The Farm (8 page)

You might dismiss this as a trivial muddle. You’d be wrong. It was an act of deliberate sabotage. Am I someone who’d care if I mixed up the times? No, I would’ve apologised and that would’ve been the end of it. There was no mix-up because he only gave me one time. Håkan wanted us to arrive late and feel out of place. He succeeded. For the duration of the party I was on edge. I couldn’t settle into any conversation, and instead of calming down with a drink, alcohol disturbed me further. I kept repeating to people that I was born in Sweden, held a Swedish passport, but I never became anything more than the flustered English woman who’d arrived late carrying a potato salad. Surely you can see the stagecraft in this? Håkan asked me to make the potato salad. At the time I thought nothing of the request. But he couldn’t have asked me to make a less ambitious dish – a dish that no one could compliment without sounding ridiculous. I couldn’t even use homegrown potatoes because our crop wasn’t ready. Håkan’s wife was lavishly praising other people’s food, cuts of salmon, spectacular layered desserts, food that you could be proud of. She said nothing about the potato salad because there was nothing to say. It looked little different from the mass-produced version you can purchase in the supermarkets—

• • •

I
REMARKED:

‘This is the first time you’ve mentioned Håkan’s wife.’

That’s a revealing omission. It wasn’t intentional but it’s appropriate. Why? She’s no more than a moon orbiting her husband. Håkan’s point of view is her point of view. Her importance isn’t how she acted: it’s how she refused to act. She’s a woman who’d scratch out her own eyes rather than open them to the reality that this community was involved in a conspiracy. I encountered her on many occasions. All I can picture is her stoutness – a solid mass, no lightness in her step, no dance, no play, no fun, no mischief. They were rich yet she worked relentlessly. As a result she was physically powerful, as good in the fields as any man. It’s strange for a woman to be so strong and yet so meek, so capable and incapable. Her name was Elise. We weren’t friends: that much you can tell. But it’s hard to feel the sting of her dislike since she hadn’t made the decision. Her opinions were shaped entirely by Håkan. If he’d signalled his approval, the very next day she’d have invited me round for coffee, allowing me entry to her circle of friends. Subsequently if Håkan had signalled his disapproval of me, the invitations would’ve stopped, the circle would’ve closed ranks. Her behaviour was consistent only with her fanatical belief that Håkan was right about everything. When our paths crossed she’d offer bland statements about the crops, or the weather, before departing with some remark about how exceptionally busy she was. She was always busy, never on the veranda with a novel, never swimming in the river. Even her parties were another way of keeping busy. Her conversation was a form of work – scrupulously asking the right questions without any genuine curiosity. She was a woman without pleasure. At times I felt sorry for her. On most occasions I wanted to shake her by the shoulders and shout:

‘Open your fucking eyes!’

• • •

M
Y MUM RARELY SWORE.
If she dropped a plate, or cut herself, she might swear as an exclamation, but never for emphasis. She was proud of her English, largely self-taught, aided by countless novels borrowed from local libraries. In this case, her swearing seemed to capture a burst of anger, a flash of intense emotion breaking through her measured account. Trying to compensate, she hastily retreated into imitation legalistic sentences as if they were trenches dug to protect her against allegations of madness.

I don’t believe, or have evidence, that Elise was directly involved with the crimes that took place. However, it is my contention that she knew. Work was her distraction, keeping her mind and body so busy that she didn’t have the energy to piece the clues together. Imagine an ocean swimmer who doesn’t dare take their eyes off the sunny horizon because beneath them is the deepest darkest abyss, cold currents swirling around their ankles. She chose to live a lie, the choice of wilful blindness. That was not for me. I’ll not end up like her – I’ll make the discoveries she was incapable of.

