Burning Bright

by Helen Dunmore

  Two days ago Kai went out without me. I listened to the Saab’s engine dying away down the track. I could hear it for a long time. Then I sat there on the veranda. It was too quiet to play the radio, and a little too cold to sit for long. I went indoors and made myself coffee. All the sounds were distinct, as if they were part of a percussion piece being played in front of an audience which didn’t even dare to cough. I imagined people leaning forward in their seats to listen as my spoon dug into the coffee granules. Freeze-dried coffee is noisy stuff.

  I leaned on the veranda, looking down through the trees at the steady grey shine of the lake. A fish plopped, way out in the water. I thought I would like to go out with one of the Linnas’ rods. I would sit on the end of the jetty all morning with only water in front of me. Lakes in England always have people watching them, saying how beautiful they are, catching fish in them or sailing on them. They reflect back all the eyes which have looked at them. Of course people fish and swim and sail here, but there are so many lakes you couldn’t ever use all of them. You can’t even count them. Miles from anywhere – except that after a few days you forget about anywhere. Anywhere is here.

  I stood and thought of the lakes and forests going on all the way to Russia, and then straight on without taking breath, because borders don’t make any difference to the pattern of water and trees. What if Kai didn’t come back? I used to be so afraid of that in England. Now I just wondered how long it would take me to walk the twenty-five miles to the town. I knew I could do it. There must have been neighbours living nearer, in the forest, but I wouldn’t be able to make them understand what had happened. I had money, though. I could speak that language.

  I took money from Kai, the third day we were here. He was drinking a lot already. The first two or three hours each night he slept heavily, before he started his nightmares. While he was sleeping I took Finnish money and English money, and hid it under the sauna inside a plastic bag, the way the Linnas had hidden the keys. He must have known it had gone, but he never said anything. I felt as if he was afraid of me, though I don’t know why. That day Kai went out and I realized how hard it was to be in the same room with him now, or even in the same house. There were too many things we couldn’t talk about. He knew I knew about the business. Often I’d catch him watching me, and his eyes looked small and hurt as if I was in the wrong, not him. I hadn’t trusted him. I didn’t believe him about Vicki. Not that Vicki seemed important any more. I wondered why she’d been so powerful. I couldn’t even be bothered to think about Vicki here.

  He tried to explain about her again, but I stopped him and said I didn’t want to talk about it, it was better to forget the whole thing. I was standing quite near him. He was at the table drinking and doing a crossword, and he reached out and pulled me close to him. He pressed against me, grinding his face into my stomach and we stayed like that for quite a long time, me looking down on the top of his head and him with his arms wrapped round my body. He hadn’t washed his hair for a few days and I could smell that warm dirty smell. There was so much grey in it. I looked over his head and saw the forest through the open door, and wished I was out in it. It was easy not to think about Vicki, but I did think about Paul Parrett. I wanted to see him again. It wasn’t finished.

  I keep dreaming about Enid. I expect it’s being alone so much. They are long dreams, like conversations. I wake up wishing I’d said goodbye to Enid and told her where I was going. She must think that I don’t want to see her because she knows too much about me and Kai, and that I ran away because I didn’t want to cope with all that. Perhaps I did. Once I dreamed of Enid in the bath, feeling around for her soap and not finding it, and calling out for me before she remembered I’d gone. ‘Nad-een! Nad-een!’

  But that’s stupid. After ad, Enid managed for years before I came. And she’s got things I haven’t got: all that past. I only know a bit of it. I keep thinking of the Manchester Ladies. They are like a childhood photograph that I’ve looked at so much that I can’t tell the difference between the memory I’ve built around the image and a real memory. Sometimes it is as real as if it had happened to me, not Enid. I can hear Sukey’s voice. I can smell her hair. Sukey the rescuer; that’s what Enid thinks she was, but I’m not so sure. There’s something frightening about Sukey too. I can hear things about Sukey through the gaps in the story, the things Enid doesn’t say.

