there, he would surely have heard me by now. I picked up a stone and threw it onto the roof. A few gulls took off in fright, others just flapped their wings. ‘ARE YOU THERE?’
I stood still. Without Dad, I didn’t have the nerve to get any closer, never mind go inside. Slates blown from the roof lay broken in the tall grass. The windows were clouded with sea salt.
Dad had gone over to clean the windows of the empty house once, ladder balanced on his right shoulder and a steaming bucket of soapy water in his other hand. It was one of the chores he used to do for Miss Augusta when she was still alive, and he felt odd about not doing it anymore. ‘Soft bugger,’ Mum scoffed.
‘Just sprucing things up a bit,’ said Dad. ‘Where’s the harm in that?’
I wanted to help, and he let me carry the bucket. By the time we reached her house, half the water had slopped over the rim.
Dad wiped down the windows with the shammy and I sat on a rock and watched him.
Afterward, we walked through the house to make sure everything inside was as it should be. I wasn’t allowed to touch anything, but Dad was. Dust had gathered into fluff balls under the chairs and settee, and in the corners of the living room. A gull had found its way inside and couldn’t find its way out again. We scared it as much as it scared us.
The longer Miss Augusta was dead, the more empty spaces appeared in her cupboards. When Mum thought Dad had something to make up for, he would go over and look for a present to give her. She’d never say exactly what it was he’d done wrong.
The presents Dad gave Mum had to be selected with great care. It was like looking for medicine without knowing what the illness was. You had to keep trying till you found something that worked. Sometimes it would turn out to be something she could share with us. Other times, it was something to make her look pretty. One of the presents had been a white tablecloth with only one or two burn holes in it. Another time, it was a candleholder with two naked angels standing on one leg and holding a candle each. At times, Dad tried to keep one step ahead of her mood and surprise her with silver earrings, or the like. By now, most of Miss Augusta’s jewellery had found its way onto Mum’s bedside table. The necklace with the sparkling blue stones was the only real prize left in the deserted house.
On one of our present-hunts, I had taken the blue necklace out of its case and gone downstairs with it. Dad was standing over by the bookcase, running his finger along the spines of the books.
‘What about this?’
He turned toward me and smiled when he saw the necklace. ‘I’m saving that one for another time.’
‘It’s so blue and beautiful.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Then why not give it to her?’
‘It’s too beautiful for now. Be a good boy and put it back.’
He pulled open drawers, rummaged around inside, and slid them shut. Pursing his lips, he picked up the framed photograph on the side table and put it down again almost immediately.
I went into the kitchen. The wild flowers in the vase on the table had been dead so long it was impossible to tell what kind of flowers they had once been. They crumbled to the touch. The inside of the vase had turned white, as if someone had drunk buttermilk from it. Karl must have needed a new U-bend, cos it had disappeared from under the sink. The brown gunge at the bottom of the kitchen cupboard had dripped onto the floor.
‘And this?’
I held up a bread knife I’d found in a corner cupboard.
‘That’s a bread knife,’ Dad said.
‘There’s a mixer in here, as well.’
‘I can’t just give her any old thing, Mikael.’
‘But this isn’t any old thing, is it?’
‘I need to find something else for Mum.’
‘Well, what do you need to make up for?’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘If only I knew.’
‘I like the knife. It’s shiny and it’s sharp.’
‘A bread knife doesn’t make a good present.’
‘What kind of sorry-present are you looking for?’
‘One I can hang on your big red nose, Mikael Hammermann!’
Dad ended up giving her the bread knife after all. He handed it over while I was still hopping around on the doormat, struggling to pull off my boots.
‘Aw!’ I heard Mum’s surprised voice coming from the kitchen. ‘For me?’
‘For you,’ Dad answered.
‘That’s sweet of you.’
‘Bound to come in handy, I reckoned.’
He didn’t mention it was me who’d found the present. But when I heard the reassuring sound of their kiss, I didn’t mind so much.
It wasn’t that I didn’t believe Miss Augusta was dead. It was just that, right now, without Dad at my side I couldn’t be sure anymore. I was afraid she’d suddenly appear behind me while I was going through her kitchen cupboards or, worse still, when I was on my knees beside her bed trying to poke something out from under the blanket of dust with one of her knitting needles. I pictured two legs silently appearing in the doorway, stockings pulled up tight over a delta of blue veins.
I was even scared to peek in through the windows in case her face suddenly appeared behind the dull pane, with no specs and sunken cheeks. She died without her teeth in. They were still there in a glass on the washbasin, waiting for her.
Dad had found her at the bottom of the stairs. It had been raining for days, and he had gone over with a pot of soup. They didn’t tell me what had happened till the next morning. ‘Her leg was bent in three places,’ Mum said. Dad used a twig to show me what it looked like. ‘There’s no need for that,’ Mum hissed.
While I slept, Karl had taken Miss Augusta across to town in his boat. When he came back that afternoon, Dad went straight over to see him. He made me stay indoors, so I spied on them from behind the curtain. Karl scratched his head and pointed at his legs. Dad asked him something else. Karl pointed to his boat and flapped his hand about. Dad nodded and patted Karl on the arm.
In the evening, Dad called the hospital on the mainland. Miss Augusta was in their system, but they couldn’t tell him much. The next day we were no wiser. Unfortunately, the patient was unable to come to the phone. Three days later it was the same story. They told us not to keep calling, and said they would contact us.
When we hadn’t heard anything for ten days, Dad called again. At reception it took them a while to remember who Pernille Augusta was. ‘I’ll wait,’ he told the receptionist.
‘They’re looking for her file,’ he whispered to us with his hand over the mouthpiece.
‘Yes, I’m still here… Augusta. That’s right.’
Mum