I hardly spoke to Elise at the party. She’d glance at me from time to time but made no effort to share her friends. As the party was drawing to a close, I had to either accept that my introduction to society had been a failure, or fight back. I chose to fight. My plan was to tell a gripping story. I settled upon the incident with the elk. It struck me as a shrewd choice since the story was local and I’d interpreted the incident as meaning that our time on the farm would be blessed and maybe other people would interpret it similarly. I tested the story on a small group, including the jovial mayor. They said it was remarkable. Pleased with the reception, I pondered which group of people to address next. Before I could decide, Håkan stepped towards me, asking that I repeat the story for everyone to hear. Some spy, probably the two-faced mayor, must have relayed the story’s positive effect on my standing. Håkan gestured for silence, placing me centre stage. I’m not given to public speaking. I’m shy in front of crowds. However, the stakes were high. If I performed well my clumsy entrance would be forgotten. This story had the potential to define me in their eyes. I breathed deeply. I set the scene. Perhaps I became overexcited, there were details I could’ve omitted, such as the fact that I had stripped naked, an image I didn’t need to share with everyone, and the fact that I was sure there was a dangerous voyeur in the trees – which made me seem paranoid. By and large my audience was captivated, no one yawned or checked their phones. At the end of the story, instead of applause, Håkan declared that he’d lived in this area his entire life and he’d never seen an elk in the river. I must have been mistaken. This man had encouraged me to tell the story aloud for the sole purpose of publicly contradicting me. I don’t know how likely it is to see an elk in the river. Maybe it happens only once every ten years, maybe once every hundred years. All I know is this – it happened to me.

As soon as Håkan uttered his statement of disbelief the party sided with him. The mayor who’d only minutes ago told me how remarkable the incident was now confirmed that elks wouldn’t come this far. There were theo ries explaining my mistake, statements about the lack of light, the trickery of shadows, and other implausible notions as to how a woman can imagine a giant elk swimming beside her when, in fact, there’s nothing other than driftwood. Since he was standing on the outer fringes of the party, I wasn’t sure how much Chris understood, because the conversation had been in Swedish. I turned to him for support. Rather than declaring that I wasn’t a liar, he hissed at me:

‘Shut up about that elk!’

The fight went out of me.

Gloating over his victory, Håkan placed a conciliatory arm around my shoulder. He promised to guide me through the forests where we could see an elk for real. I wanted to ask why he was being so horrible. He’d won a petty battle. But he was mistaken if he thought I could be bullied off my land. Sly nastiness would never win him the farm.

I was sad that day, sad that the party hadn’t been a success, sad that I didn’t have a new friend’s phone number to call, sad that I hadn’t received a single invitation to take coffee at another person’s house. I wanted to go home and was about to tell Chris when I saw a young woman approaching the party. She was walking down from Håkan’s farm dressed in casual baggy clothes. Without a doubt she was one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen, on a par with the models who grace glossy magazines, advertising perfume or designer clothes. Seeing her walk towards us, I immediately forgot about Håkan. It occurred to me that I’d been staring at this girl and it would be polite to disguise my interest. When I checked, everyone else was staring too, every man and woman turned towards her as if she were the entertainment for the evening. I became uncomfortable, as though I were participating in something disturbing. No one was behaving improperly, but there were thoughts in that crowd that shouldn’t have been there.

The girl was young, on the cusp of adulthood – sixteen years old, I discovered later. You’re correct if you presumed everyone at that barbecue was white. But this girl was black and I was curious, eager to observe who she was going to speak to, but she passed through the party without saying a word to anyone, not taking anything to eat or drink, continuing to the river. On the wooden pontoon she began to undress, her hooded top unzipped and dropped to the floor, tracksuit bottoms removed, flip-flops kicked off. Underneath those baggy clothes she was wearing no more than a bikini, more suitable for pearl diving than the freezing waters of Elk River. With her back to us she gracefully dived into the river, disappearing under a froth of bubbles. She surfaced a few metres away and began to swim, either indifferent to her audience or acutely aware of it.

Håkan couldn’t conceal his fury. His reaction scared me. His arm was still coiled around my shoulder. His muscles tensed. He removed his arm, since it was giving away his true feelings, sinking his hands into his pockets. I asked after the identity of this young woman and Håkan told me her name was Mia.

