by Karen Swan
‘And, thanks to that, the suit you wore, Bo?’ Anna interjected. ‘Already sold out. Like that.’ She clicked her fingers. ‘All online stock gone in an hour, they told me.’
‘That’s my girl,’ Zac said, wrapping his arms around Bo and kissing her cheek. ‘Star quality.’
Bo gave an embarrassed smile, opening her eyes to find Lenny, Anna and Anders all watching. Everyone always watching them. All the time.
Bo went to get her phone, which was charging in the bedroom. She shrugged on the yellow jacket as the others pushed their feet into their boots and traipsed outside. Pulling up the hood, she glanced down at her notifications on the way out. Six missed calls – all by an unidentified number, no doubt marketing spam – and myriad direct messages. But one caught her eye, the one she was forever watching out for.
I know ure fucking him.
With every footstep, the snow creaked like old barn doors. It was pristine, virginal; the silence inside the forest, beside the fjord, somehow amplified and lifted. The branches of the conifers were bent almost to the ground, the snow upon them as thick as her arms and the dotted tracks of animals – rabbit, deer, lynx – laced the snow. Their own footprints were, by comparison, heavy and sluggish behind them, enormous oval depressions that smashed and scattered the tightly drawn surface.
Anders was setting his usual brisk pace up the steep slope and making no allowance for her having been unwell, seemingly having forgotten altogether. It was back to normal – for all of them.
Bo, feeling shaken by the troll’s latest contact, was hanging around the back of the pack, letting Anders and Zac go ahead. They were carrying the axes, which must have weighed six pounds each and Zac’s face when Anders had presented them outside had made Bo realize he had assumed they’d be felling the trees with chainsaws. Lenny, naturally, was bringing up the rear and Anna was two paces ahead of her, sounding breathless and tired already, a lit cigarette perched between her fingers. They were all walking in a single file through the woods, the fjord to their left, the indigo water glimpsed in fringed snatches through the trees.
Bo kept looking up at the treetops, staggering as she went. It was easy to underestimate the sheer size of these coniferous giants until she went and stood beside them. Most were at least six metres high, with branches so strong and thick, the ‘skirts’ were two, three metres in diameter – far too big for the wooden cabins, they wouldn’t even get through the door. Everything about the forest felt ancient and overscaled. How would they ever find anything to fit?
But unlike their usual treks, they didn’t have to go far this time, Anders stopping and putting down his backpack within ten minutes of setting out. The crop of trees was significantly smaller here, a young copse set within the forest like a small patch within a quilt. Zac immediately buzzed around, patting the trunks like they were mates in the bar and declaring which trees he thought were best.
‘I like this beauty,’ he said, pointing to one decisively. Bo heard the click-click-click of Lenny’s camera. ‘Good shape. Not straggly at the top but not too wide at the base.’
Anders gave a cursory glance over. ‘No,’ he said, turning his attention straight back to unpacking his backpack.
‘No? What do you mean no?’
‘That one is three metres. You can’t go over two and a half at the most. The ceilings.’ He put his hand above his head to make the point.
‘It doesn’t look three metres from where I’m standing.’
‘Well it is.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yes.’
A spasm of irritation flickered across Zac’s face. He didn’t like being told ‘no’. ‘Then we’re going to have to agree to disagree, buddy. I’ve got good spatial perception and I think the size is fine. I like it and I think it’ll look great in our cosy cabin. Don’t you, Bo?’
‘Huh?’
‘Don’t you think this is the one? Straight, bushy, good shape.’
‘Uh . . . Sure.’ She smiled at Zac but she could feel Anders’ disapproval towards her radiate like a heat beam across the snow.
‘Okay, fine,’ Anders said lightly, bringing over hard hats for them all, goggles for him and Zac. ‘You can have that one. Have you ever felled a tree before?’
‘Nope. But it’s on my bucket list.’
‘Okay. So then the most important thing to know is that we’re going to begin by cutting on the side which we want the tree to fall. Which is . . . there,’ he said, pointing uphill. ‘There is space for it to land without damaging the other trees. And it will be the right way round for dragging back.’
Bo inwardly groaned. She hadn’t thought about that – they were going to need to get these trees back home again.
