The cabin stood on a large slab of bedrock that jutted up from the forest floor. Beneath the deck, the rock was cool. She could see the shadowy contours between the planks. If she looked long enough, she could see the ants at work. She felt out of place; an unease in her body over not being part of, but also not entirely apart from, the adults’ company. Fragments of their conversation carried from the other side of the cabin, Mamma’s loud exclamations and Rose’s deeper, slightly hoarse voice:
“. . . never believe what she told me . . . ”
“. . . find yourself left holding the baby . . . ”
She couldn’t hear Jon. Perhaps he had gone inside to prepare dinner. When they stopped at the supermarket on their way to the cabin, Mamma and Jon had filled five shopping bags with meat and cold cuts, potatoes, melon and herb butter. There was hardly room in the little fridge. The other items were stacked on a shelf above the breadbox: coffee, cigarettes, tinned peaches, a crossword magazine, liquorice.
*
It had been a long drive up north through Sweden. Along the way, they stopped for burgers. As they neared the cabin, they passed tennis courts and big fields. Some machines were resting beside a white house, and a rowing boat with its hull turned up. Julie saw an eagle soaring up above. Mamma twisted the rings on her left hand off and on. She was afraid Rose would arrive before them and have to wait outside.
“We haven’t seen her since Falkenberg. She hasn’t passed us.”
“You can’t be sure of that.”
But as soon as the car turned onto the final stretch of gravel road, she laid her hand on the back of Jon’s neck and remarked on how beautiful the place was.
They had parked down by the summer camp and walked up through the forest, lugging all their things. The cabin smelled of dust and sun. Mamma opened the windows while Jon started up the generator and fetched water in two large plastic canisters from a pump down by the path. Julie walked around the cabin with a dishcloth, removing dead green insects with paper-thin wings from the windowsills. She had put her bag in the smallest room, the only one with a mirror.
It was Jon’s grandfather who had built the cabin. Or rather, moved it: “He just took the entire second storey of a house up in Östersund and planted it here.” Everything that hung on the walls was made of bronze: a skillet, an ash pan. There were two rooms with bunk beds, but Julie knew that once she went to sleep Mamma and Jon would take the mattresses from their room and lay them side by side on the living room floor. Rose would stay in the annex. The toilet was in an outhouse ten steps from the cabin. Julie had peeked through the door. There was a bucket of wood chips on the floor. On the wall hung a poster with illustrations of seabirds and mountain birds, and a magazine clipping with edges curled from damp: Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.
*
“Hello!”
Rose arrived half an hour later, calling out as she made her way up the hill. Jon ran down to help her with her bags. Mamma had changed into a silk kimono with a sash at the waist. She came out to greet Rose covered in big wine-red flowers and pale-blue butterflies.
“Not hard to find at all,” Rose laughed. She had ended up driving back to the main road to ask for directions to the Christian summer camp.
Rose was Mamma’s best friend. For some reason, Mamma always insisted on introducing her that way to strangers. “This is Rose, my best friend. We met at drama school.” She rarely mentioned that neither of them worked as actors now; Rose wrote radio dramas, and Mamma worked in administration at the university. Rose was a tall, slim woman. When she drew Julie in for a hug, Julie recognized the smell of conditioner and sweat and something sweet, maybe mint.
It was Rose who had introduced Mamma to Jon. They had worked on a project together the year before. He was a sound engineer. Julie remembered the trip with Mamma and Rose last summer; Rose was behind the wheel. They had got lost somewhere north of Kassel. Heading down the wrong exit, she had told them about him. Tall and dark, she had said, with big hands.
Rose inquired about the trees in the valley and wanted to know how often the cabin needed repainting. Was this shade of ochre typical of the area? Jon had turned on the fan in the outhouse as soon as they arrived. It roared like a helicopter. Rose said she wouldn’t be going in there to pee; she’d rather go in the bushes. But then everyone will know what you’re doing when you do go in there, Julie thought. She wouldn’t be peeing in the bushes. There could be ticks, slowworms, gigantic dragonflies.
Once Rose had settled in and taken off her sandals (“I never wear shoes at a cabin”), Mamma began setting up the recliners on the deck. Julie could see the soft skin of her cleavage when she leaned over. Jon fetched a bottle of prosecco from the cooler and took out four glasses; one was for Julie. His hands were constantly somewhere on Mamma, her hips, her neck, her behind. Julie took a can of Coke from the fridge door and walked around to the back of the house to sit down. She felt a pain she hadn’t felt before, like a fist pressing hard against her pubic bone. She could hear Mamma and Rose clink their glasses above the music. They were listening to the Pet Shop Boys.
I love you, you pay my rent.
Not long after, she could smell that Jon had lit the grill. On the radio, they had warned of elevated fire risk along the coast and in the southern regions. Julie got up and started off down the path.
