his crash helmet. Kalle was behind him, zipping up his jacket.

  “Your mother—” said Aki.

  “Where is she?” said Tom.

  “She fell, I guess,” said Aki.

  “Where is she?” said Tom, again.

  Aki pointed at the window.

  “Back,” he said. “Not far.”

  “Where?”

  Tom felt a fist, growing bigger inside him. Quickly bigger, in his stomach. It hurt.

  Johnny saw the other people whispering, passing on the information. She’s missing. She’s missing. He saw huge flakes of snow begin to hit the window, and slide down, on to more snow.

  “It is cool,” said Aki. “She will be found. You want hot chocolate?”

  Tom couldn’t answer. The big fist was charging up his throat. He was going to be sick; he thought he was.

  But Aki and Kalle were in charge. They were at the door. And they didn’t look worried and panicky.

  “We will be back very soon,” said Aki. “With your mother.”

  He rubbed his bum.

  “I hope she did not fall so hard,” he said.

  Tom smiled. Johnny did too. They didn’t want to be more worried than Aki. It was the wilderness, but the boys had been through it, yesterday and today, and they’d gone over the same lake twice. It wasn’t all that big. Aki and Kalle would find her.

  Aki smiled, and followed Kalle. They were gone.

  Johnny went to the door. Tom followed him. They watched Kalle hitch his dogs to the sled. They watched Aki walk to the far side of the yard, to the snowmobile. He climbed on, and turned it on. They watched him push it back a bit with his feet. Then he turned and slowly drove down the tree-lined path. Kalle followed him. They watched the two men turn a bend, first Aki, then Kalle. They watched Aki’s headlights in the distant trees, until they couldn’t see them any more, and they couldn’t hear his engine.

  “You want hot chocolate?”

  They turned.

  There was a woman at the door. They hadn’t seen her before. She wore an apron with a reindeer on it, and yellow trousers.

  “Yes,” said Johnny.

  He nudged Tom.

  “He does too,” he said.

  Tom didn’t feel too sick now. He knew that Aki and Kalle would be back soon. They were experts.

  “Come,” said the woman.

  She stood away from the door, and the boys followed her into the hut. The other people were standing there, looking at the boys and smiling like mad. They’d all taken off their red suits, and their boots were in a line along the wall nearest the door.

  The new woman walked to the big table. The people stood back to make room for her, and they stood back even further when Johnny and Tom followed her.

  “You will take off your suits, perhaps,” said the man from Belgium.

  The boys didn’t answer. They weren’t going to take their suits off. They weren’t going to sit down. Not until they saw their mother.

  The new woman turned to face the boys, and she was holding two mugs nearly as big as flowerpots.

  “Come.”

  She was smiling. She was nice. She must have worked there, in the hut. She looked like she was in charge. She waited till Tom and Johnny had taken off their gloves, and then she gave them each a mug.

  “Very hot, I think,” said the man from Belgium.

  “Very good,” said someone else.

  The boys stood beside the table and drank their hot chocolate.

  “Good?” said the woman.

  “Yes,” said Johnny.

  And Tom nodded.

  “Your mother will be very cold, I think,” said the man from Belgium.

  The boys looked up at him. He was smiling, and everybody else was smiling.

  “I will, for sure, make hot chocolate for the mother,” said the new woman.

  “Very good,” said the man from Belgium.

  The boys stood there. The other people spoke very quietly. Some of them sat. Johnny listened for Aki’s engine. He looked at the window. He saw the snow land and slide on the glass. The glass was slowly being covered.

  The boys felt hot now. They were standing near the fire. Tom was looking at it for a while before he noticed the fish. It was on a metal rack. The top of the rack was leaning on the wall inside the fireplace. The bottom part was resting on the floor. The fish was big. It was lying across the fire, just above the flames. It must have been a salmon, or something like a salmon. It was cooking very slowly. Tom began to smell it.

  He hated fish.

  Johnny moved. He jumped, like he’d been pinched or something.

  “What?” said Tom.

