The Last Boat Home

by Dea Brovig

  ‘I’m tired,’ he said.

  He drifted off and Else caught the ledge of the kitchen counter with her fingers. A new light glimmered by the bed and Valentin’s shadow waltzed over the ceiling and walls. She could sense him moving. His body was too close. Her hands gripped tighter and she blinked at her whitening knuckles.

  ‘Else.’ This time, his voice was impatient. ‘Come on. It’s time for bed.’

  She joined him where he waited for her at the other end of the kitchen shelf. The ceiling bore down like a free weight on his neck and shoulders. Else stepped into him. She tilted her head, bringing her lips to rest against his jawbone. His skin was rough. His muscles twitched. She dropped her eyes and hoped that it would be over quickly.

  ‘Is that what you thought?’ Valentin murmured. He pushed her gently away. He shifted to the side, revealing a mound of clothes on the ground by his feet. It had been placed at one end of a blanket. He gestured to the bed.

  ‘You sleep there. I’ll stay here. That’s all,’ he said and eased himself to the floor.

  Valentin knelt beside the blanket, smoothing out its wrinkles before lying down and gathering his limbs inside its borders. With his back to the bed, he closed his eyes. A stream of conversation trickled in through the walls while Else watched him from the middle of the room. His breathing grew dense, but a scratch of his armpit told her that he was not yet asleep. In the distance, she heard the sound of engines. She knew what it meant: Lars was gone. So, too, were Petter and Rune.

  Else slipped off her plimsolls in an effort to keep her tread light and ventured towards the bed. She crawled onto the mattress, where she rolled off the wet socks that had marked the floor behind her with footprints. She pulled the sheet over her clothes as far as her chin. When she faced the wall, she saw a handful of photographs had been pinned to the padding. A woman smiled next to her pillow. Her edges were blurred, as if she were a ghost trapped inside the square. Else imagined Valentin lying in her place, falling asleep each night haunted by that smile.

  The next picture was of Valentin himself. He was younger here, but Else had no trouble recognising him. There was his face, the size of a tree stump, his hair like wood shavings curling away from his scalp. He beamed at her from behind the photo’s gloss and held out a medal in the palm of his hand. One foot was cocked on a dumb-bell on the ground. A flag was draped around his shoulders.

  Else glanced to where Valentin lay on the floor. He was looking at her. She unpicked the picture from the wall and showed it to him.

  ‘What did you win?’ she asked.

  ‘I didn’t win,’ he said. ‘Try to sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.’

  He turned onto his side once again and Else considered the last photo, where a church stood at a slant, its stone carved and topped with angels. It was strange to her, too elaborate to be a church but a church nonetheless – the cross above its entrance left her in no doubt. She reached out a finger to trace the two converging lines before closing her eyes. Pastor Seip lurched at her from out of the darkness. Else snatched back her finger and blinked. The oil lamp spluttered, sending a shiver through the glow that it threw onto the ceiling. When she looked again at the church, she did not need to close her eyes to picture the minister. She saw him standing on his pulpit, palms clasped, his voice dripping over the congregation.

  ‘Our Lord in heaven’ – she heard the words as if they were whispered into her ear – ‘we pray for the soul of Else Dybdahl, that she may not have strayed too far for redemption.’

  The families in the first pews muttered to each other in a rising grumble of disapproval. Behind them sat her mother, her face collapsing under a burden of humiliation. Her father chewed his teeth beside her, biding his time until the moment they arrived home, when he would be free to vent the full extent of his fury.

  Else replayed the scene in her mind and felt her body wilting with exhaustion as the last of her strength drained away. The image of her mother stayed with her now: she could no longer defeat her nervous look, nor dismiss the memory of her neck mottled with bruises. Else prodded her arms where her father had squeezed them black on the night he had locked her in her bedroom. In the days that had passed since, she had sat by her window and monitored their recovery. Had her mother’s bruises healed just as well?

