Blood on Snow

She cleared the table while I made coffee. I thought that was quite nice. Then we sat down on the sofa. Jim Reeves was singing that he loves you because you understand him. It had got a bit milder during the course of the day, and outside the window big fat flakes of snow were drifting past.

I looked at her. Part of me was so tense it wanted to sit on the chair instead. A different part just wanted to put my arm round her narrow waist and pull her to me. Kiss her red lips. Stroke her glossy hair. Squeeze her a bit tighter, so hard that I feel the air being squeezed out of her, hear her gasp for breath, her breasts and stomach pushing out towards me. I was feeling light-headed.

Then the needle slid across to the middle of the record, lifted up and swung back as the vinyl slowly stopped turning.

I swallowed hard. Felt like lifting my hand. Putting it on the skin between her shoulder and neck. But it was shaking. Not just my hand, but the whole of me, like I’d got flu or something.

“Listen, Olav...” Corina leaned over towards me. I couldn’t work out if the intense scent was mostly perfume or mostly her. I had to open my mouth to get more air. She picked up the book from the coffee table in front of me. “Would you mind reading out loud to me? The bit about love...”

“I would...” I began.

“Go on then,” she said, curling her legs beneath her on the sofa. She put a hand on my arm. “I love love.”

“But I can’t.”

“Of course you can!” she laughed, putting the open book in my lap. “Don’t be embarrassed, Olav, read! It’s only me...”

“I suffer from word-blindness.”

My blunt statement brought her up short and she blinked at me as if I’d hit her. Hell, I’d even surprised myself.

“Sorry, Olav, but... you said... I thought...” She stopped, and silence descended. I wished the record had still been playing. I closed my eyes.

“I read,” I said.

“You read?”

“Yes.”

“But how can you if you can’t... see the words?”

“I see them. But sometimes I see them wrong. And then I have to look at them again.” I opened my eyes. Her hand was still on my arm.

“But, how... how do you know you’ve seen them wrong?”

“Mainly because the letters don’t form words that make any sense. But now and then I just see a different word and don’t realise my mistake until much later. Sometimes the story I get into my head is completely different. So I sort of end up getting two stories for the price of one.”

She laughed. A loud, bubbly laugh. Her eyes twinkled in the semi-darkness. I laughed too. It wasn’t the first time I had told someone I was dyslexic. But it was the first time anyone had continued to ask questions. And the first time I had tried to explain it to someone who wasn’t my mum or a teacher. Her hand slid off my arm. Sort of unnoticed. I’d been waiting for it. She was slipping away from me. But her hand slid into mine instead. And squeezed it. “You really are funny, Olav. And kind.”

Along the bottom of the window the snow had started to settle. The snow crystals hooked onto each other. Like the links in a piece of chain mail.

“So tell me, then,” she said. “Tell me about the love story in the book.”

“Okay,” I said, and looked down at the book on my lap. It was open at the page where Jean Valjean forces himself on the ruined, doomed prostitute. I changed my mind. And told her instead about Cosette and Marius. And about Éponine, the young girl who was raised into a life of crime, and was hopelessly in love with Marius, and who ends up sacrificing her life for love. Other people’s love. I told the story again, this time leaving out none of the details.

“Oh, how wonderful!” Corina exclaimed when I had finished.

“Yes,” I said. “Éponine is...”

“...that Cosette and Marius had each other in the end.”

I nodded.

Corina squeezed my hand. She hadn’t let go of it once. “Tell me about the Fisherman.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “He’s a businessman.”

“Daniel says he’s a murderer.”

“That too.”

“What’s going to happen once Daniel’s dead?”

“Then you won’t have anyone to be afraid of. The Fisherman doesn’t wish you any harm.”

“I mean, will the Fisherman take over the whole thing?”

“I suppose so, he hasn’t got any other competition. Unless you were thinking...?” I did my best to give her a wry smile.

She laughed out loud and gave me a playful shove. Who would have guessed I was a comedian deep down?

“Why don’t we just run away?” she asked. “You and me, we’d manage fine, the pair of us. I could make the food and you could...”

The rest of the sentence was left hanging in the air like a half-finished bridge.