  He listened, but he couldn’t hear anything outside.

  “If she fell off the sleigh,” said Johnny.

  “What d’you mean?” said Tom.

  “If she fell off,” said Johnny.

  “If?”

  “That’s what Aki said,” said Johnny. “She fell off, yeah?”

  “Yeah,” said Tom.

  “Well, if she did,” said Johnny. “Why didn’t the dogs come here, alone?”

  “What?” said Tom.

  “The dogs,” said Johnny. “Like, when Mam fell off yesterday. Remember?”

  “Yeah,” said Tom.

  They both spoke quietly.

  “The dogs kept going,” said Johnny. “Till they caught up with Kalle.”

  “And Rock,” said Tom.

  “Yeah.”

  They looked at each other.

  “They didn’t catch up this time,” said Tom.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Then they heard the engine. They heard it before anyone else. And Tom said the name they’d both been thinking.

  “Hastro.”

  Hastro was the rogue dog, the tricky one their mother hadn’t been able to hitch to her sled. Johnny knew what Tom meant – Hastro might have done something bad.

  They moved to the door. Johnny got there first. Now the engine was quite loud. The other people saw the headlights brighten the snow in the window.

  Johnny and Tom stopped on the veranda. They saw nothing except the headlights. They couldn’t see behind the lights. They were pointed straight at them. Then Aki moved off the centre of the path, and they could see more. They saw Kalle’s dogs, and the sled behind them. They could see Kalle now, standing big behind the sled.

  And that was all.

  The engine stopped. The sled went past the snowmobile. The dogs were panting. Johnny and Tom could see the sled. It was empty. Their mother wasn’t there.

  They saw Aki. They heard his boots on the snow. They saw Kalle behind him, unhitching the dogs.

  They looked at Aki’s face. He was coming up the steps.

  He smiled.

  “She fell off not so near, I guess,” he said.

  He was right in front of the boys. He held up a mobile phone.

  “We will find her,” he said.
r />   “She doesn’t have her mobile phone with her,” said Johnny.

  “The rescue people,” said Aki. “I will call them.”

  The snow was thick. The flakes were huge and falling straight, like stones.

  “Come,” said Aki.

  He put his hands on their shoulders and gently pushed them to the door, into the hut.

  Tom felt numb. His face was cold; the rest of him was hot. He felt the shivers coming. He was going to be sick. The floor was swaying.

  Johnny nudged him. Tom looked. He saw Johnny’s face, and he knew – Johnny had a plan.

  Kalle was behind them, coming in the door. He looked at the boys.

  “Not – worry,” he said.

  They didn’t answer. They were afraid to hear their voices.

  Aki was talking quietly on his mobile. He spoke in Finnish, and he was looking at a map on the wall as he spoke. He stopped speaking and put the phone on the table. Kalle was beside him now. They both looked at the map.

  The boys had seen a map exactly like it, back at the hotel. But they hadn’t really been able to read it. It was all just brown, no towns or big names. It was what a map of the wilderness should look like. Tiny numbers, and a few tiny names.

  The new woman came at the boys with more hot chocolate in big cups.

  “There is more for your mother,” she said, and she smiled.

  Johnny took his cup.

  “Thank you.”

  Tom took his; he copied Johnny.

  “Thanks very much.”

  They didn’t drink. They held the cups. They watched Kalle and Aki looking at the map and talking. All the other people stood around, behind them. The man from Belgium leaned forward and pointed at something on the map. They watched Kalle check his belt, the things on it, the compass, the knife. Aki went to the table and opened a white box. They saw a red cross on the lid. The men and women stood around and looked into the box as Aki checked that everything was there.

  Johnny and Tom looked at the window and watched the snow cover the last bit of window glass. Their mother was out there, under the snow, and the snow was getting deeper and deeper.

  “Come on,” said Johnny; he only whispered.

  They stepped backwards, very quietly, to the door; it hadn’t been closed. They stepped out on to the veranda. Johnny bent down and put his cup on the boards. And Tom did the same.