Travelling Light

by Sandra Field

  Lars slowed his pace. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I’m sure he realised you didn’t like him mentioning your wife...he didn’t strike me as insensitive.’

  He looked down at her, his eyes like flint. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘I didn’t even know you’d been married,’ she cried, adding in a rush, ‘I’m assuming that you no longer are.’

  ‘She died eight years ago. I said I didn’t want to talk about her!’

  Out of a pain that made nonsense of discretion, Kristine said, ‘You still love her.’

  ‘I don’t! For God’s sake drop the subject, Kristine.’

  If he was angry, she was equally so. ‘Are there any other little surprises that I’m liable to trip over if we travel together? If so, I’d like to be warned right now.’

  ‘I would have told you about her sooner or later.’

  ‘Forgive me if I doubt that.’ As quickly as her temper had flared, it died down. She said gently, ‘Won’t you at least tell me what happened to her?’

  ‘Some time, maybe. But not tonight.’

  ‘You’re behaving like a stereotypical male—you know that, don’t you? All stiff upper lip and let’s not talk about feelings.’

  He said tightly, ‘I’m choosing not to discuss what was the worst year of my life late at night on a crowded sidewalk with a woman I scarcely know—that’s what I’m doing.’

  A woman I scarcely know...

  Left with nothing to say, Kristine set off at as fast a clip as her sandals would carry her, heartily glad that she and Lars had separate rooms because at this precise moment she couldn’t wait to get rid of him. She stalked through the lobby of the hotel, stood in an ostentatious silence as the lift carried them to their floor, and said with minimal politeness as she passed his door, ‘Goodnight.’

  ‘I’ll meet you for breakfast at eight.’

  Maybe, she thought. And closed the door to her room with exaggerated quietness.

  * * *

  Despite a conviction that her seething emotions would keep her awake all night, Kristine slept fairly well. Her rage had disappeared in the night, her hurt not entirely. She did wake to the certainty that Lars, like her, had elements in his past that had scarred him; he was treating her scars with respect and she should do the same. So when she knocked on his door at five to eight, showered and wearing her jeans with a man-tailored pale yellow shirt, the first thing she said to him was, ‘I shouldn’t have lost my temper last night.’

  His mouth twisted. ‘I didn’t behave particularly well either—I could have done without Kevin being the one to tell you I’d been married.’

  He too was wearing jeans, his wet hair curling around his ears, a damp towel looped over his bare shoulder. Kristine added hastily, ‘I’m early—I’ll come back later.’

  ‘It’s OK, I won’t be a minute.’ Lars stood aside so that she could enter, scrubbing at his hair so that it stood up on his head in little spikes; as he did so, the muscles played across his belly. Kristine gulped, turned away, and heard him mutter, ‘We don’t even have to touch each other, do we?’

  Striving for the tone of voice with which she had controlled four small boys, Kristine said, ‘I think you should put your shirt on.’

  However, he started brushing his hair in the mirror first. ‘I suppose a good-morning kiss would be against the rules that I was foolish enough to set up.’

  ‘Definitely,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t sound as decisive as you should.’ Walking over to her, Lars bent his head and teased her lips apart with his. He then proceeded to kiss her with thoroughness, expertise and undoubted pleasure. When he let go of her, he reached for his shirt, and only a close observer would have noticed that he had trouble with the buttons because his hands were not quite steady.

  Pink-cheeked and flustered, Kristine said indignantly, ‘That’s not fair!’

  ‘Come on, Kris, you know as well as I do that life’s not fair.’

  ‘All my brothers call me Kris.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re in any danger of confusing me with them,’ he replied.

  Kristine didn’t think so either. She said at random, ‘What are we going to do today?’

  ‘I think we should take the ferry to Bergen. It would be better to take my car; it’s more comfortable. We could leave yours in a parking lot where you pay by the week.’

