Arrival                              [Chapter 1]

Arrival [Chapter 1]

A Chapter by Vig Gleeson
"

He died without saying goodbye, and I wonder why - because that’s what broke my heart the most - he didn't reach out, didn’t let us know, didn’t say goodbye.

"

Speak #TRUTH Lies

A MEMOIR BY VIG GLEESON


2018 


Arrival


The sea breeze is cooling as the sun kisses my face after a long hot day of driving. Ruby, my eleven-year-old daughter, is beside me telling funny stories, her jumping jack shadow �" black against the white ferry deck - strikes taller than her in the early evening sun. Deeply I breathe in the fresh smell of salt sea, from as high up on the ferry deck as passengers can go. Ahead lies Atløy, the crossing from Askvoll a short 15 minutes, not enough time to contemplate what will greet us when we get there. 


It’s been 15 years since I was last here. The only time I visited The Captain on his island. That time he was waiting for me, opened armed, with his van parked behind the boathouse, out of view. He tossed me the keys as soon as he released his bearhug, and with a big grin said, “you’re driving.” The smell of booze hung in the air between us. “Why?” I asked, “did you lose your license?” I kept pressing on the question until he admitted it was indeed the case, by which time I was winding his van along the narrow roads towards Herland. He never told me how he came to lose  his license, but it was easy to guess why.   


I see him there now, as the ferry near the port of Gervik. A single ferry dock with the boathouse he parked his van behind, set back below the farm under the mountain. I see him now, in my mind’s eye, waiting for me on the dock, grinning. 


I’ll miss his bearhug today. When we roll across the ferry pad onto dry land, he’s not there. The Captain is gone. He left without saying goodbye, and I wonder why - because that’s what broke my heart the most - he didn't reach out, didn’t let us know, didn’t say goodbye. What was so bad that he didn’t want to have a relationship with his kids? What stopped him from getting in touch?


A few weeks before he died, his doctor offered to call my brother and me, but The Captain said no. He didn’t want anyone to know the cancer was back, until he could post it on Facebook. It was his last wish, at least that’s what Lilly told me. But I don’t know that yet since he never made it as far as posting anything. For now, I’m just steering Mum’s little Toyota hybrid up the hill from the ferry port, past Bunnpris, the only grocery shop on the island. For now, I only have questions. Questions and a hope of finding someone with a good story about him, something to show he was a good man after all. 


For years I’ve wondered what it would be like when Dad dies. Would I even be told before he was buried?


It was my brother, Christian, who rang me - on Messenger - Lilly had just called him. It was 18 July, a week ago. She was with him at the hospital when he took his last breath, close to 3 o’clock. I rang her right after speaking with Christian, then I rang dad’s sister - aunt Jorunn.


It was aunt Jorunn, I was on the phone with when Shane came home from work with an enormous bouquet of flowers. He’d forgotten our 23rd wedding anniversary the day before and was making up for it. He was a bit annoyed when I didn’t acknowledge him and the flowers straight away. My conversation was in Norwegian, and Shane being Irish, didn’t understand what the conversation was about.


Shane and Ruby were both in the kitchen when I hung up. I had to take a moment, first to fuss over the flowers and then, then I had to tell them, my dad just died. 


Ruby’s first reaction was to slap her palm over her open mouth as she drew a shocked breath. Her eyes wide while studying my face as Shane embraced me saying sorry. It was a long hug before his brain jumped into action and he started making calls and arranging flights, from Cairo to Norway, so Ruby and I could get to the funeral on time. 


It’s mixed emotions I’m feeling. Some feelings echo the lament in Ruby’s voice when she asks, “Why do I have to go to a funeral for a man I never met?” 

“He was your grandad,” I explain, “he was my dad.” 

“Yes, a grandad who didn’t want to meet me.” She rue, I know how she feels. But is she right? Did he really not want to meet her? 


