A Summer of Drowning Page 8

  It was a soft, sweet day, with a light breeze off Malangen blowing in over the land. I crossed the meadow directly below the house, but I took the meagre trail that led off to the west of Kyrre’s hytte and down, along the bank of a narrow stream, to the beach. It was one of my favourite places, this stretch of sand and drifted stone, a place where I went whenever I was bored or unhappy, or when I needed to think. I liked this place more than anything, maybe because I felt most alone there, as far from the world of school and town and other people with concerns and problems like mine as it was possible to be. Because I didn’t like being with other people, especially people my own age. I didn’t want to be reminded of the mundane things that mattered to them. I didn’t have friends over, like normal girls my age, because I didn’t have friends, and I didn’t go shopping for clothes and make-up in Tromsø because those things didn’t interest me. Occasionally, I would drift down to Kyrre Opdahl’s house and sit with him while he worked on a clock or some piece of machinery, and he would talk about the old days, or tell histories from a time before either of us was born, traditional stories of trolls and wights and water spirits, along with the gossip and hearsay that he had picked up during a lifetime of watching and listening – wisps and snatches of unreliable history from the whaling days on Andøya, memories of the Nazi occupation, supposedly true accounts of children born with fish scales, or cloven feet. I’d heard much of it before, of course, but I never tired of those stories – and they were always different, always subject to change. Most people thought of them as entertainment, they didn’t take them seriously, but Kyrre did – and I suppose Ryvold did too, in his own way. The only difference was, Ryvold thought they were keys to some hidden meaning. The old stories are real, he’d say, but they’re not factual. It was philosophical, for him. Theoretical. Kyrre was more of a fundamentalist. In his stories, the devils were just as factual as everything else; in his stories, something hideous or startling was always present, concealed behind the facade people created and running through the customs and prayers that made mortal men comfortable, and I always enjoyed the moment when they came to the surface, and nobody knew how to continue with the illusion of order.

  That would have been what I liked about the huldra story, at least to begin with. I don’t know when Kyrre first told it to me, but I do know that it was long before that summer, before the boys drowned and he became obsessed with Maia. He’d told it for years by then, coming back to it from time to time, as he did with all his stories, and varying it a little with each telling, adding new details here, shifting the emphasis there, but the basic plot was always the same: a young man goes out walking in the forest, or along the seashore, and there he meets an unbearably beautiful girl and falls in love with her – or maybe he just desires her, and tells himself that this is love. He is so smitten that he will follow her anywhere, he is completely at her command and, at first, he is happy, because he thinks she loves him too. She smiles, she beckons to him, she leads him away through the trees or along the beach – and all the time, if he would only look, he would see that she is an illusion, that there is no substance to her. Seen from the front, she is perfectly beautiful, perfectly desirable, but if he could only look past this beautiful mask, he would see that, at her back, there is a startling vacancy, a tiny rip in the fabric of the world where everything falls away into emptiness. But he doesn’t see – just as he doesn’t see, until it is too late, that this girl, this lover, is actually a hideous troll, with a hideously ugly face and the tail of a cow under her bright red dress. He doesn’t see this, of course, until she has drawn him out to some far, lonely place where chaos lurks: dark rocks, wild beasts, a cold, quick undertow.

  It’s a perfect story, even if it is a cliché and, because it has chaos at its heart, it was always Kyrre’s favourite, the darkest and the best, the one he told most often and with the greatest relish. It was also the most typical. For if Kyrre’s stories had one thing in common, it was this: no matter what form we give it, or how elaborately it is contrived, order is an illusion and, eventually, something will emerge from the background noise and the shadows and upset everything we are so determined to believe in. Or that’s how it is in stories – in real life, that something is always there, hidden in plain view, waiting to flower. A turn of phrase, a blemish, an unspoken wish – it doesn’t take much to open the floodgates and let the chaos in. That wasn’t my philosophy then – it was Kyrre Opdahl’s – but it is now. I don’t know if the huldra is real, but I know that she exists and, sooner or later, she comes stepping out into the light of day and takes possession of whoever it is she has come for.

  I was only away from the house for a couple of hours, but in that time, something had happened. I could hear Mother and the journalist the moment I came in and, to begin with, I assumed Angelika Rossdal was going through the usual interview routine, the one where she talked about Sohlberg and quoted Diderot on Chardin, first in French – I’d heard her say it so often, I could quote it myself from memory – and then in Norwegian, or English, or whatever language was being spoken. Ne recherche pas la virtuosité de trompe-l’oeil, mais rend perceptible la vie silencieuse des objets – that was it. She would explain why it was important to her that Chardin refused to settle for mere virtuosity, but pushed himself to find that silent life of things, that painter’s revelation of the essential. She really had no idea how to go about giving an interview, and she revelled in the fact – and the feature writer or critic opposite her would sit listening politely for as long as it took, then go back to the office and write the story about the beautiful, other-worldly recluse from the frozen north that they had been planning to write all along. That day, it seemed, she was doing the same routine, sitting at the dining-room table over tea and cakes, talking to keep the questions at bay – and since I always found that entertaining, I stopped for a moment in the hallway to listen.