Here and there were steep cliffs, places where the blue-grey bedrock suddenly emerged from dark-green moss and roots and plunged straight down. The dry moss was blanketed in pine needles. Julie could hear insects standing still in the air and the rustling of small creatures in the bushes.
*
Sometimes when she looked up from a book or her homework, she would catch Jon looking at her. She thought of the thick veins on his neck and arms when he carried the heavy water canisters up to the cabin. A few weeks after the trip to Kassel, he had suddenly appeared in the hallway when she was leaving for school, dark and taciturn. She had heard them talking about her one evening when they thought she was asleep:
“Isn’t it about time she found herself a boyfriend?”
“She’s only fourteen.”
“She’s always hanging around at home.”
But the worst part was that Mamma acted differently around him. She laughed louder, was more unmotivated, and she would look at him whenever she said something funny or clever to see if he had caught it.
The sound of a tennis ball being hit back and forth echoed through the woods. Dull, hollow thuds. Julie ventured off the path. She could see the ocean in glimpses. Sunlight fell in slanting columns that turned the forest floor gold. Dad and Merete were by the North Sea right now, probably sitting on the deck in windbreakers, each with their book, talking about all the children they were going to have. In a ditch beneath some fallen trunks, something red caught her eye—not flowers, but a little heap of rubbish. It gleamed like buried treasure. A mouldy old jumper, a few books swollen with damp, empty bottles, a mug with a logo on it, maybe from a bank. A plastic bag, some water-resistant fabric that looked like a tent, a single trainer, old newspapers.
By the time she returned, the adults had finished eating. On the kitchen counter stood a plate of potato salad and grilled meat beneath a pot lid. They were sitting in front of the cabin with blankets over their legs, talking. A candle flickered in a lantern on the table. Mamma was wearing one of Jon’s jumpers over her kimono.
*
The next day they went to the beach. Already early in the morning, they could tell it was going to be warm.
Julie had woken up and felt the fist still pressing against her pubic bone; it was the first thing she registered when she opened her eyes. A light fog lay across the trees in the valley. It would be burned away as soon as the sun took hold. The birds that had awoken them with their lively commotion at the break of dawn were quiet when they walked down the path to the beach.
The water was cold and clear. Pleasant, probably, once you were in. Julie held up her dress with one hand. She had waded in up to her knees. Her swimsuit was in the tote bag on the beach. She had forgotten to change before they left. As soon as they got to the water, Mamma and Rose had pulled their dresses over their heads and run into the sea. They were wearing their swimming costumes underneath. Julie could see them as two small dots out on the pier. They jumped into the water and climbed back out, jumped in and climbed out. Sometimes they would swim out to the floating raft in the middle of the fjord and lean back with outstretched arms, their legs dangling in the water and faces tilted towards the sun. Jon was sitting on a towel on the beach. Julie went back up and sat down next to him, took out her book.
“Aren’t you going in?” she asked.
“I don’t swim.”
“Why not?”
He lifted a hand and stretched out five weathered fingers.
“Nerve damage,” he said.
Jon had been a land surveyor when he was young. The frost had destroyed his fingers because he couldn’t wear gloves. He had told them about his work with the sensitive measuring instruments. In winter it could get as cold as minus twenty-five. His nerves were open wounds. Julie had overheard Mamma telling Rose about it on the phone. He has an artist’s sensibility, she had said; that’s why he talks about the job as if he’s returned from war.
His knees were big and tan, flat as plates. His hands lay in the sand between his legs as if they were heavy. Between two fingers he held a lit cigarette. It must be all right to smoke this close to the water, Julie supposed. When she followed his gaze, she saw Rose emerging from the water. She twisted her long hair and squeezed it, releasing a cascade of glittering droplets all around her. She wore a bikini, like Mamma.
“There you are,” she said.
She spread out her towel and sat down on the other side of Jon. Julie had expected them to start chatting the way adults normally did. Instead they sat next to one another in silence, and yet they seemed to be having a conversation all the same.
He wades out into the ocean and dives down. He finds himself standing in front of a great doorway where he meets a huge barking fish. It has a mane on its back and barks at him like a dog. Behind the fish stands Victoria.
*
“I’ll be right back.”
Julie closed the book. The pain was getting worse, and she needed to use the toilet. She got up and headed for the forest where a stairway led up to the path and into another world, buzzing and sun-mottled and cool. Halfway up the stairs she remembered the bag with her swimsuit. She walked back down, but stopped behind a thicket of beach roses.
Rose was sitting on the towel beside Jon, looking at something between the two of them. Julie took a step to the side so she could see. The smell of the shrubs was pungent. Rose was holding Jon’s hand in hers. She let her fingers slide over his fingertips. Julie scouted for Mamma and spotted her on the raft. She was too far away to see what was happening on the beach. Julie could only make her out as a tiny shape in the distance. But she knew it was Mamma because of the red bikini.
