A Winter Book
I bailed the boat, even though she’d hardly taken in any water, then we let ourselves run on for a bit.
This is where the summer birds live, the carefree people Dad despises. They wake late in the day in their summer-houses and go down to the sea on their rickety white-painted landing-stages with their nearby saunas and jump into their flashy high-powered metal motorboats.
Dad despises metal boats. He says these young toffs and their girls are nothing short of criminal; they use twenty horsepower just for pleasure, putting everyone else’s lives at risk, not to mention the professional fishermen’s nets.
Of course, I remember. The girl always sitting in the bows as far forward as she could, tanned and happy with her hair flying in the wind, loving the thrill of speed! As they race past she waves to me – but that was an awful long time ago.
I rowed on. It looked likely to be a very hot day and there was thunder in the air.
Gradually the shallows filled with people, travelling and fishing and bathing, delighting in that summer world which is like nothing else, with small children milling about off every shore on rafts and in canoes – when all of a sudden one of those flashy motor-boats drove straight through with bow waves like rainbows and the toff at the wheel shouted, “Hi! Want a tow?”
It was beneath me even to favour him with a glance.
Here came another. I rowed like mad and as it hissed past I saw the girl with flying hair in the bows and she waved to me.
I rowed on.
It wasn’t the right girl, I knew that. But I could have waved even so – though probably I wouldn’t have. Did these people in the shallows have any idea how stupid they were? Probably not. Was I being unfair to them? I expect I was.
Never mind. I rowed on and came near the narrow gap where the shallows open to the sea, after which the small islands thinned out and it became cooler.
Now I was getting near the most important part of my trip and I had to stop and think. I dropped the anchor-stone overboard, with the line secured to the rowlock. There seemed no need to sleep but I took out Mum’s sandwiches. They were each separately wrapped in greaseproof paper, and on the outside of each she’d written ‘cheese’, ‘sausage’, etc., except that on one she’d put ‘Long Live Freedom’. Silly. So I just ate hardbread and opened her appleade and watched the moon, which was about to climb the sky. It was still large and looked like a pickled apricot. The road from the moon stretched straight out to the boat and now you could hear the sea properly again.
This is the turning point, this is exactly where the way back begins and I’ll be able to draw my journey on the coastal chart in a bold loop like a lassoo thrown round an archipelago! Now I’m coming to the creeks that face the sea, the uninhabited places that are my secret territory because I know them better than anyone and love them best.
I come here when I’m feeling lonely and especially when it’s blowing, which it does most of the time. There are five creeks and six headlands with not even a shack as far as the eye can see (the pilot’s cottage doesn’t count). I go slowly, hugging the shore, into each creek and out round each headland; I mustn’t miss anything out because it’s a ritual. Naturally I must salvage anything that may have washed up on shore and secure it with a couple of stones but that has nothing to do with the ritual – everyone rescues flotsam without even thinking about it. Now I’m about to see my territory from the sea for the first time, that’s important.
I pulled up the anchor-stone and rowed straight out into the path of the moon. Of course the moon’s path is lovely as a picture in calm weather, but when it’s rough it’s even more beautiful, all splinters and flakes from precious stones like sailing through a sea set with diamonds!
And at that very moment Dad turned up, I knew it was him because I recognised his Penta. So he’d found me, and now it was just a question of whether he was angry or relieved or both, and should I let him have the first word or not – and then he turned off the motor and came alongside and grabbed the gunwale and said hello.
I said hello.
“Climb over,” said Dad. “We’ll take her in tow, and now I’m going to ask you once and for all: why do you have to worry your mother like this!?” He fixed the stern line, adding: “The way you’re behaving is almost criminal.” Then he started up the Penta, which made it impossible for either of us to add another word.
I sat in the bows. The boat danced after us as light as a hind and didn’t take in a single drop of water.
I knew Dad enjoyed driving the Penta on the open sea, so I left that to him and concentrated first and foremost on my own territory, which I could now see from the sea. The further from it we went, the more I realised that seen from the sea it was nothing but an extremely boring strip of Finnish coastline, which no one else would ever be the least bit interested in seeing, which was fine by me: they could all stay away if they had no idea what beauty was!
I took off my cap and loosed my hair to the wind and thought of other things.
Dad had found the sandwiches and eaten them.
It was a very beautiful night. He began playing and showing off among the waves; every so often he looked at me but I pretended not to notice. It was beginning to get light; outside our home creek, he brushed Hällsten in a tight clever curve, but kept the tow-rope permanently slack so the boat had time to reach the shore sedately. When we came near the hill, Dad said: “Never do this again, just so you know.” We said goodnight. It was getting steadily lighter; the sky was big and white, as it usually is before sunrise.
PART III
Travelling Light
The Squirrel
ONE WINDLESS DAY IN NOVEMBER, NEAR SUNRISE, SHE saw a squirrel at the landing place. It was sitting motionless near the water, scarcely visible in the half-light, but she knew it was a real live squirrel and she hadn’t seen a living thing for a long time. You can’t count gulls: they’re always leaving; they’re like wind over waves and grass.