Very slowly I drive past the church. “This is where he’ll be buried,” I tell Ruby as we get a glimpse of the 300-year-old stavkirke on top of the hill behind us. The speed limit varies between 50 and 80 but we snail around the bends at 30, keeping track of any meeting points should we have to pull in or reverse for oncoming cars. The road is narrow, as if for one way traffic, in places dug into the side of the mountain with a dramatic drop into the sea, like here, just past the Marina. How did he make this journey without a car all these years I wonder?


My breath catches as the mountain gives view to Herland with its open vista across the harbour and the many islands beyond, and then, - as far as the eye can reach, the North Sea. This is coastal Norway at its most spectacular. Bathed in warm sunshine. The sea, a reflective mirror of the cloud-free sky, blue - royal blue. 

From garden flag poles, pennants in the Norwegian colours wave a lazy welcome. Red farm buildings and white houses dot the green and rocky landscape as we descend towards the harbour. Seagull cries float through our open windows and I turn off the radio to hear their calls. The clear fresh smell of the sea crystallises my senses. It was in this beauty The Captain lived, for seventeen years.  


It’s busy around Herland, the yearly Krabbe Festival (Crab Fest) is on this weekend. The ticket guy on the ferry asked if we were going to it, he didn't know what to say when I told him I’m here to bury my father but hope to taste the crabs too. 


I have forgotten the turnoff to his house, but I can see it from the new pub and holiday rentals, where I stop at the harbour. It makes it easy when I ask for directions to Perh Perhland’s house and I point to the red house at the top of the hill. The young man I’ve stopped to ask, points back in the direction we just came from. “Just take the first left and follow the road up the hill.” I thank him and get back in the car.


I remember it well now, the steep incline that snakes around the bend and crawl up to the height where his house comes into view through the massive garden hedge. There is a new lean-to by the living room veranda, it looks good, a greyish-white that doesn't match the faded red paint on the rest of the house. I turn up his weed-green gravel drive and park behind what must be Lilly’s car.


The neighbour is hanging up washing next door. I go over and introduce myself. She gives her condolences, I thank her and hints at an apology for any inconvenience it’s caused them, living next door to ‘a grumpy old man’ I smile. We start chatting, her husband joins us. It’s Mariann and Arild, They’ve lived next to The Captain for, - what - fifteen years? They haven’t seen much of him in the past two years. “He kept himself to himself, indoors mostly,” says Marianne. She’d guessed he was sick but didn’t know it was this serious. 


The day is hot and Lilly has waited hours to meet us, we go inside to find her. As we ring the doorbell an electronic bird-chirp chimes above us, we laugh and call out our hellos as we walk up the narrow steep stairs. Laminated in a ship-deck imitation, each step is reinforced with a lip of steel, nailed down just like on the ferries and ships he’d worked on. The top of the stairs opens directly onto the ramshackle living room.  

“Oh my god,” I whisper. 

“Jesus,” Ruby echos. 

“Hello,” says a familiar voice I’ve only heard on the phone before. Around the corner, by the kitchen is Lilly, ten years his junior, she’s been The Captain’s partner for the last twelve years. 


Short and round with short light brown hair, wearing a towel around her neck that covers her expansive bosom, she sways when she walks towards us. I bend to hug her. It’s our first meeting, but after a long Facebook friendship and hours on the phone in the past week, it feels like we’ve known each other always. Our embrace is one of welcomed recognition, of joy and laughter. 


“So you made it then?” Lilly laughs. The drive down from Ålesund had taken much longer than the 6 hours we expected. With roadworks and Christian's puncture as well as a slight collision with a roadside barrier, we arrived 2 hours late, having left Christian, who drove his own Toyota hybrid, in Mooskog waiting for roadside rescue. 


Lilly opens her arms to Ruby and she steps in and accepts the welcome hug as awkwardly as any lanky teenager towering half a head taller than the ‘old lady’ her mum just introduced her to. 

“Look at you” Lilly takes a step back and holding onto Ruby’s arms, as if she’s drinking her in with all her senses, says in Norwegian, “Aren’t you beautiful and tall?”

Ruby shrinks into the compliment she understands not one word of, she has no words in reply.