‘When we cut, we come in at a forty-five-degree angle to create a notch. I will swing. Then you. We create a rhythm, okay?’
‘Sure.’
Anders put on the goggles. ‘Please, stand back,’ he said to her, Anna and Lenny.
But Lenny, camera already to his face, was if anything inching closer. Hearing the silence, he looked up. ‘What? You don’t mean me, surely? I’ve got to get in there; capture the action.’
Anders merely arched an eyebrow in reply.
‘Just get back, Lenny,’ Bo muttered.
‘Oh, come on.’
‘We’ve already had one disaster on this mountain,’ Anders said. ‘Let’s not make it two.’
Bo flashed a glance over at him. Was that blame in his voice?
‘Jeez,’ Lenny groaned, rolling his eyes like a teenager but stepping up the slope to join them.
Everyone waited – camera and camera-phones poised. Anders walked around the tree once, assessing it, before readying the axe at the base. Then, with a deep inhale, he swung it over his shoulder and brought it back round, slicing straight into the trunk.
The sound reverberated through the forest, a few unseen birds in neighbouring trees taking flight and sending great beams of snow pattering to the ground.
Zac copied him, looking more hesitant but only for the first few strokes. Within minutes they had a rhythm. They each recorded it all, Anna supplying a running commentary. ‘Yeah, that’s it . . . nice stroke! . . . it’s getting there . . . not much more . . .’
Bo wished she would shut up.
‘Okay, and let’s stop,’ Anders said, panting lightly and pushing back the goggles. He inspected the notch. It was deep, cutting into the halfway point of the tree. ‘Good. Now for the other side.’
With not a minute to rest, they began cutting from the opposite direction until another notch was carved. They stopped sooner than they had on the first side, only the slenderest margin of wood fibres remaining intact; Anders was looking up at the tree, one hand held in the air. ‘She’s going . . .’ he said, even though the tree appeared completely motionless.
Bo waited, breath held nervously. Was he absolutely sure the tree would definitely fall uphill?
But a moment later, a deep, plaintive creak issued from the tree as it slowly, elegantly, toppled over. Uphill.
‘Nice work,’ Anders smiled, reaching over to shake Zac’s hand. Genuine animation! Everyone looked amazed.
‘That was incredible!’ Zac grinned, turning to their cameras and pulling various muscle-man poses, including the obligatory foot-on-the-stump shot.
‘Well, I’m glad you liked it,’ Anders said. ‘Because now we have to do it again.’
Zac’s smile faltered. ‘Oh, shit, yeah.’ Both of them were red-cheeked and panting, sweat at their hairlines as they took off the helmets, and Bo knew Zac had been overdoing it, playing to the camera and forgetting this wasn’t the only tree to fell. Or drag home.
Both men sank into the snow for a rest, Zac falling back dramatically like a snow angel.
‘Bo, go sit on the stump,’ Lenny said, readying the camera again. ‘Let’s get some shots of you while they recover.’
She did as he asked, drawing her knees up and hugging her arms around them, pixie-style, tipping her head o
ne way, then the other. The yellow jacket was paying dividends again, warm and waterproof and a good contrast to the black-green palette of the trees. Another great shot; she already knew how this would read: the Wanderlusters at play in the Norwegian forests, cutting down their own Christmas tree!
‘Okay, great,’ Lenny said, releasing her from modelling duties.
‘So which tree are you having, Anders?’ Anna asked, lighting up another cigarette. Bo hadn’t realized she was such a heavy smoker.
‘That one.’
‘That one?’ Zac laughed at the sight of it. There was no doubt it was one of the smallest in the copse. ‘But it’s just a stripling. I’ve seen toilet brushes bigger than that!’
It did look pathetically feeble. The branches were bushy enough and the shape pleasingly symmetrical but it was knee-high to the rest of the trees in the forest.
Anders shrugged. ‘It is the right size.’
‘Well,’ Zac grinned. ‘At least it shouldn’t take us too long to get that one down. Hey, we can get Bo to sneeze on it, that should do the trick,’ he guffawed.