  ‘I’ve thought about that,’ she said candidly. ‘Even though it puts the cost up for me I think we should take both cars as far as Fjaerland. I have no idea what kind of reception I’ll get because I have no idea why my father left there—I only know he would never talk about it. So my grandfather might not let me over the threshold—or he might invite me to stay for a month. If he does invite me to stay, you might want to go back to Oslo.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ Lars said slowly. ‘Although I don’t like the thought of you driving the mountain roads in that little car of yours—it must be almost as old as you are.’

  ‘It was all I could afford...and it hasn’t let me down yet. Anyway, you’ll be right in front of me.’

  ‘OK. I’ll make the ferry reservations and we’ll plan to stay a couple of days in Bergen.’

  Deciding she might as well deal with any arguments before breakfast, Kristine added, ‘I don’t want you to think that I’m ungrateful for this lovely hotel, Lars. But I’m not going to make a habit of letting you pay for me—it’ll be campsites for me from now on.’

  ‘In that case,’ he said, raising one brow, ‘I’ll buy myself a tent this morning before we leave. Otherwise travelling together won’t be anything but an academic exercise.’

  ‘One that would keep us out of mischief,’ she said limpidly.

  ‘But you might get bored,’ he responded with a gleam in his eye.

  ‘Around you? Not likely.’

  ‘Breakfast, Kristine,’ he said with mock sternness. ‘And, as it’s included on the hotel bill, I’m paying.’

  She dropped him the best curtsy she could in her jeans, which fit her rather snugly, and then ran for the door before he could grab her. They were both laughing as they walked to the lift.

  Somehow this beginning to the day set the tone for the next three days, days they spent in Bergen, city of seven mountains. They ate lunch in a tavern in Bryggen, where the town was founded in the eleventh century, and that afternoon they took the funicular, a steep little railway, to the peak of one of the mountains. They went to the stave church in Fantoft, built out of wood over eight hundred years ago; it creaked in the wind as Kristine imagined the Viking ships must have creaked on the waves. That evening they went to a concert at Troldhaugen, Grieg’s home, and saw his tiny red studio nestled among the trees by the lakeside. On their last day in Bergen Lars bought Kristine a huge bunch of sweet peas in the market; without telling him, she pressed two of them between the pages of her passport, wanting a concrete memento of three of the happiest days of her life.

  Although she and Lars, far from making love with each other, were behaving most circumspectly, the crackle of sexual tension bound them together, often unacknowledged, always powerful. She had learned a lot about him during their stay in Bergen: his formidable control over his sexuality; his sensitivity to music; his ability to play the fool; his care of her. From the story of her childhood and adolescence he had somehow divined that the girl growing up in a family of seven had nevertheless suffered terribly from loneliness, and was making sure that with him she never had to feel lonely.

  Such companionship was new to Kristine. She basked in it, feeling herself open like a flower to the sun.

  They left Bergen in the rain, which did not damp her spirits in the slightest. She sang to herself as she followed the dark green Jaguar through tunnel after tunnel, past waterfalls and forested hills and cherry orchards. At Kvanndal they took a ferry across the wide sweep of Hardangerfjord, where Kristine fell into conversation with some American tourists. They had just come back from Ulvik and gave the little town on the sho
res of the fjord a glowing recommendation. When Lars came up on the deck to join her, she asked, ‘Are we planning to go to Ulvik?’

  His face changed. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s not on our way...we’re only taking this ferry so you can see the orchards in Lofthus.’

  ‘I was just talking to some people who’ve been there—they said it was very pretty. Right on the fjord, and so peaceful.’

  ‘You’re going to see more than your fill of fjords, Kris.’

  His unexpected opposition perversely increased her desire to go to Ulvik. ‘They were telling me how warm the water is for swimming, because it’s at the end of the fjord. We’re not in any hurry, Lars—let’s go there.’

  ‘I’d rather not.’

  She recognised that face; he had looked the same after talking to Kevin in the bar in Bergen. She gave him a long, thoughtful look. ‘Maybe I’ll go on my own, then. We can meet up somewhere else later on—in Voss or Gudvangen.’

  In a small gesture whose violence shocked her, Lars banged his palm hard on the rail. ‘You must do as you choose,’ he said.

