The Last Boat Home Read online

  Else counted the days until the Gymnasium would reopen. She almost looked forward to Pastor Seip’s Christmas service as a chance to glimpse Lars during the two weeks without school. While the other children in the gallery ate cake and peered down on the adults milling under the handicrafts, Else daydreamed about stealing through the churchyard to the Second World War graves, where Lars would be waiting for her. She knew it could not happen, even as she imagined the scene. Her family did not stay after worship these days. Once her father had queued to shake the minister’s hand, his bad temper shooed them away like seagulls to the sea.

  Snow fell in soft lumps that melted into the waves when Else caught the ferry to town alone on the first Saturday of the new year. The boat cut through the fjord to the Longpier, where she lifted her sledge ashore. She lugged it up the harbour and past the shops on Elvebakken, whose doors were shut and whose windows were dark. There were no cars on the road. Their absence reminded her of last year’s petrol rationing, when fears of Arab oil sanctions had prompted the King onto public transport.

  In their place, cross-country skiers hurtled downhill from the Gymnasium, where a crowd had gathered at the gate. Else looked for Lars among the knot of her classmates who were fixing boots to ski bindings or readying their sledges. Gro Berge told her he had disappeared with Rune and Petter to smoke cigarettes in the school grounds. Their coats glittered with snow when they returned. Lars folded an arm around Else’s shoulders.

  ‘There you are,’ he said.

  Through the afternoon, the boys discussed the various gifts they had received for Christmas. Lars enthused about Roger Moore in The Man With the Golden Gun. They laughed about Arne Kvinge, whose snores during Pastor Seip’s Christmas sermon had had the minister spitting at the pulpit. Petter showed Else the Zippo lighter that had been a present from his brother with strict instructions not to let their mother know. Else’s ears rang with cold when she put a hand on Lars’s chest.

  ‘Ready for a race?’ she asked.

  ‘Only if you’re ready to lose.’

  They lined up in the middle of the road, Else between Petter and Rune, all three holding steady for Lars’s command.

  ‘Klar. Ferdig. Gå!’

  Else kicked down the hillside, her feet slamming the ground before she hopped onto the runners. Her sledge plummeted towards the fjord, faster and faster, snow falling away beneath her as flakes flew at her eyes. Petter and Rune lagged behind and she threw her weight forward, swerving to avoid a girl who shouted as she sped by. The wind-whiz hushed as the hill flattened out. Her sledge slowed and stopped and she wiped tears from her cheeks. Up ahead, a tern wheeled in circles over the ice that crusted the shallows.

  Lars grinned from the foot of the pier and clapped his hands. ‘Second place,’ he said. ‘Not bad.’

  He pulled his sledge to Else’s side and kissed her cheek. His nose felt like an icicle against her skin. He led the way to the Gymnasium, past Rune and Petter, who bickered and tagged along behind them. Else’s fingers were numb. They throbbed when Lars squeezed them through her gloves. She relished the ache. The day was theirs and the old year was over.

  A FRESH SNOWFALL spilled into the barn when Else opened its door, dusting the ground with a shimmering layer that faded to translucence and promptly vanished. The cow was snug in her stall. Else stroked her neck before shovelling the night’s dung into the dung pit and spreading new straw and replenishing her supply of hay.

  Once seated on the stool, she clasped the cow’s udders in her fingers. She had started to milk in a slow, even tempo when a drop of water splashed her head and slid to her right temple. Above her, the ceiling beams sagged under an accretion of snow. As she considered the roof, a new drop landed between her eyes, quickening to a dribble which she blotted with her sleeve.

  In the yard, the farmhouse glowed red against the overreaching white that wiped out the vegetable plot and weighed down the branches of the berry bushes. Else carried the pail to the back door and hung her coat in the hallway. A hot breath from the dining room oven’s fire scalded her chill-bitten cheeks. Sitting with his elbows on the table, her father sponged up the egg yolk on his plate with a hunk of old bread.

  ‘The barn roof is leaking,’ Else said.

  Her mother looked up from the sink as she set her bucket on the kitchen counter. Dagny dried her hands on her apron.

