I stared at the columns of figures jotted down on the piece of paper in front of me, trying to work out if the money I was saving from my wages as Fiskersay’s nurse – and after giving most of it to Elizabeth and Donald for mine and Eirik’s keep, there wasn’t a lot left – would eventually be enough to pay for passage to the Scottish mainland and find me and my son somewhere to live. Perhaps the authorities would let me stay here, on Fiskersay, but what would I do for work when Isabel Thomson and her family returned? My situation here was only temporary, and I was well aware that, if I wasn’t going to return to Norway – if you’re going to run away, my mind supplied unhelpfully – I needed to make sure I had some sort of plan in place so we could survive.
But how could I plan anything when so much depended on the outcome of the war? Everyone was sure, of course, that we’d beat the Germans in the end, but even the most optimistic of commentators couldn’t say when that might happen. The uncertainty made me feel unsettled, like a boat that had lost its anchor.
Suddenly, the front door banged open and Eirik came charging in, his eyes red and his face streaked with tears.
‘Mamma!’ he said, rushing to me and flinging his arms around me.
‘Lille vennen, what’s wrong?’ I said, my heart pounding inside my chest like that of a frightened, hunted animal. I had not seen him like this since we were fleeing the Germans back in Norway, and for one horrible moment I was back there, staring down at the officer’s unmoving body with blind panic singing through my veins.
Eirik said something in Norwegian, his words coming out in a garbled rush. ‘Shh, slow down and start again,’ I said. Pushing him away slightly, I crouched down, taking him by the shoulders so I could see his face. ‘Take a deep breath, lille vennen. Tell me what has upset you.’
Sniffling, Eirik held out his left hand and I saw three deep, angry-looking weals across his palm. ‘Mr Mackay hit me,’ he said.
I stared at the weals, horror, mingled with confusion, rising inside me. ‘Why?’
He hiccuped. ‘I was just telling David and Gordon how to say the days of the week in Norwegian.’
‘In class?’
‘No, in the playground. Mr Mackay heard us, and accused me of speaking German. When I tried to tell him it wasn’t German, he got angry with me and hit me with his cane.’
I stared at Eirik, trying to match up what he was saying with the image of Charles I had formed in my head as I slowly got to know him: the quiet, well-spoken man who carried the pain of his past around with him like an invisible weight; who cared for his elderly, invalid mother without complaining; who ran the school and headed the Fiskersay Home Guard, and was well-liked and respected by all the island’s residents. I tried to remember if I had ever seen him show so much as a flash of temper, but I couldn’t. Eirik occasionally complained that he was strict, and I had seen it for myself, of course, that first day he had gone to school and Charles had scolded David Couper for being late. But Charles did not strike me as an angry man, and God knows I had had enough practice at recognising that, being married to Anders.
I took a deep breath, trying to remain calm. ‘Come, let me take a look at that hand,’ I told Eirik, leading him gently to one of the chairs by the fireplace. ‘Then you can go and help Elizabeth outside.’
Ten minutes later, with his hand bathed – it was, thankfully, not as bad as it looked, the marks already beginning to fade – Eirik joined Elizabeth in the garden, helping her to clear up her rain- and wind-battered plants, his tears almost forgotten.
‘Elizabeth,’ I said as I stepped outside too. ‘I must call into town for something – is Eirik all right with you?’
She beamed at me. ‘Ach, of course. He’s da best peerie helper anyone could ask for!’
Drawing my shawl closer around me, I walked down to the schoolhouse. But when I got there it was dark and quiet, the door locked; Charles must have already gone home for the day. After a moment’s hesitation, I walked the rest of the way into Talafirth, and rapped on the Mackays’ front door.
‘Hedda,’ Margaret said when she answered it. ‘I was not expecting you again today – is everything all right?’
‘Everything is fine, Margaret,’ I said, trying to keep my voice level. ‘Is Charles here, please? I wanted to ask him about something.’
‘He is at an emergency Home Guard meeting. He wouldn’t tell me what it was about, just rushed off the moment he got back from school, but he should be home again in a little while.’
For a moment, I considered going up to the meeting hall in Talafirth where the Home Guard met for their drills; on a couple of occasions, I had been asked to take part in first aid demonstrations for them there. I imagined walking in, asking him, why did you hit my child?
Inwardly, I quailed, seeing the faces of the men staring at me. No, I could not do that. Charging up to the hall and accusing Charles in front of his men would be a terrible idea. For the first time in quite a while, I heard Anders mocking me inside my head: How like you, Hedda, to get hysterical and lose your head. What a little fool you are! That child needs more discipline anyway – didn’t I always say he was an ill-mannered brat?
Shut up, shut UP, I snarled back, and, mercifully, he fell silent.
‘You’re welcome to wait for him,’ Margaret said. ‘Will you have a cup of tea? Oh, no, let me make it, you’re not on duty now…’ she added as I turned towards the kitchen.
