The Last Boat Home (7 page)

The boy returned, yanking a sheep by its collar. Its bleated complaint sent a ripple of laughter through the crowd. The man shook his fist at his accomplice and grabbed him instead of the sheep, using him as a dumb-bell before setting him free.

From the wings of the manège a honking horn announced the ringmaster, who appeared behind the wheel of a Volkswagen. The band pounded its drums as Valentin Popov knelt by the car’s bumper and, with a groan, hoisted its two front wheels off the floor. He held his load for some seconds before letting it fall. His chest heaved in the spotlight. His forehead gleamed with sweat.

Behind him, a rider guided a horse into the ring. She whispered into its ear and backed away. Valentin Popov’s gaze swept the crowd and a rising chant from the stalls brought a smile to his lips.

He turned to the animal. Laying his palms on its underbelly, he jacked his thighs. A cry tore from his throat. He closed his eyes and a vein snaked down his forehead. As he lifted the horse towards the ceiling of the Big Top, a network of blood vessels sprang to the surface of his skin.

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Lars under his breath. The strong man’s arms were swollen with mottled lumps of muscles when he opened his eyes and beamed at his supporters. They howled and clapped and stamped their feet while, above him, the horse tossed its mane in the air.

Now

Summer, 2009

ELSE HAS COME
as far as the town hall when she spots Marianne and Liv in front of the boathouses. She hides behind the crowd that separates them, feeling foolish but unable to help herself. In the gaps between the couples holding hands and the children white-tongued with licked ice cream, she watches Liv hop into the speedboat. Her granddaughter grins at Andreas and his sister. Lars clutches Marianne’s elbow and she climbs aboard to where Victoria smiles in welcome.

Else takes a deep breath, swallowing the smells of frying waffle batter and hotdogs sweating in the sun. She presses through the throng towards her family, nodding her greetings at familiar faces as she walks by. Lars sees her first.

‘There you are!’ he calls. ‘I was afraid we’d have to leave without you.’

‘Mormor, have you seen this boat?’ Liv throws herself onto the sunbed next to Andreas. ‘Isn’t it amazing?’

‘I brought a box of white,’ Else says and passes her Wine Monopoly bag to Lars, who places it in the shade. She ignores the
hand that he extends, a puerile snub which he does not appear to notice as she steps onto the gunwale, testing her weight on the fibreglass before lowering herself into the boat. Once on deck, she finds a seat between Victoria and Marianne.

‘How are you, Else?’ Victoria asks. ‘Oh, Thea, no. Not the steering wheel, darling. I said no, Thea. Come over here.’

Andreas’s sister slides from the captain’s perch and slots herself between her mother’s knees. She sucks the whistle knotted to the collar of her life vest and gawks at Else, who pretends not to notice. Some hundred metres from the dock, a flotilla of boats waits for the signal to begin. Their flags beat in the breeze, flaunting their colours in a billowing stream across the sky.

Lars fits a key into the ignition and the speedboat’s motor whirs. ‘Andreas!’ he calls. ‘Get the ropes!’

His son scrabbles ashore to unpick the moorings and lobs them into the hull. When Andreas has reclaimed his spot next to Liv, Lars pushes off from the pier. They glide into the fjord and merge with the summer solstice parade.

It starts with a gunshot. A wooden
sjekte
garlanded with flowers noses out in front, slow-powering parallel to the dock while the rest of the vessels float after it in untidy rows. Trond Rastad shouts from the neighbouring boat.

‘Haven’t we been lucky with the day?’ He beams when Lars agrees and tips a brown beer bottle at him. ‘Welcome home!’ he calls.

The boats putter on, following the line of the harbour. Victoria stands and, squatting by the door to the cabin, gathers up a column of plastic cups from the floor. She serves the first round of drinks: Coke for the kids, white wine for the adults. Else sips and narrows her eyes against the sun. In spite of her mood and the present company, her body responds to the nudge of the water. The motor’s
buzz tickles the soles of her feet. Her back teeth hum when she bites them together.

She takes another gulp of wine and tries to remember when she was last on a boat. It must have been before Tenvik sold his farm. While Liv and Andreas wave at the spectators on land and Victoria raves about her new kitchen, Else distracts herself with thoughts of their summer outings into the skerry when Marianne was a child. She recalls her daughter’s excitement as she chattered in the bow seat, her chest puffed in an orange life preserver while Tenvik piloted his skiff and Else unwound her mackerel line into the deep, taking care not to snag her fingers on its hooks.

