It Was That Night Page 3

  They tell me Aunt Clara has died and gone to heaven.

  “Her spirit has flown away and ...” Mum says.

  Dad interrupts, looking up from his book. His eyebrows do that funny thing where they disappear up in his hair, “Inga, don’t tell the child that nonsense.”

  I look at Mum. Her lips suddenly look like a thin line.

  “We could pick some flowers and put them on her grave. Would you like that?” she asks me.

  “I don’t want her to be down there,” I cry, when I see the grave.

  “It’s only her body, Claire.” Mum smiles at me.

  Later, when I sit behind the elderberry tree playing, Aunt Clara is there.

  I am so happy to see her. I have a thousand questions, but before I have said more than a few words Dad peers around the tree.

  “Who are you talking to?”

  “Aunt Clara. She’s not down in that stupid hole in the churchyard.”

  “Well, say goodbye and come in and eat.”

  Dad turns around. Aunt Clara winks at me and says, “See you next time.”

  I want to hug her, but she is not there anymore.

  “Claire,” Dad says, “..now that you are a big girl, almost seven, you should not pretend to see people who are not there.”

  I stamp my foot, “I’m not pretending. She was there.”

  “If you say so. Wash your hands and come and eat.” Dad starts dishing out the food.

  Mum sits down. “Mogens, it might be that she actually does see those people,” she says looking at a new bloom in one of the flowers on the windowsill.

  “Nonsense,” Dad says. “I won’t have her growing up as a freak. Good thing we’re moving and you’ll be starting school soon.” He looks like a big angry spider twitching its pincers.

  “Why is that a good thing? I am not moving. I am staying.” I cross my arms and stare at him.

  Mum sighs, “But Dad is going to work in Copenhagen at the university hospital.”

  “So what? You move. Not me,” I scream and run off to Karin.

  Karin goes with me when I go around saying goodbye to the little people.

  “I’m so gonna miss you,” I say to the Forget-me-not fairy. When I’m big I’m going to come back.”

  “You are here now,” the fairy says.

  “Not tomorrow.”

  The fairies just smile.

  The day we leave I can’t let go of Karin. We hug each other tightly. She promises to write. It feels like somebody has turned off the sun. My stomach is all black inside. I cry and kick when Dad bundles me into the car. We sail by night ferry to Copenhagen and take the train to the coast to Elsinore. Granddad fetches us at the station.

  He drives us to their old house where it’s all wrong. All the warmth has gone. No photos, no furniture, no smell of Granny’s baking, just white walls and empty rooms.

  Our moving van arrives and it is kind of fun putting my books on shelves and arranging my toys. They have given me mum’s old room with a view to the sea. Afterwards, I escape to the garden. A beautiful rose fairy beckons me.

  “Hi, what’s your name?” I ask.

  A girl with freckles and short red hair peers over the hedge while I’m talking.

  “Hi, have you just moved here? Who are you talking to?” She asks.

  “Her,” I point to the rose fairy, but she has disappeared.

  “You’re nuts, talking to yourself,” the red haired girl says and walks huffily away.

  

  Chapter 4

  Claire

  Fiskersund

  August 1977

  It is my first day at school – a week after I turned seven.

  The lady teacher seems nice. Her name is Kirsten. She asks us all to tell a story. I tell her what the fairy in the rosebush told me yesterday, about how she dances and plays with the seals on the beach. The girl I saw yesterday sniggers:

  “What a stupid story. Fairies don’t exist. And why do you talk funny?”

  “It’s not a story,” I say. “I know her. And I speak Bornholmish.”

  She laughs even more. Some of the others also start sniggering. Their thoughts are horrid and scary. I begin walking towards the door.

  “Where’re you going?” The teacher asks.

  “I’m going home. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

  The teacher smiles. “You can’t just walk home,” she says.

  “I can, I know the way. I’ll be careful of cars.”

  “Why do you want to leave?”

  “I don’t like it here. They all laugh when I talk.”

  A tall girl with a big smile and blonde hair says, “Well why do you talk strange, haven’t you learned to speak properly yet?”