‘She’s my daughter.’

Mia was treading water, her fingertips breaking the surface, examining us. Her eyes came to rest directly on Håkan and myself. Under her gaze I felt a desire to call out and explain that I was not with him, I was not his friend. I was on my own – just like her.

On the flight to London it occurred to me that you might decide I nurture a prejudice against adoption. That’s not true. However, Håkan and Mia felt wrong to me. My feelings have nothing to do with race, please believe that. My thoughts could never be so ugly. My heart told me something was wrong. It didn’t feel true that they were father and daughter, that they lived in the same house, ate at the same table, that he comforted her in times of trouble and she sought his words of wisdom. I admit that the revelation forced me to change the way I saw Håkan. I’d pegged him as a primitive xenophobe. I was wrong. Clearly his character was more nuanced. His sense of Swedish identity didn’t depend on simplistic markers such as blonde hair and blue eyes. It depended on patronage. To Håkan, I’d surrendered my nationality by leaving my country and taking up the patronage of an English husband. Mia had been naturalised by Håkan’s selection of her. Ownership is everything to that man. My instinct, even on that first day, was that she was in danger of the most serious kind.

• • •

A
YOUNG WOMAN SWIMMING
in the river on a summer’s day hardly sounded like danger. I ventured:

‘How was the girl in danger?’

This question irritated my mum.

You can’t have been listening properly. I told you that Mia was being regarded with undisguised desire. Perhaps you’ve never appreciated this truth, but it’s dangerous to be desired, to be the thought that distracts a person, the preoccupation that excites them. Nothing is more dangerous. You doubt that fact? Consider how Mia behaved. She climbed out of the river, not making eye contact with anyone at the party even though she was being watched. These are not natural actions. She dressed without drying, damp patches forming all over her clothes, and then walked back through the crowd, head aloft – not touching any of the food or drink, not saying a word, returning to the farmhouse. I refuse to listen to anyone who tells me that it meant nothing. How can I be so sure? I saw her again a week later when I was tending the vegetable garden. I don’t know where Chris was that day. His dedication to the farm came in bursts. Sometimes he’d work from morning to night, at other times he’d disappear for many hours. Anyway, he wasn’t by my side when I heard a commotion, looked up, and saw Mia cycling down the road. Her movements were erratic, almost out of control, pedalling at alarming speed as though she were being chased. As she passed the gate, I caught sight of her face. She’d been crying. I dropped my tools, running to the road, fearing that she was going to crash. Only by the grace of God did she remain on the bicycle, taking a hard left and disappearing from view.

I could hardly continue working as though nothing had happened, so I abandoned the vegetable garden and hurried to the barn, retrieving my bicycle and setting off in pursuit. I guessed that she was heading into town along the secluded cycle path that follows Elk River downstream to Falkenberg. It’s inconvenient that you never visited, because this isn’t the time for a description of Falkenberg, a pretty seaside town, when the real issue is Mia’s state of mind and I’m trying to establish the presence of danger rather than describe quaint wooden houses painted pale yellow and old stone bridges. Suffice to say, before the river empties into the sea, the water widens, and on its banks are the town’s most prestigious hotels, restaurants and shops. That’s where Mia dismounted her bicycle, walking through the immaculate public gardens, deep in thought. I followed her onto the main shopping promenade, where I staged an accidental meeting. The combined effect of my sudden arrival with my dirty clothes, muddied from the vegetable garden, can’t have been impressive. I didn’t believe Mia would offer me more than a polite hello. So be it: I’d check that she was okay and then return home. I remember she was wearing bright pink flip-flops. She looked so fun and beautiful it was hard to believe that she’d been in tears. She didn’t brush past me. She knew my name and knew I was from London. Håkan must have spoken about me. Some children will always take their parents’ point of view. But not Mia, there was no hostility from her. Feeling encouraged, I invited her for coffee at the Ritz café located on the promenade. Despite the name, it was reasonably priced and there was a quiet back room where we could talk. To my surprise she agreed.