Aminatta Forna - The Hired Man

Krešimir accepted a glass of wine without thanking me and sat behind his glass, his eyes roaming the street. He picked up the glass, drained half the contents and set it back on the table. He said nothing. Krešimir never bought a round of drinks himself and was disdainful of other people’s hospitality. He acted as though it was he doing me the favour. I had the desire to tease him, all the more for knowing how much he disliked it. ‘So what’s new?’ I asked.

Krešimir did not look at me. ‘Same, same.’

‘You think it will rain?’

Krešimir looked in the direction of the ravine, where a mass of cloud welled behind the hills. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow.’

I indicated to the waitress to bring two more glasses of wine. A drop of rain fell onto the table in front of me.

‘I need to go,’ said Krešimir.

‘It’s nothing.’ I told the waitress to set the wine upon the table. Unlike, say Fabjan, or even myself — Krešimir didn’t hold his drink so well. ‘So the old house is sold.’

‘Who told you?’

I told him I’d overheard it at the Zodijak.

He snorted faintly. ‘People talk too much.’

‘Then it’s true?’

Krešimir waved a hand. ‘It was going to ruin.’ Then he smiled nastily and asked me about work. He did it to switch the subject, not knowing my luck had just changed. Krešimir’s job at the fertiliser factory here in Gost is considered a good job for these parts because he works in the offices as a salesman. I am a builder, I work with my hands and find work where I can and not always easily. Krešimir went to college, whereas I never finished technical school. He enjoyed the advantage this gave him over me.

I told him work was fine. It rained faster, still I made no move, watching the drops land on Krešimir’s head. As I said, he has quite luxurious hair but which, as well as greying, has receded quite considerably above the temples. By way of compensation he seemed to be wearing it longer, as though nobody would notice the front for being so astonished by the miracle that was the back of his head. I said, ‘What will you do now?’

‘About what?’

‘After you sell the house.’

‘Must I do something?’

‘People generally do — something, that is.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘They do.’

‘Well since you ask, I am thinking of going away.’

‘Away from Gost?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where would you go?’

‘The coast, perhaps. The islands. I’ve heard the living there is good. People have moved on, Duro. Maybe you should, too. The tourists are back. And now I must go home, I have things to do.’ Krešimir stood up and drained his glass.

‘Good luck,’ I said.

‘Good luck with what?’

‘With the move.’

‘Thank you.’ Krešimir gathered up his bags of groceries. Krešimir married later in life. His wife, who started out as a pretty blonde thing, full of ideas, even if they were not particularly good ones, now rarely left the house except when she went to visit her relatives, which she did for months at a time, lacking the nerve either to confront her husband or leave him. Maybe she was away visiting now, or equally likely Krešimir had decided to do the grocery shopping himself. Perhaps she had bought the wrong item once too often, or gone over budget. Krešimir was something of a miser, did I mention that? He circled the dogs — and was gone.

I stayed for a few minutes more to finish my wine, called to Kos and Zeka and started home. It was raining hard: a summer shower. It would be over by the time I reached the edge of town. I thought about the blue house and the new people there. I thought about the leak in the roof. Tomorrow was Monday, a working day. I would go round there first thing in the morning and get started. I looked at the sky, the starlings were gone.

I walked, I thought: So Krešimir is leaving Gost.

The buddleia had taken hold both in the guttering and in the pointing. It came free with a shower of powder masonry. Laura, standing at the bottom of the ladder, applauded. I threw the buddleia to the ground and climbed down the ladder.

‘Do you have a bucket?’ I asked. ‘Two even better.’

She disappeared and returned with a pair of old metal pails. I climbed back up and began to clear the guttering.

I’d arrived early in the morning and ready for work, but Laura had made coffee and offered me a pastry. The pastry was stale and Laura apologised. ‘I need to get to the supermarket.’

‘There’s a baker. They make pastries of all kinds. I’ll show you.’ I had finished my coffee and rose. ‘I’ll get started.’

Now she stood below, watching me as I ladled rotten leaves and twigs into the bucket. When the first bucket was full I climbed down and exchanged it for the empty one. In this way and with her help I worked my way from left to right across the front of the house, repositioning the ladder every metre or so. Once I looked through one of the upper windows: there were no curtains — and saw asleep on the bed the boy I’d seen two days before. He was naked, lying on his back with one hand on his chest and the other holding his dick. Nothing, not the sound of our talk, nor the scrape and clang of the ladder, had interrupted his sleep.

Around eleven with the job finished Laura made us both another cup of coffee. I said I wanted to fix the tiles next and, since people often kept a stack of spares, I’d take a look, if that was OK, otherwise we’d have to buy them. Laura’s son appeared, wearing only a towel about his waist, his eyes slitty with sleep. In silence he went to the sink and poured himself a glass of water. Laura stood up and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Good morning, darling.’ He put his glass in the sink and Laura picked it up and rinsed it. He opened a cupboard and looked inside and she asked if he was hungry. When he took down a packet of cereal, she fetched a bowl and a spoon and the milk from the fridge. I saw our conversation was over and stood up. Laura turned. ‘Thanks, Duro. Let me know about the tiles.’

I stood on the slope at the back of the house and surveyed the roof. Typically steeply pitched, for the snow as I expect you know. From where I stood I had a decent view of the damage: worse than I thought, but not much more so. Heavy snow and frost take their toll and six months ago we were in the depths of winter. Lichen and moss had a hold. Fixing roofs is a year-round job, as I told Laura. An overgrown hawthorn hedge bordered the courtyard on one side, on the other three: the house and outbuildings. A walnut tree had cast two decades of its offspring on the ground. The grass had grown and fallen for sixteen summers. An old sink, a rusted rat trap and a small wagon: flotsam pulled down into it. In one corner, the outline of several raised beds, where I found rocket, flowering yellow and black-striped blooms. Fennel, grown taller than I stood. Loops of raspberry canes. A parsley pot had overturned and its spilled contents grew in a puddle of bright green. I picked up the pot and placed it upon a windowsill. Against the wall of the house I found a pile of bricks but no tiles. The door of the second outbuilding was wedged shut and I gave it a kick. Again no tiles but a quantity of tools which I sorted through for anything that looked useful. I came out and stood in the sun.

The blue house: I wonder if anyone but me called it that. To most people it was the Pavić house, the first Pavić house, because later they moved to a house in town. I circled it with a critical eye, ticked the jobs off on my fingers: gutters, roof, paintwork: the woodwork of the windows was in a poor state, the stonework needed whitewashing. The building was in reasonable structural shape. The dead tree of course, it needed to be taken down, and there was everything to be done inside, starting with the wall of the front room. I took a trowel to a windowsill where the wood was soft and splintered, I checked another and found it sound. I went back inside and said to Laura, ‘We’ll need to get some tiles, wood filler and paint, a blow torch.’