  Kristine had no idea why her simple request had roused such strong feelings in him, and was quite sure it was useless to ask. She wandered off, watching the approach of the village of Utne, its little white houses clustered against the hillside.

  Their stop there was brief. They disembarked at the next stop, then drove south to Lofthus, through orchards laden with ripe red fruit. Lars pulled up by the side of the road, and he and Kristine walked along a track in the grass between the cherry trees. The track widened, and in front of her she saw through the gentle drizzle the looming mountains on the other shore and the white sprawl of a glacier among the peaks.

  Lars said flatly, ‘I’ll go to Ulvik with you.’

  Baffled, she stared at him. They were utterly alone, the wet grass brushing her bare legs, swallows swooping through the sky over their heads. ‘Won’t you tell me what’s wrong?’

  ‘My wife’s buried there. I haven’t been back for years.’

  The words had been wrenched from him. Then that formidable control, a control she had seen before, clamped down on his features. She said, knowing her words for the truth, ‘I’m not the only one who travels alone.’

  ‘You see too much, Kristine.’

  She was not at all sure he meant the words as a compliment. It was on the tip of her tongue to say she had changed her mind, that she no longer wanted to go to Ulvik, supposedly so peaceful, in actuality calling up such conflict in Lars. But something stopped her. She said calmly, ‘Why don’t we go there now?’

  ‘Get it over with,’ he said. Nor was he joking.

  She walked ahead of him through the trees and got in her car. Over his shoulder he said, ‘I’ll lead the way,’ and slammed the door of the Jaguar. Her mind a jumble of unanswered questions, Kristine followed him down the road.

  At Brimnes they took the ferry to Ulvik, seagulls dipping and diving in their wake. Ulvik more than fulfilled the glowing descriptions given it by the Americans, the houses with their red-tiled roofs dotting the hills, the white-capped mountains hovering behind. The waters of the fjord were crystal-clear.

  Lars drove to a campsite that to her delight was on the shore. It seemed another good omen that the rain had subsided and the sky over the mountains was clearing. They set up their tents on the close-clipped grass under some trees, then Lars said, ‘I’m going for a walk—I’ll be back in an hour.’

  She watched him wind his way through the trees and take the road towards the village. Because he had not asked her to go with him, she could only assume he was going to visit his wife’s grave. Restlessly Kristine unpacked her gear, explored the campground and talked to a couple of German youths for half an hour, then walked back to her tent. No sign of Lars. Impulsively—he could hardly accuse her of following him, for he had been gone for nearly an hour—she too set off towards the village.

  The rain had stopped, although the woods still smelled richly of rotting leaves and damp earth. Poppies hung heavy-headed in the gardens. She walked faster, realising the exercise was what she needed. A dog trotted past her, intent on its own errand. Ahead of her an elderly man with stooped shoulders appeared from one of the side-streets and set off briskly down the road. Watching him with only part of her attention, she decided that she, like the poppies, felt heavy-headed.

  She stopped to sniff the deep red roses rambling over the wrought-iron fence near the church, noticing that the elderly man had gone into the churchyard. Perhaps that was where Lars’s wife was buried, she thought, wishing Lars had seen fit to share the story of his marriage with her.

  Then, shattering the somnolent silence of the summer afternoon, she heard voices raised in anger, and with a quiver along her nerves recognised one of the voices as Lars’s. It was coming from the churchyard.

  Screened by the trees, she moved closer. Through the wet leaves she saw Lars and the man with the stooped shoulders standing on either side of a grave where flowers grew in a bright tangle of colour. She heard the man sputter, in a British accent made more pronounced by anger, ‘How dare you come back here?’

  ‘I have a right to be here, Edward,’ Lars answered levelly. But his fists were clenched at his sides and his shoulders rigid.

  ‘Eight years ago you forfeited any rights you had. I told you then I never wanted to see you again, and nothing since then has caused me to change my mind.’ The man called Edward drew himself to his full height, which was still several inches short of Lars’s; yet the passion with which he spoke prevented him from being in any way a figure of ridicule. ‘Get out of here, Lars—I don’t want you here.’

