by Karen Swan
‘The hell you are,’ he muttered, taking her by the elbow and steadying her as she took a few deep breaths. ‘What were you thinking going out in the snow in your condition?’
‘It’s nothing. I fainted coming in from the cold, that’s all,’ she said, shivering again as a gust of wind blew in through the still-open door, dousing her like a bucket of iced water. He reached back and slammed it shut without a moment’s consideration for the rest of the cabin’s occupants. What time was it anyway?
A second later the bedroom door opened, Zac’s sleepy face appearing. ‘What the—?’ he mumbled, before taking in the sight of her on the floor. He rushed over. ‘What happened?’
‘Bo went outside in a nightdress,’ Anders said, looking back at her like a cross parent. ‘Wearing just a nightdress. In the snow.’
‘I didn’t know it had snowed. I needed the loo. What was I supposed to do? Go in the sink?’ She dropped her head, feeling exhausted again. Even that exchange had drained her.
Everyone was quiet for a moment and she realized her teeth were chattering and her fingers pulled agitatedly at the blanket again, but it felt as thin as a pillowcase and woefully underequipped for the job.
‘We need to get you off the floor,’ Anders said, stepping forward to hoist her up. But Zac rose too, blocking him, and, holding her by the elbow, helped her to stand. Anders moved back again, out of the way.
‘Okay?’ Zac enquired, holding her up.
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she muttered, even though her vision had pixelated again. ‘I wish everyone would stop making a fuss. I just need to eat something.’
‘Make some toast, would you, mate?’ Zac asked Anders, gripping her arm tightly.
Anders walked over to the stove and threw in another log. The night’s cinders had already reddened since she had passed by a few minutes earlier and she saw a first, rekindled flame begin to flicker and kick. He sliced some bread and placed it under the grill.
‘You need to get back into bed,’ Zac said.
‘I don’t want to be in bed,’ she protested feebly. Why was her head pounding so much? It was her knee she had hurt.
‘Then sit down beside the fire. You need to get warm again,’ Zac said, taking her over to the small sofa, seeing how she limped. He set her down carefully and it reminded her of Anders handling his grandmother on the way back from the village. ‘You can’t keep getting cold like this.’
‘Well, it’s a bit bloody hard not to when you can hardly walk and you’re living in an unheated cabin in the snow with an outhouse for the facilities,’ she grumbled. But even as she said it, she marvelled at how Signy managed it. Bo stared at the floor, feeling wretched and pathetic. She was even wearing the old woman’s nightdress!
She sneezed suddenly – and then again. ‘Oh.’
Zac pressed his hand against her forehead and sighed. ‘And now you’re hot.’
‘Now I’m hot? Make your mind up.’
‘You’ve got a temperature is what I mean. No doubt the one you always get when we come somewhere new.’
It felt like a failing of sorts. ‘Excellent,’ she whispered sarcastically, leaning back in the chair and resting her cheek on the cushion, staring into the fire. She felt pummelled, achy, and simultaneously hot and cold.
Zac shot Anders a weary look. ‘This isn’t working.’ He raked his hands through his hair. ‘We’re going to have to rethink. We clearly can’t stay here while Bo’s sick; the facilities here are going to make her recovery too tough. There’s a metre and a half of snow out there. She can’t keep going out in that.’
‘I agree. Pneumonia is a real risk for her right now,’ Anders said matter-of-factly.
Zac looked over at him, clearly irked by Anders’ dispassionate responses. ‘If we leave, will we get a refund?’
Anders shrugged. ‘No.’
‘Oh, well, great. Just great. This is all working out rather nicely for you, isn’t it?’ Zac snapped. ‘You take our money but talk us into leaving anyway? You never wanted us here in the first place.’
‘What I want doesn’t come into it,’ Anders said simply. ‘My grandmother has already spent what you gave her. You can stay for as long or as little of the month as you wish but I cannot give you back the money you have paid.’
