‘Have you set a date?’ Matilda asks as I put down the last bowl of soup.
I see their hands linked together under the table, skirted by the delicate edge of the tablecloth.
‘We were thinking next summer,’ Katya says. ‘We’re hoping for nice weather.’
‘Where are you planning on having it?’ Matilda says.
‘In the church where my parents got married,’ she says. ‘It’s near my family house and we were thinking of having a reception outside in the garden there.’
‘Katya has a beautiful house right on the edge of a fjord,’ Kylan says. ‘It’s where I proposed.’
I swallow down a hot mouthful of soup.
‘Where are you from, Katya?’ I ask.
‘Over on the west coast,’ she says, smiling.
‘And do you go back there a lot?’ I ask, looking straight at Kylan.
‘We fly over every month or two for a weekend,’ he says.
‘That’s a long way,’ I say.
‘Not when you fly,’ he says. ‘We got the train once and that was stupid. By the time we got there we had to turn around and come back again.’
‘It’s further than it is to get here,’ I say. No one says anything: I listen to the chink of the metal spoons against the china. ‘Do they know,’ I ask, ‘about the engagement?’
‘We went and told them last weekend,’ Katya says, smiling widely. ‘They were thrilled. They love Kylan.’
I put down my spoon, feeling the nausea return.
‘My mother has already started planning,’ Katya says. ‘She’s got all these ideas about a fancy reception, but I’ve told her all we really want is a small thing outside, with our closest friends.’ I wish she would stop talking. ‘But I’ve got quite a large family so I imagine it will end up bigger than we think.’
‘Can I ask what’s wrong with the church where your father and I got married?’ I ask Kylan.
Katya’s smile falters.
‘It doesn’t really make sense,’ Kylan says. ‘There’s not that many on our side to invite, and Katya has such a big family, it’s silly to make them travel all this way.’
‘My mum has five brothers!’ Katya exclaims, like this is a joke.
‘All your family live on the west coast?’ I ask.
Katya’s smile wavers again. ‘Well, not all, but—’
‘Your grandmother got married in the same church as your father and I. It’s really a lovely church. Your family might enjoy coming to this side of the country.’
There is a silence.
‘Will your parents have far to come, Mrs Bjornstad?’ Katya asks.
I stare at her. ‘My name is Marta,’ I say, my voice terse. ‘And my parents are dead.’
Katya’s smile completely disappears. I almost want to smile then myself.
I get up and start clearing the table. Carrying the bowls into the kitchen, I notice that Kylan and Katya’s hands are no longer intertwined.
*
I put the dishes on the sideboard.
Shutting my eyes, I hear the sound of footsteps echoing across stone, and I am in the church where Hector and I got married, walking down the aisle. Matilda had shown me how: step left, step together, step right.
Hector’s parents were our only guests. I could see Matilda standing in the front row, watching me, her face covered by the netting of her pale pink hat. Hector’s father was already ill then, sunk in his seat. Every time we were left alone, all I could think about was the cancer eating away at his pancreas behind his suit, and I struggled to think of things to say. He would just smile at me, a tired, knowledgeable smile, as if every young woman was the same, and he had seen so many like me in his life that he couldn’t bring himself to have that same old conversation again.
And there it is again, that strange echoing fear, slipping through the cracks that have formed in the memory. It’s easy to look at a photograph, and to tell yourself things happened a certain way, that you were happy. Easy to talk about it until it seems that it really happened that way. But as I looked out through that gauzy veil, the petals of my bouquet quivering in my hands, as I made those steps towards Hector standing at the altar without my father’s arm to support me, I remember being frightened, not excited.
We didn’t have a reception: everyone agreed it would only upset me, not having my family there. We signed the marriage register straight after the ceremony. I looked down at Hector’s signature, his small, neat handwriting still unfamiliar then. I wrote my new name as neatly as I could, remembering all the times I had practised it.
Mrs Marta Bjornstad
. I was her now.
When I turn around, Hector is standing in the doorway, his arms folded. I jump, putting my hand up to my chest.
‘You scared me,’ I say.
Hector doesn’t move.
I start to pull bowls out of the cupboard for the halibut stew.
‘Marta,’ he says.
‘What?’