She held her breath. Rose and Jon couldn’t see her. If Julie had been younger, she might have collected the rosehip’s small seeds in her hand, leapt out and thrown itching powder down their backs. But she wasn’t a child. She thought they might disappear, like mythical creatures, if she was discovered, that they might sink into the ground. Rose went on stroking Jon’s fingers. She leaned against him. Then she took his middle finger and put it into her mouth.
Julie left the bag on the beach—Mamma would bring it back with her—and ran through the forest. When she reached the cabin, she felt like she had stumbled across an abandoned campsite. Jon’s jumper was draped over a recliner. The wine glasses from yesterday had been left out, along with some more recent coffee cups. The lantern stood on the table with its little door open, as if someone had just blown out the candle.
The fan in the outhouse was still roaring. It smelled sweetly of rot. Julie sat down and looked at the Bible verse. A long-haired man and a young woman in a flowy dress looked at each other knowingly from either side of a lamppost. Another clipping showed Life along our coasts: “Wolffish and stork and angler: all year. Mackerel and plaice: parts of the year. Drunkard on the beach: May to September. Distribution: the entire coastline.” There was blood in her underwear. Julie was surprised, but then she wasn’t surprised after all. It was more like recognition. She wiped herself and sprinkled wood chips in the toilet so you couldn’t see the shock of red glistening on the paper down there. She rolled her underwear into a ball and hid it in her hand. Outside the annex, she stopped to listen, but the others hadn’t returned from the beach yet. She opened the door to Rose’s room.
The bed was unmade. The floral sheets were the same as hers, soft and threadbare after many years of washing. It was cool inside the room. Rose’s sandals stood under the chair. On the desk lay a notebook with a pen tucked inside. Her toiletries bag was on the floor beside the bed. Carefully Julie pulled back the zipper and touched the various contents: mascara, a pack of sanitary pads, lotions, a hairbrush.
*
It’s proximity in time. That’s why these things are connected: her period and Rose’s soft lips around Jon’s finger. The intimate and the forbidden. As though what she witnessed on the beach that day long ago set off something that would work inside her body month after month. The memories can surface when she sees a woman on the street with the same hair as Rose, or when she hears a certain laugh. Catches a whiff of mint on the bus, maybe from someone’s conditioner. Or, like now, a quiet afternoon towards the end of summer when something about the colour of the sky puts her in a particular mood.
Some years ago, she heard the ending of a radio drama Rose had written. The play was about three people at a space station. Julie had tuned in in the middle of the play. She had changed the channel while doing the dishes and was struck by the voices. As far as she could understand, one of the evacuation vehicles meant to take the crewmembers home was broken, so only two of the astronauts could return to Earth. They could see the planet in the distance, a blue marble in the black.
“It’s as if I could reach out and touch it,” whispered the man.
“Earth is so small I could put it in my mouth and swallow it whole,” whispered one of the women.
They were running out of oxygen. The play ended with the one woman taking off in the capsule while the remaining two were asleep. On her way back to Earth, she performed a monologue, revealing that this had been her plan from the very beginning. She had plotted the whole thing in revenge for their deception. It was the perfect crime. Julie had put down the dish brush. Something had stirred inside her while she listened, a vague recognition which was confirmed afterwards when the radio host mentioned Rose’s name. On an impulse, she looked up the channel listings to find the title of the piece. Look Your Last On All Things Lovely. She searched for more information about the production, but couldn’t find out whether Jon had been involved.
*
She had carefully slipped a pad from the pack and put back the toiletries bag. After Julie changed her underwear and inserted the pad—there was something ceremonious and secret about it—she didn’t know what to do with the bloody underwear. She wouldn’t be able to wash out the stain without Mamma noticing. And she couldn’t bear the thought of the three of them finding out, of them talking about it after she had gone to bed. Instead she went back to the forest, retraced her steps from the previous day to the rubbish heap. She pushed the underwear underneath the newspapers with a stick. If someone were to pass by, they might think a murder had been committed. When she returned, she found Rose in her room.
“Hello, love. Sorry, this is the only mirror.”
Rose was brushing her long hair. Her green eyes flashed in the mirror. Beads of sweat dotted her nose, like freckles.
“You disappeared,” she said.
“I didn’t really feel like swimming.”
The toiletries bag stood open on the dresser with its contents spread across the crocheted runner. Vaseline, Chanel No. 5. Rose picked up a blue eye shadow and applied a thin layer of powder across her eyelid with a finger.
“No point in wasting time on make-up. We’ll probably be going back in the water,” she said. “Help yourself.”