Bo met Anders’ gaze for a moment but he looked away instantly, refusing to connect, and she felt that faint nausea in the pit of her stomach again. They couldn’t leave things like this; they needed to clear the air and she knew it had to come from her. She had been the antagonist after all – drunk and wanting an argument, like he’d said.
‘Ready?’ Anders asked him.
‘Sure. Anytime,’ Zac replied lackadaisically, as though he hadn’t been tired at all.
‘Actually, I’d like to have a go,’ Bo said as they both stood.
‘What? Why?’ Zac asked, looking confounded.
‘Why not?’
‘Because you’re—’
‘A woman?’ she interrupted, fixing him with a defiant stare, daring him to say it.
‘No! I was going to say unwell. You’ve been unwell and you’re not back to full strength yet.’
‘Did that stop me skiing yesterday? Or hiking up here today?’
Zac, looking bashful, held out his axe to her. ‘Fine, then.’
Bo was tempted to ask – in the name of female solidarity – whether Anna wanted to have a go too, but given that she was supposed to be strictly behind the scenes, decided against it. Besides, she didn’t think Anna had the same need to hit the bejesus out of something in the way she did. Her earlier upset in the bedroom had morphed into anger now. She was fed up of being bullied, intimidated, harassed. Since when had she become a victim?
‘So you saw what we did, yes?’ Anders asked her as she weighed up the axe. It was surprisingly heavy. ‘Stand in a wide stance and make an across-the-body motion. Do not go straight down or you will chop off your feet.’
She shot him one of her sarcastic smiles. ‘You do love to go straight to the worse-case disaster scenarios, don’t you?’
Anders didn’t smile back. ‘Because they are there. The risks are real.’
It was the longest he had looked at her and she wished he didn’t look so pained by it. ‘I’ve got it. I understand,’ she said quietly.
‘Let me go for the first five strokes, just to get the cut going.’
‘Okay.’
He circled the tree again almost ritualistically, assessing it, before looking back at the trees surrounding them. ‘It will go this way,’ he said, pointing out the fall line.
Standing on the opposite side of the trunk to him, she watched and waited as he got himself into a balanced position, slowing down his breathing again. And then he began to swing.
Bo counted . . . Two, three, four, five . . .
Her own arm swung, the axe cutting into the groove with a satisfying thunk. She laughed, delighted, pulling back for him, before repeating it. Over and over they swung, getting caught up in the rhythm, and when Anders’ hand came up for her to stop, it felt too soon.
They walked to the other side and five strokes each was all it took before he stopped her. She held her breath again, feeling the suspense as the tree – beautiful and lush – held firm and stood tall for one final moment before toppling graciously to the floor, like a crinolined Victorian lady in a swoon.
Bo clapped excitedly, feeling a rush of pride in herself.
Anders walked up and shook her hand, his enveloping hers like a bear’s paw. ‘Well done,’ he said, a smile in his eyes that for once didn’t knock her over but lifted her up, and for a second she wondered if he’d forgiven her for her behaviour.
But he let her hand drop, turning to the others. ‘Now we need to get these back.’
‘And then, rest,’ Zac said.
‘And then, logging,’ Anders corrected with a smile. ‘You still want to be a Norwegian lumberjack, right?’
Even travelling downhill, it was hard-going. Lenny was no use at all, of course, his camera to his eye as he photographed Anders and Anna, and her and Zac carrying the trees back. Zac had suggested dragging them but Anders had replied it was a matter of personal taste whether he liked having a Christmas tree with needles on or not, which had made everyone else laugh.
In spite of Bo’s stand for equality when it came to chopping the trees, carrying them was another matter and she had only lasted a few minutes taking the greater weight at the base. Anders had managed to loosely wrap the trees by rolling them in a sheet of muslin folded in his backpack, pinning the branches up and in, so that the tree could be carried, tip down.
Zac was breathing heavily three metres behind her, urging her to go faster, but what had taken ten minutes to climb, took almost double that to get down with a tree to carry and they collectively breathed a sigh of relief as they emerged into the farm’s clearing.
‘Thank God,’ Anna groaned, dropping the tree on the path and easing out her arms with a grimace of pain. ‘I’m not going to be able to move tomorrow.’
