The Last Boat Home Read online

  ‘All right,’ she said.

  The ferry’s engine rumbled, dirtying the air with petrol fumes. Else jogged down the Longpier and jumped onto its deck. She slid open the door of the passengers’ cabin, bracing herself for the journey that lay ahead. Inside, Yakov sat beside the strong man. Pastor Seip inspected his nails on the opposite bench. A look of relief smoothed the lines of his forehead when he saw Else hesitating in the entrance.

  ‘Hurry up,’ he said. ‘You’re letting in the cold.’

  Else yanked the door shut and sank onto the bench next to him. The ferry’s motor towed them into reverse.

  ‘I was just on my way to visit your father,’ said Pastor Seip. ‘I trust he has fully recovered now?’

  Else’s stomach turned to vinegar. ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘Good, good,’ he said. ‘I expect we’ll be seeing him at church next Sunday, then. And how is your mother?’

  ‘Well,’ she said.

  ‘Good, good,’ he said.

  The captain guided the boat around and into the current. Across from Else, the strong man’s curls skimmed the ceiling. He grasped the folded lip of a paper bag from the hardware store and blinked through the window at the gentle crests of the waves. Yakov smirked at Else. He crossed and uncrossed his knees and fondled Lars’s cigarette and burped once and scratched his neck. Pastor Seip cleared his throat and scowled at the strong man’s shins. He combed his fingers through his hair before patting it flat over his head.

  The town receded into a dwindling twilight while, on either side of the ferry, the fjord reached for an uninviting coast, where trees sprouted into branches that seemed feeble without the finery of their crowns. Else sat on her hands and suffered Yakov’s attentions. A chill seeped through her coat from the wood panel at her back.

  ‘And how is school?’ asked Pastor Seip.

  ‘Fine,’ said Else.

  ‘You’re managing at the Gymnasium?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘It’s an adjustment for everyone,’ he said.

  When Else next peeked at the minister, his eyes were closed. She buried her chin behind her scarf and tried to think. In all likelihood, her mother would be out. Her father would have spent at least part of the day in the boathouse. Else would have to rouse him, clean him up, get him dressed and presentable before Pastor Seip arrived at the farmhouse. She would cycle ahead. Perhaps today would be different. Her parents would be in the kitchen brewing coffee, already prepared for their visitor.

  Darkness had extinguished the last traces of colour from the sky when the ferry moored at the public dock. Else stood and pulled open the door to the deck.

  ‘I have Father’s bike,’ she said to Pastor Seip over her shoulder.

  The conductor released the chain that secured the ferry’s exit and she bounded ashore to retrieve the bicycle.

  ‘Now, Else,’ said the minister and she rested a foot on one pedal and kicked onto the road and away from him. She swerved to avoid the circus men, who had wandered out of the lamplight that pooled on the pier.

  ‘Careful there, treasure,’ Yakov said. Straightening her legs, Else rose from the saddle. She pumped the pedals and bounced over rocks into the night.

  No lights were on in the farmhouse. The boathouse window shone with a candle’s flame. Else propped the bike against the wall of the milking barn and sprinted over the earth, trampling the vegetable plot in her haste. Her chest was heaving when the soles of her shoes slammed the boathouse stairs.

  ‘Father?’ she said. She struck her fist on the door. It swung open on its hinges, releasing the stink of acid and onions. A dim glow spread from a lantern over the workbench and onto the floor, lifting the outline of the trapdoor out of shadow. Between lobster traps and loops of rope, a puddle of drying liquid glistened on the timber planks next to the mattress, where her father kneaded his thigh through a pair of long johns.

  ‘Father,’ Else said. ‘Pastor Seip is on his way.’ She knelt by his side and shook his shoulder until his eyelids parted. ‘Do you hear me? Pastor Seip is coming. He’ll be here any minute.’

  Her father rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand, smudging a trail of saliva over the bristles that studded his chin. He mumbled and struggled to sit up and Else grabbed his wrists and did her best to help him to his feet. His skin smelled of curdled milk and stale tobacco. She held her breath and wrapped an arm around his waist, not letting go until she had supported him outside, past the fishing wire and Norges jars scattered on the ground.

