Henning from Welfare showed up sooner than I had expected.
It was pissing rain and I saw him flip up his collar before he got out of his car and strode across the yard. I wondered whether he had seen me watching at the window and whether I still had time to bolt the door. Barbara’s empty bottles of red wine were piling up in the pantry and two days’ dishwashing crowded the sink in the washing room. Social workers didn’t care for rows of empty wine bottles, but they cared even less for uncooperative clients. People with attitude problems lost their kids.
So I opened the door. Of course I opened the door. I may have been an awkward, recalcitrant client who was devoid of shame, but basically, I was a good girl who did as she was told.
“Hey, Ella . . . ” He turned and waved briskly into the sheet of rain. He’d brought a woman along, I now noticed, a dainty dolly-girl, about my age, the kind of she-being that carries her entire feminine frailty on a pair of high heels, even out in the field.
The doll picked her way over the brick driveway with delightful, ladylike charm. Thin legs, knocked knees, agile ankles. Her hair was brushed into cascading waves that were kept in place by a pair of sunglasses; the lip gloss was peach. I ought to introduce her to Magnus, I thought.
“Ella!” Henning turned towards me again, and smiled broadly. “I’ve taken the liberty of bringing Agnete with me today. She’s doing her practical training with us at Thisted and will be looking over my shoulder today.”
I replied by failing to reply. Doctor Erhardsen had also taken the liberty of inviting medical students to sit in on consultations when I was pregnant with Alex. As a rule, they entered the room when I already had my feet in the stirrups, my underwear and leggings lying crumpled in a heap on the floor.
I stepped aside for my guests, and the pretty Agnete feverishly raked a hand of slender fingers through her mane. Raindrops dotted her sunglasses like pearls.
“So, Ella . . . ” Henning grinned and rubbed his hands together gleefully, his shoulders up around his ears, as if my kitchen was the coziest place he’d been in years. “It’s been a while since I was here last. How are the two of you getting on? Is Alex getting any bites on his line?”
Agnete smiled and cocked her head.
“Yes . . . it’s . . . Tea or coffee?”
I went into the washing room and rearranged a stack of crusty plates so I could fill the kettle with water, could see the scene with their eyes. The grey linoleum counter was pocked with holes and curling up at the corners around the sink revealing rotten brown patches under the plastic.
“Do you have any herbal tea?” Agnete was perched on the end of a kitchen chair, surveying her surroundings with interest.
“No.”
“Oh . . . well . . . then I’ll have whatever you’ve got.”
I took one of Barbara’s tins of diuretic tea from the cupboard, dropped a tea bag into a cup, and served it to Agnete with the most accommodating smile I could muster. Henning preferred instant coffee. This I knew already.
“And where is Alex? He’s probably sitting in front of the TV on a day like this.” Henning craned his neck in the direction of the living room door.
“The TV is broken.”
“What a shame.” He pulled a face. “Then again, on a hot summer evening it can be blessing not to be glued to the box.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes, I believe that in America many parents are making a concerted effort to wean their kids off all forms of electronic media. Television, computers, iPad, iPod . . . whatever it is they’re called these days . . . it’s the latest pedagogic initiative.”
“I would buy a new one if I could afford it,” I said. Agnete bared her white teeth and tilted her head once more. In my experience that chimpanzee grin appeared on a social worker’s face whenever the awkward issue of money came up; there were extremely sensitive municipal budgets to take into consideration, one had to factor in the aged and the youth of the nation, and all those diligent taxpayers who weren’t keen to finance a television for people on the dole. She was a quick study, our Agnete.
“Perhaps you should try quitting the smokes,” Henning suggested with a disarming smile.
“Would you like to talk to him?”
“Very much.”
I went to the foot of the staircase and called up to Alex. A faint rummaging upstairs, followed by a score of jazz when he finally opened the door. Billie Holiday’s drawl drifted down the stairs. Soon afterward Alex appeared.
“Hi, Alex my friend! It’s nice to meet you.”
The pitch of Henning’s voice had risen by at least an octave, two flat palms raised in a salute to my son. I cringed. Body language could be just as false as spoken words if you mastered the nuances. And that Henning did.
