by Wells, Nicky
“Are you all right?” Greetje’s voice was full of sudden concern.
“Fine,” I smiled. “It’s just that the name is so apt.”
“Isn’t it just?” Greetje acknowledged, choosing to bypass the emotion in my comment. “Let’s have a look inside.”
Inside, it was perfect. Everything was small but perfect. The front door gave straight into an open plan downstairs, with a fitted kitchen tucked to the right, and a lounge area on the left with a fireplace and two squashy sofas. At the back, a staircase led upstairs, where I found an adorable bedroom as well as a small bathroom. I clocked the shower, but it was the bedroom that had me rapt. It was a dormer room, dominated by a big, comfy-looking bed done out in white linen but adorned by a beautiful colorful patchwork quilt. A big oak wardrobe rested in one corner, and a rocking chair with colorful cushions stood by the window. It was wonderful. Without thinking, I went across and opened the old-fashioned windows, pushing both wings out as far as they would go and securing them with the metal hooks. The salty tang of sea air and dunes rushed into the room and I breathed deeply. And yes! I could hear the rushing of the sea on the other side of the dunes. I would sleep here; I would sleep well.
Greetje stood by the door and observed me silently, a smile playing on her kind face.
“You like it,” she stated when I turned back to her.
“I do,” I said simply.
“I will leave you now. Maybe I will see you later,” Greetje suggested. “Or maybe you will have some rest first, yes?”
I couldn’t quite believe my luck, and questions came bubbling out before Greetje could leave. Yes, she confirmed with a laugh, I could really have this place. At the price she had suggested. No, no need to pay her now, I wasn’t going anywhere, was I? We could settle the first month’s rent next time I saw her. No, she didn’t have anybody else lined up, and yes, I could stay as long as I wanted. Now, would I please stop worrying? Greetje gave me an affectionate pat on the shoulder as she pressed the keys for “Na Huus” into my hand.
“The electricity is on, there are directions for hot water and heating in the kitchen, and the bike is in a shed in the garden. I must away, I have some more Fischbrötchen to sell.”
And thus she departed, leaving me to sit in my new, if temporary, home, marveling at fate. I took another tour of the cottage, delighting in all the little details, and I also inspected the garden. I locked up and followed a random path across the dunes, finding to my intense pleasure that I was mere seconds from a beautiful sea view.
Back at my temporary home, I braved the oven to heat a pizza, ran a bath, and climbed into my new bed, leaving the windows as wide open as I dared. The air grew cold at night, but I was warm and snug under my industrial strength continental Eiderdown duvet, and so I slept.
And slept.
And slept. I slept for the best part of two days. I slept like I had never slept before. It seemed as though I was catching up on a lifetime’s worth of lost sleep.
Of course I got up to use the bathroom and to make myself cups of tea or something to eat. But every time, I found myself irresistibly drawn back to bed. I took a book each time, but without fail, I fell asleep.
I was still in bed two days later, and probably would have carried on like this for another couple of days, when Greetje came to see if I was still alive.
The first thing I knew about her arrival was a cheerily shouted “Yoohoo” floating up the stairs and through the door into my bedroom. Initially, I thought I was dreaming but the voice was vaguely familiar.
Next, there were light footfalls on the stairs, and I knew someone was coming. I was still half asleep, cozy, and warm. Somewhere deep down, the rules of social decorum informed me that I ought to get up. But I simply couldn’t obey, so I resolutely stayed in bed.
Greetje’s face appeared at the doorframe, smiling initially, then crinkling with concern.
“Sophie!” she exclaimed. “Are you all right? It is the middle of the day.”
Was it really lunchtime? I cast a glance onto the bedside table where my mobile phone did a stand-in act for an alarm clock. Incidentally, it couldn’t find a network out here so it was very much out of action as far as mobile phone services went. It read twelve thirty-four p.m. Lunchtime indeed.
I sat up wearily, rubbing my eyes and yawning widely.
“I am so sorry,” I mumbled, hastily covering my mouth with my hand lest I should frighten Greetje away with my doggie breath.
