Dornan beamed. “Ah, Aud, don’t you just love the beginning of summer? So wonderfully good for business. Lattés here, Jonie, please.”
“What is that thing you’re wearing?”
“This?” He flicked a finger under the gaudy purple bandanna around his neck. “Tammy gave it to me. She says it makes me look wicked.”
With the red shirt, colour-blind was nearer the mark. “She’s gone again?”
“Some godforsaken place in the Midwest. But she’ll be back in time for the grand opening of the Smyrna café.”
“Another one, Dornan?”
His beam stretched even farther. “Yes, indeed, business is good. You’ll be coming?”
“When?”
“What other day is there for an opening but Saturday? Saturday, when we can snag all the young mothers going to the Y to work out; all the teenagers coming out of the mall; all the angry young things who are too young to go to a bar.”
“I’ll be in Norway.”
“Norway? What’s in Norway but a miserable wasteland of snow?”
“Blossom on the fjord, spring sunshine in Vigeland Park, a country waking up from a hard winter. I’ll be there a week or two, depending.”
“On what?”
“How long it takes Julia to get her business done, whether I’ll fly via London on the way there or back to see my mother.”
“Julia, is it, and for two weeks? And no doubt seeing your mother was her idea.” He nodded wisely. “Always the first step. Tammy wanted to meet my mother, too.”
“Dornan, it’s business.”
“Two weeks isn’t business, it’s a holiday.”
“I’ll be translating for her.”
“Of course you will,” he said.
There was a message from my mother when I got back.
“Aud. How nice to hear from you. I’m afraid this week I am fully booked. The embassy is hosting the acid rain negotiations.” The Norwegian government was protesting about the acid rain damage to their forests caused by British power station effluent. “My government also wants me to open dialogue with regard to a touchy North Sea oil matter. Of course, if it is imperative that we meet, I can cancel one or more appointments. However, I would very much look forward to seeing you on your way back. And if you will be taking a holiday while you’re over there, please remember the seter. If you see Tante Hjørdis, give her my regards.” A slight pause. “Aud, it is good to hear from you. Please let me know, when you can, what date you will be returning through London.”
She spoke in English.
I got changed and went to the workroom. The chair was done, but raw. It needed finishing. I studied it. It was plain and graceful and strong. Not varnish, which could be hard and brittle when dry, and not paint, which would be cold in winter. Oil, then beeswax. I hummed as I pried the lid from the linseed oil and soaked the rag. I rubbed glistening liquid onto the armrests and imagined the hands that would touch the wood, perhaps resting there between turning the pages of a book, perhaps stroking the smooth wood, absently at first, then slipping a bit as the owner slept.
eight
Some wield money like a blunt instrument, bludgeoning their way to what they want. Others hold it up like a flashing light: Look! See how important I am! I prefer to employ it as a lubricant, to ease the wear and tear of daily living. The first time I had crossed the Atlantic as an adult I had spent nine hours folded up like an accordion in coach class, surrounded by children coughing up their childhood diseases into air that was changed only five times an hour. So this time, when dinner was served, about an hour into the flight, we were sitting in business class, on leather seats with footrests and individual screens. The cabin attendants were slightly older, with the expert makeup and extra pounds that come from confidence and efficiency. There was even room for our attendant to hand the tray directly to me in my window seat rather than resort to the pass-along method used back in steerage. My steak and Julia’s salmon were presented on real plates, and we had a choice of wine. Julia had mineral water. Afterwards, we sipped coffee. Julia’s was decaffeinated. She was the one twisting restlessly in her seat.
“Perhaps you should try to sleep.”
“Yes.” She didn’t sound convinced.
The cabin attendant whisked away my empty cup and I pulled down my window shade, dug out blanket and pillow, and prepared to get comfortable, which was more difficult than usual because of the healing gash along my ribs.
“Won’t you be too hot?”
“My body temperature will drop when I’m asleep.”
“What about your sleep mask?”
“They’ll dim the lights soon enough.” Wearing something over my eyes in public has never struck me as particularly safe. I reclined my seat, pulled up the blanket, and listened to the muted roar of the plane as it hollowed through the night.
I woke up five hours later to find Julia looking at me. There were dark circles under her eyes. “I don’t understand how you do that. I just can’t relax with all these people around.”
“Your body would wake up if necessary.”
“At least you’re not claiming it’s a Norwegian thing.” She looked better than the other passengers, most of whom were far gone down the red-eye, puffy face road to transatlantic hell.
I stretched, carefully, folded away my blanket, and pulled up my window shade.
Imagine a blood orange, torn open, and a highly polished mahogany desk. Smear one over the other and add a wash of light blue: dawn over Ireland; rich, unearthly colours that reached past my eyes and stole part of my soul. People were not designed to see such things. I felt the cellular hum of four hundred people as they dreamed or worried or rehearsed speeches in their head in this steel and aluminium shell thirty-three thousand feet over the sea, hurtling through air that is just that, thin air, and knew we were remote from the world, separate, aloof, supported by nothing but speed and physical laws I could recite but have never really believed.
A few minutes later lights were going on, the smell of coffee seeped back from the galley, and people woke and murmured to their companions. A full English breakfast brought me back to the real world, then we started the ear-popping descent.
I joined Julia in the noncitizen immigration control line. She said nothing when I got out my American passport, though I knew she must be wondering. I was wafted through but they asked Julia a dozen questions. She was smart enough to keep her temper but by the time they let her go her eyes were snapping.
“So, do you suppose they have X-ray eyes and can see through your hand luggage to your UK passport?”
“It’s the smile. Make it sympathetic but mechanical, as if to say: Jeez, bet you’re as bored with your job as I am with you doing your job, again. Let’s be quick and efficient and pleasant about this.”
Her irritation lightened to amusement. “It’s nothing to do with the smile. It’s the eyes. They say: Nothing personal, but delay me and you die, old bean.”
“Old bean? They stopped saying that a decade before the war.”
“Which one?”
“Here, ‘the war’ means only one thing: World War II.”
“You’re a chameleon, you know that? Ten minutes on British soil and you’re already in their mind-set.” She eyed me speculatively all the way to the SAS gate. It was a three-hour layover, so we waited in the business-class lounge. I pulled out an Iain Banks novel but every time I looked up she was watching me.