  She lay motionless, imagining unspeakable deeds until, all at once, she realised the chatter outside had stopped. Only the hiss of burning paraffin disturbed the silence. Else sat up in Valentin’s bed. She kicked off the sheet and slid to the end of the mattress, retrieving her socks and shoes and folding herself up in the bedspread from home before retracing her steps to the caravan’s exit. Behind her, Valentin adjusted his position on the floor. He did not speak when she pushed the door open.

  The embers of the bonfire simmered in the field. Otherwise, all was still. Else stayed in the doorway. She watched as the colours of dawn bled into the sky.

  A cold, clear morning had chased off the night before Else stirred from the trailer’s top step. Leaving the door ajar, she retreated into the caravan’s kitchen and, as quietly as she could, lifted a pot from a hook knocked into the wall. She scooped three ladlefuls into it from the water barrel and fumbled with a pack of matches that she found on the shelf by the drying rack, scratching one along the length of the box and holding it between the prongs of the cooker’s hob. With a soft rush, the gas took up the flame. She set the pot to boil and began searching for coffee.

  When the coffee had brewed, Else filled a mug and carried it to the cot. She perched on the edge of the mattress and waited for Valentin to roll onto his back. He supported his head on an arm and dug the middle finger of his free hand into his eyes. Else set the cup on the floor.

  ‘Did you sleep?’ she asked.

  ‘Some,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t leave,’ Else said. ‘My mother. I have to go back.’

  Valentin nodded. He sat up, rested his back against the wall. He reached for the coffee, sniffing it before taking a sip.

  ‘It’s hot,’ Else said.

  ‘It’s fine,’ he said.

  He glanced at the mire of the paddock through the open door. After swallowing another mouthful, he offered the mug to Else. She smiled: it would be the last thing they ever shared.

  ‘Don’t walk home,’ Valentin said. ‘Ask Tenvik to take you.’

  ‘I don’t think my father …’

  ‘You’ll be safe if someone else is there.’

  She understood what he meant. If Tenvik escorted her, she would buy herself time. Perhaps he was right. The townspeople would learn of their night together anyway. In an hour or two, Lars, Petter and Rune would wake in their beds and shake the sleep from their senses. How long would they need to realise they had not dreamt her following Valentin into his caravan? How long before they told?

  Else dipped her nose to the coffee. It was rich and strong, without any trace of chicory. She let the flavour rinse the sour taste from her mouth before drinking it down and passing the cup back to Valentin. They took their time to polish it off. After finishing the dregs, Else peered into the bottom of the mug. She stood and returned it to the kitchen shelf.

  ‘When will you leave?’ she asked.

  ‘Soon,’ said Valentin. ‘Tenvik has settled up with us already. We’ll go when the others wake up.’

  Else imagined Valentin helping to pitch the circus tent in a new field, while camels and horses stamped their hooves in the animal tents and their riders bartered with farmers delivering hay bales by the wagonload. The ringmaster directed roustabouts, his sideburns quivering as the stripes of the Big Top unfurled. Else could picture it exactly. She saw herself there, observing the bustle from Valentin’s trailer. Her longing sharpened with the fantasy. She looked at the meadow outside.

  ‘Do you think you’ll come back next year?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Valentin said.

  ‘I hope you do.’

  ‘Take care of yourself,’ he said.

 
; With a parting smile, she ducked into the sting of early morning. Behind the hillock at the paddock’s distant border, the roof of one of Tenvik’s barns prodded the sky. The trailer’s steps were slippery with the frost that Else had watched layering through the night, like threads of cobweb spinning into a single, lethal lace. As she began to creep away, the door to the second trailer opened. Yakov rubbed his eyes at the top of the stairs. His shoulders dropped when he noticed her.

  ‘Still here?’ he said. ‘Did you get what you came for, or will you stick around for more?’ He nudged the door with his boot as if to invite her in. ‘We still have time.’

  Yakov picked his way down the stairs and tramped over the paddock towards her. Else took a step back before Valentin appeared in the doorway, his frame damming up the way into his caravan.

  ‘Yakov,’ he said.

  Yakov held up his hands. ‘I’m just going to water the potatoes.’

  ‘The potatoes are that way.’

  Yakov sighed. He shrugged at Else. ‘Sorry, treasure. Maybe next year.’