  Else left him to find his own way across the yard and raced ahead to make the farmhouse ready. After switching on the lights in the hall and dining room, she built a fire in the oven with logs and scraps from the woodbox. Tendrils of smoke floated after her into the kitchen, making her cough as she filled the kettle under the tap. When her father appeared in the doorway, beads of water were snapping on the hob. He considered Else in a squint. His throat was hoarse when he spoke.

  ‘Make some coffee,’ he said and lurched towards the sink. He rolled the tap and grappled with his jumper as a stream poured into the basin.

  ‘You should wash in the bathroom,’ Else said.

  Her father moistened his hands and passed a bar of soap between his palms. He screwed his eyes shut and smeared suds over his face, then lathered his neck and the knots of hair on his chest and under his arms. Else removed herself to the dining room, where she lingered by the window, keeping watch on the hill that led from their property to the road. She saw the outline of Pastor Seip approaching from the milking barn.

  ‘He’s here,’ Else called. ‘Hurry upstairs. Put on something clean.’

  Her father emerged from the kitchen trembling and naked. He hobbled into the corridor, marking the floorboards with watery footprints. Else grabbed his clothes from the kitchen counter and stuffed them into her milking pail in the cupboard before finding a rag with which to soak up his tracks. She was on her hands and knees by the sideboard in the dining room when the minister rapped on the door. She stood and hid her rag in the hallway chest before tugging down the waist of her jumper.

  She smiled when she invited Pastor Seip in. He glanced past her into the hall. ‘There you are,’ he said. ‘You set off in such a hurry, I’ve never seen the like. Isn’t your mother here?’

  ‘She’s at the bedehus,’ Else said. ‘May I take your coat?’

  He stepped inside and took off his coat. Else hung it on a peg nailed into the wall.

  ‘And your father? You must have told him I was on my way.’

  ‘He’s just coming,’ Else said. ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’ She showed him into the Best Room, scolding herself for not thinking to air the space when she had had the chance. The room smelled stuffy in spite of its chill. Its corners gathered dust and cobwebs. Else struck a match to a candle on the bureau, while Pastor Seip settled onto a cushion. She laid the table with onkel Olav’s cups and lifted the coffee pot from its shelf.

  ‘I’ll just check the water,’ she said and slipped into the hall. The minister’s hands were folded in his lap when she returned with a full pot.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She placed the pot on the table.

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Pastor Seip. ‘Where has he got to?’

  ‘The coffee, I mean. I hope chicory will do.’

  Pastor Seip’s tight lips made room for a sigh. His mouth closed at the sound of footsteps on the stairs before Johann’s tread delivered him stooping through the doorway. He lunged forward with an outstretched hand.

  ‘Pastor Seip,’ he said. ‘How good of you to come.’

  The slur in his words sent Else’s heart pitching in her chest. A look of disgust creased the minister’s forehead. He accepted the handshake without getting up and frowned when his host collapsed into a chair. Johann scratched the fur on his cheeks and chin with fingers stained sepia. His eyes seemed to sink behind puffy lids. They hunted the room for Else.

  ‘Pour some coffee, then,’ he said.

 
Else filled the cups with chicory. The candle’s flame chased dribbles of wax onto its pewter candlestick while she waited for someone to speak. Neither man touched his drink.

  ‘Well,’ said Pastor Seip. ‘I can see my visit today was ill-advised.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Johann. ‘Would you like some sugar with your coffee? Else, you forgot the sugar.’

  ‘Perhaps another time would be more convenient.’ Pastor Seip plucked at his jumper as if seeking reassurance that he, at least, was in order. He got to his feet.

  ‘You’re not leaving?’ said Johann.

  ‘Tell Dagny,’ said Pastor Seip. ‘Tell her I’ll see her on Sunday, will you?’

  In the hall, Else helped the minister into his coat and saw him out through the front door. She returned to the Best Room, where her father had stayed seated. He stared at his cup in drowsy contemplation. He lifted it to his lips and took a sip, then spat his mouthful onto the table. Johann leapt from his chair and threw back his arm, drenching the furniture and curtains in chicory. A tendon stiffened in his neck when he flung the cup. It smashed against the wall, showering the floor with black and gold.

