is said that, even when Grete passed away, her elk would often visit the house, and her children would wake oftentimes to find muddy hoofprints along the floorboards, for the elk had come to watch over them.
Aurelia has read this story to Gaia many times, always taking care to lighten her tone at the parts concerning death, but still she has questions: “What’s ‘the work of women,’ Mumma? Was the elk her best friend? Wouldn’t his antlers have damaged the walls when he came into the house? What does ‘die’ mean?”
“Will you die, Mumma?” Gaia asks, falling serious.
“Not for a very, very, very long time.”
The wrinkle in Gaia’s brow softens. When Aurelia tucks her into her bed the questions about death continue, and she makes a mental note not to read that story again.
But in just ten and a half weeks’ time, she will be dead.
6
a home or a nest
NOW
I’m Sophie,” I said to the woman holding the sign. “Sophie Hallerton.”
The name rolled off my tongue as though it was always meant to be. It sounded sophisticated, and I could well imagine my mother’s face screwing up upon hearing someone refer to me as Sophie Hallerton.
The woman grinned and stretched out a hand. “Derry Boydon,” she said in a London accent. Strange—I’d expected her to be Norwegian. She was short with sleek black hair and large blue eyes that put me in mind of a cat. “This is my husband, Clive,” she said, turning to the man standing next to her.
“How do you do?” he said, holding out a hand. “I’m Tom’s business partner. Tom’s a bit tied up today and I’ve to drop Derry off in the city anyway, so here we are.”
Clive insisted on fetching my bag from the carousel and taking my handbag off my shoulder while Derry pinned me with her huge blue eyes and some very intense small talk.
“Is this your first time in Norway?”
I nodded.
“It’s a wonderful place,” she said. “You’re going to have so much fun.”
“I hope so.”
“What are you talking about?” Clive interjected. “She’s here to nanny, not sightsee.”
“Ignore him,” Derry said as he hoisted my suitcase into the boot of their car, a flashy Mercedes SUV with heated leather seats that smelled overwhelmingly of pine. “When I’m back I’ll take you sightseeing. I’m sure Gaia and Coco will relish the chance to get out of the house.”
I strained to take in my surroundings from the backseat. It looked like England, with the addition of snowcapped mountains and a smooth, navy-blue lake in the distance. Everything was very blue and very spiky. So in other words, nothing like England.
“Not a lake,” Clive said when I pointed at it. “That’s a fjord. Grytafjorden, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Oh,” I said. “What’s the difference between a fjord and a lake?”
He gave me a look in the rearview mirror as if I’d just asked where babies come from. “The fjords were made by glaciers over a number of ice ages and then filled with seawater. They always connect with the sea.”
Derry told me more about the region, and about Norway more broadly: how the country was world-leading in its environmental ethics, that it was the first country to introduce paid paternity leave, and that it once knighted a penguin.
“It sounds like an amazing place,” I observed.
“Bloody expensive,” Clive countered. “Especially if you decide to build a house out here. My advice on that is—don’t.”
“Noted,” I said, and he laughed.
I guessed that Clive was in his mid to late forties, a little older than Derry. He wore a gold signet ring on his pinky, and a navy suit. Orange hair graying at the sides, pale skin, expressive blue eyes, thickly set. He had that same air about him that Tom and most of the people in first class on the plane had—confidence. I wondered how he got that confidence, and how I could get it. Maybe it was just the posh accent. I opened my mouth to ask where he was from, but just then he said: “So you’re a nanny? Been doing that a long time, have you?”
I nodded stiffly. “For . . . a while, yes.”
“My niece is nannying over in Spain at the moment. Or ‘au pairing,’” he said, making exaggerated air quotes with his fingers, “which means she gets paid nothing to run around after three kids under the age of five all day. A so-called ‘cultural experience.’” More air quotes. He threw me an isn’t-that-ridiculous smile. I tried to match it and