She put on her coat over her nightshirt and sat down by the window. It was cold, with a cold that stood still in the four-walled room with its four windows. The squirrel didn’t move. She tried to remember everything she knew about squirrels. The wind carries them on pieces of wood from island to island. And then the wind drops, she thought with a touch of cruelty. The wind dies or changes direction and they drift out to sea, it turns out to be not at all what they expected. Why do squirrels go sailing? Are they curious or just hungry? Are they brave? No. Just ordinary and stupid. She got up and went for her binoculars, and when she moved the cold crept inside her coat. She found it difficult to adjust the binoculars, so she laid them on the window-ledge and waited a little longer. The squirrel continued to sit at the landing place doing nothing, just sitting there. She watched it intently and, finding her comb in the pocket of her coat, combed her hair slowly while she waited.
Now the squirrel came up the hill, very quickly, ran forward towards the cottage and stopped suddenly. She studied the animal closely and critically. It was sitting upright with its paws hanging down, occasionally jerking its body in a nervous and apparently unmotivated movement, a sort of crawling leap. It dashed round the corner. She went to the next window, the one facing east, then to the south one. She could see right across the island from shore to shore, there were no trees or bushes in the way; she could see everything that came and went. Unhurrying, she went to the fireplace to light the fire.
First, two pieces of plank at the sides. Over them, a crosswork of kindling, amongst the kindling birch bark, and on top of that some long-burning wood. Once the wood was alight she began to dress, slowly and methodically.
She always dressed at sunrise, warmly and with anticipation, pulling on sweaters and buttoning moleskin trousers round her broad midriff, and when she had got into her boots and pulled down her earflaps she would usually sit in front of the fire in an inviolable state of wellbeing, completely still and without a thought in her head while the fire warmed her knees. She met each new day in the same way, wait
ing sternly for winter.
Autumn by the sea had not turned out to be the autumn she’d expected. There had been no storms. The island was withering peacefully, its grass rotting in the rain and the hill turning slippery with dark algae which reached far above the waterline as November became increasingly grey. Nothing had happened before the squirrel came ashore. She went to the mirror above the chest of drawers and detected on her upper lip a delicate latticework of little vertical wrinkles she’d never noticed before. Her face was an undefinable grey-brown like the November earth; squirrels become grey-brown in winter but they don’t lose their colour, they only get a new skin. She set the coffee on the fire and said: “Whatever else, squirrels have no talent.” The thought calmed her.
She mustn’t be hasty. The animal needed time to get used to the island and most of all to the house, and to discover that the house was merely a motionless grey object. But of course a house, a room with four windows, isn’t really motionless; the person moving inside it must seem a sharp, threatening silhouette. How would a squirrel understand the movements it sees in a room? How, seen from the outside, do movements in an empty room look? All she could do was move very slowly and in absolute silence. The prospect of living an entirely silent life seemed tempting, if she could achieve it voluntarily and not merely because the island was silent.
On the table lay paper in orderly white sheaves, always placed in the same way with pens beside them. Any sheets of paper she’d already written on lay hidden against the surface of the table, because if words lie face down there’s a chance they might change during the night; you may suddenly come to see them with a new eye, perhaps with a rapid flash of insight. It is conceivable.
It was possible the squirrel might stay overnight. It was possible it might stay through the winter.
She very slowly crossed the floor to the corner cupboard and opened its doors. The sea was restless today; everything was restless. She stood still holding the cupboard doors open while she tried to remember what she’d come to fetch. And as usual she had to go back to the fire to remember. Sugar. And then she remembered not sugar, not any more, because sugar made her fat. These delayed acts of remembering depressed her; she let go and her thoughts ran on, and sugar led to dogs and she wondered what if it had been a dog that had come ashore at the landing place, but she pushed the thought away and cut it out of her mind; it was a thought that diminished the squirrel’s importance.
She began sweeping, painstaking and calm. She liked sweeping. It was a peaceful day, a day without dialogue. There was nothing to defend or accuse anyone of; everything had been cut out, all those words that could have been other words or might simply have been out of place and have led to great changes. Now there was nothing but a warm cottage full of morning light, herself sweeping and the friendly sound of coffee beginning to simmer. The room with its four windows simply existed and justified itself; it was safe and had nothing to do with any place where you could shut anything in or leave anything out. She drank her coffee and thought about nothing at all, resting.
A mean thought passed through her head: so much fuss about a squirrel, there are millions of them, they’re not particularly interesting. One, a single specimen, has happened to come here. I must be careful, I’m exaggerating everything at the moment, perhaps I’ve been alone too long. But it was only a passing thought, a knowing observation that anyone at all might have made. She put down the cup. Three gulls were sitting on the promontory, all facing the same way. Now she was feeling a bit unwell again; it was too hot in front of the fire – she always felt ill after her morning coffee. She needed her little tot of Madeira, the only thing that helped.