  I wrote a long letter to Enid while Kai was out. It was easy to write. I told her about the summer-house, and the lake, and swimming alone in the cold water. I could have made it sound like a wonderful holiday, just the two of us together, in the middle of nowhere, but I told her other things as well, about Kai drinking and us not talking about Vicki or the business, and about the money I’d taken. I couldn’t imagine when I’d be able to post the letter, but it was good to write it. I hadn’t written anything for a long time, because of the way the words fuzzed out of shape, but this was easy. I didn’t need to read it back.

  Kai came back in the late afternoon. It was a shock when I heard the car engine: almost frightening. For a moment I wanted to run off and hide in the trees. He came in smiling and looking much better, and he said he’d got a surprise for me. ‘Come out to the car, Nadine.’ Then he gave me that small furtive look again. I went out to look, though I didn’t really care what he’d brought back. The boot of the Saab was tied down with rope and there was a bike in it. A mountain bike, a really good one. Kai untied the rope and got the bike out. It was brand-new, a beautiful heavy machine with twenty-one gears. Just the kind of thing I’d always wanted. But it was frightening too. Kai stood there beaming like a daddy who’d just bought his little girl her birthday bike. I knew he’d done it because I told him how frustrating it was not to be able to drive, and asked him if he’d teach me. There wasn’t any traffic here and it would be perfectly safe. But I sensed that he didn’t want to teach me, and once I saw the bike I knew.

  ‘You’ll see something of our Finnish countryside now,’ he said. His English was getting more stilted. I hadn’t been sure at first, but it was really noticeable now. I thought it must be deliberate. Kai’d always boasted that he spoke English better than any Finn he’d ever met. If people thought he was anything, they thought he was American, because his teacher had been American. He was peeling it off, all that language, all that knowledge, and I didn’t know why. I thought maybe it was because he felt safe back here in his own country. He wanted to retreat deeper and deeper into silence. Sometimes I wondered where he really wanted to go.

  I looked at the bike and felt quite depressed. You can get out on a bike, but not very far. I wanted to go miles and miles. And in the back of the boot there was a cardboard box full of beer, and three bottles of vodka. Jesus, Kai, I said to myself. I looked at his belly under his t-shirt. He didn’t feel the cold, because he was so much heavier than me. Kai has this thick warm flesh which means he can go out in the frost in a shirt.

  I hooked my feet into the pedal straps and cycled off. The broad tyres felt very safe. It was perfect for riding on tracks and paths in the forest. It felt powerful too, with all the gears and a strong, lightweight aluminium frame. A bike like this would cost five or six hundred pounds in England. Maybe more. I pedalled on, waving a hand to Kai and calling back. ‘I’m just going to try it out.’

  The summer-house is a couple of miles off the road, but the track is quite good because it’s also a forestry vehicle track for the first mile and a half. They’re not logging now. I wish they were; I’d like to hear the whine of a saw and the slow tear of trees coming down. I rode carefully, wobbling a bit, getting the feel of the bike. Soon I was out of sight of the summer-house. When I got to the road I thought I’d turn left, up the road I didn’t know. The road was as quiet as before, with no traffic or sound of traffic. The trees that lined the road weren’t birches. These were commercial evergreens, waiting for harvest, dark and bare-trunked, leaning in slightly. They had a watching look. I couldn’t see too far into the forest. It was so dark, and the trees
were close together. They didn’t look as if they were trying to grow upwards into the light. They looked as if they preferred the changeless, barren dark they’d created. Nothing much grew under them. There was a carpet of needles and a dry sour smell which stuck to the back of my throat.

  I thought if I looked back, I would see the trees move. They would spread out across the road, covering it, barring my way. Anything could happen here, because this wasn’t somewhere, it was anywhere. The trees loomed and shrunk me to nothing. I might have been an insect crawling through the stiff fur of a black bear. The branches round me looked like bristles. I was breathing quite fast and I knew I wasn’t far from panic. I was out in the open, but I was getting the kind of feeling I get in lifts or in the Tube. I did what I’ve learned to do: I shut my mind, blinkered off my senses, breathed deeply, pedalled hard. I was going to ride this bike.