“Are you okay?” she repeated, and I nodded by way of response, although I could feel myself welling up. Silly me. I was okay, I was feeling better than I had done for weeks. Just very tired.
“I don’t know what the matter is with me,” I tried to joke lightly, although I could hear the effort in my own voice.
Greetje put down her bag and sat on the edge of my bed. She looked at me, waiting for me to talk.
“I—” I started, but realized I didn’t have a clue where to begin.
“You’re running away from someone,” Greetje started for me. “It’s obvious,” she stated, as though this was meant to reassure me. “You arrive here alone, call no one, speak to no one, don’t send any postcards, keep yourself to yourself, and I find you’re still in bed.” Her tone was gently admonishing before she changed tack. “We’re all guessing why you’re running, and who from. You’re the big mystery, quite the talk of the island.”
I closed my eyes. Great. I had come here for anonymity and put myself right in the center of attention. Greetje’s next question caught me so unawares, I nearly fell out of bed.
“Did he hit you?”
My eyes snapped wide open and locked with hers, full of concern.
“What? Who? Hit? No!” I let out a wail of frustration at this complete misinterpretation of my circumstances. “No, it wasn’t like that. Not at all, on the contrary—oh God, you’re going to think me such a wuss.”
“A wuss?”
“A person who is sad and pathetic for no concrete reason,” I qualified.
“Ah. Well. If you are this wuss, the person who is sad and pathetic for no particular reason, I suggest you get yourself showered and dressed while I fix some lunch. And then you will tell me, so I can put an end to all the speculation and gossip. And you will become better.”
Her tone allowed no argument, and I found I quite enjoyed being bossed about by this kind woman. I did as instructed—I had a hot shower and got dressed in jeans and a jumper for the first time since arriving. While the effort exhausted me, I did feel better for being up and about.
When I came downstairs, Greetje had set out the ubiquitous Fischbrötchen-and-potato-salad lunch and I fell unto it hungrily. Greetje ate, too, but mostly watched me with barely contained curiosity. Eventually, when I had finished, she pushed the plates to one side, propped her feet on a spare chair, and commanded, “Tell.”
My first sentence surprised me as much as her.
“I guess you could say I had a little breakdown,” I announced, bursting into tears of self-pity while laughing at myself at the same time. The effect was not pretty, and Greetje hastily passed me a tissue.
“A breakdown,” she repeated matter-of-factly when I had overcome my little outburst.
“Yup. I guess that’s what you’d call it. I told you I was a wuss.”
“A breakdown is neither sad nor pathetic,” Greetje informed me calmly. “I don’t know why you would even think that. There must have been a lot of stress involved.”
“Yeah, well…not to the outside observer, I don’t think,” I muttered darkly. “Really, this is all a storm in a teacup.”
“Good. That’s a good perspective to have, now. It means you’re getting over it all. But you must have been pretty stressed to start with, and that’s all that matters. Do you want to talk about it?”
I had nothing to lose, so I told all. “Do you know,” I concluded, “seeing them together like that sent me over the edge. I lost all sense of reality. It sounds so stupid now, so unnec
essary. But I felt that I couldn’t go on with it all. I wanted to run away like I’ve never wanted to run away before in my entire life. I wanted to be somewhere where none of this would matter, and where I could think about everything.”
Greetje nodded thoughtfully, but still I continued. “It seems so…I don’t know, so extreme now. But it made perfect sense on that Monday. I went home and crashed, and the next morning I rang my Mum, and cried and cried. She listened to everything; I guess she’d seen it all coming. I said I wanted to run away and she said, totally casually, ‘Then why don’t you?’”
I sniffed at the recollection, and Greetje gave a little laugh. “Your Mum is a wise person.”
“You think?” I retorted. “I thought she’d gone mad. I thought she was playing devil’s advocate. But she was serious. She said, why didn’t I take some time out to get away from it all for a while? She suggested making some arrangements so I wouldn’t lose my job or my flat or anything. She called it ‘a safe runner’. She kept saying, ‘what’s keeping you?’ and I didn’t have a good answer.”
“Does she know you’re here?” Greetje interrupted properly for the first time. “Because if she doesn’t, she might be worried sick.”
