This Should Be Written in the Present Tense

25

It rained. The parlour bench disintegrated on the cobbles. Hans-Jakob experimented with baking bread in the afternoons, trying out methods of raising and different kinds of flour. He did a very successful loaf in a pot and served it oozing with butter. Ruth asked to have her mouth taped shut after six slices. Hans-Jakob got the first-aid tin out of the Volvo and snipped off a length of sticking plaster. He ran round the whole downstairs after her, she shrieked and squealed. I’d been at work that day, Ruth had insisted on giving me a lift even though she had no lessons because of exams. On the way, she picked up two hitch-hikers. One of them had dreadlocks. They spoke fractured German and were on their way to Sweden. They sat in the back and kept thanking us, they even gave us a bag of liquorice allsorts and a miniature bottle of cognac. Ruth dropped them off at the ring road and did the shopping while I helped Niller with his homework. After I was finished I waited for her under the roof of the bike sheds. She smiled and waved behind the steamed-up windscreen when she saw me, then leaned across the seat and opened the door.

‘Come in out of the rain. How was it?’

‘It was fine.’

‘It smells like a henhouse in here,’ she said. ‘But they were very sweet.’

‘I think it was really nice of you to give them a lift,’ I said. ‘A lot of people wouldn’t.’

‘They’d be kind in other ways instead. Do you want an allsort?’

‘Yes please.’

‘Is there anything you want while we’re out? Anything you need?’

‘No, not really.’

‘I got you this, by the way,’ she said, reaching for a carrier bag on the back seat. It was a book we’d read about in the paper, short stories about the future written by young people from the Storstrøm region. It had been reviewed under the headline ‘CARDBOARD AND CACK’. We drove a different way home. Ruth had heard about a place that sold honey from a stall in Alsted. We drove round and round but couldn’t find it. When we pulled out onto the main road again she asked if I wanted to stop by my mum and dad’s to say hello, but I didn’t.

‘I’d like to thank them, if I could,’ she said.

‘What for?’

‘What do you think what for?’ she said and smiled at me. I smiled back and offered her an allsort from the bag. She took two or three and drove with one hand on the wheel.

Just as Hans-Jakob caught up with her with his plaster, Ruth managed to open the patio door and ran outside into the rain in her socks. He stopped for a moment and swore, then ran out after her. We watched them from inside the house. They jigged over the cobbles, then he caught her by the barn. She squealed again. At the same moment, Lars came cycling up the drive in his waterproofs. It had been a while since we’d seen him last. He got off and wheeled the bike over and leaned it up against the wall. We could see them laughing together. Then they came back up to the house, Ruth’s hair was a wet curtain now, and their socks left puddles on the floor. Lars took his waterproofs off and dumped them in the utility room. We all stood and chatted for a bit in the kitchen, and then Ruth and Hans-Jakob said they were going to have a bath. They disappeared upstairs, we heard their footsteps above our heads, then a bit later the faint rush of water in the pipes. Per went to get a new LP he’d bought so we could listen to it on the stereo. We watched him from the kitchen window as he crossed over the cobbles in his wellies.

We went into the living room while he was gone. We looked out at the garden and the woods beyond the beech hedge. Their green was so pale it was nearly yellow. He put his hand on my shoulder, I turned towards him and then we kissed. Per came back with his LP. We sat on the sofa and listened to it a couple of times. The fire was burning in the stove. When Per went to the bathroom we kissed again. We had osso bucco for dinner, we laughed and talked and drank red wine, and I didn’t have a decent thought in my head, everything was pulling at me. We sat at the table until way past midnight. Lars stayed over and slept on the sofa, and I lay awake most of the night in the bedsit next to Per. His breath was heavy and warm. Around three I opened the window and heard a nightingale somewhere in the drizzle. It was all too much. I would never be able to share it with anyone, ever. Per stirred and whispered my name. I closed the window quietly and got back into bed.