‘This needs to stop.’
I stare at him.
‘Leave her alone,’ he says. ‘She only wants you to like her.’
I watch my unsteady hand as I ladle the stew from the pot to the first bowl.
‘Kylan is going to marry her,’ he says. ‘He’s happy. Can’t you see how important that is?’ His eyes are dark, clouded.
I take a deep breath. ‘Don’t you think they’re too young?’
‘You were younger than him when we got married.’
‘That’s different.’
We stare at each other.
‘Can’t you see how good it is, that he’s found someone? We both know it’s not easy.’
The bowl begins to wobble in my hands. ‘I just think he should wait a bit, until he’s older,’ I say.
‘He might not have that many more chances,’ Hector says. I focus on keeping the bowl still, on not spilling a drop. ‘It’s his decision,’ he says. ‘Did you ever think that maybe this was why he didn’t tell you about the engagement? He didn’t want you getting involved. You can never let him make his own decisions, stand on his own two feet.’
I slam the bowl down. Spots of creamy liquid dot the counter. ‘I get it, Hector. You always know what’s good for him, what he wants, and I don’t. I understand.’
Hector sighs behind me. ‘You just don’t listen to him.’
‘How can I listen to him if he never tells me anything?’ I can hear the tears in my voice.
Hector comes and stands behind me. ‘I know you don’t want to lose him,’ he says. ‘But you’re pushing him away. It’s not fair. He only wants to be happy.’
I want to throw one of the bowls against the wall.
‘Will you please take this through?’ I say. I hold it out to him.
Don’t let your husband lift a finger: treat him as you would any other guest in your home.
‘I’ll bring the rest.’ After a moment, he takes the bowl, turns around and leaves the kitchen. I feel myself sink against the counter, my head in my hands.
I know she’s there before I pull my hands away. She is lying on the kitchen floor, smoking a cigarette, her thin legs crossed over each other awkwardly. Her hip bones are still visible, but there’s more of her stomach than there was the last time I saw her, and her hair is not as tangled and broken. She blows smoke rings at me.
There are seven piles of cards on the floor next to her in a line, some facing up, and some down.
She smiles. There is a black hole between her gums round the side: a tooth is missing. I run my tongue across my own teeth, but they’re all there. She reaches forward to move a card to another pile, to turn one over.
When I open my eyes, I am sitting at the kitchen table, a lit cigarette between my fingers. My throat burns, and the room is filled with smoke, either hers or mine. I put my hand up to the tightness in my chest, my breaths rising hard and fast. What was I thinking? I have no idea where the cigarette has come from, and no recollection of lighting it. This is different, I think, to the other things I have been seeing. This is dangerous.
Standing up, I look around the kitchen, unsure what to do with the burning cigarette. I can hear the laughter in the dining room, and I wonder how long I have been in here. Sliding open the patio doors, I slip out and drop the cigarette into the drain.
I wonder if Hector is right. Perhaps I need to take my pills.
My hands shake as I lift the remaining bowls out of the cupboard. Stacking them upside down on top of the saucepan lid, I carry the whole thing through to the dining room to serve it there, leaving the patio doors open but shutting the kitchen door.
When I re-enter the room, they are still talking about the wedding. I put down the saucepan and begin serving the food, handing it down the table. Thinking of the salt, I smile.
The first rule of being a good hostess is never to apologize for something that may otherwise go unobserved.
‘We were thinking of having a buffet,’ Katya is saying. ‘We’d really just like a barbecue, but my mum will never allow it.’
I clear my throat. ‘Do you mind if we stop talking about the wedding?’ I say.
Katya stares, blinking. Everyone is looking at me. Taking a mouthful of food, I can taste little but the salt.
‘What do you do for a living, Katya?’ I ask, when I can’t stand the silence any longer.
‘I work in advertising,’ she says.
‘Is that in an office?’ I ask.
Katya nods. ‘It’s a small agency but we’ve done some quite big campaigns.’
‘And do you think you will keep working once you are married?’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘We don’t see the wedding changing that much in our lives really. We already live together.’
‘But you want to have children?’
‘When we are a bit older,’ she says. ‘I don’t think we’re ready for that yet. We’re too selfish, I suppose.’ She looks at Kylan and they laugh.