‘No, you sit down again,’ I told her. Her leg was much better than it had been but still not completely healed, and she’d been worryingly breathless lately. ‘She needs fresh air, sunshine and some good food,’ Doctor Gaudie had said when I’d consulted him about it. His great, whiskery eyebrows had drawn together in a fierce scowl. ‘If it wasn’t for this damned war, I’d pack her off to the south coast of England for a holiday. Charles too.’
I went through to the kitchen. I’d never felt less like drinking tea in my life – every muscle in my body was taut with tension, thrumming like the strings on a tightened violin bow – but it would give me something to occupy myself with while I was waiting. As I put the kettle on to boil and went into the pantry for the tea tin, angry thoughts were tumbling through my head It wasn’t just me that Anders like to lash with his tongue. He’d always said cruel things to Eirik too, threatening to withhold food or make him stand out in the snow in his bare feet, although when it came down to it he never actually carried out these threats. Perhaps, if he actually had laid a hand on Eirik, I might have found the strength to leave him before the war started and the Germans came.
Even so, you should have protected Eirik – you should have stopped Anders saying those things, I thought, shame pouring hotly through me. That shame had driven me here, I realised. It was why I had to be brave, and confront Charles no matter what the consequences. He’d gone one step further than Anders – he had actually hit my son.
I was so deeply preoccupied with the guilt and sadness warring inside me that at first I didn’t notice the object wrapped in a piece of sacking that was hidden behind the neat rows of tins and packets on the pantry shelf. It wasn’t until I reached for the tea tin and caught a corner of the sacking with my sleeve, dislodging it and revealing part of what was underneath, that my mind caught up with my eyes.
I frowned. Why was Charles keeping radio parts in here? Why weren’t they out with the other bits and pieces he had scattered around? And why were they wrapped up like this?
My curiosity piqued, I lifted the sacking to look at the radio properly. It didn’t look like the rest of the wireless sets in the house, which were all in pieces; this set was complete, housed in a steel case. It reminded me of something, but I couldn’t think what. Then, all at once, it came to me: the radio set Mette had shown me at the telegraph station the day the German officers came to arrest me; the set in the brown suitcase. I peered at it, my frown deepening. What was it doing in here, hidden away like this? Was it something for a Home Guard exercise?
The kettle began to whistle. Hastily, I pulled the sacking back over the radio set, making sure I left it as I’d found it, and grabbed the blue tea tin. What Charles Mackay did with his radio sets was none of my business. I was here to talk to him about Eirik.
He returned as Margaret and I were finishing our tea, Margaret chatting to me about a knitting pattern for a shawl she had been promised by a friend. I heard the front door open and even though it was only Charles, for some reason I immediately felt my whole body tense, the way it used to when I heard Anders come home after a day up at the iron ore mine.
He is not Anders, I reminded myself, squaring my shoulders as I listened to Charles’s footsteps approaching up the hall. But as I placed my cup back on its saucer, it rattled; my hands were trembling slightly. I folded them in my lap, clenching fistfuls of my skirt.
‘Hedda,’ he said when he came into the parlour, giving me his usual friendly smile. ‘I was not expecting to see you here. Is my mother all right?’
I stood. ‘It’s you I am here to see,’ I said. ‘I wanted to talk to you about Eirik.’
His smile faded. ‘Ah. Yes.’
I glanced at Margaret, who, after greeting Charles, had picked up her newspaper and was reading it. Charles glanced at her too. ‘Shall we go through to the kitchen?’ he said.
My heart was pounding as I followed him through there. ‘He said you punished him for speaking Norwegian,’ I said.
Charles’s eyebrows drew together. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘He said you accused him of speaking German, and then you caned him.’
‘Oh dear, dear, dear.’ Charles sank into one of the spindly chairs pulled up to the table covered in his dismantled radio sets; it creaked under his weight. He massaged his forehead. ‘I’m sorry, Hedda, but that simply isn’t true. I caught him and one of the other boys singing a rude song in the playground.’
I frowned at him. ‘A rude song?’
‘A very rude song.’ He coughed into his moustache. ‘It’s about Hitler. I appreciate the sentiment, of course – who wouldn’t – but the language in it is most unsuitable for boys their age, and they were setting a dreadful example for the others, especially the girls.’
I shook my head. ‘I do not know any songs like that. I have no idea where he could have got it from.’
‘It, er, refers to a certain part of the male anatomy,’ Charles said, his cheeks colouring slightly. ‘We’ll say no more, eh?’
‘Oh dear, I’m sorry,’ I said, although I wasn’t sure what I was apologising for. I felt as embarrassed as Charles looked, my resolve to challenge him for hitting Eirik wavering, then failing completely. Coward, Anders growled at me, illogically, because I knew he would have been delighted at what had happened to my son. You can’t even stand up for your own flesh and blood. I felt more ashamed and foolish than ever; nonplussed, too, as if I’d been playing a game of chess and my opponent had tricked me into losing when I thought I was on a winning streak.
I swallowed and brushed my hands on my skirt. ‘I must get back,’ I said.
