The Crow Girl (11 page)

When Martin’s dad touches her she flinches instinctively. They’re standing on the gravel outside Aunt Elsa’s house and he’s just got off his bicycle.

‘Martin’s been asking for you. I think he misses having someone to play with.’

He reaches out a hand and strokes her cheek. ‘I’d like it if you came down to swim with us one day.’

Victoria looks away. She’s used to being touched, and knows exactly what it leads to.

She sees it in his eyes as he nods, says goodbye and continues down towards the road. Just as she suspected, he stops the bike and turns back.

‘By the way, you haven’t got a lawnmower I could borrow, have you?’

He’s just like the others, she thinks.

‘It’s by the outhouse,’ she says, and waves goodbye.

She wonders when he’s going to come and get it.

Her chest feels tight as she thinks about it, because she knows that’s when he’s going to touch her again.

She knows it, but she still can’t stay away from the beach.

In a way she doesn’t quite understand, she finds herself enjoying spending time with the family, and with Martin in particular.

His language is undeveloped, but his terse and occasionally hard to understand declarations of love are among the nicest things anyone has ever said to her. His eyes shine every time he sees her again, and he runs towards her and hugs her tight.

They play and swim and go for walks through the forest together. Martin stumbles uncertainly over the uneven ground, pointing at things, and Victoria patiently explains what they are.

‘Mushroom,’ she says, and ‘pine tree’, and ‘woodlouse’, and Martin tries to imitate the sounds.

She teaches him the forest.

First she takes off her shoes, and feels the sand creep between her toes, trying to tickle her. She takes off her top and feels the sun warm her skin. The waves lap coolly against her legs before she jumps in.

She stays in the water so long her skin goes wrinkly, and she wishes it could split or fall off so she could get new skin, untouched.

She hears the family approaching along the path. Martin lets out a squeal of delight when he sees her. He runs towards the water and she hurries to meet him so he doesn’t continue into the water and get his clothes wet.

‘My Pippi,’ he says, hugging her.

‘Martin, you know we’ve decided to stay until the start of the autumn term,’ his dad says, looking at Victoria. ‘So you don’t have to squeeze her to bits today.’

Victoria returns Martin’s hug and suddenly feels the insight strike her.

So little time.

‘If only it was just you and me,’ she whispers in Martin’s ear.

‘You and me,’ he repeats.

He needs her, and she needs him more and more. She promises herself to nag Dad as hard as she can to let her stay up here as much as possible.

Victoria pulls her top on over her wet swimming costume, and slips her sandals on. She takes Martin by the hand and leads him along the shore. Under the mirror-like surface she sees a crayfish crawling along the bottom.

‘Do you remember what that plant is called?’ she asks, to get Martin to look at a fern while she reaches for the crayfish. She grips it and hides it behind her back.

‘Firm?’ Martin says, giving her a questioning look.

She bursts out laughing, and Martin joins in. ‘Firm,’ he repeats.

While he’s still laughing she pulls out the crayfish and holds it up in front of his face. She sees it contort with horror and he bursts into hysterical crying. As if in apology she throws the crayfish on the ground and stomps on it hard until the claws stop moving. She puts her arms around him, but his sobbing is inconsolable.

She feels she’s lost control of him, it’s no longer enough just to be herself for him.

Losing control of him is like losing control of herself.

It’s the first time his faith in her has been shaken. He thought she wanted to hurt him, that she was one of the others, the ones who want to hurt you.

She doesn’t want her time with Martin to end, but she knows Dad’s coming to get her on Sunday.

She wants to stay in the cottage forever.

She wants to be with Martin.

Always.

He absorbs her totally. She can sit and watch him sleeping, see how his eyes play under his closed eyelids, listen to the little whimpering sounds he makes. Calm sleep. He has shown her what it looks like, shown her that it exists.

But Saturday comes, relentlessly.

As usual, they are down on the beach. Martin is sitting on the edge of the blanket at his dozing parents’ feet, playing idly with the two Dala horses they bought in a shop in Gagnef.

The sky has been clouding over gradually, and the afternoon sun is only intermittently visible.