‘And too young,’ Hector says.
‘I was younger than Katya when I had Kylan,’ I say. ‘You didn’t think it was too young then, Hector.’
‘It was different then,’ Hector says. ‘You didn’t have a career.’
‘But you won’t work when you have children,’ Matilda says.
‘I might,’ Katya says, ‘when they are a little older. I haven’t decided yet.’
‘I think you’re all getting a bit carried away,’ Kylan says, smiling. ‘We certainly aren’t planning on any children for a good few years yet.’
‘Having children is an amazing experience, though,’ I say, looking at Kylan. ‘It’s just a shame they have to grow up.’
Kylan smiles and then looks down at his plate.
‘It’s inevitable,’ Katya says. ‘That’s why I think I’d like to keep working.’
I stare at her. It feels like an attack, and I want to say something, but I have promised Kylan I will make an effort.
The only sound is the scraping of the metal cutlery against the china. It makes my stomach churn. Closing my eyes, I see a white plate, rimmed with blue flowers, a steaming mound of beef stew and mashed potato, enough to feed four men. His big hands dwarf the cutlery, scraping the plate clean; his teeth grind.
When I open my eyes, the guests are observing me, their faces turned towards me in the candlelight.
I see myself then, a blank-faced marionette, like the porcelain dolls in the cabinet in the hallway.
I wonder if I was talking, if I said something I shouldn’t have.
‘What?’ I say abruptly, the word stuttering around the table.
There is a pause.
‘Nothing, Mum,’ Kylan says. ‘We were just saying how good the food is.’
I think of the long trail of white salt, disappearing below the surface of the stew. Why are they lying to me?
They watch as I sip my champagne.
Hector is staring at me, a warning look, and the fear tightens in my stomach. I need to behave myself.
Once everyone is finished, I get up and start clearing the bowls. Walking through to the kitchen, I keep checking to see if Hector has followed me, but he doesn’t come.
I remember his hand on my back in the shady hallway of the hotel we stayed in on our honeymoon. It was dim compared with the sunshine reflecting off the outside paintwork, making the trees around the fjord paint the water with sparkling green.
The hotel was only a short drive from the chapel, and I was still wearing my wedding dress: I remember the difficulty of climbing the wooden stairs without tripping. There was champagne in an ice bucket in our bedroom and a fruit basket wrapped in cellophane on the dressing table. Hector locked the door to the room from the inside, then walked out onto the balcony. I began unwrapping the fruit, the plastic creaking under my fingers.
‘Don’t open that now,’ Hector called through from the balcony, ‘we’ll go for dinner soon. Come out and look at the view.’
I followed him, resting my small hands on the white wooden rail next to his larger ones. The fjord stretched before us, and from the darkness of the water, I could tell it was deep. There was barely a ripple on the silky surface, and the valley was deserted.
I felt Hector watching me as I looked out. He moved behind me, putting his hands on either side of mine and pressing his body into my back.
‘My parents stayed in this room after their wedding,’ he said. ‘I always wanted to bring my wife here one day.’
I wished he hadn’t mentioned his parents. I imagined his mother, before she was the stern woman I knew now, opening a neatly packed suitcase on the bed, folding her gloves one on top of the other on the dressing table. Pulling out a tissue from the luxuriously decorated tissue box and dabbing at her make-up, her face shiny after the long journey. It wasn’t our room any more.
‘It’s a beautiful view,’ I said, reaching up to kiss the side of his face.
‘Well, we have it all to ourselves,’ he said, and I could hear him smiling.
He took my hand and led me into the room, pushing me backwards onto the bed. Gently, he touched the material of the wedding dress that had once been his mother’s. He sat there for a long time, just looking. I tried to reach up and kiss his cheek, but he pushed my head to the side and into the bed, keeping his eyes only on the dress. I heard the jangle of his belt buckle, and felt the dress being lifted up, my underwear pulled down around my knees. It took him some time to find his way. I tried to shift my body with his, to make it easier, but he put his hand over my hips and held me still as he jerked backwards and forwards. I watched the juddering lace of the canopy above. He moved faster and faster, muttering something that I couldn’t make out, a word repeated over and over again.