  ‘I came here for the light,’ Mother was saying. ‘No other reason. I wanted to work in this light, that was all.’

  ‘Really? That was your only reason?’ The man’s voice was lighter and, I suppose, more youthful than I had expected and I pictured someone slight and boyish, with fair hair that was just a little too long and a beard or heavy black glasses to make him look older. What caught my attention, though – what troubled me – was the tone. There was an intimacy to it, a warmth that I had never heard before. He sounded like a man who was talking to someone he liked, a friend, maybe even a lover. He didn’t sound like a journalist. There was a moment’s silence, and I could feel them looking at each other, smiling perhaps, like two people who have decided to share a joke.

  ‘That’s it,’ Mother said. ‘It was the light that brought me here, the light, and the colour.’ That silence again, then she continued, in all seriousness. ‘There are nuances of colour we only see for sure in the north. Cherry red, leaf green, ash blue – they’re all different here. In the summertime, the light at midnight, or in the early morning, reveals depths that you never see in the south. I didn’t fully appreciate Sohlberg till I came north. I always liked him, but I also thought he was exaggerating a little. I thought he was being deliberately fanciful.’ She laughed. ‘Of course, he is, in a way,’ she said – and, in that moment, the thought passed through my mind that she was flirting. She never spoke to the suitors like this. Not even to Ryvold. Especially not to Ryvold. She was flirting – they both were – and though I couldn’t see his face, I knew that the man was smiling. She liked him, and he liked her too and, after just a couple of hours, the interview that had brought them together here was still an interview, but it was also a game they were playing, a game whose consequences they had no wish to consider. ‘Perhaps all genius is fanciful –’

  ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘That Sohlberg is a genius?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Well, he has his moments. But really –’

  Mother was loving this. It was all a game, even this fairly orthodo
x scepticism – Sohlberg was interesting, yes, perhaps even significant, but he could hardly be called a genius – and she was enjoying herself in a way that she hadn’t done in years. Not for as long as I’d known her, in fact. ‘He’s not consistent,’ Mother said. ‘Only the mediocre are consistent. But look at the Vinteraften of 1909. Look at Fra Sagene. You remember? That blue-grey house in the snow?’

  ‘Yes. It’s exactly the same colour as this house –’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So that’s why you came here?’ He was playing, but it also felt like a discovery he was making.

  Mother laughed. ‘Exactly,’ she said.

  ‘So you didn’t come here to be alone?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Mother said. ‘It’s quieter here, I’ll give you that. And I work better when it’s quiet, but that’s not so surprising, is it?’ She paused for a moment and I could feel her listening. I had been standing quite still, barely breathing, but I felt sure it was me she was listening to. Or if not to, then for. She listened for a few seconds, confirmed something to her own satisfaction, then spoke again. When she did her voice was different. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I’m not alone. My daughter is right here. Aren’t you, Liv?’

  I walked through to the dining room. They were at the table, but the usual paraphernalia was missing. The teapot, the cakes, the Danish biscuits set out neatly on our finest china, the bowl of sugar cubes – all of that had been cleared away and now, to my surprise, they were drinking wine. I looked at Mother; her eyes were bright and she looked more relaxed than I had seen her in weeks, but I knew she wasn’t drunk. Mother rarely drank, though she would bring out a bottle of wine for Christmas lunch and set it in the middle of the table, more for effect than anything else. We’d have a glass each, then leave the rest and Mother would use it the next day for cooking. ‘Is it a special occasion?’ I said.

  Mother laughed. ‘Have some wine,’ she said. ‘Mr Verne brought it –’

  The American journalist stood up. He was very tall, with short, prematurely grey hair and a long, thin face that belied the youthfulness of his voice. ‘Call me Frank,’ he said, offering me his hand. He smiled. ‘You must be Liv.’ I shook hands, and he sat down. ‘Your mother has told me so much about you.’

  It was a white lie, of course, and I had no idea why he felt the need to tell it. ‘I doubt that,’ I said.

  Mother laughed. ‘I’m afraid Liv knows me better than that,’ she said. ‘All I ever talk about is my work. Isn’t it, Liv?’

  I fetched a glass from the cupboard and poured myself some wine, but I didn’t sit down. ‘Pretty much,’ I said. I turned to Frank Verne. He wasn’t a handsome man, but he was attractive for reasons that I couldn’t quite fathom. It had something to do with his eyes; there was a quiet, trusting quality to them that wasn’t in any way soft or naive. He trusted others because he trusted himself. The underlying expression in his face, behind all the smiles and polite interest, was that of a man who hadn’t come up against anything that he couldn’t deal with. ‘But then,’ I said, ‘that’s what you’re here to talk about, isn’t it, Mr Verne?’