“Yes, she’s growing up beautifully,” I reply to Lilly in English. The big smile I give Ruby is met with an eye-rolling ‘shut up Mum’ look so prevalent for her age. “Why don’t you have a look around?” I suggest, to give her an out of feeling awkward, and off she goes exploring. 


Two large gilded framed photos hang on the wall where we stopped for our embrace. “Oh look,” I say, “it’s the portraits of Christian and me taken for my confirmation.” We laugh and take in the large photos printed on canvas to look like paintings. There I am, at fourteen, in my national costume, looking longingly into the distance, away from the lens, all Lady Di like. 


In Christian’s portrait stands a beautiful seven-year-old with a bright cheeky smile with brand new front teeth, staring straight into the lens. He was a gorgeous boy, always wanting to make us happy and laugh. When he was small he told the best jokes, mostly because he got them all wrong which made them hilarious. We’ve had decades of tear-rolling laughter over his outburst to Mum when he was about five, sitting in his booster seat at the back of the car, as they drove past Mørkessetundet fjord; 

“Oh look, Mum, at the floating greenhouse.” He had spotted a house on a raft gliding by on the fjord. - I know, the joke really only works in Norwegian. Jokes and humour have often gotten lost in translation since I left my home country and mother tongue decades ago.


There is a sizable tear in the canvas of my portrait, which I point out to Lilly who says, “yes I saw that when I hung them up today, but the walls were so bare I thought the photos would brighten the place up a bit.” As Lilly chats about all the cleaning and straightening out she’s done in preparation of our arrival -  something I didn’t want her to do but am grateful for now - I look around and let the state of the house sink in. 


A throw-back to the 1980s, full of familiar items and furniture from the time around my confirmation. The obvious unfinished renovation projects are a remnant of what our houses used to look like. The Captain always had some kind of house improvement project on the go, projects that often left our home stark and hollow, though not quite as bad as here on Knausten. 


The year before my confirmation, after he finished renovating the basement, in our house on Hessa island, complete with storerooms and a snug den, he stripped bare our living room and rewired the electrics. 


“I’ve never seen such shoddy workmanship,” he complained about the building contractors. I was giving him a hand running cables through the plastic pipes we’d laid the day before, through the loft, from one end of the house to the other. He’d left me in charge of making dinner too - bangers and mash. I was in the kitchen with a crime novel and the potatoes on the boil waiting for him to holler from the loft. “Vigdis, pull the black cable, slowly, till I tell you to stop.” Back and forth from the kitchen to the stripped living room - where piles of wood planks for list work and flooring were stored under thick sheets of plastic - I darted, on cue. 

“Pul, pul, pul,” he’d shout from the attic, “all right, that’s it. Stop.” 


Back in the kitchen I drained the potatoes and started to mash, adding a dollop of butter and a splash of milk. 

“Vigids, are you there, pull the red one. Do you hear me? Pull the red one. Now.” His shout jolted me, the splash turned into a poor. I rushed into the living room to pull another cable. 

“That’s it. It’s done, you can leave it now.” 


Oh, s**t, I muttered under my breath, quivering with fear as I heard him clomping down the attic leader, toolbelt jingling. Entering the kitchen he headed straight for the sink, next to the worktop where I pretended to mash the spuds. He opened the faucet and with a square of green soap started scrubbing his hands, all the way up to his elbows.

“What the f**k?” He looked into the pot.

“Yes, sorry about that, potato soup, right?” I tried bravely. 

“I give you potato soup.” He was right beside me but still he was shouting. “I give you one thing to do, one f*****g thing, and you can’t even do that.” Vigorously he shook his hands, water droplets landing everywhere, before he grabbed the hand towel off the hook on the door inside the cupboard below the sink.


“I’ll just boil some more potatoes and add them in,” I tried sounding chirped, “it won’t take long, it’ll be fine.” 

“I give you fine,” his hands dry, he slammed the towel down on the draining board. “Your mother is about to walk in the door from a long day at work, you think she wants to wait? F*****g useless you are.” His nostrils flaring. “Get the f**k out of my kitchen.” I stood, frozen to the spot for a second. He grabbed the pot and violently threw it in the sink, hot potato soup flying everywhere. 

