The Tenderness of Wolves (23 page)

I am giving thanks, in my own way.

Espen has decided that his wife, Merete, suspects something. He suggests they stop meeting for a while, until things are calmer. Furious, Line carries out her chores, kicking the chickens when they get under her feet, stabbing her needle into the quilts, pulling the thread too tight and rucking the seams. The only thing she enjoys is attending to the boy. Of course everyone knows that he is under arrest for a terrible crime. Today he looks pale and listless as she changes the sheets on his bed.

‘Aren’t you afraid of me now?’

Line is looking out of the window. He’s aware that she’s loitering. She smiles.

‘No, of course not. I don’t believe it for a moment. In fact, I think they are all fools.’

She says it with such vehemence that he looks shocked.

‘I said so to the Scottish one, but he thinks he is doing his duty. He thinks the money is all the proof he needs.’

‘I suppose they’ll take me back and there will be a trial. So it won’t be up to him.’

Line finishes turning down the sheets and he lies down again. She notices how thin his ankles and wrists are. Getting thinner. He seems so young and defenseless it makes her blood boil.

‘I would leave here if I could. Believe me, it’s a death of the soul to live in this place.’

‘I thought you were living good lives away from all temptation and sin.’

‘There’s no such thing.’

‘Would you go back to Toronto?’

‘I can’t. I have no money. That’s why I came in the first place. Life is hard for a woman alone with children.’

‘What if you had money? Would that make it possible?’

Line shrugs. ‘There’s no point thinking about it. Unless my husband suddenly comes back, with a fortune in gold. But he isn’t going to.’ She smiles bitterly.

‘Line …’ Francis takes her hand in his, which makes her stop smiling. He has a grave look about him, which makes her heart jump. When men get that look on their faces, it usually means only one thing.

‘Line, I want you to take this money. There’s nothing I can do with it. Per wouldn’t let them take it away, so if you take it now, you could hide it, and then get away some time–in the spring, maybe.’

Line is watching him as he speaks, amazed. ‘No, you don’t mean that. It’s … no, I couldn’t.’

‘I’m serious. Take it with you now. It’s wasted otherwise. It was Laurent’s–I know he would have wanted you to have it, rather than those men. Where would it end up then? In their pockets, most likely.’

Her heart beats thickly in her throat. What a chance!

‘You don’t know what you are saying.’

‘I know exactly what I’m saying. You’re not happy here. Use it to make yourself a new life. You’re young, you’re beautiful, you shouldn’t be stuck here with all these married men … You should be happy.’ Francis trails off, a little out of his depth. Line puts her other hand on his.

‘You think I’m beautiful?’

Francis smiles, a little embarrassed. ‘Of course. Everyone does.’

‘Do they?’

‘You can see by the way they look at you.’

She feels a flush of pleasure, and it is then that she bends
down towards him and places her lips on his. His mouth is warm but immobile, and despite her closed eyes, she immediately knows she has made a terrible mistake. His mouth seems to recoil in disgust, as if it has been touched by a snail or an earthworm. She opens her eyes and pulls back a little, confused. He is looking away, an expression of appalled shock on his face. She tries to excuse herself.

‘I …’ She can’t understand what she has done wrong. ‘I thought you said I was beautiful.’

‘You are. But I didn’t mean … That’s not why I want to give you the money. That’s not what I meant.’

He seems to be trying to get as far away from her as the bedclothes will allow.

‘Oh … Ah Gott.’ Line feels hot and sick with shame. How could she have made things worse for herself? As though she had got up this morning and thought of all the really stupid things she could do today, and rejected shouting her feelings for Espen during morning prayers, and sticking her needle into Britta’s fat behind (both tempting) in favour of kissing a young boy who has been arrested for murder. She starts to laugh, and then, just as suddenly, she is crying.

‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what has come over me. I am not myself right now. I keep doing stupid things.’ She turns away from the bed.

‘Line, please don’t cry. I’m sorry. I like you, I really do. And I do think you are beautiful. But I’m not … it’s my fault. Don’t cry.’

Line wipes her eyes and nose on her sleeve, just like Anna would. One or two things have just become clear to her. She doesn’t turn round again, but only because she couldn’t bear it if he still looked disgusted.