Alex nodded uncertainly.
“Agnete and I are from the social services office in Thisted,” said Henning. “We would like to know how you and your mom . . . how you are getting on, that is, how you are spending your time . . . ”
“Why?” Alex didn’t bite. He strolled past our guests at the kitchen table and made for the counter where he fixed himself some cereal in a floral-print ceramic bowl.
“Because it’s our job,” said Henning. “It’s up to people like us to make sure that kids like you are doing okay. Are you looking forward to going back to school?”
Alex shrugged. He remained standing by the counter, shoveling the cereal into his mouth. “I’m doing just fine,” he said. “Other than the fact that the TV is broken.”
“You’re not missing Hvidovre? You had a foster family over there . . . Lisa and Tom . . . ”
Alex shook his head and kept wolfing down his cereal. “I’m fine.”
Agnete laughed nervously. “A young man who doesn’t have anything to complain about,” she chirped. “It’s not very often you meet one of those.”
Alex ignored her, finished his food, and went back upstairs. Billie’s voice was smothered behind the door once more.
“And you’ve got a boyfriend?”
I looked up at Henning in surprise. They worked significantly faster in Thisted than I had given them credit for.
“What do you mean?”
“You were seen with a handsome young man in a van. Kissing,” said Agnete, and blinked.
“Lucky you.”
I sent a mental note of thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Klitmøller, who had been gawking the last time Magnus came to pick me up. Apparently they’d invested in the latest edition of the Welfare Act as soon as it became clear that two exemplars of white trash had moved in next door. I’d bet they’d been reading passages out loud to each other in the sofa in the evenings. People on the dole paid dearly for fooling around in public.
“We are not dating.”
“What do you do together then?”
Henning was still smiling, but the smile had become a little stiff. This was one of the more difficult exercises in the book; a skillful balance on the client’s personal boundaries had to be maintained. Just as Henning needed to know for sure whether a client’s hemorrhoid condition indeed ruled out the performance of a desk job, he needed to know whether I was fucking this guy or not, and if so, when, and how often. There was no reason for social services to take care of me if I had a sugar daddy who was performing this service quite adequately already.
“We do nothing together.”
“Forgive me, Ella, but you know very well that we are obliged to investigate circumstances that could impact your capacity to provide for your son as a single parent. If it becomes apparent that this man is spending the night on a regular basis, then perhaps he should be the one providing for you and your son.”
“He’s a student, and he lives in Aalborg . . . ”
Henning smiled, and nodded. Scribbled down some notes on his pad.
“And he is not my boyfriend! He has never spent the night—not even once! Not that it’s any of your fucking business.”
“Ella!” Henning raised his hands in an apologetic gesture and smiled disarmingly. “The other matter we wanted to talk to you about concerns information we have received that you are no longer living here on your own.”
“I live with Alex.”
“So there isn’t another woman staying with you?”
“That’s temporary. She’s just visiting . . .”
I wasn’t sure how to explain Barbara’s presence without having to mention the panic attacks.
“Can we take a look around?”
As if on command, Henning and Agnete rose in unison and went into the living room without waiting for an answer. Their eyes scanned my grandmother’s shelves, the dusty dining room table, and the gilt-framed pictures on the walls. A Rescue Boat Goes Out to Sea. The furniture that Barbara had cleared out of the room next door stood in the middle of the room like some barricade from the French Revolution. Over in one corner the rain had leaked through the ceiling. Large drops gathered on the plaster, which had become too wet, too heavy to support the water, and was now dripping into the washing bucket I had ready on the floor below.
I could hear Barbara’s humming from the next room as she worked on her well-endowed Satan.
The two guests from Welfare followed the sound, their cocked heads curiously yet cautiously preceding them, Henning even took the trouble to knock symbolically on the doorframe before stepping over the threshold.
Barbara stopped humming the moment she saw them. The smile slipped from her face, leaving it dough-like, expressionless, as she took Henning’s outstretched hand in hers. Just behind him, Agnete had spotted the first of the penis-paintings on the opposite wall. In the absence of other seventh-grade girls, she tried in vain to hide snorts of laughter behind her hand.