  ‘Buy some damn coffee,’ he said and staggered past Else, following the minister into the yard. He vanished under the branches of the morello cherry tree towards the boathouse. Alone in the Best Room, Else picked the gold leaves off the floor, collecting them in her palm. She recovered the rag she had hidden in the hallway chest and mopped up the chicory.

  AT SEVEN O’CLOCK on Friday, Else waited for Lars. There were no coaches due and the forecourt was empty of cars and people. By the locked doors of the bus depot building she watched for him in the dark of a winter deprived of snow, when the cold seems to freeze out the stars.

  A single headlight sparked in the gloom before she heard the buzz of a moped. It drove into the car park and slowed to a stop. Its light blinked out.

  ‘Else?’ said Lars.

  ‘I’m here.’

  Else started towards his voice and their bodies collided. Her laugh was swallowed by a kiss. Lars’s teeth snagged her lip, but his mouth was warm.

  Once he had led her to the moped she clambered on behind him and locked her arms around his waist, resting her cheek against his coat, snuggling into the down which moulded itself around her jaw. He turned his key in the ignition and spun the handle grips and Else held fast as the moped carried her onto the road. Lars took them up the mountain and onto a narrow path. As they powered uphill, the town fell away below them. The harbour glittered like a treasure chest afloat on an inky sea. They sped by a handful of houses fenced off from the rock face with withered lawns and bright windows. The wind slapped Else’s cheeks and mussed up her hair and brought tears to her eyes.

  When they swerved onto a track trimmed with fir trees, Else recognised Haakon Reiersen’s land. At the end of the path, Lars’s home stood in a reservoir of light that spilled from the eaves of the shingled roof. Else had never been here at night. It had been years since she had been here at all, and when Lars cut the engine at the bottom of the drive, she did not move from the bike’s saddle, but peered at the house as if dazzled by its brilliance. Lars disentangled himself from her arms and slid off the moped.

  ‘My parents won’t be able to hear us out here,’ he said, ‘but still. It’s better to be careful.’

  ‘They’re home?’ Else asked.

  ‘Don’t worry. We’re not going in.’

  When she had dismounted from the bike, he wheeled it into the shadows behind the garage. Else crept after him up the drive, her eyes on the house, her nerves raw. Lars fixed the kickstand before examining the garage door. He squatted and twisted its handle. With a tug, the door flipped outwards. It skated back on the ceiling rails as he drew up to his full height, lugging the door with him.

  His father’s Cadillac was parked inside. Its tail bumper glinted under its summer-sky body, so that Else had the sense that it was alive, a noble beast hibernating in an unequal pen. Lars ushered her in before pulling down the door, squeezing the driveway light into a thin line at their heels. There was a jangling, a scrape, then a flame that warmed his smile when he waved it by his chin.

  With the lighter raised ahead of him, Lars grasped Else’s hand and circled to the front of the car. The door clicked when he eased it open. He lowered himself into the driver’s seat and shifted on the leather as he reached down to the floor. He sat up with a lantern hooked on his finger, which he placed on the dashboard before lifting its case. The windshield reflected an orange flush when he held his flame to the candle. Once he had replaced the lantern’s cover, he climbed over the centre seat armrest into the back, where at last he opened the door for Else.

  ‘I’m ready for you now,’ he said. She ducked inside as he inched along the cushion. Lars rummaged in a plastic bag by his shoes and produced a blanket and a bottle of the Wine Monopoly’s six kroner Rødvin.

  ‘Where did you get that?’ Else asked.

  ‘Pappa’s just been in Kristiansand,’ he said. ‘He bought a few bottles. Mamma doesn’t know.’

  ‘Won’t he miss it?’

  Lars shrugged. ‘I promised we’d be warm, so we’re going to need it.’

  He had already uncorked the bottle. Lars spread the blanket over their laps before yanking the stopper out with his teeth. He swigged and passed the wine to Else. Liquid flooded her mouth. It burned all the way down.

  ‘That tastes awful,’ she said.

  ‘You think so?’ he said. ‘You should try Rune’s moonshine. I’m not sure his uncle is doing it right. The circus men won’t know what hit them.’

  Else giggled. Lars drank.

  ‘Are you coming tomorrow?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said.

  ‘You always say that,’ he said, ‘and then you come.’