Charles stood up. ‘I do hope this clears up any misunderstanding. I’d hate for you to think badly of me, Hedda.’
‘I, er – no, of course I don’t.’
He moved closer to me; too close. I took an involuntary step back, then another, but he followed until I found myself pressed up against the stove.
Charles didn’t seem to notice anything was amiss. ‘I must say, Hedda, the usual childish misbehaviour aside, having young Eirik at the school has been a breath of fresh air,’ he said. ‘Meeting you has been, too. Before the war it was so rare to see new faces in Fiskersay – we’re too far away from anywhere for people to want to visit – and the locals can be, well, shall I say, a little inward looking…’
I frowned again, puzzled. He was still standing just a little bit too close to me. ‘I… I haven’t found them to be,’ I said.
‘Oh, but of course it’s all new to you at the moment – if you stay here for a year or two you’ll see what I mean. I am not saying they’re not good people – of course they are. But when you’ve seen more of the world – when you’ve really experienced life – it broadens the mind in a way island life cannot.’
‘I – I suppose so.’
Charles cleared his throat, his moustache twitching. ‘I was wondering, Hedda, if, one Sunday, you might like to go for a walk across the island with me? I do enjoy talking to you – I’d like to get to know you better.’
He leaned towards me and for some reason I couldn’t quite identify, I felt a zigzag of panic go through me. Heart pounding, I ducked under his arm. ‘I – I must go,’ I said. ‘Elizabeth will be wondering where I have got to.’
Was I imagining it, or did his face fall slightly? ‘Let me walk you back to the croft,’ he said.
‘No – no, it’s quite all right. I need to call in on someone else on the way – please don’t trouble yourself,’ I blurted.
I fled without even saying goodbye to Margaret, half walking, half running along the road until I was out of sight of the house. Only then did I slow down. My face was burning. What had happened just now? Had Charles meant to kiss me? Had he forgotten I was married?
I felt almost sick with embarrassment as I tried frantically to recall if I had ever given Charles a reason to think I was interested in him in that way. The only time I saw him outside of the schoolhouse or at his mother’s was at the local dances. I didn’t think I had led him on; I certainly hadn’t intended to. We didn’t even have all that much in common, and he was so much older than me.
You must go back and talk to him, set the record straight, I told myself. Otherwise it will be awkward for you both.
But again, my courage failed me. I couldn’t face it. What if I was the one who’d misunderstood? What if I was so starved for affection, I was imagining men throwing themselves at me? After all, I wasn’t exactly skilled at reading others’ intentions. If I was, I wouldn’t have ended up in that mess with Magnus, or married Anders. I longed for someone to talk to about it – someone who could help me make sense of what had just happened. But the only person I could think of was Bill, and he was busy with Rose. He wouldn’t want to be bothered with me and my silly problems.
Oh, forget it, I told myself, suddenly angry at my own foolishness, and at the weight of my past that pulled like a heavy stone at my neck, no matter how hard I tried to distance myself from it.
When I got back, Eirik was with Elizabeth in the kitchen. I called him into the room we still used as a bedroom and closed the door. ‘Eirik,’ I said, careful to keep my tone neutral as I sat down with him on the bed. ‘Did you tell me the truth about what happened at school today?’
He looked up at me, wide-eyed. ‘Yes, Mamma.’
‘You were not… being rude?’
He shook his head vehemently. ‘No, Mamma. But—’ Suddenly, he flushed. ‘David had been singing a song which might have been a bit rude.’
‘A song about Hitler?’
He nodded, biting his lower lip.
‘And Mr Mackay heard you?’
He shook his head again. ‘Mr Mackay wasn’t outside then.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes! Otherwise David wouldn’t have started singing it.’ He sighed. ‘We’re not stupid, Mamma.’
I gazed at him, more confused than ever. My son wasn’t a liar, I was sure of that. At least, he wasn’t a good liar. On the rare occasion he did try to pull the wool over my eyes, the tips of his ears would turn red, and there was no sign of that now.
But why on earth would Charles punish Eirik for doing something as innocuous as speaking his own language? And why on earth would he mix up Norwegian and German? They sounded nothing alike, and he was surely educated enough to be able to tell the difference, even if he did not understand what was being said. Hadn’t he told me he longed to visit Scandinavia?
‘Mamma,’ Eirik whined. ‘Please can I go? I am helping Tante Elizabeth make a cake.’
‘Yes. Yes. But Eirik—’
Already halfway to the door, he turned.
‘Perhaps it would be a good idea not to sing rude songs at school at all, just in case,’ I told him.
‘Yes, Mamma,’ he said, sighing again, and for the first time, it struck me just how much he’d changed since we’d come to Shetland. The only remnant of our previous life seemed to be his nightmares. In the daytime he was a different child: taller, stronger, more confident than I had ever known him to be back in Kirkenes.
It is me who still needs to work out who I am, I thought as the door swung closed behind him and I sank down onto the bed.