‘You did?’
‘Well, yes, but only from here, of course. But you do get to know some of the parents properly, and Mia was one of them. She was just so sweet. So proud of you. She loved being your mother.’ Lone pauses for a moment, probably because of the look on his face. Storm can feel it twisting into a grimace as though he has no control over it. He wants to say something but the lump in his throat is so thick he knows the words couldn’t possibly form around it. Lone appears to sense this, and continues speaking. Storm glances at Madeleine sitting next to him, her sweet face focused on Lone’s words.
‘Sometimes you can get a lot of closure from going back and getting a sense of who you were back when something traumatic happened to you.’
‘Yeah. Did you, uh, notice a big change in me, you know, after she’d died?’
‘Well, yes. Naturally. You were very affected by it.’
‘I don’t actually know how long I was here for after she’d died.’
‘Less than six months.’
‘Yeah, that makes sense, we moved to Slemdal around the time I turned four. Because my dad remarried. Quickly.’ Lone purses her lips together in sympathy, and Storm realizes his words came out tinged with bitterness.
‘Yes. I remember. I sent your file over to your new nursery. I actually had quite a few conversations with the new place in the year or so after you moved. You found it difficult to transition into a new life. No wonder, after what you’d been through. Between you and me, I think it was very soon after Mia died for you to also change your environment. But I hope your stepmother and father were able to create a very loving and safe home for you. You’ve done incredibly well for yourself, Storm. I’ll be crossing my fingers for you next year in Vail.’
Storm nods slowly. ‘Did you ever meet my stepmother?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘In what way, specifically, did you think I was affected or traumatized after Mum died?’
‘I think, because you were there when it happened, you really needed to work through your memories of that day, and—’
‘Wait. I’m sorry. I was there?’
‘Well, yes—’
‘I…’
‘I don’t think Storm knew that,’ he hears Madeleine say, and he can feel her tugging at his hand to sit back down. He hadn’t realized he’d gotten up. It’s as though all the blood in his body has rushed into the confines of his skull, making it feel like it might actually explode.
He lets himself be pulled back down onto the chair. He does his breathing exercises, counting slowly to five when he inhales and seven when he exhales. It takes him a very long time to angle his head toward Madeleine, such is his shock; it’s as though it has struck him still, trapped inside his own body. When he manages to move his head the last inch so that their eyes meet, Madeleine’s are wide in horror.
‘I didn’t know that,’ he says, and his voice breaks, making him sound like a young boy again. How will he get up, walk out of here, make small talk with Madeleine, go home? How will he ever look his father in the eye again? What else has he lied about? It seems to be one thing after another and Storm feels certain that it’s Bianka’s doing – she’s always discouraged any questions about what his mother was really doing up there that day so many years ago. But to not tell him that he had been with his mother on that mountain when she suffered a fatal accident, it was unforgivable.
‘I’m not sure I should tell you this, Storm. But you are almost seventeen now and seem like a very sensible and clever boy. And I think you’ve come here looking for something, some insight into your own self, which is something I believe everyone deserves.’ Lone pauses, her eyes searching his. Storm makes himself hold her gaze level and steady. ‘I reported your family to Barnevernet, Oslo’s social services, a month or so after your mother passed away. I felt I didn’t have any choice. You can imagine it didn’t go down well with your father, which, of course, I understand – it must have felt like an extra burden in the thick of grief. But I was extremely concerned for you. Shortly after, your father made the decision to move to another part of the city, and as far as I’m aware, the case was left unresolved as most cases unfortunately are. But I made sure to get in touch with your new day-care to make them aware of the things that had caused me concern, in the hope that they would follow you up and pay extra attention to you when I no longer could. I want you to know that I really tried to do right by you.’
A thick silence separates them for several long moments. Storm tries to recall any memories about what Lone just told him, but there simply aren’t any. All he remembers from those early years in Slemdal is playing out by the edge of the forest with a couple of boys from the neighbourhood. They’d trap baby frogs in their hands and hold competitions over who could resist releasing them for the longest, relishing the disgusting, thrilling scramble of the sticky little animal trapped in the cave of their cupped hands. And he remembers Bianka’s shrill voice as she’d call him in for supper; he’d run so fast, his pulse sounded in his ears just to make her exaggerated singsong voice stop. Stooo-ooorm. Stooo-ORM. Stoooooooorm. The other kids would pause whatever game they were playing and stare at him open-mouthed as he raced toward the strange sound. Nobody else’s mother screamed like that.