  ‘Did you hear that, Johann? The barn roof is leaking.’

  ‘I heard it,’ he said.

  ‘You might clear the snow,’ she said, ‘before it does real damage.’

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll have a look when I get home from work.’

  But later that afternoon when he arrived home, Johann made no mention of the barn. He took off his coat and the shipyard smells of metal and sweat unpicked themselves from his jumper. He rubbed at the crusts in the corners of his eyes before bunching his trouser legs to his knees and crouching on the second step to unlace his boots. He kneaded the arch of one foot, then the other.

  Dagny served the stew she had made of yesterday’s leftover meat and potatoes. The family ate and afterwards, while Else washed the dishes, her mother pulled a chair to the oven and chose a blouse from her sewing pile. She arranged it on her lap so its arms hugged her shins and squinted at the thread she was aiming through the eye of her needle.

  ‘Johann,’ she said, ‘you won’t forget the barn.’

  Johann seemed focused on packing tobacco into a rolling paper. He licked its edge and smoothed it down. When the cigarette was lit, he locked the smoke in his lungs.

  ‘I stopped in earlier,’ Dagny said. ‘The snow is awfully heavy.’

  ‘I’ve had a hell of a day,’ Johann said.

  ‘Maybe you would have a look.’

  ‘It will keep until morning,’ he said. ‘I’ll have a look then.’

  The next day, Else woke to the sound of a hammer tapping. It took an act of will to abandon her sheets. Her bare toes curled on the floorboards of the corridor and in the bathroom, where she washed her face with icy water. Her reflection was as pale as the half-moon outside. She combed her hair and doubted she would ever be warm again.

  She dressed and crept downstairs. The hammer had been silent for several minutes, but its blows repeated in her head when she greeted her mother in the dining room. Dagny had spread a bundle of bed sheets on the table to protect the wood from being scorched by her iron. She was wearing the nylon housecoat that was spotted with polish stains.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said.

  Again, the hammer banged.

  ‘Is that Father?’ Else asked.

  Her mother nodded. She drew a wrist across her forehead, unsticking the wisps of hair that the iron’s steam had glued to her skin. Instead of starting directly for the barn, Else decided that, today, she would eat breakfast first. She poured a cup of chicory and topped two slices of bread with Ninni Tenvik’s pickled herring. She hoisted herself onto the kitchen counter, where she crossed her ankles and rested the dish on top of them. Through the window, the outhouse appeared to be sinking in snow.

  Else prepared to jump down when her father broke from his labour. Her breakfast resumed when the hammering did. She cut a third slice of bread.

  ‘Don’t you see what the time is?’ called her mother from the dining room.

  ‘I’m going,’ Else said.

  ‘See that you do. I don’t have time to milk the cow myself.’

  Else found a pail in the cupboard and, in the hall, zipped on her winter coat and stepped into her boots. She braced herself for the bitterness of the yard, where the darkness was thinning to a watery light that trickled into her father’s tracks. When she pushed into the barn, he glared at her from the top of a ladder.

  ‘It’s about time,’ he said. ‘I wondered if you’d be getting up at all.’

  He had raised the ladder in the cow’s pen. With his knees braced against a high rung, he stretched towards the wooden planks that he had already nailed into the ceiling. Else studied
the beams that still bulged and dripped water onto the sawdust. She turned her attention to the cow pawing the floor in a stall that had stood empty since the horse had gone lame two years before. Her hooves were skittish in the unfamiliar space. Her eyes rolled with the thudding of the hammer. She skipped sideways when Else held out her hand. ‘Come now,’ she said. ‘Come now, good girl.’

  Else lifted the stool from its crook and planted it in the sawdust next to the animal. With her back to her father, she settled down to her task. The beat of the hammer muted the gush of milk. It scattered her thoughts, restoring her to herself with every strike. Both she and her father worked to their own rhythm. Neither spoke. She had almost finished when he climbed down the ladder.

  ‘That should do it,’ he said. ‘Move the cow back when you’re done.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you clear the snow from the roof?’

  ‘There’s the shovel,’ he said. ‘You’re welcome to it.’

