Read The Last Boat Home for Free Online Page B

skin and cleaned it for bones. As she chewed, she contemplated the blade of sun that fell from the window, cleaving the room in two, downgrading each portion to cramped inadequacy.
    ‘I thought,’ she said.
    ‘It’ll rain tomorrow,’ said her father.
    ‘Do you think so?’ asked her mother. ‘There isn’t a cloud in the sky.’
    ‘The forecast said rain.’
    ‘I thought,’ Else said, ‘I’d go and pick blueberries after dinner.’
    ‘This evening?’ asked her mother. ‘But haven’t you homework to do?’
    ‘I’ve finished it.’
    ‘There aren’t any blueberries left now,’ her father said.
    ‘Ole Haugeli picked half a litre yesterday,’ said Else. ‘Solveig said so after church.’
    ‘Wouldn’t anyone like some more fish?’ her mother asked.
    ‘You won’t find any blueberries now,’ said her father.
    ‘I won’t see it go to waste. Else, pass me your plate.’
    Else did as she was told. She tried to eat the fresh helping of coalfish, though her nerves trampled her appetite. Each mouthful tasted of dishwater and she sipped from her glass to wash the flavour away. Her father reached across her for the bowl of potatoes and a whiff of underarms lifted off his jumper. Else put down her fork and jiggled her knee under the table until the end of the meal.
    When her parents had eaten the last of the fish, she scrubbedthe cutlery and crockery in the kitchen and scoured the starch that had set in a film on the base and sides of her mother’s pots. Then she stooped to the cupboard by the refrigerator and found a short stack of pails. Her mother stood at the counter spooning the leftover vegetables into a smaller bowl.
    ‘Will you be going to the Aaby farm, then?’ she asked.
    Else nodded.
    ‘Don’t be late. You’ve school tomorrow.’
    ‘I won’t be late,’ she said.
    She eased a pail from the pile and, with her fist closed over its handle, retreated to the dining room, where her father had stationed his chair by the unlit oven. He glanced up from his rolling paper before she slipped into the hallway and through the back door. Else walked over the yard to the vegetable plot, past the lid of the old well and to the milking barn. She felt his stare like a fingertip poking her shoulder, commanding her to turn around. She almost did, but instead carried on to the hill at the end of the property. Under cover of the birch trees that bordered the path, she started to run.
    Lars was waiting in a bend in the road. He kicked the pebbles in the dirt by his moped, whose yellow paint was bright beside the grey crags of the mountain. He beamed when he saw her jogging towards him.
    ‘You’re late!’ he called.
    ‘Come on,’ said Else, ‘let’s go.’
    ‘I’m glad you came.’ He fumbled for her hand and knocked the pail with his knuckles. ‘Why have you brought that?’
    ‘I told my parents I was picking blueberries.’
    ‘If you say so,’ he said.
    ‘Where are we going?’
    ‘It’s a surprise.’
    Else climbed onto the moped behind Lars. With one arm looped around his waist, the other hand still clutching the pail, she buriedher nose in the crook of his neck, breathing him in as the motor snarled awake. The wind whisked the smell of soap from his collar when he rolled the handle grips and the bike shot off down the track. Across the fjord, his father’s shipyard dipped in and out of view.
    The moped sped by the Aaby farm before it passed the public dock, where Else hid her face, though the last ferry had gone and the pier was empty. From there, the road pulled back from the coast. The fjord fell away as the bike veered inland. Else shut her eyes to the rushing countryside and leaned into the warmth that she felt through Lars’s jacket. When she next looked, the rock at the roadside had given way to forest. A gap opened in the trees ahead. Lars slowed down as they approached.
    ‘Hold on,’ he said and tilted his weight. The moped glided onto a path. Tree roots split the earth, coiling under