GROKEN CHAPTER THREE

This week's offering is chapter three of Robert's story - Groken or the Watcher on the Hill.

We're hoping for some of David's writing soon but he's been busy with the Allotted booklet

For more details see http://allotted2016.blogspot.co.uk

CHAPTER THREE:

Laying down the notebook, Bron thinks about Huldegarde. His father’s journal said it had been destroyed, its people scattered and exiled. So how come these two people who say they are from Huldegarde? And who look so like him.

He remembers when Jenna had first appeared at the University. People had thought she was his younger sister, they looked so alike. An irony, he thought, for his sisters looked like his mother, slim, with pale gold, almost white, hair and grey eyes.

He remembers how Jenna had seemed to persistently seek him out, almost offering herself to him, at times it had felt flattering, at others embarrassing. There was no doubt she was attractive, but by then he had met Ciara.

He thinks of Skata, there’s something wrong there, he thinks. He can sense a rivalry, an animosity, some kind of resentment. But why? He’s never met him before, is it to do with Jenna or maybe it’s to do with the land? This is his land after all, yet Skata is living on part of it.

He knows he must resolve this. The urge to go over to Huldegarde is strong, just ride in and face Skata, demand to know what’s happening. But a voice in his head counsels caution.

So, instead, he decides that tomorrow morning he will make the journey into Thörsvik. He’ll see the land agent, find out who’s living at Huldegarde and why. This time he’ll be sensible, this time he’ll check the lie of the land, this time he’ll think before he acts.

As he falls into a fitful sleep, Bron’s final thoughts are of the cryptic notes his mother had attached to the land documents. There’s that nagging feeling at the back of his mind that continues to worry him, something he doesn’t want to face.

Early next morning, the watcher returns to the hide on the hill, to the relief of the colleague who’s spent an uncomfortable night watching the tent. An Arctic fox is running along the shoreline. Brown, shaggy and unprepossessing in its summer moult, its eyes are fixed on the little raft of eider chicks being shepherded by the females along the edge of the fjord. But there’s no meal for it today and after a while it heads off, looking for carrion further along.

Bron emerges from the tent and walks down to the fjord, where he washes in the cold clear water. He decides to skip breakfast, he’ll grab something in Thörsvik. Coffee and rolls before he goes to the agent’s office will suit him fine. He mounts the motorbike and sets off. The watcher waits a moment then ‘phones her colleagues, they’ll pick Bron up when he reaches the road. The watcher lies back in the hide, this could be a very boring day.

Bron takes the road into Thörsvik. He thinks to himself ‘This must have been the road my mother travelled every day to school, the road my great grandfather took into town, a road my forebears have travelled for, maybe, centuries.’ He laughs to himself, ‘I’m getting to be a romantic, like my father,’ he thinks, ‘my mother would say, “Keep your feet on the ground, boy!”’

In Thörsvik Bron heads to the coffee shop attached to the bakery. It’s very modern, very Scandinavian with its large expanses of glass, blonde wood and shining steel. It’s hard to think that this was the site of the place where his father and mother had met and drunk coffee and talked under the disapproving gaze of the locals.

And speaking of disapproving gazes he notices that many people, particularly of the older generation, are giving him strange looks. They don’t look friendly, they don’t return his smiles. They look wary, suspicious.

He thinks on his father’s journal, and on the face that had looked up at him from the fjord water that morning. Long red hair, framing a pale face, does his appearance stir memories of the old days of Huldegarde? Again, he pushes unwanted thoughts from his brain and gets up and walks through the town to Arnesen, the Land Agent’s, office.

As he enters the agent’s office, the secretary looks up at him with a frown. ‘If Mr Youngman’s sent you in for the draft contracts they won’t be ready until lunchtime, we made that very clear to him. You’ll have to come back later.’

‘I wanted to see Mr Arnesen,’ says Bron, ‘there are some things I need to ask him.’

‘We deal with you people through Mr Youngman,’ says the secretary, ‘he wants it that way and Mr Arnesen feels it best. If you have questions you must address them to Mr Youngman.’

 ‘Mr Youngman ……?’ says Bron.

‘You call him Skata, I believe, though why you name someone after a bird, I don’t know. You’re the second of your kind to come in this week, there was a girl yesterday morning.’

‘Jenna?’ asks Bron.

‘I think that’s what she called herself. I’m afraid you all look alike to me. Now I must get on, if you want the contracts you must come back after lunch.’

‘I didn’t come from Skata, and I don’t want any contracts,’ says Bron, ‘I want to see Arnesen, and I’d like to see him now,’ he pauses, ‘please.’

The secretary sighs, ‘Very well, I’ll ask. Do you have a name? Are you seagull or sparrow or …..?’

Bron swallows hard. Coldly and precisely he says, ‘My name’s Turner, Arnesen will know who I am.’ 

She disappears into the inner office. A few moments later, she reappears followed by a large, red-faced man. ‘What is this?’ he bellows, ‘’Who do you say you are?’

‘I told your secretary,’ says Bron, ‘my name’s Turner.’

‘You are not Mr Turner. Mr Turner passed away some weeks ago, he was an Englishman, an ex-RAF officer, and the husband of the owner of the Skarafjord estates. You are not Mr Turner…..’

