Ten White Geese (9781101603055)

by Bakker, Gerbrand

  Before starting the climb, she imagined the dull red tractor with a shrewdly smiling Farmer Evans sitting on it. And chains, deep tracks in the grass. Maybe Mrs Evans – not yet widowed – had helped him to stand the stone upright, leaving the basket with the bread rolls, two pears and a bottle of lemonade at the water’s edge. Maybe they’d laughed, run, rolled in the grass.

  She hadn’t wanted to know a thing. She’d resisted the temptation to look it up on the Internet. She’d left. Like an old cat that wants to be left in peace. Not that she’d ever experienced anything like that herself; they’d never had a cat in the narrow house in De Pijp. Her uncle had cats. ‘If they’re gone, they’re dead,’ he said and her aunt nodded. She looked back once again at the water and thought of him. Why didn’t anyone ever say ‘Go on. Go ahead’? Why had every last member of the kitchen staff done their best to get him out of the pond and into dry clothes, putting his shoes on the oven? To give him a chance to do a bit of carpentry? ‘A wall unit,’ she said and walked on.

  *

  By the time she reached the stone circle the second time, the light had changed. The gorse flowers were a darker yellow, the stiff grass a different green. She sat down on the big rock and dared to put a cigarette in her mouth, even though her hands were trembling and she dropped the lighter after lighting it. There was still an enormous silence. Badger lady without a badger, she thought. She felt her legs grow leaden, her back stiff, her arms heavy. It wasn’t coming. Maybe it was hibernating. Aren’t badgers a kind of small bear? Slowly she covered the last stretch to the house. She stood on the beams over the stream for a long time, looking at the water flowing downhill. It bubbled and foamed. Clear, ice-cold water.

  52

  Bradwen already had the arch in the ground. She stayed behind the wall for a few seconds in the spot he’d jumped over weeks before. That was very impressive of him, the wall came up to her chest. Was that the sound of him whistling contentedly under his breath? Sam’s jump was even more impressive. She followed the path to the kissing gate near the old pigsty. The walk from the stone circle to the house had not entirely dispelled the heaviness and stiffness from her back and legs. Two ramblers were standing against a side wall; one of them had a flower.

  Bradwen turned round. ‘Look,’ he said.

  ‘Lovely. Excellent. I’ll be right there.’ She leant the alder branch against the wall next to the front door and went into the house. In the bathroom she shook all of the strips of tablets out of the boxes, washed one tablet down with a couple of mouthfuls of water, and went downstairs again. In the living room she pulled open the stove door and threw the boxes on the fire, not going out again until she’d watched them catch and burn. She thought of the prescription and saw the piece of paper sliding across the counter at the chemist’s. There’d be a record of that somewhere, filed, but it didn’t matter. It only had the doctor’s name and address, not her name, and definitely not her address. The sun had disappeared; a red glow hung over the goose field. In half an hour it would be dark, maybe a couple of minutes later than yesterday, a virtually imperceptible difference. It was almost Christmas.

  ‘Would you like to plant them?’ the boy asked.

  ‘OK.’

  He walked to the shed, picked up the pots and pulled the rose bushes out by the stems. He had already dug two holes and partly filled them with compost. The bag lay under the arch on the slate path. ‘Careful of the thorns.’

  She lowered the first rambler into a hole and went to get down on her knees.

  ‘Let me do that.’ He was already squatting to fill the hole with compost, then stood to press it down firmly with his feet.

  ‘You’re not just a gymnast,’ she said, ‘you’re a gardener too.’

  ‘Ach, not at all. Anyone could do this. Have you been out for a walk?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Here.’ He gave her a few lengths of green string. ‘If you tie this one up, I’ll plant the other.’

  She tied two branches to the arch and did the same on the other side after Bradwen had planted that one too. The single rose – off-white, more bud than flower – wobbled on a branch that was much too thin but didn’t break off. The boy went inside and came out with a large saucepan. It was only when he held the pan at an angle next to one of the roses and water came pouring out that she realised what he was doing. He tossed the pan onto the grass, put his hands on his hips and sighed contentedly. ‘It’s time for your favourite programme,’ he said.

  *

  ‘This ticks all the boxes!’ exclaimed a spoilt bitch. Even though she and her equally spoilt husband had a budget of eight hundred thousand pounds, their house-hunting just wouldn’t gel. He wanted ‘contemporary’ and she wanted ‘character features’. Sort yourselves out, for God’s sake, she thought, and don’t bother us with it. ‘This doesn’t do it for me,’ said the husband. ‘Not at all.’ She groaned. Bradwen brought her a glass of white wine without further comment. She didn’t notice him until he was right next to her. He’d crept up on his L and R stockinged feet. Fish, she thought. He’s taking good care of me. The boy crept back out of the room. He hadn’t taken off his new hat. The right side of her face was glowing from the heat of the stove.