  Johann replaced the hammer in his toolbox and snapped its lid shut. He collapsed the ladder and leaned its length against the wall, then buttoned his coat and grasped the toolbox’s handle. Snow eddied through the door in a rush of wind when he stooped out of the barn.

  The roof caved in before the end of the week. Else trudged through the door into a space washed white. Snow had tumbled through a hole in the barn’s ceiling and collected on the ground in heaps barbed with splinters and rubble. The stockade that fenced in the cow had been crushed under falling timber and now she grazed across the room, pausing between mouthfuls ripped from a hay bale to nuzzle the prongs of a pitchfork. Mist wafted from her nostrils towards the torn planks that framed a charcoal sky. Else dropped her bucket and ran to the farmhouse to fetch her mother.

  That day, she stayed home from school. While her parents took stock of the damage, she tidied the kitchen and bided her time until her father left for the shipyard. She joined her mother in the barn and together they cleared the debris, shovelling snow and clots of sawdust into the garden. Once they had spread straw over the muddy floor of the horse stall, Else opened its gate to the cow.

  ‘We can’t keep her here,’ her mother said. ‘We’ll have to take her to Tenvik. Don’t be long with the milking.’

  When Else’s pail was full, she and her mother readied themselves for the walk to Tenvik’s farm. They led the cow outside, where she lowed as her hooves sank into snow. She voided the dung from her bowels and Dagny waved a switch over her haunches. The cow kicked out and lumbered up the hill and down the road slicked with black ice.

  When they arrived at Tenvik’s farm, snowflakes clotted the air. The roofs of his barns and henhouse pricked a swirling sky, each building rising higher for its white peak. As Else hurried behind her mother and the cow onto the yard, she recalled the stamp and whir of the Big Top band which, a few months ago, had led her down the winding track to the paddock. Remembering the thrill of the circus made the day seem darker, the worry about the barn roof harder to bear. Her gaze fell on the farmhouse leaking wicks of ice from its gutters and she wondered whether she had dreamt the whole thing.

  Her mother removed a mitten before knocking on the front door. After some minutes, she began to circle the farmhouse. ‘Hallo?’ she called with every few steps. ‘Ninni? Knut? Is anyone there?’

  Else saw the barn door open before her mother did. With one hand, Knut Tenvik clutched the flaps of his coat.

  ‘Good heavens,’ he said, ‘you haven’t brought the cow?’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ Dagny said. ‘The barn roof’s fallen in.’

  ‘Come up, come up.’ Tenvik threw the door wide and waved them up the ramp. ‘Hurry up with you, before the poor beast drops dead in my yard.’

  He released the latch of the twin door and the cow trotted inside. Else jogged after her mother into the musky smell. The space was divided into two columns of pens which ran down the length of the room to the far wall, where bags of feed were arranged on the floor beside stacked hay bales. A dozen cows or more swished their tails and chewed their breakfasts and grunted and lowed in a drowsy chorus. Else hesitated when she noticed the strong man in a distant stall. He had been hunched between two cows, but now stood at his full height.

  ‘Oh,’ her mother said. ‘I … You have company.’

  ‘Now what’s this about the roof?’ asked Tenvik. ‘Can’t it be fixed?’

  ‘I hope it can,’ Dagny said. ‘I’m sorry for the bother. Else will come every morning to milk and feed the cow.’

  ‘There’s a space free at the end,’ Tenvik said. ‘Else, bring her along down there, would you? But what about this roof? Will Johann manage himself?’

  ‘Yes,’ Dagny said. ‘Johann will manage it.’

  Else did as Tenvik had asked and steered the cow down the middle aisle to the end of the room. Her eyes widened in alarm when the strong man stepped forward to meet her, placing a palm on the white smudge that marked the cow’s muzzle. With his other arm, he gestured at the empty pen. It was the closest that Else had been to him. She could hear the slow draw of breath in his nose. She stood for a moment and watched the gentle manipulations of his hands as he coaxed the cow into the stall. Then, with a start, she hurried back to her mother, who looked on with a pained expression on her face. Else realised that the strong man must recognise her. She thought of her visit to Tenvik’s paddock, when she and Lars had discovered the two stranded trailers. She felt caught out. She wanted to leave.