I smiled. “I called her every day while I was running scared. From the train station in London and in Brussels, from Hamburg, and from Bensersiel. I told her I was coming here, but I haven’t had a chance to ring her since.”
“Well, you must ring her as soon as we’re done,” Greetje told me firmly. “She’ll be going out of her mind. But before that, finish your story. You’ve got me hanging on here.”
“Well…” I pondered. “First of all, I went into the office after I spoke with Mum and I talked with my editor. I said I wanted to resign. I insisted, but he refused to let me go. A ‘sabbatical’ was the best he could do for me, he said.” I snorted with disbelief at my own tale when I related the bizarre situation.
“We agreed I would leave until the end of the year. The sabbatical is unpaid but I’m going to write a few features here or there.” I shrugged. “It’s not much of an income but I’ll muddle through, and I have a job to go back to next year. I put the flat on the market with a lettings agent. I managed to find a removals company that could collect my stuff and put it into storage. It’s amazing, really, how quickly one can unravel one’s life if one has to. I took the last Eurostar that day to Brussels before I could change my mind. I found a hotel by the station and checked in, but I couldn’t sleep. So I used their computer to do a bit of Internet searching. I wanted to go to somewhere far away, unusual, remote, isolated. I found a reference to a car-free island in the German North Sea and I had a look and I loved the sight of it all. So, I booked myself on a flight to Hamburg the next day. I stayed there for a couple of days while I figured out arrangements to come to Langeoog. Last Friday, I took the early train to Bremen, the island bus from Bremen to Bensersiel and the ferry, and you know the rest.”
Greetje had listened attentively, and she let out a big sigh when I ground to a halt.
“What an amazing story. It’s almost like you’re gone with the wind…you know, where the wind blows you. Wow. It’s quite romantic, really.”
“Romantic?” I laughed. Somehow, I felt a lot better. Cleansed. Lighter. As though I had shed a big load. “I’m not sure about romantic. Insane, mad, and cowardly, perhaps, but not romantic.”
“You are too hard on yourself,” Greetje contradicted me. “I think you did what everybody dreams of doing every now and then. And you took care while you did it. You didn’t run. You…” She searched for an appropriate word. “You performed an emergency exit. Planned, responsible.”
I thought this over. Put that way, I sounded almost sane. Rational.
“I didn’t tell my friends, though,” I observed.
“Hm…” Greetje mused. “Rachel and Dan? Do you think you are accountable to them? Did they deserve to know?”
“Maybe?” I reflected back. “They were my very best friends before it all went wrong. Maybe I ought to have reached out to them. And Steve, especially Steve. But now I can’t,” I pondered. “What if they change their minds? What if they try to get in touch? And I’m not there?”
“Well, they’re going to have to put the effort in and find you, won’t they? Now that would be telling, wouldn’t it?” she grinned at me, and I grinned back, trying to visualize my three friends on this little island.
“Do you think they will?” Greetje asked hopefully, excited by spinning an intrigue and a continuation of my drama.
“I don’t know, Greetje, I just don’t know,” I sighed.
“I guess we’ll find out, with time,” she suggested.
“I guess we will,” I agreed.
“Now, about this ‘nervous breakdown’ of yours.” Greetje rose from the table and started stacking plates in the dishwasher, all no-nonsense and matter-of-fact.
“Yes?”
“Well, maybe it was one, and maybe it wasn’t. You don’t strike me as the type. You are too practical, too—how do you say? Pragmatic. I haven’t seen enough wailing and howling to say that you’ve had a breakdown. I’d say you were fairly exhausted, but now you’re up, and anyway, I need your help, so you have no more time for moping about.”
She shut the dishwasher with panache, clapped her hands to indicate that her job was done, and turned to me expectantly. “Are you ready?”