Bo watched from the sofa as Zac began to pace. ‘Well, then we’ll just have to move her into a hotel until she’s well enough to manage being back here again,’ he said. ‘It’s not like it’ll be long – a few days, tops.’ Zac looked across at Anders. ‘It’s the Union Hotel, right? The big one in the village?’
Anders nodded. ‘But it’s closed for eight weeks for annual refurbishment and repairs. Reopens the first week in February.’
‘Of course it does,’ Zac said, with a shake of his head. ‘Right, fine. Where else could we try?’
‘There are no hotels open in the village at this time of year. Everything closes when the A63 is shut and the Hellesylt ferry stops.’
Zac was silent for a moment. ‘Unbelievable. So then, what are we supposed to do? We can’t all leave here. We’re being paid to promote the extreme Norwegian lifestyle. This is what they want from us,’ he said, indicating the remote cabin. ‘This is what they’re paying for and that money is what we’re living on.’
Bo sneezed three times in succession. ‘Ugh.’
There was a long pause as both men looked across at her. She supposed she looked ridiculous in the flannel nightie.
‘There is another solution,’ Anders said calmly, his quiet voice cutting through the tension.
‘Yeah? And what’s that?’
‘She can come and stay with me. In the village.’
Bo’s head jerked up.
Zac frowned. ‘Say what now?’
‘I’ve got two bedrooms and two bathrooms. She can have her own space there whilst she recovers. I’ll be out in the day with you anyway so she will have plenty of time to rest and if you meet me there each morning, instead of me coming up here, then you can see her every day too.’ He looked at Zac passively.
‘I dunno, man,’ Zac murmured in a low voice, eyeing Anders suspiciously.
Anders shrugged and gave a bored sigh. ‘It’s up to you. You need a solution, I’m giving you one. But if you can think of anything better, take it. I don’t care. You’ve already paid me for the accommodation and my time. It makes no difference to me what you do.’
From behind hot eyes, Bo watched Zac regarding him with outright suspicion and she dropped her head on the cushions again. Honestly, what on earth was he so frightened of? All she wanted was a central heating system and a bathroom and a vat of tea.
And anyway, what other choice did they have?
‘Well, I guess we could talk to Anna – see if her bosses will fly with that,’ Zac said finally. ‘Bo would only be gone for a short time, after all. A few days in the warm and you’ll be right as rain, won’t you, baby?’
Bo nodded. ‘I’d be better in half that time if someone would just feed me,’ she muttered grumpily. ‘Is there any sign of that toast I was promised?’
‘Oh yes,’ Anders remembered, walking back and opening the oven, pulling out a blackened slice from the grill. He turned back to them with an unapologetic look. ‘I shall start again.’
Bo blinked, hoping this wasn’t an omen as to the standard of his cooking. She didn’t want to survive falling in a waterfall only to be finished off by his dinners.
The sound of movement overhead made them look up, as feet appeared on the ladder and Lenny climbed down, wearing a pair of socks, cactus-printed cotton boxers and a navy sherpa fleece. ‘I thought I heard a noise,’ he mumbled, looking weary.
‘Great use you’d be in a burglary,’ Zac quipped as Bo took in the sight of his sleep-addled face. His five-o’clock shadow looked closer to eleven and he had bags beneath his eyes; even his tan seemed to have faded.
‘Lenny,’ she murmured, reaching an arm towards him.
‘Hey, you’re up. I didn’t even see you sitting the
re. You’re disappearing into the furniture. How you feeling?’ He crossed the room and kissed her on the forehead, pulling back with a frown and pressing the back of his hand there too.
‘Better.’
‘You don’t feel better.’ He turned back to the others. ‘She’s got a fever.’
‘Yeah, and Anders thinks pneumonia is a risk too. She needs to get warm and stay warm. She can’t be going out in the snow every time she needs the loo . . .’ Zac said.
‘That’s true.’
‘So we’re making alternative arrangements for her. She can’t stay here when she’s so sick. Anders has said she can stay at his for a few days. In town.’
Lenny’s jaw dropped open. ‘You’re kidding?’
‘No. Why?’
Zac looked puzzled, Anders offended. Bo was embarrassed.