‘It’s very kind of you. I’ll take the money, if you really mean it, because I don’t think I can stay here. In fact, I know I can’t.’

‘Good. Take it.’

And now she does turn round, and Francis is sitting up in the bed, holding the leather bag. She takes the roll of notes he holds out and resists the urge to count it, because that would look ungrateful. However it seems to be at least forty dollars (forty dollars! Yankee dollars at that), and she tucks them inside her blouse.

After all, it doesn’t matter if he sees this now.

Later she is in the kitchen, surreptitiously filling her mouth with cheese, when Jens bursts in, red with excitement.

‘Guess what? There are more visitors!’

Jens and Sigi run outside and Line follows sulkily to see the shapes of two figures and a dogsled. The Norwegians gather round and help the figure on the sled get to its feet. It staggers and has to be supported. Line catches a glimpse of a fierce dark face, and then fixes on the other person as she realises it is a white woman. It is so unusual to see a woman like that–she has, even through the layers of clothing, an air of refinement–and with this villainous-looking native, that no one knows what to say or do first. The woman is clearly so exhausted that Per turns to the native. Line does not catch the first words spoken, but then she hears, in English, ‘We are looking for Francis Ross. This woman is his mother.’

Line’s first, shameful, thought is that Francis will want the money back. She also feels a stab of jealousy. Even after the embarrassing events of this afternoon, she feels she has an exclusive bond with the boy; he is her friend and ally–the only one at Himmelvanger who does not patronise her. She doesn’t want to be displaced, even in the affections of a potential killer.

Line presses her hand to her bosom over the roll of money and holds it there.

No one, she swears silently, no one will take this away from her now.

Men and women with eager, excited faces pull me to my feet, and hold me upright when I stumble. I can’t understand why they are so pleased to see us, and then exhaustion hits me, and I am overcome with a peculiar trembling and singing in my ears. As the people clustered around nod and smile and chatter in answer to something Parker says, I don’t register anything beyond a confused buzz of noise and the fact that my eyes, though burning hot, remain completely dry. Perhaps I am dehydrated; perhaps I am ill. It is irrelevant; Francis is alive and we have found him, that is all that matters. I even find myself thanking God, in case long-rusted channels of communication are still open.

I think I succeed in controlling the upwelling of feeling in me when I see him. It has been over two weeks since he left home; he looks pale, his hair seems blacker than ever; and he is thin, a child’s body beneath the sheets. It is as though my heart swells to bursting point, and threatens to choke me. I cannot speak, but lean forward to hold him and feel his sharp bones just under the skin. His arms tighten around my shoulders, I can smell him, which is almost more than I can bear. Then I have to pull back as I can no longer see him, and I need to see him. I stroke his hair, his face. I clasp his hands in mine. I can’t stop touching him.

He looks at me, prepared for my presence, I have been led to believe, but still he seems surprised, and a ghost of a smile flits across his face.

‘Mama. You came. How did you do that?’

‘Francis, we have been so worried …’

I stroke his shoulders and arms, try to fight back the tears. I don’t want to embarrass him. Besides, I don’t need to cry any more; ever again.

‘You hate travelling.’

We both laugh, shakily. I allow myself to think, for a moment, of how when we get home we will start again; how there will be no more closed doors, no more brooding silences. After this, we will be happy.

‘Is Papa here too?’

‘Oh … he could not leave the farm. We thought it better if just one of us came.’

Francis’s gaze falls to the bedclothes. It sounds like the thin excuse it is. I wish I had thought of a more convincing lie, but his absence is more eloquent than any explanation of it. Francis does not draw his hands away from mine, but there is a slipping away, somehow. He is disappointed, in spite of everything.

‘He will be so happy to see you.’

‘He’ll be angry.’

‘No, don’t be silly.’

‘How did you get here?’

‘With a tracker called Mr Parker. He kindly offered to bring me, and …’

Of course, he has no knowledge of the happenings in Dove River since he left. Of who Parker is, or might be.

‘They think I killed Laurent Jammet. You know that, don’t you?’ His voice is flat.

