Aminatta Forna - The Hired Man

‘I didn’t live in Gost, I lived over there.’ I pointed out to sea.

‘On one of the islands? What took you there?’

‘Nothing, an idea.’ I shrugged. ‘I had a cottage close to the water.’

‘Sounds wonderful. And you came here on the ferry?’

‘Yes, there isn’t much to do on the islands, in winter even less. And some things you need to come here to buy. In fact there is a bridge. The time I lived here it was in a bad way, but it has been renovated recently. So once you could drive there and now the same again. Takes about a half an hour.’

‘We should go.’

‘Another day.’ To change the subject I began to talk about the bridge, how salt and wind ate the concrete and steel until the whole edifice nearly collapsed into the straits. On the table Grace had arranged the tiles into the shape of a bird, while Matthew, whose mood had generally improved since Conor’s departure, seemed sulky and had barely spoken. On our walk through town he’d spent most of the time hunched over his mobile phone and now during the meal he brought it out again and carried on playing with it. He ignored Laura’s suggestion to put it down while we ate and I saw her hesitate, afraid to ask him for a second time. Matthew’s mood was faintly dangerous, as if he was spoiling for an argument. After a while Matthew stood up and walked to the harbour edge where he threw pieces of a bread roll to the fish.

Three giant pizzas were placed in the middle of the table. We helped ourselves. Grace ate with gusto, keeping an eye on the food, ready to pounce in case it scuttled away. In between mouthfuls she sucked her drink noisily through the straw. Otherwise she was silent, totally absorbed in the act of eating, she never looked up from her plate. When we were all full she helped herself to the last slice of pizza.

After coffee we took a walk around to the other side of the harbour. Sheets from a magazine floated on the surface of the water: a naked woman, open-legged. Out of a cloudless sky the sun beat down and the blood in the veins of my scalp throbbed. The air was dry and filled with colourless fumes, and I felt a little nauseous after the meal and the coffee, which had been too strong. At a stand outside a shop Laura and Grace tried on hats while I sat on a bollard to wait. They switched and swapped hats, looked at their reflections in the small mirror on top of the stand. Grace picked a red straw hat with a brim that dipped down at the front and gave it to her mother to try on. Laura, who was standing with her back to me, put the hat on her head and at that moment chose to turn round. Maybe she was looking for Matthew, but it was me she found watching her. She smiled and opened her arms and tilted her head to one side, as if to ask, ‘What do you think?’

I couldn’t speak: something about the gesture, the cast of the sunlight, most of all the red hat. I drew a sharp breath and then breathed out again, hard. My mouth was dry and, for several seconds or so it seemed, my heart stopped. Then both my heart and breathing started up again violently. I could hear everything: the cry of a gull overhead, the grinding of gravel under the feet of passers-by, the whine of a winch somewhere and the sound of the blood rushing to my brain. I stood up and walked towards Laura, my legs were practically shaking. I said without thinking, ‘Please let me buy it for you.’

‘Don’t be silly.’

‘Yes,’ I insisted, maybe too firmly because Laura blinked with surprise, so I added, ‘To say thank you for lunch and this very nice day. It’s only 50 kunas. If you like you can buy the ice cream.’

Laura smiled and shrugged. ‘Well in that case, what can I say?’

‘You can say yes.’

‘OK, then yes and thank you.’

It’s interesting what you remember and what you forget and what gets hauled up from the past when you aren’t expecting it. How does it work? I don’t know. So many years and I’d never once thought of Anka’s red hat, the one she owned in the last year she lived in the blue house. She’d worn it through two summers, it had been her favourite thing. When Laura turned, for a moment, for just one moment — it might have been Anka standing there.

After I’d paid for the hat we walked on along the harbour front. A scattering of clouds appeared from nowhere and the sun disappeared, so instead of wearing the hat Laura carried it in her basket for which I was suddenly grateful. Matthew walked behind us kicking a plastic bottle along in front of him; it rattled on the cobblestones and lay still, he kicked it again. Another car alarm screamed, this time from the car park on the opposite side of the harbour, and the noise carried and magnified across the water. We walked with no particular idea where we were going.

We’d stopped for ice cream and walked on, each holding a cone, except Laura who said she was still full from lunch, she spotted something she liked and went into a shop, we waited outside. Something happened between Grace and Matthew. Grace was enjoying her ice cream, swaying slightly, licking steadily at the head of it, oblivious to everything around her. A man in a black jacket tried to pass Grace to go into a shop. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, but Grace, so absorbed in the act of eating her ice cream, didn’t hear him. The man repeated himself. Grace didn’t move. Matthew said, ‘For fuck’s sake, fatso, get out of the way.’ Grace’s head snapped up as if she’d been hit, her eyes widened with hurt, automatically she stepped aside to let the man pass. Before I even had time to think I was behind Matthew, holding him by his arm and neck. Somewhere on the periphery of my narrowed vision I saw the man glance at us and then away as he stepped into the shop.

‘Apologise to your sister!’

‘Christ, man! You’re hurting me. Let me go.’

‘I said apologise.’ I tightened my grip, felt the pulse of his veins beneath my fingers. I shook him.

‘Sorry,’ Matthew said to Grace, who stood watching with her mouth open.

I let him go and pushed him away. It was over in an instant. Laura stepped out of the shop. We walked on. I was breathing hard and my heart was still racing. I clenched and unclenched my fists and forced myself to calm down. Matthew flung his ice cream into a dustbin. He rubbed his neck, but kept his eyes on the ground. Grace followed slowly, I could feel her staring at me, then at Matthew and back. Laura walked ahead of us, looking into the windows of the gift shops.

We drove back on the motorway, towards the ridge of the mountains and through the sequence of tunnels, into which the cars disappeared like boats into an enchanted grotto. Beyond the first two tunnels lies another ridge and then another; after the third you are in the mountains proper, you leave the heat of the coast behind, skirt a single peak of rock and then come the wheat fields, the bridge over the river and the first neat pink and blue houses on the outskirts of Gost. The journey home took place more or less in silence though Laura talked some of the time, I can’t remember now about what, but I made the effort of answering her. She appeared to think nothing of the silence; I suppose she was used to teenagers and their behaviour. At one point she asked me to take over the driving, which gave me an excuse not to talk. I was angry with myself for the loss of control, though it’s hard to say I was sorry. Matthew was a brat who’d been begging for a slap for a long time. Plus, I had a feeling he wasn’t going to tell his mother.

Carefully Grace fitted tiles to the mosaic of the bird. She held her breath as she pressed each tile into place, the tip of her tongue pushed at her top lip. Her face was moist with sweat and her hair stuck to her forehead, her cheeks and shoulders were pink. When enough time had passed for the glue to take, she carefully released the pressure. I sat at the table shaping tiles for her with a knife. With each success Grace looked triumphantly over at me.