I giggled. Her brash, confident, assuming manner was irresistible. And anyway, I had nothing much to do. Apart from phoning my parents, of course. And maybe checking in with Rick. But that could wait another couple of hours. I wanted to get out of the house. I wanted to walk, laugh, and feel alive.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Greetje had me run errands all over the island for the rest of the day. I delivered a late lunch to her husband down at the little fishing port. From there, I picked up a crate of fresh fish that I could just balance on the back of the bike that Greetje had given me for the purpose, and cycled across to the eastern-most restaurant on the island. Next, it was back to the harbor to collect more fish for Greetje’s own kitchen. And so it went on. I suspected that Greetje normally did these chores herself, although she did make it sound as if she was going to struggle without me there. Still, I didn’t mind. In fact, I was quite enjoying myself, cycling to and fro on the island on this beautiful autumn day.
The sun was shining, and the sea was all around me. At every stop, I was offered a snack and a cup of tea, and there was no hurry, no rush to do anything, anywhere. My first reaction at the harbor had been to dash off as instructed, but the fishermen would have none of it. I got the grand tour of the boats and a little snack of freshly caught, just boiled tiny pink North-Sea shrimp which were sweet and delicious, if extremely fiddly to peel. At the restaurant in the dunes, I had—you guessed it—the grand tour of the premises, the old cow sheds and dairy, and was offered—you guessed again—a cup of tea and a fat slice of cake.
The day passed quickly, the exercise was refreshing, the air invigorating, and the good cheer and calm demeanor of the wonderful island folk was a tonic for the soul. Out here, nothing much mattered apart from taking care of your life and the lives of your family. So what if a trip to the harbor took me two hours instead of the twenty minutes it could have?
At the end of the day, I fell into bed physically exhausted but mentally relaxed, a wonderful, innocent feeling that I had not known since childhood. This island was working its miracle on me with every step and every breath.
Over the first week—the second week of my official holiday from my job at the paper—I explored the island in every nook and cranny. One day, I got a load of sandwiches from Greetje and did the entire island trail, on foot, which took about six hours. I stopped in various places to rest or eat, and I spent at least an hour watching seals play on the beach. Another day, I took a guided tour of the mudflats, marveling at all the squidgy forms of plant and animal life that were found in this brown and slimy environment. My Mum
and Dad laughed at me when I tried to explain over the phone that night, chiding me that as a child grown up by the coast, I should really have been prepared for it all. I even tried horse riding, just for the fun of it, and I had a game of mini-golf even though the place was technically closed for the season. Greetje arranged it.
Greetje arranged that, and several other things. On Thursday, over the now customary joint lunch at the tea shop, she asked me slyly if I would consider helping out in the island school. If perhaps I might be able to teach a little bit of basic English to the kids. The school wouldn’t be able to pay much, but there might be a small token salary involved, if I was interested.
Feeling extraordinarily nervous, I went for a mini-interview on Friday and was immediately taken in by this friendly little school. The head teacher wasn’t overly concerned by my lack of teaching experience. I wasn’t to be a teacher but rather a language assistant; “Worth giving a try, not?”
I started working in the school for two hours every morning the following Monday to get myself established before the October week-long holiday. And as Greetje was working hard to integrate me in the very fabric of the island, I found I was also invited to join the choir and the book club. Several times a week, I had dinner with Greetje’s family or some other new friends, working my way through the local delicacies and traditional meals, and occasionally reciprocating by cooking English meals like Toad-in-the-Hole. Greetje took me to her favorite fish restaurant on Hafenstrasse and an amazing Italian restaurant near Hauptstrasse. I discovered the delights of my nearest baker’s shop and took to cycling there every morning to collect my fix of fresh Brötchen and crusty brown bread for the day. All of a sudden, I had a busy and fulfilled, but wholly uncomplicated, social life. My German improved at a dramatic rate and I was almost competent at conducting a conversation. With all the goings on, I struggled to keep up with Mum or Dad or even the column I had committed to writing for Rick.
A month into my stay at Langeoog, I felt like I had lived there forever, and I found it hard to envisage ever leaving. I was still alone, but I was never lonely. I felt happy and content, but I also felt like I was on borrowed time. Sooner or later, I knew, things would have to change, and I would have to go back. I only hoped it would be later rather than sooner, and tried to push those thoughts firmly from my mind. Live for the here-and-now, and let the rest come to you. That was what everyone was telling me.