  He changed direction and loped off. Valentin climbed down to stand with Else in the field.

  ‘He won’t bother you,’ he said. Then, in a raised voice, ‘Oleg? Let’s load the trailers. It’s time to go.’

  He placed a hand on Else’s arm and, with a gentle squeeze, nodded his farewell. Then the strong man turned away.

  Else started up the path that had brought her from the farmhouse to the paddock on the night of the circus. It snaked off from the campsite around a cluster of fir trees, its mud still set by winter. On either side of the track spring buds fattened, apple green on the bark of a petrified thicket. She hugged the flaps of the bedspread to her chest and wondered what her father would do when she and Tenvik arrived.

  Ninni answered the door to the farmhouse. ‘Else,’ she said, ‘is it you? Is everything all right?’ She ushered her in. ‘Dear girl, what are you wearing? Why have you come out dressed like that? Where is your coat? And your boots? Knut? Knut! It’s Else Dybdahl who’s come!’

  ‘Else?’ Tenvik said as he strode through from the dining room, brushing crumbs from the creases of his lips. ‘Is there a problem with the barn? Valentin is leaving today.’

  ‘I know,’ Else said. ‘He told me.’

  The farmer exchanged glances with his wife, then looked past Else as if expecting the entire circus troupe to follow. His eyes were wide when they found her again. Else tried to silence the chatter of teeth in her head. After some moments, Ninni reached for the closet and slid a coat from its hanger. She waited for Else to unwind the bedspread before fussing it around her shoulders and buttoning it up over her ash-smudged jumper.

  ‘There, now,’ Tenvik said, ‘it’s all right.’ He spoke as though to one of his livestock, his manner soothing and even.

  ‘Will you take me home?’ Else asked.

  ‘I’ll take you home,’ he said. ‘Everything’s all right. Wait here, I’ll be right back.’

  He mounted the stairs two at a time while Ninni carried on rummaging through the closet. She pulled open drawers, rooted out a hat, a pair of mittens.

  ‘Your hands are ice cold! Here, these will warm you up.’

  Else accepted each item that she offered, grateful for the wool that scratched her skin and for the kindness that she knew she did not deserve. She watched for Tenvik on the stairs, hoping he would hurry before his wife’s concern withered her resolve and she changed her mind and failed her mother for good.

  Tenvik drove her home in his Volvo. Else sat beside him in the passenger seat, studying the countryside that slipped away and trying to commit to memory the colours of the land, their promise of spring. Now and again, the farmer drew a breath as if preparing to ask for an explanation, but he kept his questions to himself. The black boil of Else’s fear seemed to infect him as they neared her family’s property: she could sense his nervousness when he manoeuvred the gear stick, which jarred as his arm yanked and jerked.

  Tenvik touched the brake before he steered them off the road and onto the hill. He parked next to the barn.

  ‘Here we are,’ he said.

  He glanced at Else, who let her eyes take in the farmhouse, the boathouse and the pier. A pair of crows picked around a puddle in the yard. One spread its wings and lifted off into the sky. With the weary effort of an old woman, Else pushed the car door open and lowered her feet into the mud. Tenvik heaved himself outside and they set off towards the farmhouse with their heads bowed.

  They had passed the old well when her father opened the door to the farmhouse. Else fell back, taking cover behind Tenvik. She followed him to where her father waited for them on the step.

  ‘Johann,’ Tenvik said. He scratched his head and tossed a wistful look at his car. He gestured at Else. ‘I think you may have mislaid somebody.’

  His chuckle died in his throat when Johann’s eyes thinned. Tenvik tugged at his ear.

  ‘She’s a good girl,’ he said. ‘There’s no harm done. I have a bit of a fascination with the circus myself. Is Dagny home?’

  ‘She’s at the bedehus,’ Johann said.

  ‘Is she? Well. In any event, they’re leaving. Back to the circus. I dare say they must have set off by now. How have you been finding the barn? Maybe we could take a look. I’d like to see it. I grew quite attached to that cow of yours.’

  ‘Else, go inside,’ her father said.

