This Should Be Written in the Present Tense

7

From Per Finland’s waterbed you could see the road weave between fields and farms and tatty cottages. Thin coils of smoke rose up from all the houses. When we opened the window we could smell the birch wood from the chimney. Per laughed and ran a rough finger down my back. His voice was rough too, he kept clearing his throat. We had electric panel heaters at ours, we were waiting for central heating. But after she moved from Slaglille, Dorte got a wood-burning stove, she used milk cartons packed tight with newspaper. I put our own cartons aside for her. We couldn’t give her that many, but she had an arrangement with a canteen and another for old news papers. In Per’s house they kept Politiken and a sports weekly. It was Per’s job to check the letter box in the driveway. He wrapped his long arms around me in bed one Saturday afternoon. I’d been up early and had gone for a walk. We bumped into each other at the T-junction after the pond, he was out walking too. The lanes were covered in mud from the fields.

‘Let’s go home and take our clothes off,’ he said and put his hand in mine. We traipsed along the verge side by side in our wellies.

From the window all the fields were brown and black, the woods had lost the last of their colour too. Some crows took off one after another as a minibus came down from the main road. His body was warm to snuggle up to, he had good circulation. I liked the way his eyebrows tensed when he was enjoying it most, his face collapsed above me. Then the crows landed one by one. After a bit they were all together on the road again, striding about and pecking.

‘Are your mum and dad in?’ I asked.

‘No, they’re at a do.’

‘At this time of day?’

‘A lunch.’

‘Oh, right.’

‘They won’t be back for hours.’

‘Do they teach at the same school?’

‘No, they didn’t want to. It’d be asking for trouble.’

‘Yeah, I suppose it would.’

‘But that’s not where the lunch is.’

‘Where?’

‘At one of the schools.’

‘Oh, right.’

‘It’s at the beekeepers’ association.’

‘I didn’t know you had bees.’

‘We don’t. Only the ones that happen by. It’s years since we had bees, they’re too much work.’

‘Oh, I see.’

He took a very long shower. I lay listening to him as the water rushed in the pipes. Every now and then he groaned with satisfaction. I wondered if he would have done the same if I hadn’t been there. I got out of bed and put my trousers and top on, steam billowed from the bathroom. He stood with his eyes closed under the shower. I sat on the narrow windowsill and leaned my head against the pane. They still had last year’s Christmas tree on the patio, it didn’t have a needle left. It looked like it had been a Norway spruce. Eventually, the water stopped. He turned to get his towel and smiled at me across the room in surprise.

‘Are you up and dressed?’

‘It was only for a minute,’ I said.

As we lay in bed again a bit later, the Volvo rumbled across the cobbles in the yard. Per’s parents came tramping cheerfully into the house, and after a bit the smell of coffee rose up through the floorboards. We went down and joined them. Much, much later that same evening we had lamb shank in the kitchen, all four of us. I’d had lamb once before at Dorte’s, a funeral lamb instead of Halkidiki. She’d just ditched her removal man, they were supposed to have gone there together. In the end it was only the two of us. There was a side salad of cucumber and feta. We sat for a long time just looking at it all.

‘What appetites we’ve not got!’ she said and lit a cigarette. She’d been on the sunbeds for a fortnight at Health & Beauty just to be ready. Her voice and colour were from different worlds.