This Should Be Written in the Present Tense

14

Per set the alarm every night, and every morning we overslept. It was broad daylight by the time we woke up entwined. I extricated myself and got out of bed. His parents had long since gone to work. A pheasant strutted about in the yard, it flapped its wings and flew up onto the bird table with a loud squawk. Some sparrows sat like little inflated puffballs in the bushes. I told Per:

‘Come and look at the sparrows. They’re all inflated.’

‘So am I after last night,’ he said and came up behind me. He put his arms around my waist and I leaned my head back against his shoulder.

‘The prawn nibbles were nice,’ I said.

I’d started wearing woolly socks, Ruth had given me a pair from Abracadabra. She’d bought us a hammock as well, it hung from the beams in the bedsit and was full of our dirty washing. Per rummaged around in it looking for a T-shirt. He’d have a ponytail soon.

‘Do you fancy going to the sports hall today?’ he said.

‘And do what?’

‘Play badminton. There’s always a court free on Mondays.’

‘You don’t want to play against me.’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘I can’t, anyway. I’ve got to go to work.’

‘Oh, yeah, I forgot. I’ll go with you then.’

‘You don’t have to.’

‘I can sit and wait for you outside.’

‘It’s much too cold today.’

‘I’ll take a ball with me. Or I can go in and play with one of the kids.’

‘You’re not allowed.’

‘Yes, I am.’

Ruth had got me a job twice a week at the recreation club at her school. I helped a little boy called Niller with his homework. I saw him on Mondays and Wednesdays at two o’clock, just as the other kids and the staff sat down to their fruit and biscuits. Niller flew into a temper every time, he’d get up from the table with his fists clenched and his little shoulders trembling. It wasn’t the best start for homework, but the job was from two until three and that was that. We sat in a little room among cushions and board games, with his books in front of us. There was a musty smell of unwashed hair, packed lunches and dried-up mud. I got decent money for it. I told Ruth I’d pay for my keep, but all she did was roll her eyes. The job had been Per’s for a week and a half before I started, but he couldn’t teach when it came to maths, he had to open the little window in the cushion room and swear under his breath while Niller sat stiff as a board behind him with his maths book. As soon as my first wages came in I went to the flower shop near the school and bought Ruth a big cactus. She was pleased and put it on the floor next to the spinning wheel.

Per went with me to work and back again, he tickled me on the waterbed until I nearly fainted, he took his clothes off and put them back on again several times a day, went with me to the doctor’s when I got pregnant and on the bus to the hospital seven long days later, and on the way back that same afternoon he’d got me a present, a hair slide from a silversmith, made out of a spoon with a proper hallmark. I was so relieved and felt so much better despite the anaesthetic, we couldn’t stop laughing until the driver told us to be quiet. But then in the evening I had to go and lie down before dinner. Per told his parents I was feeling a bit off colour. He came over with some smørrebrød a bit later, meticulously trimmed with cress and jellied stock, he’d made such an effort. He ran his hand up and down my back, and put a glass of milk on my bedside table.

One day we went for a long walk. We went through the woods and round the other side by the stream and further on along the winding road. It had been sunny all week, but the nights were still cold. The fields were white. We held hands, except for when a car came, then we’d step onto the verge, where the snow was hard on top and could carry our weight. We stood kissing as two cars drove by, the second one slowed down and pulled in a bit further on. It was my mum and dad. They got out and we walked towards each other. It was the third time they met Per. They shook his hand. He smiled the whole time, his long fringe kept falling down in front of his eyes. He took off a glove and tucked his hair behind his ears, it would have looked better if he’d left it alone. My dad gave me a hug, and my mum stood right up close to me. My dad asked Per if we were keeping warm under the covers. Per kept smiling and messing with his hair. A car went by going too fast, we all had to stand aside in the snow for a minute.

After they’d gone, we walked a good way without speaking, then turned back when we got to the boggy bit.

‘Haven’t you got a tissue so you can blow your nose?’ I said.

‘No, I haven’t.’

‘Can’t you use a leaf, then? You keep sniffing all the time.’

‘Does it bother you?’

‘I wouldn’t mention it if it didn’t,’ I said and could hardly recognise my own voice, I felt like throwing myself flat in a snow drift. Any other time I would have done, and Per would have followed suit within a second. But I kept on at a brisk pace, slightly ahead of him the whole time. At the edge of the woods a buzzard took off from a fence-post right in front of us. We almost felt it in the air, it gave us a fright. That helped, and we began to laugh. A bit later Per took his hand away and left me walking along holding an empty glove. He got me every time, I never learned.

When we got home we made raspberry slices. While we waited for the pastry to chill I did the washing-up from the day before and wiped all the cupboards down with a cloth. They were yellow and blue, Per had painted them himself a few years before. He’d been allowed to choose the colours on his own and after he finished he painted a huge flower on the end wall of the stable. The flower had become a local landmark, you could see it all the way from Aversi.

We ate three slices each, the rest we put on a plate for Ruth and Hans-Jakob. Then we went for a lie-down. We didn’t wake up until late evening and couldn’t sleep again for hours.