‘Because, I mean, we don’t . . . we hardly know him.’ He turned to Anders. ‘No offence, dude, but you can’t think we’d let her go stay with just anyone? You could be an axe murderer for all we know.’
‘Len – first off, Anders is the guy who saved her ass on the mountain. I hardly think he’s going to do her harm at his house in the village.’ But the expression on Len’s face suggested he still thought it was a moot point. ‘And secondly – what’s with the “we”? She’s my fiancée.’
‘I know that, but you know what I mean. We’re a family, the three of us. I care about her too, you know I do.’
Zac softened, patting him on the shoulder. ‘Yeah, I know you do, man, you’re a brother to us both. But this is the only viable option. Bo can recover properly in town and we’ll stay here and fulfil our obligations with Ridge Riders. It’s only a short-term thing and then everything can go back to normal again in a few days; it’s the best option in the long run. You’ll see.’
Chapter Eleven
Lodal, mid-June 1936
Signy walked like an old woman, bent forward at the hips by the haybale on her back, her muscles screaming for relief. The bale weighed almost more than she did and if she were to fall forwards she would struggle like an overturned beetle to get back up again, but her legs kept moving over the uneven ground. She may be small but she was mighty – that was what her pappa always said.
‘This is the last of the fourth line,’ she panted, twisting and letting the bale roll to the haybarn floor. ‘Just one more to go.’
‘Thank goodness,’ Brit puffed, dropping her head and resting her cheek against the pitchfork for a moment, both of them aching and weary and out of breath.
It had been a race against time all afternoon, the girls trying to beat the grey clouds that had peeped over the horizon soon after lunch and made slow but ominously steady progress across the sky towards them. The hay had been drying for nine days now, Sofie and Margit – as the biggest and strongest – in charge of scything the grass, working their way across the fields in a diagonal pattern, as Kari and Ashild followed after them, tossing the strewn cut grass onto the hayracks to dry. They had cleared so much grass that all the hayracks were now full; and although they continued to scythe, the younger girls raking the cut grass into windrows on the ground instead, the dried hay needed bringing into the barn for storing before the men came up to transport it back to the farm. Luck had been against them, though, and every time they went to bring it in there had been a heavy dew or a cloudburst, just enough to soak everything through and push them back again. The hay couldn’t be stored in the barn unless it was completely dry and they had planned on clearing the hayracks the next day, but the unexpected dark clouds had changed those plans. Signy had come down from her long hours spent walking the outfields only to be put straight back to work again as the others – red-cheeked, their hairlines streaked with sweat – hurriedly loaded the hay onto the small horse-drawn cart, or alternatively hand-twined small bales pushed through the baling box her father had made, carrying them up to the barn on their own backs.
The slow clop of Bluebell’s hooves outside announced the arrival of the next load and, straightening up with a wince, Signy moved out of the way.
‘Nearly there,’ Kari said breathlessly, reaching her pitchfork over the side of the cart and immediately beginning to toss the hay into the barn. ‘Another cart-load, I reckon.’
Signy stepped out and looked up at the sky, breaking into an immediate run back down the path. It was purple and pregnant with rain. There was just one more rack to clear but that would take a few minutes even with all of them working on it. Each rack was made by five wires strung tightly between tall spruce poles, and from a distance, when they weren’t in use, the racks were almost invisible to the eye, the spruce poles standing out of the ground like coppiced woods. But when they were laden, with five layers of overlapping long grass drying on the wires, they looked like dense hairy walls, striping the fields; Signy had always loved playing cat and mouse around them with Nils and the other boys when they came up for Midsummer’s Eve. But there was no time for playing games now. She could clearly see the silvered rain sliding towards them like an advancing blade, coming up from the valley, breaching their plateau.
‘Hurry!’ she called, seeing Sofie sitting on a rock, her elbows splayed on her knees tiredly as she took a break, waiting for the cart to return. ‘It’s coming!’