Bo didn’t think she would either. She had woken up with stiff legs from skiing yesterday; now she could add back and arms to that for tomorrow.
‘I’ll take it from here,’ Anders said to Anna, lifting the tree easily onto his shoulder and taking it round to his grandmother’s cabin.
Anna looked on in disbelief. ‘He totally didn’t even need me to carry that with him,’ she gasped as he disappeared around the corner. Tomorrow’s aches could have been entirely avoidable.
‘Maybe he thought you wanted the genuine lumberjacking experience too?’ Bo suggested.
‘But I am Norwegian! I don’t need it!’ she cried, still stretching out her arms.
Bo laughed.
‘Come on then, let’s get ours up. I’ll take it for this last bit,’ Zac sighed, hoisting their tree onto his shoulder too, just as he had seen Anders do, but he staggered forwards, his knees buckling under the greater weight of it.
Bo helped to steady him by catching the tip end and taking some of the weight.
‘It’s fine. I’ve got it,’ he grunted, trying to find a better hold.
‘Zac, let me help.’
‘I said I’ve got it. Let go.’
Bo gave an impatient sigh. It was quite clear that he would fall the second she let him take the full weight. ‘This is a much bigger tree than Anders’ one. He couldn’t carry this alone either. It’s fine. We’ll both take it.’
Zac’s eyes narrowed slightly as he saw that she was mollifying his ego, but he gave a grudging nod of consent regardless.
‘Anna,’ Bo said. ‘Anders said there’s a large bucket in the stables downstairs that will be ideal for standing our tree in. Could you get it? And, Lenny, why don’t you make yourself useful too and help fill it with earth?’
Lenny frowned. ‘What earth? Everything’s covered in snow!’
‘Then dig, man. Dig!’ she smiled, as Zac slowly, carefully walked round to their front door and opened it.
‘Where shall we put it?’ she asked, trying to stop the back end of the tree from swiping everything off the walls and surfaces as he walked ahead of her.
‘By the window?’ His voice w
as strained from the effort.
‘No,’ she mused. ‘It’ll block out the light, there’s too little as it is.’
‘Well it can’t go by the stove. It’ll be too hot, the needles will fall off,’ he panted.
‘Bedroom?’
‘Hardly fair on Lenny,’ he muttered.
‘But he’s not going to be here. He’s going home for the holidays.’
‘No he’s not.’
‘What?’ Bo almost dropped her end of the tree, making Zac stagger. She caught hold of it again.
‘Must we discuss this now?’ he cried, turning hopelessly, looking for a space.
‘There.’ She pointed to the far corner, opposite the front door. ‘Put it down in the corner there.’
‘But then it’s obscured behind Lenny’s ladder.’
‘Oh, just put it down, Zac,’ she snapped.
Taking the tree off his shoulder, they laid it out on the floor. Outside, she could see Anna and Lenny with the bucket, but they weren’t digging, they were arguing. It was the first time Bo had seen them talk to each other all day, she realized.
She saw the tight anger in Anna’s face, the lazy shrug in Lenny’s shoulders and she knew everything she had feared was coming to pass. But she couldn’t deal with their doomed affair right now. She turned back into the room and straightened up to face him, her hands on her hips. ‘What do you mean that Lenny’s not going home for Christmas?’
‘I was going to tell you. I only just found out myself.’
‘Found out what exactly?’
‘He’s got no one to go back to. His mum and step-dad are on some cruise in the Caribbean – they figured he’d be with us. What’s the point in him spending all that money to go home if no one’s there?’
‘Okay then, fine – he doesn’t go home. He goes to see friends. Or takes a spa break. I don’t care, but he’s not staying with us!’
‘Why not?’
‘What do you mean why not?’ she cried. ‘Zac, it’s Christmas. There have got to be times when it is just the two of us. He cannot always be here.’
Zac sighed, dropping his head. ‘Bo, we’ve been over this—’
‘Yes! And you’re not hearing me!’ she said, pressing her hands to her chest. ‘Look at me, Zac – we need some private time together. We need it. Things have been tricky recently – you must have felt it too? Ever since we got here, it’s like we’ve been permanently out of sync. First Anders joined the ranks, then Anna—’