Storm makes himself return to the present moment. Madeleine on the plastic chair next to him, close, her warm hand snug in his own. Lone across the desk, looking at him with her hooded, maroon eyes shining with kindness and concern.
‘What was it that made you so concerned?’
‘You said some terribly disturbing things. And I believed you.’
Twenty-Eight
Charlotte
I unlock the door to the finca and Bianka shines the light from her phone around the main space, letting it dwell for a long moment on the gruesome sight of the tarpaulin-covered bundle beneath the window. A new wave of panic surges through me at the feeling of standing here in an enclosed space in the dead of the night with Maxime’s body in the room with us, and I have to swallow hard several times to stop a scream rising in my throat. Still, in spite of the feeling of panic, I feel somehow ready for this – it’s as though I’ve come to accept that it has to be this way. It’s me or Maxime now, and it’s too late for him anyway.
The coke has worn off by now and I’m simultaneously jittery and exhausted, plagued by a terrible cold that seems to be originating in my bones. In the past few weeks I’ve almost entirely removed myself from all the ideas I ever had about myself and how I live my life.
‘I’ll go get the weights,’ says Bianka. I nod and follow her back outside into the night; I can’t bear to wait inside, alone with Maxime’s body. While I wait for her to return I realize it might not be any better to be left alone with my own thoughts. I try to tame them, to streamline them into controlled and useful ones the way I usually do. I think about standing on the sidelines, watching Oscar play football, his young, agile body lurching across the pitch like a puppy’s. And about brushing Madeleine’s hair in the evenings, helping her ease out the stubborn knots at the nape of her neck, our eyes meeting in the mirror. This is the life I have to focus on, to stand a chance of preserving it. And yet, it feels so distant and elusive to me, like watching someone else’s great life on TV and knowing you can never have something like it yourself.
I stare down the path, past the cliffs and out at the black, moonstruck sea. Down there, on the beach, my mother’s boat lies in wait. I’ll pick up the oars worn smooth by Ximena’s hands and slice the water swiftly until we reach the open sea. We’ll do what we have to do and then we’ll return without Maxime and pull the boat back up.
Bianka takes a long while and by the time she finally returns, the sound of her feet crunching lightly on the stones of the path that leads from the house, I have convinced myself that she’s been injured, or that the police have come and are asking questions up at the house, or that she has run away, leaving me to deal with Maxime by myself.
I breathe a sigh of relief at the sight of her, though Bianka looks and seems like a different woman from just days ago. Her eyes, which usually shine with a combination of quick wit and mischief, look dull and distant, and she carries herself differently, more slowly and considered, like she’s constantly bracing herself.
‘Okay?’ I whisper, and she nods, motioning to the eight-kilo kettlebells swinging from each hand.
‘Fuck, these are heavy.’
‘Good,’ I say, and we exchange a tight smile.
Back inside the boathouse, by the light of the phone torch, angled so its glare is unlikely to be spotted through the gaps in the tightly drawn curtains in the almost inconceivable event of someone walking along the path on my property in the middle of the night, we uncover Maxime’s body. In the hours we’ve been gone, he has started to grow slightly rigid – though his limbs still bend, they seem unnaturally leaden and stiff.
We slowly drag him into the middle of the room so we have more space to move around. Then we begin to take his clothes off. I’m not yet sure what we’ll do with them, but we’ve agreed that we need to do absolutely everything we can to get rid of as many possessions and identifying features as possible. It takes us a long while to get him out of his blood-soaked white linen shirt – he’s heavy and his head is lolling around grotesquely as we lift his torso. We place him back down on his back when the shirt is off and quietly take him in, exchanging glances. The gash in his neck has dried up and looks like a terrifying black hole. The large eagle tattoo on the back of his hand, which I’d thought looked sexy when that same hand cupped my breast, now fills me with intense pity. He’s so young.
Was.
Not even thirty.
He behaved badly and I had to defend myself, but can that justify what I’ve done, what I’ve taken from him? He’ll never have children, will never laugh or travel or make love or hug his mother, ever again, because of me. He’s an only child and at the thought of his elderly parents, who in this moment don’t yet know that they are childless, I feel as though I’ve been punched in the gut.