Sofie looked up, then jumped too. The storm had stolen a march on them, and together with Margit they all began grabbing the hay from the wires in armfuls. With no time to wait for the cart, Ashi threaded the twine as they pushed the hay down into the cubed wooden baling box. It was an odd-looking but ingenious contraption her father had invented: a tall, narrow box accessed by a hinged door on one end and with a wooden levered ‘stamper’ to push down and compress the grass from above. If it was rudimentary, it was also effective.
‘Hurry!’ Sofie said, glancing back across at the advancing storm.
‘I’m going as fast as I can,’ Ashi replied as the first bale was formed and released and she had to thread up for the next one. It was a fiddly job, best done by little fingers.
Signy pulled the first bale free and, knotting it tightly, heaved it with a groan onto her back, beginning the incline up to the haybarn again. It was so heavy and she felt so tired after hours of walking with the herd today, that with each step, she wasn’t quite sure if her knees would give out, but within a couple of minutes she had tossed it onto the barn floor for Brit to pitch, and was running back down again.
Fat drops began to pelt the ground, not many, not yet, but they were large like bullets.
Kari and Bluebell were already back in the field by now, the horse nodding quietly as the cart was frantically reloaded with loose hay. Signy blinked hard as she felt the raindrops strike her forehead and cheeks; no one could afford to get wet. Wet would almost certainly lead to ill and the seter was no place for that, with neither doctors nor other adults around.
She and Ashi baled another pile. In the distance, a rumble of thunder made them all stop and turn for a moment, waiting – breaths held – for a lightning strike. They counted.
One. Two—
There! It was close. Two miles away.
Sofie shrieked but Signy laughed with delight. Her first storm at the seter! The rain was suddenly falling quickly, densely, and the girls fell into a sort of dance, hopping from one foot to the other as though they could dodge the raindrops.
‘Quick! Hurry! That will have to do!’ Margit cried, tossing a last armful of hay onto the cart and taking Bluebell by the reins, turning her as tightly as she dared without spilling the cart and walking briskly up the path. Sofie followed, pulling her cardigan over her hair. There was still a line of hay remaining on the wire nearest the ground. It was the driest, having been placed there first and protected by the upper layers above it, but Signy knew it couldn’t be helped – the storm was upon them and it would simply have to get wet and dry out again later. At least now they would be able to clear the windrows and get the new batches drying on the racks before they rotted on the ground. So much hay was required
to get them through the winter months – both as bedding and feed for the animals, and if it was a long hard winter, as this year’s had been, they couldn’t afford to waste a single straw.
With a last burst of effort, she hoisted the final bale onto her back and with her hands securing it at the base, ran staggeringly towards the barn.
‘Hurry, Signy!’ Kari called, beckoning her on with frantic hand movements. Signy grinned, feeling her muscles burn. She desperately wanted to stop, but part of her also loved the drama of it all, the six of them out here battling the elements together.
‘Is it wet? Is it too wet?’ Brit asked, pulling her in through the door with a desperate tug and immediately inspecting the bale as she let it fall to the ground. Signy fell to her knees, panting, her cheeks a mottled red stain as raindrops fell from strings of her hair.
‘Only superficially, I think,’ Margit said, patting at it with her apron. ‘If we store it by the door, where there’s most airflow, it should dry out okay.’
Signy’s hair was plastered to her head, fat drops dripping down the collar of her dress and mingling with the sweat of her exertions. ‘That . . .’ she panted, still on her knees, ‘was brilliant.’
Another rumble of thunder made them all look up again, seeing the rectangle of bruised sky through the open barn doors as another lightning fork split the heavens.
Ashi squealed, covering her ears with her hands and squeezing her eyes shut. ‘I hate storms!’
‘I love them!’ Signy breathed, eyes wide as she got up to her feet and staggered over to the window to look; the old small whetstone her father had replaced lay discarded on the ground by the wall there, lifting her up just high enough to see out. The rain had come in so hard, she already couldn’t see the crumbling stone wall at the bottom of the nearest field and it was as though the encircling mountaintops had been flattened down by the sheer force. The goats were safely locked in their pens but the sheep were huddled in the near pasture under the aspen tree and the cows were lying down beside the walls.
