Aminatta Forna - The Hired Man

‘Gross!’ said Grace.

‘Weevils,’ I said. At the front door I shook the flowers and plunged the heads into a bucket of water that stood there until the remaining insects floated to the surface. I handed the flowers to Laura, who thanked me and told me (again) that she didn’t know what she’d do without me. Of Matthew there was no sign.

‘He’s upstairs,’ said Laura. ‘He’ll be down.’

‘He’s in his room. He’s been there all day,’ said Grace. ‘He’s sulking.’

‘Grace!’

‘I’m just saying.’ Grace widened her eyes at her mother and turned to me. ‘He’s been in a bad mood ever since we got here. Just because it’s not cool enough for him. And there’s no Internet, of course.’

‘Don’t be silly. Matt’s enjoying the holiday just fine.’

‘Matt’s too cool to enjoy anything,’ said Grace. ‘He thinks enjoying things is for idiots. We’re all idiots apparently.’

‘That’s enough, Grace!’

Grace flinched but said nothing, she twisted the dishcloth to wipe the inside of a glass, set it on the table and hummed a single note.

We ate: pasta, tomatoes, local cured ham, good red wine in fine glasses. Grace was sent up to call Matthew, but she came down and said he wasn’t hungry. While her daughter was out of the room Laura had rearranged the settings, switching the position of the spoons. She undid and refolded two of the napkins. There was a carafe of water, not well water but fizzy, bottled water. New table mats and a tablecloth. Banished now to the windowsill: the sunflowers; candles in the middle of the table instead. The house had curtains, fastened with bows, even though I had yet to fix the patch of plaster on the wall. The order of things was wrong. Then Laura told me her husband was coming.

‘I hope he’ll be pleased.’

‘I’m sure he will be. To tell you the truth when I first saw the house I was a bit worried it wasn’t going to work out. Conor bought it without me, you see.’ What Laura told me next surprised me a great deal. She said she’d found the house on the Internet and her husband had flown over from Italy where he was on business to look at it. Imagine Krešimir having the wit to use the Internet. He must have found somebody to do it for him. That young wife of his, maybe? No, Krešimir would never let anyone be privy to his finances, let alone something like this.

To Laura I said, ‘What made you want to buy this house?’ For surely it could not have been Gost. I wondered how Laura saw the town, the churches and the school, the hills and the swimming hole, the people who lived here. I tried to imagine seeing it all for the first time, not knowing anything.

‘Property here is cheap relative to the rest of Europe. Conor reckoned the coast had peaked or would soon and we should look inland, a little off the tourist track. It’s got to be a good thing. People investing in the country again, getting the economy moving? I’ve been looking for something to do now the kids are more or less off my hands. If this works out, we’ll keep going.’

‘What do you mean keep going?’

‘Buy another one and do it up.’

‘You mean you plan to sell this house?’

‘That’s the idea. I’ve been scouting around. There’s no shortage of empty houses, though some of them are in appalling condition and nobody seems very interested in repairing them.’

‘The people around here are peasants,’ I said. ‘They don’t see property the same way you do, they don’t see the value and so take no care.’

‘The odd thing is there don’t seem to be any estate agents.’

‘Most houses here belong to families. They stay in the family even after somebody dies.’

Laura thought about that. ‘So how do you go about buying one?’

‘By private sale. The way you bought this one.’

‘They’re almost grown-up.’ Laura looked over at Grace petting Zeka, who stood with his head in her lap. Laura fell silent for a short time, drank more wine. She said, ‘We bought the house five years ago, but it’s only now I’ve really worked up the courage to come out and make it good. Mattie’s off to university next year. Grace takes care of herself, she doesn’t really need me.’ Laura spoke as if Grace couldn’t hear.

Five years? I stared at the table, I only came back to myself when Grace said, ‘I think Zeka’s hurt?’

I looked. The blood left by the exploding tick had matted in Zeka’s fur. ‘It’s nothing,’ I said. ‘Just a tick.’

‘Oh, OK. Can I take them out?’

‘Yes.’

‘Will they come with me?’ She stood up and went to the door.

‘Kos! Zeka!’ I waved my hand and the dogs rose as one and went to Grace.

‘They won’t get lost, will they?’

‘They’re hunting dogs. They know the area and they’ll do as you tell them.’ I thanked Laura for the dinner, suddenly I wanted to go home, to be alone. To think. My head was bursting with this new knowledge. But Laura brought a salad bowl and plates to the table, heaped the remaining pasta on a clean plate and placed it on a tray along with cutlery and a glass of water.

‘I’ll just take this up to poor Matt,’ she said. ‘He’s probably starving.’

The sight of Laura carrying supper upstairs to her son, taking the steps carefully. I climbed those stairs holding a tray once. It was the year before the family moved to the house in town after Krešimir’s father was promoted to his new job in the administrative offices of the Town Hall. An important job, more so than my father’s. It widened the space between me and Krešimir even more. But all that was to come. Back then the Pavićs still lived in the blue house. I had run up and down those stairs a thousand times. In Krešimir’s room we hung out of the window shooting wood pigeons with our first air rifles. One year Mr Pavić bought Krešimir a junior pool table and we played against each other for months. I owe it to Krešimir that I’ve never had to buy myself a drink in a bar where there’s a pool table.

I’ve gone to the Pavić house, as I so often do. The door’s open, though the parlour and kitchen are empty. It’s after school so I expect to see Krešimir at least, and usually at this time of day Mrs Pavić is home. It is a clear autumn day; the house is without heating and cold inside. The kitchen bears all the appearance of a careful departure: sink wiped dry, dishcloths on their pegs, a pot at the back of the stove. The room smells of onions.

A sound from upstairs: a cough, the flush of the toilet, a faint shuffle and creak. There is Anka, standing at the top of the stairs, wearing a nylon nightdress. Her hair is damp and stuck to her forehead in sharp points; at the back it forms a tangled halo. The lower part of her face is massively swollen and she sways so alarmingly I hold out my arms because I’m afraid she might fall down the stairs. She turns and stumbles away. By the time I reach the door to her room she has crawled back into bed.

The air in the room is sweet and stale. I open the window. When I am ill my mother makes me rosehip tea, beef soup; but I’ve no idea where to begin, so I boil milk and pour into it some of the coffee from the pan on the stove, I fry an egg and carry it all upstairs on a tray. I straighten the bedclothes around Anka, making noises like my mother does. Anka sips the milky coffee, the skin sticks to her lower lip. She says swallowing the egg hurts.

She has mumps. Where is everyone? I lie and say they have asked me to sit with her. I stay the whole afternoon and watch her sleep. I am too young to put my finger on the awfulness of it, but I feel it in my chest. Gone to town to buy new laces for Krešimir’s football boots, such a small thing. To leave your sick daughter for such a small thing.