When the flotilla reaches the Longpier, it breaks apart. Lars spins the steering wheel to aim the speedboat at the islands that fend off the Skagerrak. At the limit of the no wake zone, he jams down the throttle and the prow cants into the air.

‘Lars!’ shrieks Victoria. ‘Slow down!’

The speedboat races towards the sea, careening through a flock of seagulls that bobs on the water, launching them into the sky. The wind scrapes Else’s hair off her forehead and she clutches her handbag close, not even letting go to wipe her leaking eyes. She is too old for this kind of ride. The children scream, thrilled when they slam into the first wave. Spray rains over the deck. Else wants to grab Marianne’s arm, but makes do with gripping her handbag tighter.

She relaxes her hold when Lars turns into the calmer currents of a fjord and zips past the slower boat traffic to cut a path inland. Here, along the coast, summerhouses with mowed lawns and tended flowerbeds vie for space on the waterfront. Else marvels at the number of new properties, at the giant windows carved into their walls and the monstrous boats docked at their piers. In preparation for the evening’s bonfires, piles of wood have been stacked on outcrops of rock. Already the odd blaze shines in the distance.

Lars eases back the throttle when the speedboat arrives in the skerry. The search begins for somewhere to drop anchor. Other boats have claimed the spots that are most sheltered from the wind and now their captains hurl ropes to fix their prows before leaping to land. On the islands, their families lay out picnics. Children scamper between the trees and inspect crab corpses dashed by seagulls on the rocks.

‘That looks like it’s going to be a good one,’ says Liv, pointing to a tower of driftwood that has yet to be set alight.

Andreas calls over his shoulder. ‘Pappa! That looks like a good one!’

‘I see it,’ says Lars. He guides the speedboat to the island and scouts its perimeter for a vacant space. On his second sweep, he settles on a slice of water between a sailing boat and a Winrace.

‘There isn’t room for you there,’ says Else.

‘Andreas,’ says Lars, ‘take the rope at the prow.’

Andreas crawls to the speedboat’s prow and crouches with a rope in hand, preparing to jump while Lars manoeuvres them into the slot. He brings the boat in too quickly, then yanks the throttle into reverse and whirls the steering wheel. The seething of the engine attracts an audience on land.

‘You’re doing it wrong!’ says Thea.

‘There isn’t room for you there,’ says a man on the sailing boat. Petter Skoland is sitting alone in the cockpit, his eyes fixed on the speedboat that is threatening to ram him.

‘Petter?’ calls Lars. ‘Is it you? How about a little help?’

Still watching the prow where Andreas clings to his rope, Petter gets to his feet and dips his upper body under the sailing boat’s guardrail. He reaches out his bare arms and his palms connect with the fibreglass in time to save his hull. His biceps tighten as he leans his weight against the oncoming vessel’s nose and Lars pushes a button on the pilot panel, releasing the anchor with a rumble from the speedboat’s belly.

‘You should have dropped the anchor earlier,’ Petter says. ‘Right her up. Right her up, I said!’

Petter heaves and Andreas throws himself onto land. The onlookers shake their heads and turn away as the speedboat wedges into place.

Lars directs his son in making the boat fast. When they have knotted the fenders and lifted their provisions ashore, he meets Petter on firm ground.

‘It’s been a while,’ he says.

‘Are you down for the summer?’ asks Petter.

‘We’ve moved here. We’ve taken over my parents’ old house.’

‘I hadn’t heard,’ Petter says. He nods at Else, then at Marianne. ‘Enjoy yourselves.’

He climbs back onto his sailing boat and Lars leads the way to the centre of the island. With bags in hand, he navigates rock pools and fissures spattered with seagull droppings. Liv, Andreas and Thea wander off from the adults to a group of children in the shallows between this island and the next. A handful wade naked in the water, while others dangle crushed mussels and snail shells at the crabs. Liv peers into a bucket and beckons to Andreas, who stops at her side and peeks over the bucket’s rim.

Close to the foot of the bonfire pile, Victoria finds an unclaimed patch of rock on which to set out the Tupperware containers that she pulls from an insulated bag. Marianne plucks the lids off smoked salmon, cured meats, scrambled eggs. Lars sees to the drinks, readying the nozzle of Else’s wine box while she passes around cushions from an open rucksack. She hands out paper plates and arranges herself on a boulder slightly apart from the rest of her party.

