we’ve called before.’ Dad pulled a funny face. It made me laugh, but Mum’s face didn’t so much as twitch.
‘They’ve found her,’ he whispered to us.
Silence.
‘There’s a cross next to her name. Sadly, that means Miss Augusta has passed away.’ It was only when he repeated the words to us that he realized what he’d said. ‘What did you say?’ He sank slowly into his chair as he asked what had happened and why they hadn’t informed us, even though they’d promised to. He asked where Miss Augusta was now, and why she’d been buried so quickly, and said no, we weren’t family, and yes, he understood that it wasn’t her fault, but they might at least have called us. He didn’t repeat what the receptionist said.
Once he had hung up, he sat motionless in his chair, staring blankly into space. Mum laid a hand against his neck and sighed.
She gave another sigh, deeper this time, and looked at me. She wanted me to make myself scarce. I pretended to go all the way up to my bedroom in the attic, but instead I sat down at the top of the stairs where I could hear everything. Pernille had been buried the day before at some cemetery or other. Dad had forgotten the name. It began with an S. ‘Shu… Sho… Something like that.’ The hospital didn’t know whether anyone had attended the funeral. ‘Seems it’s all done by the council, if there’s no family or next of kin.’
The hospital had said he could call again to ask for more details of the cemetery. Maybe even speak to a doctor to find out exactly what had happened.
Dad kept going on about the stupid cross next to her name, and that she might have lain there at the bottom of the stairs in the cold for days before he’d found her. He said it was all his fault. Mum said it wasn’t, but Dad said yes it was, cos that was how he felt about it.
‘They asked if we knew of any relatives.’
‘Goodness, no.’
‘Me neither.’
‘No one.’
‘Karl!’ Mum blurted out.
‘My God… yes.’
‘He won’t have heard yet, either.’
After hanging around for a while, Dad went over to see him. I sneaked out through the back door and hid among the bushes by the quay.
Karl already knew. The hospital had called him.
‘What?’
‘Last week.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything?’
‘I thought you would’ve heard, too.’
‘You might at least have come over…’
‘Well,’ said Karl. ‘Can’t change that now.’ He bent down, turned on his outside tap, rinsed his dirty hands, and then wiped them off on his trousers, which only made them dirty again. ‘She was a fine woman,’ he said. ‘At first they thought I was family.’
‘And?’
‘I said no, and sharpish like. No way I was going to foot the bill. D’you know what a funeral costs these days?’
‘You might at least have told us. We live on the same island!’
‘And… are you family? Were you ready to get yer wallet out?’
‘No, but we were neighbours. I was fond of her. How much trouble would it have been for you to come and see us?’
‘Well, now you know.’
‘I mean, wasn’t she your…’
‘My what?’
‘You know… didn’t you two… for a while?’
‘Listen, Hammermann. I’m not coughing up good money for a corpse, don’t care whose it is. No one’s laying this at my door. She’s lying in a council grave somewhere. One grave’s as cold as the next. She’d be no better off elsewhere. And if you’re so keen to part with yer money, give them a call and tell them where to send the bill. Leave me out of it. I’ve got enough on my plate.’
‘Take it easy. I only thought because you two once…’
‘That’s no business of yours, Hammermann.’
‘But you were together, weren’t you?’
‘For a while.’
‘So it’s not like you were strangers…’
‘Who are you to tell me what to feel?’
‘That’s not what I’m saying.’
‘Well, shut up about it then.’
Dad held up his hands as if Karl had pointed a gun at him.
Karl marched down to his cutter. ‘I’ve got things to do.’
That evening, Dad got the torch out and went over to Miss Augusta’s to close the windows, turn off the power and the water mains, and to wedge the crooked front door shut.
He came back with a houseplant under each arm, and banged the front door with his elbow so I would open it for him. He put the plant pots down on the table. Grains of soil fell out, dry as mince that’s been stirred round the pan for too long. Mum swept them into her hand and told me to fetch two old plates from the cupboard to put under the pots. Dad produced a shiny hairpin from his trouser pocket.
‘For you,’ he said to Mum.
‘What do you mean?’
‘From the lost and found. Now it’s yours.’
‘Mine?’ A pink shell was stuck to the head of the pin. ‘That belongs to Pernille,’ Mum said indignantly.
‘And now it belongs to you.’
‘You had no right to touch it.’
‘It’s no one’s, not anymore.’
She went to give him back the hairpin, but Dad turned to put our new plants on the windowsill and started plucking out the yellow leaves. They curled and caught fire as he threw them on the burning wood in the fireplace.
‘I really don’t want it.’
Dad hid his hands behind his back when she tried to give him her present a second time.
Next morning she wore her hair up, held in place by a shiny hairpin with a pink shell.
11
I tore the middle pages out of my notebook, the one with the lined paper, sat down at my desk, and started to write a letter. Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? I wrote in one long wavy line at the top of the page. Dad, Dad, Dad. When are you coming back?
