Ruby #2
“Who told you that?” Her tone is once more sharply suspicious.
“You did. You said there were storm petrels there, too…?”
She visibly relaxes, her shoulders dropping as she sits up a little straighter again.
“The summers must have been beautiful,” I say softly, prompting her. She takes the bait.
“They were. We lived in Narvik, above the Arctic Circle. We had the midnight sun in summer and the northern lights in winter, in those months when we never saw the sun at all. We all used to go a little bit crazy celebrating when the sun showed us the first glimpse of its face in February. But each day from then on, it rose a tiny bit higher, until in high summer it was as if we were drunk on the surfeit of light. We’d take the rowing boat out to the islands in the fjord, picking our way through the silver birches to picnic on hidden beaches where we could swim.
We’d lift our faces to the light, letting it soak into our thirsty skin.
Sometimes we stayed out so late that the storm petrels would come to join us, fluttering back to their roosts among the rocks, and we felt as safe as they did in that peaceful land where nothing could harm us.
They will always remind me of my childhood home. ”
She closes her eyes briefly as she remembers, and lifts her chin, as if she’s tilting her face toward that midnight sun.
A look of pain is etched into the lines of her face.
This time, though, I don’t think it’s caused by the physical pain of her injured arm, but something deeper-seated, something darker that casts a shadow over her blue-grey eyes.
The radiographer comes out of her room and hands me a large brown envelope containing Hanna’s X-rays. “All good,” she says. “You can take those back to the cubicle you were in earlier. The doctor will be along to see you in a minute.”
It turns out there are no broken bones. “Just a nasty sprain,” the doctor tells us.
“But you’ve done some serious damage to the ligaments, and that can take a couple of months or more to mend.
You’ll need to rest that arm.” She fixes Hanna with a stern look.
“No lifting anything, and no carrying anything heavy. We’ll give you some tubular bandages to help support it during the day.
Leave them off at night if you can. Do you have someone to help you around the house? ”
Grudgingly, Hanna nods toward me. I can see how annoyed she is at losing her independence like this.
“She’ll need a bit of help getting dressed and putting the bandage on each morning,” the doctor tells me. She glances at Hanna’s notes. “And I see she has a croft. Will you be able to do the heavy lifting for at least the next two months?”
“I will. It’s what I’m here for.” I feel a surge of gratitude toward her for validating my presence.
“Good.” The doctor addresses Hanna again.
“Well, Mrs. Williamson, it’s bad luck you have this injury, but fortunate that you have help in place.
” She pats her shoulder with a tender compassion that shows she probably knows more of Hanna’s history than I do.
There’ll be something in the notes, I suppose, and of course the doctor will have seen those tattooed numbers on her arm that I noticed last night.
Despite the softness of the touch, Hanna flinches as though she’s been hit. I wonder what traumas being here in the hospital might be triggering.
The doctor is gentle with her as she very carefully rolls the elasticated bandage over the wrist to support it, showing me how to ease it on. She hands me a box of painkillers with some more instructions, and at last we’re released.
“Right, then,” I say. “Let’s get you home, shall we? And then you can show me around the croft and tell me what needs doing.”
As we drive back—a good deal more smoothly now I’m managing to master the clutch on the car—Hanna seems to be thawing toward me a little more.
At least I really can be of help to her.
I notice she’s no longer shaking and, while she’s not exactly a conversationalist, she responds a little more readily to my questions about the croft.
We pass a herd of diminutive Shetland ponies in a field when we turn off onto the road toward Igdrasil, tossing their long manes in the wind as they jostle and bicker.
I could swear she almost cracks another smile.
*
Next morning, I’m in the kitchen making the coffee when Hanna appears in the doorway. She’s wearing that man-sized overcoat again, and she stops to pat Pip, then pushes her bare feet into a pair of Wellies.
“I can help you put some socks on, if you like,” I say. “And I’ve already let the chickens out and given them their feed. The coffee’s nearly ready.”
She disappears past me through the back door, waving a hand and saying, “Keep it warm. I’ll be back soon.”
“But, Hanna…” I begin to protest. Then I shrug. If she wants to persist in being a stubborn old bat, who am I to stop her?
I pour myself a cup of coffee and lean against the worktop, watching my disobedient companion, with the sheepdog trotting at her side, as she skips down the road toward the beach.
Off to see her best friend Jamie, I suppose, and tell him about our trip to the hospital.
Instead of making for the far end of the little bay where his bothy nestles into the hillside, though, she picks her way across the pebbles to the water’s edge.
“What on earth is she doing now?” I say out loud, exasperated, then alarmed, as she kicks off her Wellies and discards the overcoat to reveal she’s wearing nothing but a swimming costume underneath it.
I set down my mug with a bump, coffee sloshing onto the worktop, and grab my jacket.
Then I set off at a jog toward the beach, watching in horror as she walks calmly into the waves and launches herself into the chilly embrace of the Atlantic.
Suddenly her son’s words echo in my ears: So you’re used to the sea. And I presume you can swim? That’s what he’d said at the interview. And now I have a sneaking suspicion that my duties as her companion may also extend to being a lifeguard.
What if she just keeps swimming, out past the island and onward toward the far horizon?
What if the current sweeps her away? What if she succumbs to hypothermia?
Even though it’s a bright, breezy May morning, surely the water will still be freezing, and she’s so scrawny, there’s hardly any flesh on her old bones.
I reach the top of the crescent of pebbles and stand with my hands on my hips, watching her, ready to fling aside my jacket and kick off my boots to dive in after her if need be.
She seems to be swimming strongly, though, despite her injured wrist. Perhaps it’s less painful in the cold water, because she manages to perform a vigorous breaststroke that carries her out into the bay.
When she draws level with one of the rocks lying off the island, she rolls over and lies on her back, like an otter, her white head bobbing up and down with the waves, the tips of her toes peeking out of the water.
I glance at my watch. How long has she been in?
And how long does it take for hypothermia to set in?