  She slumped a little and leant her head back against the sofa. Although on TV they were now talking about a typical Victorian hallway, she saw Shirley’s hairdressing salon before her: Rhys Jones waving his big hands to clear the cigarette smoke; the doctor in the cobalt-blue hairdresser’s cape with bloodshot smoker’s eyes and a strangely lecherous twist to his mouth; the hairdresser laughing so shrilly that her breasts jiggled and the tendons in her neck stood out obscenely; the house-and-garden magazines full of green pumpkins; and there’s the door opening to let in the baker of all people, it’s high time he had his hair cut too and his wife Awen pushes him in – her perm is sagging and a bit listless and it will be Christmas in a few days’ time. The hairdressing salon has got very busy all of a sudden. A Border collie is lying under the magazine table; it licks one of the table legs, maybe another dog lay there not so long ago. There goes the telephone. Shirley answers and says, astonished, ‘Yes, he is here. You must be psychic.’ And Rhys Jones takes the handset for a short conversation with his estate agent friend, assuring him with a smile that the woman will leave the house and also telling him that he groped her, that she’s got a ‘glorious arse’ and that she was only too keen to respond to his advances; a shame that she’s leaving really and no one knows where. Strangely enough there’s no cutting, washing or hairdrying going on. The word ‘badger’ crops up regularly and when it does they all laugh, except for the baker’s wife and the dog, dogs don’t laugh, and this dog seems to be trying to creep farther and farther away from the people. Near the door are plastic crates with big lumps of meat in them, watery blood trickling out over the tiled floor. Shirley asks the sheep farmer how his son is, what he’s getting up to these days, and the sheep farmer turns pale, whistles his dog out from under the magazine table and almost slips over in the puddle of blood that’s formed near the door. His dog starts to lick the tiles. ‘Enjoy your lamb,’ Rhys Jones says before banging the door shut behind him. Now she hears ‘Emily’ in the hairdressing salon. ‘Emily.’ It’s unclear who’s speaking. The doctor looks guilty and, like a bad actor, asks who they’re talking about.

  Bradwen was standing next to the sofa. ‘Tea’s ready,’ he said, maybe for the second time.

  On TV a team of clever people were competing in a quiz. Eggheads they called them here, even more mocking than bollebozen in Holland, the kind of people who did a PhD on someone like Emily Dickinson.

  53

  The boy had put new candles in the holders on the windowsill. There was a lit candle on the table too. Dickinson’s Collected Poems lay next to her plate, shut. On the plate it was haddock again, with mashed potato and fennel. Colourless food.

  She sat down and looked at him, thinking of the almost subservient way he had worked for her an hour and a half ago. Stam
ping down the soil, pouring the water. ‘Why haven’t you gone away?’ she asked.

  ‘Who’d cook?’

  ‘I can cook too.’

  ‘Who’d plant the roses? Who’d do the shopping? Who’d keep the stove burning?’

  ‘Why?’

  The boy looked at her. The hat looked really good on him, even at the dinner table.

  ‘Have you already brought in the pan?’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’ she asked again.

  ‘Do I ask you questions?’ he said. ‘Just look under the Christmas tree instead.’

  She looked aside. A present was lying there. Before standing up to get it, she took a big mouthful of wine. She stayed next to the Christmas tree with Bradwen’s gift in her hand.

  ‘Socks,’ she said softly.

  The boy sniggered. ‘That woman doesn’t know what she’s talking about.’

  She tore off the paper. He had simply bought her a woolly hat. An incredibly ugly hat, purple, with sewn-on flowers in a range of colours, almost all of which clashed with the colour of the hat itself. A hippie hat, it even had two tassels hanging down the sides. She swallowed and was glad she was facing away from him. She swallowed again before pulling it on. It fitted perfectly. ‘Just what I needed,’ she said, turning and going back to the table.

  Bradwen looked pleased and ate.

  She drank and poked at the fish.

  ‘What is it with this Dickinson?’ he asked, gesturing at the poems with the mash-filled serving spoon.

  ‘Yes. I wanted to ask you that too.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Why do you keep turning her portrait round?’

  ‘Those beady little eyes.’

  ‘It’s a photo.’

  ‘So? She gives me the creeps. And you?’

  ‘I was involved with her because of my work.’

  The boy chewed. ‘Hmm.’

  ‘She had a dog too.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yes, Carla.’ She squeezed her lips into a circle between her thumb and index finger. It was called Carlo, the name was in her head, another detail that had angered her in Habegger’s biography because the man only mentioned the dog four times. It was a Newfoundland, an enormous hairy beast – she had looked up a picture of the breed – and it was called Carlo. A timid little woman whose only friend was a big dog and Habegger didn’t care. Now that she’d squeezed her lips into a circle, she tried it again. ‘Carla.’

  ‘A lapdog,’ the boy said.

  ‘No, a very large one.’ She ran the back of her hand over her hot forehead and drained her glass of wine. ‘Pour some more.’

  Bradwen picked up the bottle obediently. ‘Funny name for a big dog.’