  The teacher tightens her hair clip. It seems to come undone all the time: “Ellen that’s enough. Listen everybody: You know that people in different places in Denmark have different dialects. Claire speaks Bornholmish. People from Bornholm talk a bit like the Swedish people. In Jutland people also talk differently to us who live here on Zealand.”

  “That’s right,” a black-haired girl poking her nose says. “I have a cousin in Jutland. When she visits, I can’t understand a word of what she says.”

  I stay in class until Mum fetches me. “I want to go home.”

  Mum kneels down, “Home is here now, honey,” she says. “I’m sure you’re going to have a great time.”

  “Not at school. They are not nice. Why can’t we go back to Bornholm.”

  Mum sighs, “Our house has been sold, sweetheart. You know that.”

  I start walking, “I can stay with Karin. I don’t want to live here.”

  Mum shakes her head. “Everything will be fine, just give it some time, sweetheart,” she says. “Let’s go and visit Granny and Granddad.”

  We do, and I have lots of nice cakes to eat.

  I hate walking to school in the morning with Mum. My feet drag on the pavement. My stomach feels like it is full of heavy stones. The other children tease me a lot – especially the freckled one, Lissy.

  She’s not the worst, though. That girl, Ellen, is much worse. She leads the others cornering me in the school yard. They pull my hair and chant horrible rhymes about me and call me Clairity-fairity, until the teacher arrives, breaking them up. The teacher doesn’t help at all. The others tell her we are just playing. School is not fun at all.

  And we read stupid ABC baby books. I know how to read and write already. Aunt Clara taught me and Karin. I miss aunt Clara so much. My heart feels so sad longing for her. I wish she would come and talk to me.

  I’m the best in class. That doesn’t help. That Lissy especially hates me being better at school than her. One time, when I was walking back from the blackboard, she stuck her foot out, so I fell. I hurt my shins really badly and the whole class laughed. But Kirsten just said, “Look where you are going, Claire.”

  One evening I hear Mum and Dad talking about me.

  “She’s not happy, Mogens. The other children tease her.”

  “No wonder if she persists in telling stories.”

  “Mogens, maybe they are not stories. But they also tease her about her accent.”

  Dad’s voice rises. I bury my head under my pillow and dont hear the rest.

  It doesn’t get better in school. In the breaks I sit and read, if they leave me in peace and don’t tease me. I miss Karin and all the other friends from Bornholm. In Bornholm the sun always shines. Here it’s mostly grey - just like I feel.

  I don’t tell Mum I’m unhappy in school. Then she’ll talk to Dad and they’ll start to quarrel.

  Fortunately, Mum has a good idea:

  “What about asking Karin to come and visit at half term?”

  I can’t wait for Karin to come. Her mother comes too. We fetch them at the dock in Copenhagen. A whole week of playing and talking, seeing the fairies in the garden and the mermaids in the sea. I feel full of happy bubbles. School is a dark country very far away.

  After the glorious ho
liday, and after Karin has left, I am on my way home from school. Ellen is right behind me, chanting the new verse they’ve made up:

  “Clarity-Farity has a head full of fleas, they spill like peas, and hit the floor, with a mighty roar, her ugly, witchy-twitchy fleas. Hah!”

  I walk faster, but Ellen is still very close. I can feel a movement from her hand. She reaches out to pull at my bag. It is like a dark witch’s rope reaching out for me.

  The fear floats out from every bone. I begin crying.

  “Oh dear, is ickle baby crying?”

  Ellen has got hold of my backpack. I almost fall when she pulls. I wrench myself free from her hold and turn around to kick. It’s the only thing I’m good at. Out of the corner of my eyes I see Mr. Larsen’s big bulldog, Bony, get up from his snooze on the lawn. He stretches but his fur is bristling. Suddenly he jumps over the fence. He growls. His ears lie flat; he bares his teeth. He is about to jump at Ellen. I hold my breath. That will teach her. I feel a wild happiness. Next minute I see my hand clamping down on Bony’s head:

  “Stop Bony.”

