Gerbrand Bakker - Ten White Geese

She lit a cigarette. ‘Light the stove in the living room and make a fire in your bedroom too if you like.’

‘There’s not much wood left.’

‘When it’s gone, it’s gone.’

‘Shall I decorate the Christmas tree?’

‘If you like.’

‘Where?’

She glanced around the kitchen. There was an empty corner next to the sideboard. She gestured with the cigarette. ‘There?’

‘That’s a good spot. Then we’ll see it from the living room too. What shall I put it in?’

She didn’t look at him. She couldn’t look at him. What do you put a Christmas tree with roots in? She stubbed out the cigarette. ‘There might be something in the pigsty or out the back. I don’t know.’

‘I’ll find something,’ the boy said.

The dog scrambled to its feet, walked over to her and began to lick her hand. She started to cry.

The boy didn’t get up. ‘There’s no need to cry,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why you’re crying, and if I asked, you’d only say “ach” and that wouldn’t get us anywhere. But there’s no need to cry.’

‘No,’ she said, sniffing.

‘When you get back from Caernarfon, from whatever it is you have to do there, the Christmas tree will be done and the stove will be lit in the living room. I’m going to Waunfawr in a bit, so there’ll be fresh bread too. Not that you’re bothered about eating, but it will be here. And I’m not going to ring my parents. I’m not going to ring anyone, because I’m here now. This afternoon at quarter past five, you’ll sit on the sofa and turn the telly on and watch Escape to the Country , and while you’re doing that, I’ll cook. Fish. You’ll eat it and drink two or three glasses of wine to go with it and maybe after tea we’ll plan a garden together or watch a film. The BBC always show great films around Christmas. Afterwards you’ll go to bed. If you like, I’ll light a fire in your bedroom an hour beforehand. I can take the car and trailer and go for new wood any time I like. I can even pay for it. Sam and I will be sleeping two doors along. We’re here. We’re waiting for the lamb that farmer, Rhys Jones, promised you.’

She sat down. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The lamb. He was here yesterday.’

‘I saw.’

‘He brought hay for the sheep.’

‘I saw that too.’

‘I keep thinking you’re a gymnast.’

‘What?’

‘The kind that does floor exercises.’

‘That’s a first.’

‘When you walk, when you sit, when you’re sawing or digging.’ She went to light another cigarette, but didn’t, because then she would have had to smoke it and all she wanted to do was have a bath. To have a bath, then leave. She stood up. ‘You say “we” a lot,’ she said.

‘That’s because we’re here together.’

‘I think that’s what made me cry.’

‘Liar.’

‘Yes.’ She left the kitchen. In the bathroom she pressed the last three paracetamol out of the strip and took them with a couple of mouthfuls of cold water.

*

She drove very slowly; the narrow roads weren’t gritted and she kept a tight grip on the steering wheel going downhill. The dual carriageway to Caernarfon was gritted, but here, too, the few cars she saw were crawling along, as if everyone expected it to start snowing again at any moment. I mustn’t bask in the security, she thought. Curling up by the stove. Allowing him to take charge. Letting the dog lick my hand. She pulled over in a lay-by and got out of the car without putting on her coat. She dragged herself over a fence, walked a good distance through the snow, then turned round. She looked at her footsteps, she looked at the car, she shivered. This is it, she thought. This is the situation. Her shoes were wet, her toes cold. An empty car by the side of the road, bare trees, hills, cold. A badger that no longer appears; standing in a pond with water up to my waist, no heavy objects in my pockets. The smell of an old woman in my body. This is it. This is the situation.

Once again, there was no one in the waiting room, which was immediately inside the front door. No receptionist; a bell announced that someone had come in. She sat down on one of the four chairs and waited. After about five minutes, when she still hadn’t been called in, she lit a cigarette. She couldn’t hear any voices on the other side of the surgery door. Now and then people walked past the window, looking in inquisitively. There was a clean ashtray and a pile of magazines on a Formica coffee table.

‘Ah, the badger lady.’

She looked up and sighed.

‘Don’t be so dismissive,’ the doctor said. ‘I’m only joking. Come in.’

His desk was empty, there were no documents he had just been working on. She was already so used to people here smoking almost everywhere that she hadn’t stubbed her cigarette out in the waiting room. She did it now, in his half-full ashtray. She looked at the cross, which someone had straightened.

‘Your hair’s nice like that. A bit on the short side.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Shirley is a very experienced hairdresser. What’s more, she’s the last hairdresser.’

She looked at him.

‘So you thought it was necessary now?’

‘What?’

‘Coming to see me.’

‘Yes.’

‘What can I do for you?’

‘Painkillers.’

‘You can get them at the chemist’s. You don’t need me for that.’

‘I’m not talking about aspirin or paracetamol.’ That last word sounded strange. She wasn’t sure it was English.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘That’s for you to say. I have no idea.’

‘Sit down over here first. I need to look at your foot.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with my foot. Not any more.’

‘Please.’

I mustn’t be difficult, she thought. It can’t do any harm. She sat on the bed and took off her wet shoe and sock. The skin of her foot was wrinkled. I could just lie down, she thought. Lie down and surrender and see what happens.

The doctor took hold of her foot. ‘That’s healed beautifully. Has it given you any more trouble?’

‘No. Baking soda does wonders. You were absolutely right.’ She stared over the doctor’s shoulder at the wall. Only now did she realise — perhaps because it was lit from a different angle or because she was now looking at it without really focusing — that the HIV poster showed the torso of a dark-skinned man. Not from the front, but from the side, soft focus, a pert arse. Only now did she understand the ‘Exit Only’ at the bottom. The poster must have been ancient. She wondered why this man had a thing like that hanging in his surgery. She couldn’t imagine it striking a chord with many patients in this small town.

The doctor held her hand and felt her pulse with two fingers. ‘Hmm,’ he said. He took her head between his hands, raised the skin above her eyes with his thumbs and looked into her eyes carefully. Then he ran one hand down her arm, while laying his other on her knee. If I were a non-smoker, she thought, his breath would be incredibly foul. ‘Headache?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Is that all?’

‘No.’

‘What else seems to be the problem?’ The bell rang in the waiting room. He glanced at the door and took advantage of the interruption to cough, without raising a hand to his mouth.

She slid down off the bed, standing up against him for a brief instant before he took a step back. There was some forgotten stubble on the Adam’s apple in his scrawny neck. For someone who had just laid a hand on her knee, almost like Sam resting his head there, he jumped out of the way extremely quickly. She sat down on the chair and lit a cigarette. For the first time, she felt she had the measure of this man.