‘Well, it’s probably time to head for home now,’ Martin’s mother says.

His father shakes the blanket and folds it up. In the grass the faint shadow of bent blades of grass indicates where their bodies had lain. Soon the grass would reach up towards the sky, and the next time she saw the place it would be as if the family had never existed.

‘Victoria, perhaps you’d like to come and eat with us this evening?’ the mum says. ‘We can try that new croquet game as well. You and Martin could make up one team.’

She starts. More time, she thinks. I can have more time.

She thinks that Aunt Elsa will be sad if she doesn’t spend her last evening with her, but in spite of that she can’t bring herself to say no. It’s impossible.

When the family heads off along the path she is filled with a calm sense of anticipation.

She carefully packs her beach bag, but doesn’t go straight home. Instead, she stays close to the timber shacks by the lake, enjoying the calm and solitude.

She rubs her hands over the smooth wood and thinks about all the ages the timbers have seen, all the hands that have touched them, polishing them smooth, removing any resistance. It’s as if nothing can affect them any more.

She wants to become like them, just as untouchable.

She spends several hours wandering around in the forest, observing how the trunks have curved so their leaves can reach the sun, or how they have been bent by the wind, how they have been attacked by moss or parasites. But deep inside each trunk is a perfect piece of timber. You just have to know how to find it, she thinks.

Then she steps out from the forest and into a clearing.

In the midst of the forest’s dense growth is a place where the light filters through the treetops and shines down on the slender pines and soft moss.

It’s like a dream.

Later she would spend several days trying to find that glade again, but no matter how she searched, she would never find her way back and, as time passed, she would begin to question whether it had ever existed.

But now she is there, and the place is just as tangible as she is.

When Victoria reaches the steps to Aunt Elsa’s porch she is struck with anxiety again. Disappointed people can hurt you, even though they don’t really mean to. That’s one of the things she has learned.

She opens the door and hears the shuffling sound of Aunt Elsa’s slippers approaching. When the figure appears in the hall, Victoria can see that Elsa’s back is a little more bent and her face a little paler than usual.

‘Hello, my dear,’ Elsa says, but Victoria says nothing.

‘Come in, and we’ll go and sit down and have a talk,’ Elsa goes on, heading into the kitchen.

Victoria can see the tiredness in Elsa’s eyes, her jaw is set, and the corners of her mouth are turned down.

‘My little Victoria,’ she begins, and tries to smile.

Victoria sees that her eyes are shiny, as if she’s been crying.

‘I know this is your last evening,’ she continues, ‘and I’d like to have made you a really nice meal and spend the evening playing cards … but I’m not feeling terribly well, you see.’

Victoria breathes a sigh of relief before seeing the guilt in Elsa’s eyes. She recognises it, as if it were her own. As if Elsa too had the same fear of having cold milk poured over her head, of being forced to eat lentils until she throws up, of not getting birthday presents because she’s spoken out of turn, of being punished every time she does anything wrong.

In Aunt Elsa’s eyes Victoria imagines she can see that she too has learned that it’s never enough to do your best.

‘I can make tea,’ Victoria says cheerily. ‘And tuck you in and maybe read something to you until you fall asleep.’

Elsa’s face softens, her mouth curls up into a smile, and she lets out a laugh.

‘You’re a sweet child,’ she says, stroking Victoria’s cheek. ‘But there won’t be a nice meal to send you off, and what will you do once I’ve fallen asleep? It won’t be much fun for you, sitting here all alone in the dark.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Victoria says. ‘Martin’s parents said I could help put him to bed, and that I could have some food there. So first I can put you to bed, then Martin, and I’ll end up with a full tummy as well.’

Elsa laughs and nods.

‘We’ll make a salad for you to take.’

They sit down by the kitchen worktop together and chop vegetables.

Every time Victoria gets too close to Elsa she detects an acrid smell of urine. It makes her think of Dad.

Hard Dad.

The smell makes her feel nauseous. She knows all too well what it tastes like.