  ‘Yes.’ Funny name for a big dog. She knew it meant something, but translating it was somehow beyond her. She wanted to go upstairs to the shelf under the mirror. Not one, but two tablets. She stood up. She walked through to the living room and stairs. The boy didn’t call after her. Without turning on the bathroom light, she grabbed the strips and dared to look at her backlit self. Fortunately she was wearing a hideous hat, a fancy-dress article, nothing anyone could take seriously. ‘Carlo,’ she said. ‘Ohhhhh.’ She saw her mouth open and close again: vague, colourless. The bathroom smelt of Mrs Evans, of course, as if she’d got out of the bath ten minutes ago and dried herself, leaning on the washbasin now and then with one hand. She swallowed the two tablets with a single mouthful of water. When she straightened up again, the two tassels swung cheerfully.

  *

  ‘You’re not smoking,’ the boy said. He had cleared the table, letting the food slide off her plate into the bin. Now he was washing up.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I haven’t seen you smoking since this morning when I was doing the raking.’

  She looked around. The packet of cigarettes wasn’t on the table. She stood up slowly and rested on the back of the chair before moving farther.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ he said without turning.

  She picked up her coat, which was lying on the chair next to the sideboard, and felt the cigarettes in one of the pockets. The lighter wasn’t in the other pocket. Now that she was standing next to the sideboard anyway, she turned on the radio. Music. There was something she wanted to do, something she had to do. She thought about it. From the sound of it, Bradwen was up to the cutlery, the crackling of burning wood came from the living room. The radio was turned down. Something. She’d already got rid of the tablet boxes. She thought hard and saw the lighter sliding out of her hand, heard it bounce off the rock with a dry click and land in the grass. ‘Throw me those matches,’ she said.

  The boy took the box of matches from the windowsill and lobbed it over. She reached out to catch it, but was too sluggish or else the box was moving too fast. It bounced off the sideboard and landed on the floor near the Christmas tree. She bent over and fell. Immediately he was beside her.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’m OK.’

  He took her by the hand and pulled her to her feet.

  She sat down at the table and finally lit the cigarette. It was horrible, almost disgusting. As if she was fourteen again and smoking her first cigarette, a Camel non-filter her uncle had given her. That must have been one of the last times she was allowed to stay at his house. She coughed and tried again. Something that had tasted good for years couldn’t suddenly turn disgusting, could it? Bradwen was still standing close by, at her elbow. The very idea of a cloud of smoke passing through her mouth and windpipe and into her lungs was so repulsive she couldn’t inhale. She stubbed the cigarette out.

  The boy coughed. Then asked, ‘Coffee?’

  ‘No.’ She drained her glass, stood up and walked into the living room. She switched on the TV and sat down on the sofa. She heard him turn off the radio and go back to the washing-up. There was movement and noise in front of her, everything with a one-second delay. A wide ditch, more a canal really, a boat with two men in it. They pulled baskets out of the water and one of them contained an eel. They shook it out. Catches down 95 per cent since the replacement of the wooden lock gates, the fisherman explained. In the field next to the canal there was a solitary sheep. She stood up immediately and returned to the kitchen.

  ‘Coffee after all?’ the boy asked.

  ‘No.’ She went over to the freezer and pulled it open, removing the hunks of meat and putting them in the plastic crate that was still on the floor next to the freezer.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  She didn’t answer, but picked up the crate and walked into the living room with it. The boy watched her every move like a dog. Ears pricked up, eyes alert, waiting for a command. She had to put the crate down to open the front door. It wasn’t cold, even though there were no clouds. A vast sky hung over the house and garden. For the first few steps she had light, shining out through the kitchen window. Beyond that band of light, she stopped briefly to let her eyes adjust. The stream murmured and the crushed slate crunched under her bare feet. One by one, she took the stiff, frozen pieces of lamb out of the crate and hurled them into the water with all the strength she had. Each lump was as heavy as a rock; like rocks they would lie on the bed of the stream. Holding the empty crate loosely in one hand, she stared at the dark water in which the enormous sky slowly became visible. Giving up smoking, she thought to herself, that’s something healthy people do. Walking back to the door, she saw the white rosebud grow lighter. Her head was warm. Maybe the hat was made of real wool. Sheep’s wool.

  *

  After closing the front door, she heard Bradwen rummaging around upstairs. ‘What’s going on up there?’ she called, wiping the grit off her feet.

  Bradwen emerged from the study. ‘I’m arranging the new bedroom.’

  It was hard for her to look up after having looked down for a while.

  ‘I’ve put your bed in front of the fireplace. I still have to light it.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘On the diva
n as usual.’

  ‘Godnogaantoe,’ she swore softly, under her breath. Only now, after weeks and weeks living in this house, did she realise that the stove in the living room and the fireplace above it shared the same flue. ‘After Christmas, you’re gone,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said, coming downstairs.

  54

  She woke up because the boy had laid two logs on the embers and needed to blow to get the fire going again. He crept back to the divan. Earlier he’d pushed both windows up a little. It was unbearable in the study otherwise.

  ‘It was very different with Sam here,’ he said.

  She didn’t answer, staring at the ceiling.

  ‘Dogs like Sam can’t sleep all night, they start to move around. He’d whimper and come and sniff at me.’

  ‘He even went downstairs.’

  ‘No, not that. He’d always stay here.’

  She sighed, turning her head towards him. Bradwen was half under the duvet with his hands behind his head. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘No idea. Three-ish?’