Marianne digs into the scrambled egg with a plastic fork.

‘Where’s your boyfriend tonight, then?’ asks Lars. ‘I thought you’d be bringing him along.’

‘He has a show,’ Marianne says. ‘He’s in Grimstad tonight. He’ll be in Kristiansand this weekend.’

‘Does he usually travel so much?’ asks Lars.

‘He’s a dancer,’ she says.

‘Ah. That explains it, I suppose.’

The boulder’s stone is cold through Else’s cushion. She fidgets with a tissue in her pocket, tearing it to pieces while her daughter answers Lars’s questions about Mads. She has no appetite. She watches Lars rip the cover from a disposable barbecue and take a lighter from his pocket.

‘So is he any good?’ he asks.

‘At dancing?’ says Marianne. ‘Mads is great at everything he does.’ She bats lashes as thick as beetles’ legs with mascara. Else rolls her eyes. She prods a slice of ham with her fork.

‘Mamma doesn’t like him,’ says Marianne. ‘She hasn’t even met him.’

‘Shouldn’t you meet him first?’ asks Lars.

‘They’ve just met each other,’ Else says.

‘Well,’ he says, ‘then there’s still hope for the boys of this town.’ He winks at Marianne. ‘
Skål
,’ he says. She lifts her glass and they drink. Marianne smiles.

The food is almost gone when the bonfire is lit. After the first burst of incidental flame a slow heat builds at its core, burning blue in places and shrivelling the kindling to ash. The children return from their play, the cuffs of their trousers damp. Else greets Liv with a towel and a lukewarm hotdog.

‘Did you catch any crabs?’ she asks.

‘Andreas threw them back when we were done,’ says Liv, a proud grin spreading over her cheeks. Else folds an arm around her granddaughter, rubbing at the chill that she guesses must have set under her skin, while Liv sniffs between mouthfuls. Behind them, the fire cracks and snaps and rises. Lars kneels and leans over the remains of the picnic, his finger cocked above the wine box’s spout.

‘No, thank you,’ Else says.

‘You’ll have some, won’t you?’ He refills Marianne’s cup. ‘
Skål
.’

‘Maybe you’ve had enough,’ says Victoria in a whisper. Then, to the group, ‘Who was that man we met on the sailing boat?’

‘Another friend from school,’ says Lars. ‘I heard that Petter got divorced.’

‘That’s right,’ Else says.

‘And his wife is remarried.’

‘She is,’ she says.

Lars pries the cap off a beer. He helps himself to another once he has passed the wine box around again. The families with younger children begin to pack up their picnics and he unzips the cool bag for another bottle. He staggers to his feet when Victoria announces it is time to go, stretches and stumbles away to find somewhere to piss. By now Liv is sitting with Marianne, who whispers into her ear while Else looks on, her heart filling up. Her girls pick shapes from out of the flames and huddle close and she feels an urgency to join them, to plant herself between them and those who would intrude. Instead she replaces the tops on the Tupperware and packs the containers into plastic bags. Her arms are weighed down when she moves off, leaving Victoria to gather their rubbish.

The night cools as Else retreats from the bonfire. She waits by the speedboat for the others to catch her up, glad to have some moments to collect her thoughts, to admire the evening without being disturbed. She thinks of her mother then, of how, on this day every year, while she was still able to, she would build a bonfire on the rocks by the pier of the old farmhouse, keeping it burning until long after dark. Beyond the ring of boats that are docked at this island, bonfires fleck the sky up and down the skerry, their reflections streaking the water like setting suns. Else hears a rustle of material from the sailing boat and peers over the guardrail at Petter in the cockpit. He is buttoning his boat jacket. He glances up and blinks at her through his glasses.

‘Sorry,’ she says.

‘What for?’ he says.

Else balls a piece of torn tissue paper in her pocket.

‘How was the bonfire?’ asks Petter.

‘You can see it for yourself.’

‘The picnic, then,’ he says.

Else shrugs. Petter smiles and she peeks over her shoulder, fearing she has given too much away. Marianne and Liv arrive with Victoria, Andreas and Thea. The children search for shells to toss while the adults load the boat. When Lars reappears, he fishes the key from his pocket.

‘You’d better give it to me,’ Victoria says.

‘Don’t be silly.’

‘The police are bound to be doing spot checks.’