  The trees went on and on, a tunnel there was no getting out of. I’d made my point. I hadn’t gone scurrying back at the first flash of panic. I must have cycled about four miles or so, and I didn’t want to go too far the first time. I didn’t like the idea of having to stop and rest here, listening to the trees whisper.

  Kai was already drinking when I returned. He wouldn’t try out the bike, but he thought I ought to explore the forest on it every day. I wouldn’t have to stick to the roads. This bike was tough enough to handle tracks. He’d bought a helmet too, to protect my head. It would be better exercise for me than swimming in the lake, which was much too cold. Kai would never admit that my swimming in the lake made him uneasy: not so much because it was dangerous, but because I think he couldn’t swim. He didn’t like me going where he couldn’t go. I swam every day, when the sun grew warm.

  ‘Have you eaten?’ I asked. ‘I was going to make something.’

  ‘No, I’m not hungry. But I bought some vegetables for you. They’re in the car.’

  ‘Let’s go out,’ I said suddenly. I couldn’t face another long grey evening with Kai drinking and me flicking the pictures in magazines or listening to endless weather forecasts and tango music on the radio.

  ‘Go out? Why do you want to go out? It’s nice here. Besides’ – he swallowed the rest of his drink – ‘besides, I have taken too much alcohol. You know our laws about driving and alcohol.’ He looked at me smugly.

  ‘All right. Tomorrow. There must be somewhere we could go. What about the bar in the town?’

  ‘There is something,’ he admitted. ‘There’s a dance in the town hall on Friday. But you won’t like it, it’s all the type of music you don’t like.’ A flash of frustration went over me, as powerful as the earlier flash of panic. I couldn’t understand the posters for coming events, even if I’d been able to drive into town. Kai wouldn’t have said anything about the dance if I hadn’t asked. He owned the language now. He was in control, driving the car, telling me what he wanted to tell me.

  ‘Of course I want to go. I’d like to meet some Finnish people. Otherwise I might as well be anywhere.’

  ‘OΚ. We’ll go.’ He poured more vodka, filled a saucer with peanuts and began to crunch them between his front teeth. I went to fetch in the vegetables. He had bought fruit too, those acid Spanish plums you can buy in England nearly all the year round. Bright red, tight-skinned plums, not melting and sweet like Czars or Victorias. Just carrying them set my teeth on edge. When I came back, Kai was singing to himself. I listened. The song gave me exactly the same feeling as I’d had in the forest on my bike. As if something was closing in on me.

  ‘What does it mean?’ I asked.

  ‘You mean, what does it mean in English? Nothing. It only means something here.’

  ‘Tell me the words anyway.’

  Kai hummed, as if to catch the tune again. ‘It says:

  Karelia moon

  daylight is dying

  and you are sleeping

  Karelia moon

  daylight is dying

  tonight you can’t climb

  close to the stars

  tonight you sleep

  sleep in the dark

  close to my heart.’

  The words finished, but Kai kept on humming quietly. Moths were banging around the lamp, hurting their wings. I wanted to get on the bike and ride to the nearest town where there’d be a hamburger bar and order a triple cheeseburger and double fries and a thick shake and relish and bright red tomato sauce and put money in the jukebox until the music drowned everything. Instead I went into the kitchen and began to make a grated carrot salad with French dressing. I’d cook potatoes and sausages with it. Kai needed something to soak up the alcohol. I’d made Jansson’s Temptation yesterday, from one of Marja Linna’s cookery books. Kai had translated the recipe for me, but he hadn’t eaten any of it. There was a cold wodge of it in the fridge. Still, we were going to the dance on Friday.

  The front door of the house opens and Tony drops his overnight bag in the hall. He’s tired and sweaty. The air is greasy and much too warm. It’s going to rain. There’s thunder in the air. His shirt itches, even though it was clean on that morning in London. He’ll take a bath and change. But first, coffee.

  A really good trip. He’d made some new contacts. And he’d telephoned Paul Parrett at ten that morning. Paul Parrett had thanked him for the dinner.