  He stops in his tracks; hangs his head. Ellen sits down with a bump. Her lips are quivering. I am so surprised at myself. Why did I stop him? She really deserves to be punished.

  “He won’t hurt you now,” I tell her scornfully whilst bending down to cuddle Bony.

  Ellen shakes her head a couple of times. “You stopped him, didn’t you? He obeys you. Why does he do that?”

  “He’s my friend. He looks after me.”

  “That was really brave of you.” Ellen fidgets with her satchel, looks at her shoes, puts one foot behind the other and finally looks at me. “Sorry. I won’t tease you again. I really mean I’m sorry.” She bursts into a grin, “Can you teach me to do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Get a dog to do what you want it to?” Ellen casts a wary look at Bony.

  “I don’t know.”

  “How do you do it?”

  “I just listen to him and tell him in his head to stop it,” I answer her sourly.

  Ellen skips a step, “I wish I could do that. It would be damn useful with Charlie, our dog.”

  I don’t answer, but pet Bony and let him into his garden again and walk away. Ellen says something I don’t hear.

  Next day at school Lissy begins teasing. “Have you played with some trolls recently? Maybe you are a changeling. You look ugly enough with all that black hair.” She kicks my bag away.

  Ellen shouts, “Shut it, Prissy-Lissy.” She bends down, retrieves the bag and gives it to me. Lissy looks like someone who has just seen a calf with four heads. I turn to Ellen. She scrapes her shoes on the ground. “I mean it. I darn well think it was brave what you did yesterday. I would have understood if you had let the dog bite me.”

  “I really wanted to.”

  Ellen laughs, twists her long hair then puts out her hand to me: “Friends?”

  I take her hand hesitantly. Is this another trick? I wait for the class to burst out laughing and Ellen’s: “Ha, got you, didn’t I?” Instead: Nothing. I look around. The rest of the class looks as dumbfounded as I do. Prissy-Lissy’s face is one big question mark.

  “Have you gone nuts?” she asks Ellen.

  Ellen just grins. She grabs my arm and we walk into the classroom.

  From that day on Ellen is my best friend. She looks out for me when the other kids tease.

  “I know she’s nutters,” she shouts at Lissy and her gang, “But she’s very interesting, and I like her, so stuff it.”

  Lissy looks flabbergasted – but her teasing goes way down.

  “You might be bonkers, Claire, but I like you anyway. Haven’t you got a bike yet? Then we could cycle to my secret lake,” Ellen says.

  We are walking on the street - that is Ellen is skipping along and I am walking. I nod at someone.

  Ellen stares at me. “Who are you nodding at? There’s nobody here.”

  “Mr. Olsen, the maths teacher,” I say.

  Ellen stops and glares at me: “Don’t be daft, he died last month. Claire, honestly! Promise you won’t talk to people I can’t see. It’s too weird. And how come you see him? Do all people become ghosts?”

  “I don’t think so. But you know, like the miller, Mr. Berg, who died in that accident. I think it might have something to do with them not being finished with life.”

  "Cool it. That's too phipholo... philopho... philosophical for me." Ellen grins.

  Chapter 5

  Claire

  1979

  Finally, I get it! I rush over to Ellen’s house to show her my new blue bicycle.

  “Oh, I didn’t know you had visitors,” I say when I hear somebody playing the piano.

  Ellen looks around, “We don’t.”

  “Who is the boy with the bright blue socks playing the piano then?” Ellen gasps.

  “What do you mean? There’s nobody here.”

  “Of course there is. Stop fooling around. He looks just like you and he’s playing ‘When the Saints’. Is he your cousin?”

  Ellen’s eyes widen. She freezes, then starts crying. I stare at her, totally shaken. Ellen never cries. After a while she grits her teeth and rushes into her parents’ bedroom.

  I just stand there. She returns a couple of minutes later with a photo.

  “Yes, that’s him,” I say looking from the boy at the piano to the photo.

  “No, it isn’t. That’s my dead brother.” She pronounces each word Very Slowly through her sobbing.

  The boy winks at me and disappears.

  “How can you see him when he’s not there?”