  Else accepted the cigarette he gave her, breathing deeply when he lit it. She felt she was sinking into the stuffing of her seat. She puffed out the smoke and stretched a hand for the bottle. She gulped down a long swallow. ‘I can’t wait to get out of here,’ she said.

  ‘God,’ said Lars, ‘me too. The sooner the better. As soon as school’s done, I’m moving to Oslo.’

  Else thought of onkel Olav’s merchant ship sailing its timber cargo from Canada to Japan. He had been younger than she was now when he signed up as a deckhand on the America Line’s DS Stavangerfjord. Her grandmother had collected the telegrams he had sent over the years from New York, Melbourne, Trinidad. Else had found them when she was a child, pressed between the pages of an album of family photographs.

  ‘I want to travel,’ she said.

  ‘So do I,’ said Lars.

  ‘I want to go to America.’

  ‘Me too,’ he said. ‘We’ll go together.’

  A tube of ash fell from his cigarette onto the blanket and he brushed it away while Else brought the bottle to her lips. When Lars next kissed her, her head rushed with nicotine and alcohol. She closed her eyes and saw acrobats spinning and flipping in the Big Top’s ring.

  ‘Here,’ Lars said and took her cigarette. ‘I’ll put them out.’

  He opened the Cadillac’s door and melted from sight. When he returned and shut the door behind him, the candle blew out. He stroked Else’s knee beneath the blanket. His hand glided up her leg.

  It was easy in the dark. As Lars rubbed her thigh Else surrendered to the wine, to the plea of his touch. She felt hot and cold, asleep and awake. He kissed her face and neck and was heavy on top of her. He lifted her jumper. The seat’s leather was cool, the blanket rough against her skin. Fingertips skittered over her stomach. She emptied her head. Her senses swam in the garage smells of smoke and petrol.

  Afterwards, Lars drove her to the Longpier on his moped. He dropped her off at the corner of Havneveien and Torggata.

  ‘So are you coming tomorrow?’

  ‘I’ll try,’ she said.

  ‘You should just say yes,’ he said and kissed her goodbye.

  On her journe
y to the public dock, Else stood on the ferry’s deck for as long as she could bear the wind that tore through the layers of her clothing. She thought about what she and Lars had done and her heart tripped in her chest as she sobered up and spread her arms to air herself out. Once ashore, she recovered her father’s bike from behind the oak, but decided not to cycle. She walked it over the frozen mud, her feet uncertain in the dark.

  A light was on in the dining room when she arrived home. Else hurried into the farmhouse, her teeth chattering as she hung her coat in the hall. She paused to listen for hints of her mother: the radio’s murmur; the thrum of the sewing machine. The house was as silent as church.

  In the dining room, her father sat by the oven with his legs stretched towards the fire. A ribbon of smoke wound heavenwards from his cigarette. He picked threads of tobacco from the tip of his tongue.

  ‘You’re late,’ he said.

  Her mother was not in the kitchen. Through the open curtains of the window between the fridge and the stove, the outhouse’s red paint appeared muddy around the heart that had been carved out of its door. Else blinked at the black hole to avoid looking at her father, whose face was tense, his hands restless.

  ‘Where have you been?’ he asked.

  ‘I had to stay after school. For choir practice. For the Christmas concert. Is Mamma at the bedehus?’

  ‘She’s gone to bed,’ her father said.

  ‘But it’s still early.’

  ‘She isn’t well.’

  ‘Perhaps I should go up …’

  ‘She’s damned well asleep,’ her father said.

  Else flinched and he reached for the mug that he had placed on the floor by his chair. He sipped and swallowed and clasped it in his palms. Else’s mouth was sour with Lars’s wine.

  ‘You missed dinner,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ she said, but crossed the room to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of milk. She cut into a loaf of bread and spread the slice with her mother’s strawberry jam, thinking all the while that her father knew. Somehow, he knew: he had sniffed it on her, as if her skin had sponged up Lars’s smell. Else scrubbed her hands under the tap, working the soap between her fingers, scraping traces of him from under her nails. She dried them on a dishtowel and brought her plate into the dining room, where she sat at the table and nibbled her bread. Each swallow stuck in her throat. Now and then, her father’s shoulders quaked with a sticky cough.