‘That was my father, the owner was my mother and now the land is mine and I want to know what’s happening on my land. Who is this Mr Youngman, who is Skata? Why are people living out there when my father told me the land had been cleared?’

Arnesen pauses, ‘Look, I’m sorry, but do you have any proof of who you are? Any documents? I mean you just wander in and say you’re the heir to a vast estate, and ….’

‘And I look like ….. someone out of Huldegarde.’

‘Well, yes, I’m sorry.’

Bron opens the leather satchel he always carries. His father had bought it in Morocco years ago and given it to Bron when he went off to University. He pulls out a sheaf of papers; letters from the solicitor, a copy of the will, the Probate papers from the Crown Office, the deeds to the land.

‘Will these do?’

Arnesen studies the papers. ‘Yes, this makes it clear. I’m sorry, but I had to check. Look, we seem to have got off on the wrong foot here. Please, come into my office.’ He turns to the secretary, ‘Miss Hansen, please bring us a pot of coffee, and hold all my calls until we’re finished.’

‘And Mr Youngman’s contract?’ she asks.

‘Mr Youngman’s contract will have to wait, I think.’

Bron follows Arnesen into the inner office. He takes the chair offered in front of Arnesen’s large, leather covered desk.  Arnesen sits behind the desk in an old swivel chair, leans back with his hands on his ample stomach, and looks at Bron.

‘My condolences on the death of your parents. It must have been a great shock. I had heard of their accident, of course. Actually, I was expecting a first visit from Mr and Mrs Turner this summer, they said there would be changes, but fate, I’m afraid intervened.

I knew your mother, I was at school with her. The Frandsen girls were great beauties. And of course, I’ve heard stories about Alvanaes and Huldegarde, since I was young.’

‘Frandsen girls? I thought my mother an only child, an orphan.’

‘She was an orphan, true enough, but she had an older sister, Sigyn.’

‘What happened to her?’ asks Bron, ‘Is she still alive? Does she live in Thörsvik?’

‘Oh, she’s still very much alive. She left before, well, before what happened, happened. She lives with her husband in the capital. They have a son, Erik and a daughter, named Freya. Her husband’s Birger Krol, a member of the Assembly, a powerful man. I was wondering if he might take on the direction of the estate, after your mother’s ….’

He pauses, ‘Where is that coffee? ’ and getting up Arnesen goes into the other office. Bron hears him speaking in a low voice to the secretary. After a few moments he returns, ‘Miss Hansen is bringing it. Now, what do you want of me?’

‘Information for a start,’ says Bron, ‘I know nothing apart from some notes in a journal of my father’s and a few scribbles from my mother. What is this land I now own? How did it come to me?’

‘Well it came in two parcels, though for centuries both have been owned by the Frandsen family, your mother’s family. The land on the north shore of the fjord has always been farmed by the Frandsens. There have been Frandsens at the farmstead at Alvanaes for as long as records exist. At one time it was a thriving settlement with fishing boats and sheep farming, but over the years it fell away. In the end only your great-grandfather and your mother lived there. And after the …… “incident”…. the fire, no-one would live there. It’s just derelict.

Your mother never played an active role in the management of the estate. I’ve managed to let the grazing to other farmers, so you have a good income and it’s all been building up in a bank account in the capital, for your mother never touched a penny as far as I’m aware. You’ll have to go and see old Joansen, the Frandsen family lawyer, to find out how much there is. In fact you ought to go and see him urgently. I know he was in contact with your mother on a regular basis. Yes, you must speak to Joansen.’

‘And the land on the south bank?’ asks Bron. ‘The part they called Huldegarde? What of that?’

‘Ah, Huldegarde, the old folk called it the home of the hidden folk. And certainly a certain group was settled there, on the edges of our society, for a long time. The Frandsens protected them, let them live there. For their own reasons and to their own benefit, I’m sure, but it didn’t always make them popular with some of their neighbours. And of course, when old Frandsen passed away and your mother left, the government took the chance to act and clear out a nest of squatters.’

‘But there seem to be people living there again,’ says Bron. ‘I’ve met a man called Skata, and there’s a girl called Jenna.’

‘Yes,’ says Arnesen, ‘Mr Youngman is trying to create a settlement out there, some kind of ecological project, I believe. He has permission from Joansen.’

‘How many people are there?’

‘I think about twenty.’

‘And do they all have red hair?’

Arnesen smiles, ‘I believe they do.’

‘Maybe I should go out there, I’d fit in well, don’t you think?’

‘I think you must go to the capital and talk to Joansen, I have said too much perhaps.’

They shake hands and Bron goes out into the street. He mounts the motorcycle and rides off, heading for the ferry that will take him to the capital island.

He doesn’t notice the mud-spattered Land Rover that follows him, at a discreet distance down the highway.

Arnesen watches him as he goes.

‘A young man in a hurry,’ he says, ‘but not sure where he’s going or where he wants to go.’

‘Did you see how he looks?’ he asks Miss Hansen.

‘Indeed,’ she says, ‘maybe some of those old stories about Anna Frandsen were true?’

‘I’d better ring Nils Joansen,’ says the land agent.