The Day She Came Back(78)
I am afraid, Sarah, possibly more afraid than I have ever been. I fear I may lose you both. I fear that you might, weakened by your grief, do something unspeakable, and the thought of it stops the breath in my throat. Please, please, stay with us. Keep fighting. Please, Sarah! Tell me how I can help you . . .
I love you. Always, always, I love you.
Mum Xx
Victoria wiped her eyes, Sarah was right: there was something about holding the actual letters, written with fingers no doubt gripping pens that trembled with all the writer tried to contain and with thoughts dictated by the situation in which they found themselves. It was moving and draining in equal measure. She looked with longing at the soft pillow and knew she could quite easily have slipped back to sleep. But there was no time for that today; jumping up, she raised the blind and looked out over the morning hustle and bustle of Aker Brygge. People walked at pace with babies in buggies, and others dawdled, engaged on their phones; some had cups of coffee, the steam of which rose in tiny plumes into the morning air. Opening the window wide, she drew in lungfuls of the fresh breeze, cool and clean, blowing up from the fjord. Looking down to the steps at the dock in front of their apartment block, she saw the man who lived opposite, Vidar, fastening a bike helmet strap under his chin, a shiny red mountain bike leaning against his thigh. She liked the look of him and, as she studied him, he looked up and smiled. Her wave was almost instinctive, and he waved back before tapping his watch face and climbing on to the saddle. It felt like a message which she was left to decipher as he cycled off towards the centre of town, but what?
Gotta go, I’m late! or See you later? Ridiculously, she hoped it was the latter.
Victoria pulled a hoodie over her pyjamas and took a deep breath before opening the bedroom door, her nerves jangling.
‘Good morning!’ Jens threw his arms wide. With a dishcloth looped over his arm, he looked like the most exuberant of waiters, and her nerves settled. ‘Come, sit!’ He pulled out a chair at the table, which was sumptuously set with an array of food: cold meats, various cheeses, yoghurt in pots with indecipherable labels, jam, brown bread rolls and what looked suspiciously like waffles.
‘This looks amazing!’
‘Coffee or juice?’ Sarah asked, a jug of each in her hands.
‘Can I have both?’
‘You can indeed!’ Sarah bent forward eagerly to fill both her glass and her mug.
‘So, we have a whole list of places we want to take you to.’
‘That Jens wants to take you to,’ Sarah interrupted him, giving her a subtle wink. ‘I’d be happy to find good coffee and sit somewhere with a view, but . . .’ She shrugged, as if she had no choice in the matter.
‘She always does this, makes my suggestions sound like rubbish, and then if they are rubbish she can say, “I told you so!”, and if we have a great day, she can act surprised.’
‘Ignore him. I do not!’ She laughed and Victoria noted the way she tilted her head . . . coy. She again felt like an interloper in this cosy set-up and wondered where her place might be in it.
‘Tuck in!’ Jens handed her a large white plate and the two of them watched her, like she was a foundling babe they were keen to see take food from a spoon, nodding and smiling as she reached for yoghurt and then slices of Jarlsberg. She half expected to hear a ‘choo-choo’ sound as a bread roll chugged in her direction. Sarah watched her every move and Victoria wondered if she had missed this most ordinary thing, feeding the child she had given birth to, as much as Victoria had missed being fed by her mum.
‘Eat up!’ Sarah nodded.
Victoria lifted her fork and, as instructed, tucked in.
The eagerness with which Jens marched her around the city was impressive, his enthusiasm contagious. By midday, they had toured the magnificent opera house, which seemed to rise like a ship coming up through ice, and now they were heading over to the Vigeland sculpture park.
It was a busy space and she noticed that Sarah took the opportunity to place her hand on her arm and guide her through the crowds, mothering her in a way she felt comfortable with or was allowed. It wasn’t that Victoria disliked the contact, not exactly, but rather that she didn’t know how she was supposed to respond. If Prim ever hugged her, she hugged her back, ditto Daksha, but the touch of Sarah’s hand on her arm was an unknown thing and Victoria knew it was made all the more conspicuous by her awkward reaction. It was a reminder that they were still very much in the infancy of getting to know each other. Not that she thought about that now, too drawn by the surreal and wonderful exhibits that surrounded her.
‘Wow!’
‘Yes, wow!’ Jens was clearly delighted by her reaction.
Victoria wandered, fascinated and a little overwhelmed by Vigeland’s creations, where human life in all its forms was vividly and thought-provokingly captured in granite, bronze and cast iron. She ran her hands over the installations, which had been warmed by the sun, and it moved her that this warmth seemed to give them life. Victoria stood in front of one particular piece, a bronze sculpture of a woman with her arms crossed safely over her baby as she held him tight, her head bowed, their faces touching. It was a scene so perfect, so moving – the child held snugly in the woman’s arms and her stance screaming, ‘I will protect you, I will love you and I will keep you with me . . .’
Sarah came to a stop by her side and they both stared, its poignancy lost on neither of them. The two women looked from it to each other and back again, Victoria with a tightening in her throat and words skipping on her tongue, which she swallowed, pushing them down into the bottle where all her deepest, darkest and truest thoughts lived, the newness of their relationship still a barrier to her speaking openly about anything that might help them takes steps across that bridge.