  ‘Be careful he does a proper job of it,’ Tenvik said, ‘or it’ll just go again. You can bet on more snow. You’re sure he wouldn’t like help? These boys would charge a fair price.’

  ‘Quite sure,’ Dagny said.

  Without another glance in the strong man’s direction, she moved away down the ramp. Else followed after Tenvik, who escorted them as far as the road.

  ‘Don’t worry about the cow,’ he said. ‘Now, Dagny, you’ll let me know if you change your mind.’

  ‘I will,’ she said.

  ‘Else,’ he said, ‘we’ll see you tomorrow.’

  Dagny and Johann argued about the roof late into the night. From her bed, Else listened for the smack of a hand against bone. Instead the quarrel ended with the back door slamming, but the relief she felt was fragile. Her father went on to spend the night in the boathouse – his first since starting the new job at the shipyard.

  When she arrived at Tenvik’s farm, not even the chill of an early morning walk had dispelled the groggy feeling that came from lack of sleep. With dulled senses, Else closed the gate behind her and peered at the barn where the cow had passed the night. She half expected the strong man and his companions to come charging down its ramp into the yard. Its doors were shut. She crossed to the farmhouse, her boots snapping the crust that packed in the snow.

  Ninni Tenvik answered the door to her knock. She smiled and ushered Else inside. ‘Knut told me about the barn,’ she said. ‘How is your mother? Never mind about your boots, it’s washing day.’

  Ninni directed her down a corridor whose pine walls showed the grain of the wood and into the dining room, where she pulled a chair out from under the table. ‘Have you eaten breakfast?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Else said.

  ‘Wait here, then, while I fetch Knut.’

  She left the room and Else sat on the chair and folded her hands in her lap. Her eyes wandered from the curtains that were like veils on the windows to the rickety cabinet without doors, whose shelves displayed plates painted with sailing boats. Dried roses were piled on its top ledge, giving off a whiff of summer’s decay which Else caught when she turned to study the photographs. On the sideboard, two black-and-white babies were captured in silver frames. She remembered the short graves side by side in the cemetery and looked away.

  She jumped up when Tenvik came through the door.

  ‘Else,’ he said, ‘don’t you know where the cow is? You’ve brought a pail? No need to be so polite tomorrow, just help yourself. The doors aren’t locked.’

  Tenvik
saw her into the yard and she waded through the snow to the barn, her cheeks blooming in the cold after the minutes inside. She climbed the ramp and fiddled with the door’s clasp before pushing into the comforting lull of the stables. Apart from the cows, Else was glad to find that the barn was empty. She trod down the aisle to the furthest stall, flanked by Tenvik’s cattle with their plump bellies. The Dybdahl cow was feeble by comparison. Her ribs poked through her hide. Her joints bulged like nodes on a sapling’s bough.

  Else stroked her neck, running her palm over cords of muscle. Someone had left a stool for her in the aisle. She set it on the ground next to the cow and began to milk with her eyes closed, losing herself to the inner workings of the animal’s body. Gases fizzed. Juices gurgled. An image of her father crystallised in her mind. She saw the hollows under his cheekbones. His angles had sharpened through the winter as if the cold were shrinking his skin, pinching it tight over his skull. Her mother had pleaded with him the night before. If he did not mend the roof, the barn would crumble. Then what would they do?

  ‘Let it crumble,’ he had said.

  When she was done Else carried her pail outside, where a miserly light hinted at dawn. Yakov Bezrukov was clearing a path from the farmhouse to the barn. He was some distance from the ramp but, on seeing Else, he let the blade of his shovel rest in the snow. He supported his weight on its handle as his eyes took her in.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said.

  Else scurried down the ramp. She started for the gate, moving faster as he advanced.

  ‘Wait a minute now, I’m not going to bite you.’

  She looked for Tenvik in the mute landscape, but she was alone with the circus man. Her heartbeat muffled the crunch of her feet. Yakov grabbed her arm to cut her off. A splash of milk slopped over the rim of her bucket.