“I said get out of my sight,” his head had turned read.  I was already out the door and halfway down the stairs, making it to my room just as a roar erupted from my chest. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.  


Shortly after he left for the sea. The upstairs living room, suspended in mid-DIY chaos, seemed the only reason to welcome his return. 

Six months later The Captain threw himself back into the renovation project, and shortly before May - the month of my confirmation party - our living room stood ready in all its glory of freshly painted blue strie wallpaper, polished parquet floor and a Herculean fireplace. It was time to decorate. 

***

“Are you all right?” Lilly gently squeezed my arm and brought me back to the present. 

“Yes, yes,” I blink to clear the moisture from my eyes, she smiles. Absentminded, without taking in a word she had said, I’d followed her, from the portraits in the dining room to the living room. I was staring at the ragged large coffee table in front of a dejected tufted leather sofa pushed up against a soot-stained wall, stripped naked of paint and wallpaper. 

“He’s had that one a long time,” I nod towards the sofa, remembering how, when new, it used to creak under the weight on anyone taking a seat. 

“Oh, yes, it’s seen better days,” say’s Lilly, “are you sure you’re ok?” 

“I’m fine,” I nodded, “it’s just strange being here, you know . . .” 

“I know,” she says and continues her tale about her friend, who had been there earlier helping her clean the house for our arrival. 


“Can we bring in the bags, Mum?” Ruby, back from her exploring, appears in the veranda door, keen to get settled in. 

“Of course,” I say. “Where do you want us?” I ask Lilly. 

“You can have the room downstairs on the right, and I thought Christian can have Perh’s room upstairs,” Lilly instructs, Ruby and I head down the ships-stairs, back out to the car where we empty the boot and back seat is full of bed linen, our two suitcases and food. 


I roll our bedding out on the double bed in the small room. 

“Which side of the bed do you want?” I ask and unzip Ruby’s suitcase on top of the bed. 

“I want to be by the window,” she says. 

“Ok then honey, I’ll leave you to unpack your stuff.” I peek into the small wardrobe beside the desk. 

“There's no space in the wardrobe so we have to keep our clothes in our suitcases as we do at Mormor’s,” I say. 

“I’m good with that,” she says. 

I look at here and smile, “is there anything else you need?”

“No, I’m good for now,” she replies and I go back to the car to haul cooler boxes and bags of food up to the small kitchen where Lilly helps me put it away. There is lots of room in his fridge and food cupboards but his freezer is full. 

“He would cook up big batches of fish and meat, even vegetables, and freeze them in portions,” Lilly says. “I asked him, would he not get some of the ready meals.” 

I start to laugh and before she finishes the sentence I butt in; “oh god no, ready meals are full of additives, not worthy human consumption.” 

“Yes” chuckles Lilly, “that’s exactly what he said.” We laugh at his funny ways while we put away the food and Lilly brews a pot of coffee, then we bring our mugs to the living room to take the weight off. 


***



© 2020 Vig Gleeson


Author's Note

Vig Gleeson
Is memoir one of your favourite genre?
If you started reading but stopped, why did you stop?
What works well in this chapter? What did you enjoy most about this chapter, or what gave you the strongest personal reaction?

What didn’t work in this chapter? What was confusing, misplaced, or otherwise felt “off” to you? Did you wish to learn more about any particular topic?

Have any predictions? Based on what you just read, what do you think will happen next?

Were the characters realistic? Were the characters (including the narrator) believable, relatable, and consistent unto themselves? If not, what do you think was missing to make them so?


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Added on August 16, 2020
Last Updated on August 16, 2020
Tags: memoir, parenting, addiction, abandonment, childhood, recovery, grief


Author

Vig Gleeson
Vig Gleeson

Athens, Greece



About
A Norwegian/Irish writer and photographer. Currently authoring my first memoir Speak #TRUTH Lies about my journey on unconscious living. A life long traveler and expat, currently living in Greece... more..

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