That’s how a day starts: light the fire, get dressed, sit in front of the fire. Sweep up, coffee, morning Madeira, wind the clock, brush your teeth, have a look at the boat, measure the height of the water. Cut firewood, worktime Madeira. Then comes the main body of the day. Not till sundown do the rituals begin again. Sundown Madeira, take in the flag, see to the slop-pail, light the lamp, food. Then comes the whole evening. Every day must be written up before dark, including the height of the water, the direction of the wind and the temperature, and the shopping list on the doorpost: new batteries, stockings but not knitted, all kinds of vegetables, embrocation, spare glass shade for lamp, saw-blade, butter, Madeira, sheer-pins for the propeller.
She went to the wardrobe to fetch her morning medicine. The Madeira was kept furthest in, closest to the chill from the hall, she liked it cold. A bottle must have its fixed place. The steps down to the cellar under the floor were precipitous and awkward and she thought it cowardly to hide bottles outside the house. There weren’t many bottles left. Sherry didn’t count: it made you sad and wasn’t good for the stomach.
The morning light had grown stronger, and the wind was still calm. She ought to catch the bus in to town to get more Madeira. Not yet but soon, before the weather got too cold. The motor was giving trouble; she ought to try and do something about it, but it wasn’t the sparking-plug this time. She understood nothing about the motor beyond the sparking-plug and sheer-pin. Now and then she emptied the tank and filtered the petrol through cloth. She had leaned the motor against the wall of the house and covered it with a bag, and there it stood now. Of course, one could row. But the boat was heavy and tended to veer into the wind. It was too far. The whole subject was disagreeable; she shut it out.
She noiselessly opened the screw-top, holding the bottle between her knees and pressing the stopper against her palm as she turned it, coughing the moment the metal sleeve broke and filling her glass with the bottle held at right angles before she remembered none of this was necessary. It was her morning Madeira anyway, which she had a right to because she wasn’t feeling well. She carried the glass into the cottage and stood it on the table; the wine shone a deep red against the light from the window. When the glass was empty she hid it behind the tea-caddy. She went to the window and tried to see the squirrel. She moved very softly from window to window waiting for it to appear. The wine had warmed her, the fire was burning in the fireplace, she moved round anticlockwise rather than clockwise, very calmly. The wind was still quiet and the sea and the sky joined together in a grey nothing, but the hill was black from the night’s rain. Now the squirrel came. It came as if to reward her for having been calm and having cut everything else out of her life. The little animal leapt over the hill in soft S-shaped curves, straight across the island and down to the water; now it was sitting at the landing place again. It’s going away, she thought. ‘There’s nowhere to stay here, nothing to eat, no other squirrels, and the storms will come and then it’ll be too late.’
She got down laboriously on her knees and pulled out the bread bin from under the bed. Animals know when it’s time to move on, like rats leaving a sinking ship, swimming or sailing away from what’s doomed. She crept over the hill, moving as carefully as she could, and broke small pieces from the hardbread and put them in crevices. Now it had seen her. It ran down to the water’s edge and sat there motionless; all she could see was a speck, a silhouette, but its outline radiated watchfulness and mistrust; now it’s going to leave, now it’s afraid! She went on breaking the bread as quickly as she could, faster, faster, hitting it with her fists, snapping it against her knees and throwing the pieces about on the ground, then scurried back into the cottage on all fours and over to the window. The landing place was empty. She waited an hour, went from window to window. The breeze was marking the sea with dark streaks; it was difficult to see whether there was anything moving out there, any floating object or swimming animal. She could only see birds that were resting like white spots on the water before flying up and gliding away out over the promontory. Then the streaks made by the breeze intensified and she could see nothing at all; her eyes grew tired and moist. She was desperately sorry for the squirrel and for herself too. She was a fool and had made herself ridiculous.
It was time for her worktime Madeira. Never mind cleaning her teeth, cutting fire
wood and measuring the height of the water, all that; she must be careful not to grow pedantic. She took out her glass, filled it quickly and carelessly, and, after emptying it, put it on the table and stood still and listened. The quality of the silence had changed, it was blowing a bit now, a steady easterly wind. The morning light had vanished from the room, the early glow of expectation and opportunity, now the daylight was ordinary and grey, a new day already partly used up, a bit soiled with wrong thoughts and pointless actions. Everything to do with the squirrel seemed unpleasant and embarrassing, so she cut it out.
She stood in the middle of the room in the warmth of her worktime Madeira and knew: ‘This is only a moment, a moment that will pass quickly, I must use it or make it new.’ All her pans hung in a row above the fireplace, all her books stood side by side on their shelves and all her nautical instruments were on the wall, decorative objects without which it might be hard to survive on a winter sea. Though there were never any storms. In other circumstances she might have been able to write to someone: We’re in a number eight force gale. I’m working. The salmon float is banging against the wall outside and waves have covered the windows with spray. No. The windows have been blinded by salt water. Covered with spray from… blinded. Spray from the breakers is crashing over… Dear Mr K. We’re in the midst of a number eight gale…
‘There is no storm. It’s just blowing, spiteful and stubborn, or there’s a shiny swollen sea licking endlessly at the shore. If the wind gets any stronger, I ought to have a look at the boat, and when I’ve done that I’ll deserve an extra Madeira which needn’t be counted in with the others.’