I didn’t, as it happens, seeing as she had grown so skinny and was now wrapped in all sorts of things. But it looked like her right before she drowned in salt.
I nodded.
‘We’ll place it on top of her face, so we can always remember what she looks like inside.’
Dad put the drawing in place and attached it with more gauze along the sides. Then he took a big piece of canvas and wrapped it around her. It was quite incredible how much she was wrapped up. He also cut an oval hole in the canvas over her head so that you could see the drawing.
Now my baby sister looked like one of those wooden dolls that fit one inside another. We had once found some in a living room in Vesterby. Only ours was bigger and there was only one little girl inside.
Finally she was placed in the tiny coffin Dad had made for her. I had heard him sawing and hammering and planing and sanding while I was sitting in the container.
I had started spending a lot of time in the container, even if there was no sign of strangers turning up. Come to think of it, no strangers ever called these days, except for the postman, who would pull up by the barrier and get out of his car to put our letters in the post box. I was, of course, extra careful about hiding around the time when he usually called. I could see him through the holes. Even though he was far away – so far away that he was only a small man dressed in red – I was sure that he looked up at the house and at the three small holes in the container every time. I always held my breath and sat as quiet as a mouse until he had driven off again.
But even when the postman had been and gone, Dad would still whisper for me to be careful. The postman might come back, he said. Or other people might spot me and take me away.
In time he only made a sound – a hiiiiish – which meant I had to hide quickly.
I guess I could have stayed with Mum in the bedroom. I would probably have been able to find a place to hide or made one for myself, if I moved some stuff around. But the container was better, Dad said, because no one would ever think to look there. I got the impression that he would rather I wasn’t with Mum, and I couldn’t understand why.
Perhaps he was scared that I might let something slip.
In the end it was easier just to stay in the container with Carl and look out of the holes towards the gravel road. I could tell Carl everything, but he didn’t stroke my hair like Mum, and I couldn’t really cuddle him. Luckily, I had found a big brown teddy bear in a box. It was a little scruffy, but nice to touch. I could cuddle that.
Whenever I needed to touch something that touched me back I would take one of the rabbits from the house with me into the container. The rabbit felt soft and warm when it moved under my hand, and the feeling gave me sunshine in my tummy. And yet I was terrified. Terrified that Dad might notice, because he had told me that the rabbits must stay in the house. They might make a noise in the container.
When I sat in the darkness, looking out of the holes, I would get very scared at the thought of anyone coming. And yet whenever a movement down by the gravel road turned out to be a rabbit or a fox and not another human being, I got a little bit disappointed. I couldn’t understand why.
I also kept an eye on the trees. The area between the forest and the gravel road had always been grassy, but recently a lot of small spruces had started shooting up. It was as if the forest was spreading. Perhaps it might cover all of the Head one day. And I would be safe in the container, right in the middle of it all.
She should be with me, Dad said, when he had finished my baby sister’s coffin.
So that we could keep one another company.
We pushed aside some of the old tyres and shifted some sacks so that she could lie in her coffin next to my spot in the container. If I removed the wooden lid, I could look down at her.
The coffin was the nicest thing I had ever seen Dad make. Mum had told me about Grandad’s famous coffins, but they couldn’t possibly have been more beautiful than the one Dad made for my baby sister.
To begin with, it was a bit odd, her lying there next to me. But in time I grew used to it. Somehow it was nice that we were together, all three of us: my twin brother, our baby sister and me. All of us dead.
Except that I was only reported dead.
Dear Liv
What day is it today? Have you had your birthday? It’s so dark here in the bedroom. I wish I could get your dad to move some of the things blocking the windows, but he doesn’t come here very often these days. Perhaps you can reach the stuff at the top, if you stand on something? Only I don’t want you to get hurt. You might easily get hurt by that big radio at the top.
Oh, Liv, you’re gone for so long every time. I wish I could get out of bed, out of this room, downstairs. Outside. Please bring the bucket and the flannel soon. And more food and something to drink. I’m so terribly thirsty. It’s the air.
Northbound
The chef would be back in a few days and the pub would reopen. Roald had finished painting and carried out the repairs, and was now looking forward to the aroma of the chef’s delicious food replacing the smell of paint. He had finished a day early but felt strangely restless. It was probably just another loose end which he could tie up, although he had completed every job on his list. He believed that he had earned his first day off in – what was it now? Six, seven, eight years? He had totally lost any sense of time.
Island time was different to mainland time. Back there, he had seen a clear, straight line on his retina whenever he imagined the passing of the year: a linear path with razor-sharp divisions into end-of-year exams, study leave, holidays and meetings; it was always a copy of the equally fixed routines of previous years and next year’s invariable plans. On the island, a year was an organic entity that wrapped itself softly around Christmas and stretched out in the summer, where it merged with the years before and after. Time hadn’t been suspended; it had just acquired a new velocity. It had become a soft friend that wanted nothing but to be.
Although he had enjoyed the silence while the pub was closed, Roald had to admit that he missed his regulars turning up at the usual time in the bar. He was almost at the stage where he missed the fishcake wholesaler who spent all his visits in front of the one-armed bandit, until the time was exactly eleven minutes to dinner time. It took the fishcake wholesaler nine and a half minutes from leaving his barstool in front of the fruit machine to him leaning his bike up against the wall of his house, he had explained. And then ninety seconds from parking the bike to reaching his dining chair, if he stopped off to wash his hands first.
That was pretty much all the talking the fishcake wholesaler ever did.
Except for stating that crispy pork with parsley sauce should be declared a national dish. Especially if that was what he would be getting for dinner once he got back. On such occasions he could barely suppress his excitement and came very close to leaving his barstool at twelve minutes to. He didn’t care much for fishcakes, he said, but it had been a good business right until the reds turned up and wrecked everything with all their ideas. Roald never got to the bottom of what that meant. Nor was he terribly up to speed with the fishcake market.
Roald had yet to discuss the child with anyone. He had bumped into the police officer a few times recently, so it wasn’t for lack of opportunity, but something held him back. After all, the police didn’t have to be his first port of call. There were others. Perhaps he could speak to someone from the school, or ask around. There was a pretty music teacher he wouldn’t have minded chatting up, except she had recently become engaged to a naval officer and seemed to fantasize about having a flock of children, as many as the von Trapps.