  ‘Pretty much,’ he echoed back – and though he was smiling, I could see that he was studying me, trying to work out what I was hiding. Because I was hiding something. I had to be. Everybody had something they kept hidden and the only difference between one person and another was how long it took to figure them out. That was what he was thinking. I could see that he was sure of this simple fact and the thought passed through my mind that I would either puzzle or disappoint him, because I wasn’t hiding anything at all. Or nothing that mattered to me, at least. ‘Though I aim to get to know my subject, too.’ He glanced at Mother. ‘As a person, not just for what they do.’

  Mother smiled. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t bother about that,’ she said. ‘Work is pretty well what I am about.’

  Frank Verne nodded. ‘We’ll see,’ he said.

  Frank Verne stayed until late that evening. He and Mother sat in the dining room, talking and drinking wine, long after I excused myself and went upstairs. There was no reason to go; if anything, they seemed happy to have me around, listening to their exchanges and occasionally joining in, but I didn’t feel happy staying. They were too close, too suddenly familiar, and I felt awkward with that, but I felt even more awkward, knowing that the pleasure they took in being together seemed, if not to require, then at least to enjoy, a witness. They were two people who hadn’t been happy in the usual, slightly foolish way for the longest time and, now that they were, they wanted to draw the whole world in. Only, as far as the whole world went, I was all they had. They drank more wine, then Mother made coffee and put out some more cake, but I didn’t stay for that. I didn’t enjoy standing proxy for the whole world, so I fetched a pile of books from the shelves on the landing and locked myself away in my room. I could still hear them down below, talking and laughing, and I have to admit that I liked the sound of Frank Verne’s voice – from a distance. I didn’t want to be close to it, though. I didn’t want to see him when he laughed, or watch his hands move when he explained something and, finally, when Mother saw him to the door, I was glad of his going away. I wasn’t so glad, though, when I heard him accept Mother’s invitation to dinner the following night, because I knew I would have to be there, all evening, while they talked about art, and books, all the while pretending that they weren’t flirting, or whatever it was they were doing – which meant, of course, that I would have to pretend, all evening, that this was nothing out of the ordinary. Only it was. Something was happening and, even if I didn’t know what it was, it occurred to me that life might not continue forever as it had done. Frank Verne, Kate Thompson’s letter, the end of school – anything at all, no matter how insignificant in my eyes, might set a whole train of events in motion, and everything could change. Only I didn’t want things to change. I wanted everything to stay the same. No letters, no journalists, no drowned boys, no future. No future, only the present and whatever past I chose to remember. Because remembering is a choice, if it’s done well, and nobody can make you remember what you choose to put out of your mind.

  Kyrre Opdahl turned up at noon the next day with his bag of tools. He came to the back door and called out, as he always did before he crossed the threshold. ‘Here is the repair man,’ he said. ‘Come at last.’

  I’d been on my way through to the kitchen and I hurried to meet him in the hallway and let him know that Mother was busy in the studio. I didn’t mention that Frank Verne was there too, much less that he would be staying for dinner, but Kyrre said that it was all right, he didn’t need to see her. He’d only come to fix the dryer. He had taken me by surprise, though, because I hadn’t been expecting him. Mother hadn’t told me that anything was broken, and I didn’t know how to handle things. When I was little, he would come to the house all the time, just dropping in for a coffee, or to bring by a bowl of berries or gulls’ eggs – but then something happened between him and Mother and he stopped visiting so often. I didn’t know what had passed between them – it hadn’t been an argument, or any unpleasantness – but they seemed to come to a perfectly amicable, yet oddly formal agreement when I was around twelve or thirteen that defined, under terms of engagement known only to themselves, a new and far less casual regime. It had bothered me a little, when he stopped dropping by, but I soon adjusted, and I was perfectly free to go to his house whenever I felt like a chat or a coffee. Nevertheless, a certain awkwardness remained, and I was always afraid that, somehow, and quite unintentionally, Kyrre was being slighted. ‘I’m making coffee,’ I said. ‘Would you like some?’

  ‘Don’t go to any trouble,’ he said.

  ‘I was just about to put the kettle on.’ I felt awkward, all of a sudden. Frank Verne was upstairs, in Mother’s inner sanctum, and though he’d only come to continue the interview, it was a breach of the usual etiquette, an etiquette that applied to everyone who came to the house – an unspoken rule that visitors were not permitted upstairs. Once or twice,
Harstad had needed to wash his hands after helping Mother out in the garden, and it would have been easier for him to use the bathroom upstairs, or the kitchen sink, but he’d taken it upon himself to use the tiny sink in the downstairs toilet, next to the little storeroom out back where Mother kept her rakes and plant pots. In all the years we had lived in that house, the only exception to this rule that I could recall was the removal man from Fløgstad’s, who came once a year at most, and worked like a determined, muscular ghost, never accepting coffee or lunch, never engaging in anything that could be called conversation, just walking slowly and steadily back and forth all day between his van and the studio, carrying the wrapped paintings down one by one and expertly stacking them away in the back of his specially fitted van, where they would not be damaged on the long drive south.