‘My dear, it’s a mistake. I saw him … I know you didn’t do that. Mr Parker knew Monsieur Jammet. He has an idea …’

‘You saw him?’ He is looking at me, his eyes wide, with shock or sympathy, I can’t tell. Of course he is surprised. I have thought of the moment I stood at the door of Jammet’s
cabin a thousand times a day, each day since, until the memory of that terrible sight has worn smooth. It no longer shocks me.

‘I found him.’

Francis narrows his eyes, as though a sudden burst of feeling seizes him. For a moment I think he is angry, though there is no reason why he should be.

‘
I
found him.’

The emphasis is delicate but unmistakable. As though he has to insist on it.

‘I found him, and followed the man who did it, but then I lost him. Mr Moody doesn’t believe me.’

‘Francis, he will. We saw the footprints you were following. You must tell him everything you saw and he will understand.’

Francis sighs sharply–the contemptuous sigh he frequently uses at home when I betray my bottomless stupidity. ‘I
have
told him everything.’

‘If you … found him, why did you not tell us? Why follow the man alone? What if he had attacked you?’

Francis shrugs. ‘I thought if I waited, I would lose him.’

I don’t say–because he must be thinking it too–that he lost him anyway.

‘Does Papa think I did it?’

‘Francis … of course not. How can you say such a thing?’

He smiles again–a twisted, unhappy smile. He is too young to smile like that, and I know that it is my fault. I failed to make his childhood happy, and now that he is grown up I cannot protect him from the sorrows and difficulties of the world.

I reach out a hand and lay it against the side of his face. ‘I’m sorry.’

He doesn’t even ask what I am apologising for.

I make myself keep talking, about how I will speak to Mr Moody and make him understand that he is wrong. About
the future, and how there is nothing to worry about. But his eyes stray away to the ceiling; he is not listening to me, and although I keep hold of his hands in mine, I know that I have lost him. I smile, forcing my face and demeanour to be cheerful, prattling on about this and that, because what else can any of us do?

The Bay has been quiet today. All of yesterday, in the snowstorm, the roar of water smashing on rocks made an angry murmur that permeated the town. Knox has thought previously that there must be a peculiar configuration of the rocky coast that produces, under certain weather conditions, this low but interminable growling. As far as you could see through the swirling veil of snow–which wasn’t very far–the Bay was grey and white, its surface violently ripped and slashed by the wind. At such times one can understand why the first settlers had chosen to build their homes in Dove River, away from this massive, unpredictable presence.

There are few people about now, as dusk falls. The undrifted snow is eighteen inches deep, but wet, and settling into itself. Trampled routes crisscross the street, the most travelled making deep, dirty furrows in the whiteness. The least used are faint sketches, tentative. They go from house to store, from house to house. You can see who in Caulfield is popular, and who rarely goes out. He follows one of the fainter ones now, his feet getting wetter and colder at every step. What on earth possessed him to come out without his galoshes? He tries to remember the minutes before he left the house, to discover what he had been thinking of, but can find nothing. A black hole in his mind. He has had a few of those lately. He does not find this unduly disconcerting.

At the house, all is very quiet. He walks into the drawing room wondering where the usually noisy Susannah is, and is
surprised to find Scott and Mackinley seated together on the sofa. There is no sign of his family. He has the impression they have been waiting for him.

‘Gentlemen … Ah, John, I am sorry, we were not expecting company tonight.’

Scott drops his gaze and looks uncomfortable, pursing his small mouth.

Mackinley speaks. His voice is now firm and sober. ‘It is not as company that we are here tonight.’

Knox understands and shuts the door behind him. It occurs to him, briefly, to deny everything; to insist that Mackinley’s drunkenness led him to hear things that were not real, but even as the idea comes to his mind he rejects it.

‘A few days ago,’ Mackinley begins, ‘you said you had not been back to the warehouse, and that Adam and I were the last people to see the prisoner. Adam has been punished for leaving the lock unchained. Yet today, you told me that you had seen the prisoner with your own eyes after I had left him.’

He leans back in his seat, exuding the satisfaction of a hunter who has set a precisely engineered trap. Knox glances at Scott, who meets his eyes for an instant before his gaze shies away. Knox feels that treacherous desire to laugh welling up in him again. Perhaps it is true after all that he is losing his mind. He wonders whether, if he starts to tell the truth now, he will ever be able to stop.