Aunt Elsa has a tin of orange sweets on the kitchen table. Victoria opens the tin whenever she wants to fend off thoughts of him. She never knows in advance when the memory of him is going to creep up on her, so she never chews the sweets, not even when there’s only a sharp little sliver left.

She sucks the sweet as she slices the cucumber into good-sized pieces. Even though Elsa has rinsed them carefully there’s a little soil left on the lettuce leaves, but Victoria doesn’t say anything because she realises that Elsa’s eyes are too old to see such small details.

She tucks Elsa in, as she promised, but she’s thinking of Martin.

‘You’re a very sweet girl. Never forget that,’ Elsa says before Victoria shuts the door. She gets the salad and sets off with a feeling of tense anticipation towards Martin’s cottage with the bowl in her hands.

She thinks about how nice it would be if she could persuade Dad to let her stay another week. It would be good for everyone. And she’s got so many exciting things left to show Martin.

The only thing that spoils the fairy tale in her thoughts is Martin’s dad. She thinks the way he looks at her has become more intense, his laugh louder, and that his hands stay on her shoulders a little longer. But she’s prepared to accept that in order to escape her own father for another week. It isn’t usually so bad the first few times, she thinks. It’s only when they start taking her for granted that they dare to be less careful.

As she goes up the drive towards the cottage she can hear someone shouting inside. It sounds like Martin’s dad, and she slows down. The door is half open and she can hear splashing from inside the house.

She goes up to the door, opens it wide, and happens to hit the old doorbell that’s hanging there. It lets out a few muffled rings.

‘Is that you, Pippi?’ the father calls from the kitchen. ‘Come right on in.’

There’s a nice smell in the hall.

Victoria steps into the kitchen. Martin is in a bathtub on the floor. His mum’s sitting in a rocking chair over by the window, and is busy knitting. She’s facing away from the others, but turns her head to greet Victoria. Martin’s dad is sitting with his top off in just a pair of shorts beside the bathtub.

Victoria goes completely cold when she sees what he’s doing.

Martin is covered in soap, and his dad gives her a broad smile. He’s got one arm wrapped around Martin’s bottom, and is washing him with the other.

Victoria just stares.

‘We had a bit of an accident,’ Martin’s father says. ‘Martin messed his trousers while we were playing up in the forest.’

He gently rubs the boy’s genitals. ‘We need to get you properly clean, don’t we?’ he says.

Victoria watches as the man takes hold of the little penis with his thumb and forefinger. With his other hand he carefully rubs the pink bit at the end.

She recognises the scene. The dad with the child, the mum in the same room but looking the other way.

Suddenly the bowl feels so heavy that it slips from her hands. There’s an explosion of tomatoes, cucumber, onion and lettuce all over the floor. Martin starts crying. His mum puts her knitting down and gets up from the rocking chair.

Victoria backs away towards the door.

She starts running as soon as she’s in the hall.

She runs down the steps, stumbles and falls head first onto the gravel but gets up at once and continues running. She heads down the drive, out through the gate, along the road and home. In tears she shoves the door of the cottage open and throws herself down on her bed.

She’s in complete torment. She realises that Martin will be ruined, he’ll get big, he’ll become a man, he’ll be like all the others. She had hoped to protect him from that, give herself to save him. But she was too late.

Everything nice was gone, and it was her fault.

There’s a gentle knock on the door. She hears Martin’s dad’s voice outside. She crawls over to the door and locks it.

‘Is something wrong, Victoria? Why did you get so upset?’

She realises she can’t open the door now. It would be far too embarrassing.

Instead she creeps into the bedroom, opens the window at the back and climbs out. She walks in a wide curve around the outhouse and out to the road. When they hear her coming they turn round and walk towards her.

‘Ah, there you are, we thought you were inside. Where did you take off to?’

She feels she’s on the verge of laughter.

Mum, Dad, with the child in their arms, wrapped in a blanket.

They look so ridiculous. So scared.

‘I needed the toilet,’ she lies, not knowing where the words came from, but they sound good.

The mum carries her back to their cottage, and there’s nothing odd at all.

Her arms are safe, like arms usually are when everything’s OK again.