  ‘It’s a pleasure,’ said Tony. ‘A pleasure. I knew you’d like Nadine. She’s a really sweet kid.’

  ‘Yes, we had a good time,’ said Paul Parrett.

  ‘Yeah, Nadine’s got something. Fantastic looks, someone ought to photograph her.’

  ‘I expect someone will.’ There was a short silence.

  ‘Nadine’s got loads of potential,’ went on Tony, gabbling a bit, but then it was always tough talking to Paul Parrett. He left so much silence for you to fill up. ‘She’s a sensible kid too,’ he added, his relief that everything seemed to have gone OK making him feel quite warm, for a moment, towards Nadine. It’d been a gamble doing it on his own, but it’d paid off. Kai’d been ready for something to happen, but he hadn’t been ready to make it happen. He was going to be pleased.

  ‘You don’t get a lot of girls like Nadine,’ he went on. Tony liked this type of chat. Getting the message across, not saying too much.

  ‘Yes,’ said Paul Parrett. ‘It was good to meet her.’

  Another silence, OK, but Tony judged it wasn’t the time to say any more. No need anyway. Kai’d been through the terms with Janice. Tony drew a chain of interlocking daisies on the hotel telephone pad. Then, ‘Well, I got to get on,’ he said. ‘Busy man, eh? Not like you, though, Mr Parrett.’ He paused, letting the idea of public life fill the silence. In his mind he saw the big black car draw up, the security men hold open the door, the car pull away with Paul Parrett in the back, already talking on his car phone. He saw the gates which would open, the saluting policemen, the big desks and carpets which soaked up the noise of footsteps. The Palace of Westminster. Once you’d got all that, you’d do anything to keep it. And there was always someone ready to put a ferret down your trousers.

  ‘I’ll let you have a note,’ said Paul Parrett, ‘about that business we were discussing last night.’

  The daisy grew bigger and tiny sharp teeth appeared on its petals. ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ said Tony. ‘Take the figures we were working with before, and we’ll go from there.’

  ‘That’s fine. And we must fix up another of those dinners.’

  You got to give him credit, thought Tony. Cool as a cucumber. You’d think he was paying his fucking Access bid. Funny how some people got their kicks. Like driving right on the edge of the cliff when there was a fucking great four-lane motorway going your way.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Tony. ‘We’ll be in touch.’ He yawned luxuriously, booted a hotel towel off the foor with his foot and kicked it into the air. A good start. Now to check out and get on that train and tell Kai what was going on. Or maybe leave it a bit. Wait till it was all fixed up.

  The house is quiet. He’s got it to himself, and he’ll c
ook a good meal before going to visit Clara’s nonna in St Thérése’s Hospice. Everything is working out well there. That little misunderstanding with Paolo is all sorted out. There, the rain’s coming, just as he thought. Big separate drops. The summer is breaking up. There’s a grumble of thunder, far off. He picks up his mug of coffee and goes upstairs to the bathroom. He isn’t really looking at anything, and when he first sees Enid it is only as a blotch which shouldn’t be there on the everyday lightness of the stairs.

  Boiling black coffee slops over his hand. He swears, not at the pain, but at the still bundle at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Jesus, Jesus,’ he says aloud. Just when everything is going so well. The old woman. Fuck it to buggery. He puts down the coffee and wipes his hands carefully. The way she’s fallen he can’t see her face, so he kneels by her head. She’s a terrible colour and a black thread of blood has gone solid and stuck under her nose. He checks her ears, but there’s no blood coming out of them. Very lightly, he touches her cheek with the back of his hand. It is cool but not cold. Not dead cold. He reaches out for her left wrist and feels around for the pulse. He’s not quite sure where this ought to be. The angle’s all wrong. The arm is floppy, not stiff. How long’s she been here?

  Kai must’ve gone over to Vick’s for the night. Again Tony fumbles for the pulse, but can’t tell if what he feels is his own blood bumping in his fingers or the old woman’s. Jesus. This is going to mean trouble. He shouldn’t’ve touched her.