  I shift from one foot to the other. I would rather not say anything, but I have to: “Ellen he was here. He was playing the piano.”

  Ellen cries harder. “My brother, Jens, died in a car accident when I was six. He was ten. Mum and Dad took all his photos away. They couldn’t bear looking at them. And he loved blue socks and playing the piano. He was very good at it. ‘When the Saints’ was his favourite piece of music. I miss him so much. We had lots of fun. It was him who taught me to climb trees.”

  I don’t know what to do. It’s the first time ever I really have put my foot in it. I honestly thought he was real. Oh my God, what have I done? Maybe Ellen doesn’t want to be my friend anymore. Ellen’s crying subsides. Hesitantly I put my arm around her shoulders.

  “Ellen, I’m so sorry. He didn’t look dead. He looked just like you and me. He was smiling. I promise I’ll be more careful. Please don’t be sad.”

  The corners of Ellen’s mouth move a tiny bit upwards. She sniffs: “You are weird, you know. Seeing dead people.”

  Ellen’s fingers twist around a lock of hair like she always does when she is thinking.

  “How did he look? Was he happy?”

  “He was wearing shorts, green t-shirt, blue socks in sandals. He smiled and looked very happy.”

  “Was he ... was there ... was he covered in blood?”

  I stare at her in amazement. “Of course not. He looked completely normal.”

  From then on, she believes me. She still thinks it’s strange and we don’t often mention it. If it wasn’t for Ellen, I would be very lonely, always being the strange one. Always on the outside. Being friends with Ellen is a lifesaver. Everybody likes her. She is so full of life and fun to be with. I don’t really understand why she wants to be with me.

  “I like it when you to tell stories. Yeah, yeah, I know you say they are for real.” She grins at me: “You know what, let’s race to the forest and play cops and robbers with the others.” She jumps over a puddle.

  

  Chapter 6

  Claire

  5th April 1983

  The door bangs shut. I am out of breath when I get down from the attic just as Mum takes off her coat. She looks concerned.

  “What’s the matter, Claire? Are you ill? Nurse Hansen phoned me.”

  My shoes look very interesting. I say: “Nothing really. Headache. I’m going
for a walk.”

  “Don’t be long,” Mum says. “You do look a bit peaky.”

  I feel warmth spread to the roots of my hair. Even my teeth feel hot. I really want to talk to Mum about the dead girl and how afraid I am, but that also means owning up to reading her diary and seeing the name Ursula. Or does it? It is difficult to keep things hidden from Mum.

  I walk along the beach, my thoughts still churning around. Easter term is finished but it is still very cold, although spring is on its way. The tang of seaweed grates my nose. A bird trips across the wet sand, cautiously, like he doesn’t want his feet wet. A gull screams. The white foam from the waves looks like fingers reaching for me. I veer towards Granny and Granddad’s house.

  They live in a small house by the sea. I like their house. It is like them – cozy. I suppose that’s the word. Our house is more modern, furnished with Danish design, everything painted white – except for the abstract paintings on the walls. Their house is full of heavy armchairs, lots of knick-knacks, and real crystal chandeliers.

  Only Granddad is home.

  “Hi, Claire. How nice to see you. Did you have a nice holiday staying with Karin in Bornholm?”

  I nod. “I didn’t come back until late last night.”

  “I’ll make some tea, shall I?”

  I sit down on a chair in the kitchen and sniff the air eagerly. The smell of Granddad’s tobacco mingles with homemade jam and newly baked bread and pervades the kitchen. How nice if our house would smell like this. Homely.

  “Granddad, have you heard about the skeleton found in school?”

  Granddad drops the kettle with a clatter.

  “Skeleton?”

  “Ellen thinks it might be a Jewish child from the war.”

  “Umm, well … yes … I see …” Granddad fumbles with his pipe. Lights it and busies himself with cups and milk.

  Mum’s diary is still on my mind. It must have been so weird not knowing she was adopted. And finding out the way she did. I think I would hate my parents, if it was me.

  “It must be really strange being adopted and not knowing who your parents are.”

  I squirm on the chair. Why on earth did I say that?