  ‘That’s right, Else, go in and get yourself warm. I’ll come for the coat another day.’

  Else shuffled inside, while her father unhooked his coat from a peg and thrust his arms into its sleeves. He joined Tenvik on the step and shut the door behind him before the men moved away to the barn. In their absence, Else checked the dining room and the kitchen. Her mother was not there. She hurried up the stairs to the second floor. The door to her bedroom was closed – only now, when she tried the handle, it opened without difficulty.

  The room looked the same as it had the night before, when Petter had climbed the cherry tree. There was the knitting basket, the washbasin, the stew stiff on its plate under a skin of clotted juices. A draught blew in through the open window, bulleting between the four walls before shooting out again. On the dresser, a breakfast tray told her that her mother had been the one to discover her escape. How long ago? And where was she now?

  Else tiptoed down the hall to her parents’ bedroom. The house was as silent as the bottom of the sea. The quilt her parents shared lay in a heap at the end of the mattress. Her father’s long johns stretched their legs across the floor. Else skirted around the bed to the closet. Her pulse knocked when she tested the door.

  ‘Mamma?’ she said.

  The latch was unbolted. Inside hung her mother’s Sunday dress, her father’s Sunday suit, an ironed shirt, a few blouses. She made her way to the bathroom, whispering for her mother as she went. Through a square window, Else saw Tenvik’s Volvo still parked in front of the barn. She went down the staircase.

  ‘Mamma?’ she said into the stark chill of the Best Room. Its chairs cast a shadow onto the inky walls. She withdrew into the hallway, where she lifted the lid of the wooden trunk and pulled open the door to the cellar.

  ‘Mamma,’ she called, ‘are you there?’

  There was only one place left to look, though Else balked at the thought of it. She pictured her mother beaten and helpless and ran into the yard.

  The door to the boathouse grated open, revealing an undulating light that bounced off the water and slipped into the room through the seams between the wall planks. The sluice of the fjord soaked up through the floorboards and the layer of detritus spread out on top. Her father’s Norges jars poked out of the wasteland of fishing tackle. The room was grimier than it had been when Else had come to measure out a drop of homebrew for Valentin. Remembering what had followed, she tapped her heels against the threshold, taking care to kick off the snow that clung to her soles before venturing inside.

  Else felt cramped under the low roof. Her fear dan
ced shivers up and down her spine. The walls seemed to ripple as she moved across the floor, watching out for loose fishhooks in the mess. The oars for the rowing boat lay crossed at the handles, like a single limb whose bone had snapped at an awkward angle.

  ‘Mamma,’ she called, ‘where are you? Are you there?’

  The answer came from the fjord lapping under her feet. Else brushed against a net suspended from a hook that was screwed into the ceiling, releasing a shower of salt and dust and desiccated seaweed. The mattress was bare, its flower-print sheet bundled into a ball on the ground. She ducked for a view underneath the workbench but saw only the idle distillery. At the end of the room, she pulled up the trapdoor. The rock ledge was deserted at the bottom of the ladder. The skiff was empty.

  Where was her mother? Perhaps her father had been telling the truth and she was safe at the bedehus. Or perhaps this morning, when she learned that Else had run away, she had done the same. Her mother was on a coach on her way out of town and Else had come back to face her father alone. The thought punctured her. Her breath left her in a wheeze.

  A sound made her jump. She turned to see a silhouette that filled the doorway, blocking out the sky. Else recognised the line of her father’s body. She looked past him for Tenvik, though she knew already that he must have gone. With the sun at her father’s back, she could not see his face. She did not need to. He stepped into the room.

  ‘Father, I didn’t …’

  Her toes caught on a net snarled on the ground. Else tripped on its yarn and belly-flopped, landing on an arm that failed to break her fall. In the next moment, her father was standing over her. His hand closed on her elbow. She tried to wrench it free.

  ‘Where is Mamma?’ she said. ‘What have you done to her?’

  He grabbed her then, his fingers crushing her wrists. He dragged her up only to knock her to the ground. Else collapsed over the shell of a lobster trap. Her mouth and ribs throbbed.