  ‘Edward, she was my wife...’

  ‘You killed her! Her and the child.’

  ‘The child was my daughter!’

  Kristine’s fingers were gripping the fence so hard that the pattern on the wrought iron was imprinted on her flesh. She had never heard such agony in a man’s voice before; that it should be Lars’s agony knifed her to the very core of her being.

  Edward leaned forward, his thin shoulders shaking. ‘I curse the day you ever met my beautiful Anna,’ he said venomously. ‘My wife—her mother—has never been the same since the day Anna died. And it was all your fault.’

  Lars said in a cracked voice, ‘I was young—and she went to the ski-meet of her own choice—’

  ‘She went because she couldn’t stay away from you! She had to go, she was so afraid for your safety, so terrified each time that you were going to kill yourself on the slopes...I wish to God you had.’

  Lars’s chest rose and fell. ‘Can’t you find it in you to forgive me?’ he said. ‘Anna, of all people, wouldn’t want you harbouring such anger and bitterness.’

  Edward struck out at Lars, a feeble gesture that nevertheless made Kristine wince. ‘I’ll never forgive you—never!’ he vowed. ‘And I never want to see you in Ulvik again.’

  She shrank back into the trees as Edward marched towards the gate. He passed within four feet of her, blind to anything but his own emotions. His face was mottled red, and his eyes, she saw to her deep distress, were filmed with tears. His footsteps receded down the road.

  Lars stood very still beside his wife’s grave, his hands thrust in his pockets. For the first time Kristine noticed another plot beyond him, a smaller one covered with tiny blue and white flowers. The grave of his daughter, she thought painfully.

  She understood now why Lars had not wanted to come to Ulvik. She also glimpsed why he had changed his mind: he had probably hoped that Edward, after all these years, might have forgiven him, and this hope had been worth the risk of coming here.

  But Edward had not forgiven him. Nor, she was almost sure, had Lars forgiven himself.

  Lars had told her nothing of all this; would not even have told her he was a widower had they not met Kevin in the bar. So the last thing she should do now was to intrude on a grief that was intensely private, much as she might want to. Soft-footed, Kristine edged along the fence
until the church was out of sight.

  She walked for half an hour and could not have told anyone afterwards what she had seen. Then she headed back the way she had come, feeling as far from the peace the tourists had promised her as it was possible to feel. As she came round the corner of the churchyard, she saw that her timing could not have been worse, for Lars was just leaving through the gate.

  He saw her immediately. He said in an ugly voice, ‘What are you doing here?’

  He looked terrible, his eyes sunk in their sockets, the skin stretched tight across his cheekbones; with an immense effort Kristine kept her face impassive. She said straightforwardly, ‘I overheard you and Edward—I didn’t mean to, it just happened that way.’

  ‘And now you just happened to be walking past when I’m leaving.’

  She raised her chin. ‘That was chance as well.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said with a sarcasm she deplored.

  She walked closer to him. He held his ground, brushing away a branch that was hanging over his shoulder, droplets of water running down his arm. Like tears, she thought, and said quietly, ‘Tell me what happened, Lars.’

  ‘If you overheard Edward, you know what happened—I was responsible for the deaths of my wife and my daughter.’

  ‘That was Edward’s version. I want yours.’

  ‘All right, I’ll tell you,’ he said unpleasantly. ‘It’s the only way I’ll get you off my back, isn’t it? What do you want to know, Kristine?’

  She refused to back down. ‘What happened at the ski-meet?’

  He pulled a leaf from the branch and methodically started shredding it to pieces. ‘Anna hated risk. I didn’t know that when I married her—I was only twenty-one, fresh out of university, stuffed with book knowledge and ready to take on the world. I was also an avid skier, and I made the national team the year I graduated, just before she and I met. Her father and mother had retired in Ulvik, and she was working in Oslo. She was beautiful and gentle as a spring rain and she loved me...so we got married. There was enough to keep me busy at Asgard and in between I skied every chance I got.’