She nodded toward the toiletries bag. Julie didn’t know whether she was referring to the make-up (mascara and rouge and eyeliner) or the pads. Did she know? What had she seen? Maybe she meant the painkiller tablets packaged in individual blisters on a sheet of foil.
“We were talking about taking the rowing boat out,” said Rose. “Jon says there’s a skerry where you can sunbathe. You can dive from the cliffs, too. But we can always go tomorrow, if you don’t want to swim. There’s plenty of time.”
She gathered her things and zipped up the toiletries bag. Julie could hear music coming from somewhere, voices singing. Maybe a new flock of children had arrived at the summer camp.
“I’ll give you some privacy,” said Rose.
On her way out, she leaned against the door frame for a moment.
“By the way, Jon fixed the fan in the outhouse.”
“What do you mean?”
“There was a dead bird in it. That’s why it made such a racket.”
It rained the rest of the holiday. Refreshing, heavy, cool rain from morning till evening. They sensed the storm brewing late in the afternoon, then the oppressive heat was ripped open by a clap of thunder that rinsed the air. They stayed inside, eating peaches with vanilla custard and watching bolts of lightning strike the sea. The next morning, it was still raining. The fire risk was called off. For Julie, it was a relief. She wouldn’t have to explain why she didn’t want to swim. They lit a fire in the fireplace and played round after round of Monopoly. She won multiple times. Then Rose left for Stockholm where she had a work commitment. Julie and Mamma and Jon stayed at the cabin for a few more days.
*
Julie turns off the stove and drains the water from the pot of filled pasta. For a few seconds the glass of the balcony door fogs over. She divides the pasta between two plates and grates parmesan over one. On the table is a small bowl of bell pepper and half a cucumber in large chunks. In the next room she can hear the iPad, the sound of a xylophone, and Oliver’s bright laughter.
Sunday. The last day of the summer holiday.
She pours herself a glass of wine and looks down at the courtyard below where the outdoor lights have already been switched on. She can see people in their apartments on the other side, cooking at the kitchen counter or gathered around the dining table, small families. Many have their windows open. The nice weather came late this year. She feels they hardly got to enjoy it. When they were at the North Sea with Dad and Merete, temperatures reached record lows for August. But Oliver had loved it, of course, the blustering winds and the drifting sand in the dunes. She calls for him, and she can hear him moving about on the sofa, but the iPad doesn’t turn off.
The sky is changing colour behind the construction site. She follows the gradual progression from pink to red. She thinks of Mamma. There must be something about the loneliness—or is it contentment she feels standing here?—that makes her think of her. The joy she finds in the life she has built on her own. Things didn’t work out with Simon, but instead he has slipped into another role, become a kind of ally. She thinks of the pent-up rage she used to carry inside, even long before Oliver was born. She was furious, all the time. It’s as though the practical partnership, all the small daily chores, have dispelled the anger in favour of an almost collegial closeness.
Julie rinses the pot and leaves it to soak, tidies up the kitchen counter. She loves this apartment. The narrow kitchen, the old wooden floors in the living room, painted over too many times. In the cabinets are her plates and cups, and a bowl that really belongs to Simon.
She remembers the grief she felt when she realized she was no longer a child. All the beautiful things she had collected over the years, jewellery boxes, trinkets, soaps; she remembers how they lost their value, brutally, over the course of a single summer. She thinks of it as the last summer with Rose. It was the summer before she began sneaking out at night to go to the beach and get drunk. When they lit bonfires at the weekend there were always a few classmates who would go skinny-dipping, but only after it had become pitch black out. They would run into the sea, clutching their small, hard breasts in their hands. And later? Vodka and sloppy kisses and cold wind, a boy’s messy bedroom with an open window facing the garage. In reality, she often longed to sit on the sofa at home watching a murder mystery with Mamma, for the closeness that could exist between them then. But she never sought it out.
She should call her. It’s been a while. Suddenly a month has gone by without the two of them talking. Julie feels a flash of the old rage, like a heat under her skin. I need to stop, she thinks.
She never told Mamma she saw Rose a few months after the holiday with Jon. It was just before New Year’s. Rose was standing at the other side of the intersection by Vester Allé in a big winter coat, carrying a bag in one hand. Julie had cycled across the street just before the light turned red. She hadn’t said anything when she got home, because she didn’t really know what she had seen. She might not even have noticed, had Rose not placed her hand on her belly in that way.
Oliver comes out into the kitchen.
“Are we having ravioli?” he asks, with that adorable r of his. He climbs onto the chair, places his hands on either side of the plate and blows on his food. His wispy, blond hair, the dark eyes that come from Simon’s side of the family. He swings his legs back and forth and looks up at her as if to ask for permission to eat. Julie sits down across from him at the table. “Go ahead,” she says. It’s true what the midwife said when she caught him. This boy, he’s one big smile.