“Good heavens. Someone has been hard at work in here.” Henning smiled, motioning towards the sketches on the walls. A witch riding on a broom with flames coming out of her ass was almost life-size, her face almost on eye level with ours.
“Historical murals,” said Barbara as she looked Agnete over. The aura of red wine was less penetrating today, but still unmistakable.
“Excuse me, but I don’t believe we’ve been introduced. Henning Jensen from Thisted Social Services, and this is Miss Agnete Særmark, who is currently in training with us. We just came by to check on Ella and Alex. To make sure that they have settled in nicely.”
“Of course.” Barbara seemed out of sorts. Distracted. And it wasn’t just the red wine. Henning and Agnete’s presence made her otherwise steady gaze falter.
“And you are . . . ”
“Barbara.”
“And how do the two of you know each other, Barbara . . . ?”
“I’m an old friend of the family.”
“Really? I wasn’t aware of the fact that Ella’s family had any friends.” Henning looked genuinely interested. Curious. Helpful. He was a man who had mastered the entire catalog of verbal and nonverbal expression. I made a mental note that I would never be able to trust him. He was an exceptionally good liar. But he couldn’t fool Barbara.
“I know Ella. What else do you need to know?”
“A little more about you, perhaps,” said Henning now in a more measured tone. “Like whether you can confirm what Ella’s neighbors have observed: that you have moved in here with Ella and Alex. The reason we need to know this for sure is that the social office in Thisted is responsible for Alex’s well-being, and therefore we need to know the circumstances surrounding his immediate domestic environment.”
“I don’t live here,” said Barbara, turning her back on them. “I’m just here for a couple of days to help Ella get settled.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
“Yes.”
“Pardon me, but I didn’t catch your surname.”
“Jacobsen.”
“And do you have any family of your own, Ms. Jacobsen?”
“I have two sons in Copenhagen. They’re both grown now. Over thirty.”
“How wonderful!” Agnete was practically cooing now, probably at the thought of two grown men in the city. All decked out in shiny Armani suits, Gucci sunglasses, and jobs in the financial sector. Pretty young women were so predictable.
Henning rapped his knuckles on the doorframe once more. “We’re just going to take a last look around, and then we’ll be off. It was good to see you, Ella. I’m glad to see that you are getting on just fine . . . ” He backed out the room, forcing Agnete into retreat behind him. Her knees buckled as she tripped over the threshold, sniggered, and apologized behind the same hand with which she’d shared the joke about the huge penis on the wall. I felt about a hundred years older than her and a great deal smarter, but she and Henning were the ones who would be filing the relevant forms. They were the ones who would write the notes that determined how my behavior should be interpreted; whether I was fit and worthy, could be trusted; whether I was in a position to nurture Alex’s happiness and further development.
As soon as they had closed the door behind them, I went back to Barbara’s room. She was still working with her back turned, drawing lines with a black brush, stepping back occasionally, readjusting here and there, touching up the contours. Outside, the rain hammered against the windows, the light was grey.
“You lied,” I said.
She laughed softly. “About what?”
“About your name. It isn’t Jacobsen. I saw it on the postbox back at your place. It’s Jensen.”
“Jacobsen, Jensen. Both completely irrelevant names. Whether they hear the one name or the other is not important.”
I didn’t answer. I opened the window wide instead and lit a smoke. The wind slammed the rain against my face.
“You’re not mad, are you?” I could feel her eyes in my back. “Ella. We’re in this together. They don’t need to know everything. And besides, it’s in your favor that there’s more than one adult here to look after Alex.”
“You’re drunk,” I said.
“So I drink a little red wine,” she said. “Plenty of artists do, it helps them see the world in color—and you drink yourself, my girl. If I were called to testify in a case brought against you for the forcible removal of your son, I would be obliged to reveal this information. And I’m so awfully bad at lying about important matters, Ella. You know this perfectly well. So you be grateful I managed to get rid of them as quickly as I did.”
Beyond the dunes the sky was blue-grey with heavy rains. All the birds had flown. My unease had returned.