Free The Farm by Tom Rob Smith

There were at least fifty people and they hadn’t just arrived. The barbecue was lit. The food was cooking. Standing on the threshold of the festivities, holding a tub of home-made potato salad – we looked idiotic. No one greeted us for a few minutes until Håkan escorted us through the assembled crowd to the table, where we deposited our food. Late and lumbering around with a potato salad was hardly the first impression I’d wanted to make, so I asked Håkan if I’d made a mistake with the time, a polite way of saying that he must have made a mistake. He said the mistake was mine, the party started at one. He then added that there was no need to worry, he wasn’t insulted – I must have remembered him saying the food would be cooked from three.
     
    You might dismiss this as a trivial muddle. You’d be wrong. It was an act of deliberate sabotage. Am I someone who’d care if I mixed up the times? No, I would’ve apologised and that would’ve been the end of it. There was no mix-up because he only gave me one time. Håkan wanted us to arrive late and feel out of place. He succeeded. For the duration of the party I was on edge. I couldn’t settle into any conversation, and instead of calming down with a drink, alcohol disturbed me further. I kept repeating to people that I was born in Sweden, held a Swedish passport, but I never became anything more than the flustered English woman who’d arrived late carrying a potato salad. Surely you can see the stagecraft in this? Håkan asked me to make the potato salad. At the time I thought nothing of the request. But he couldn’t have asked me to make a less ambitious dish – a dish that no one could compliment without sounding ridiculous. I couldn’t even use homegrown potatoes because our crop wasn’t ready. Håkan’s wife was lavishly praising other people’s food, cuts of salmon, spectacular layered desserts, food that you could be proud of. She said nothing about the potato salad because there was nothing to say. It looked little different from the mass-produced version you can purchase in the supermarkets—
    • • •

I REMARKED:
    ‘This is the first time you’ve mentioned Håkan’s wife.’
     
    That’s a revealing omission. It wasn’t intentional but it’s appropriate. Why? She’s no more than a moon orbiting her husband. Håkan’s point of view is her point of view. Her importance isn’t how she acted: it’s how she refused to act. She’s a woman who’d scratch out her own eyes rather than open them to the reality that this community was involved in a conspiracy. I encountered her on many occasions. All I can picture is her stoutness – a solid mass, no lightness in her step, no dance, no play, no fun, no mischief. They were rich yet she worked relentlessly. As a result she was physically powerful, as good in the fields as any man. It’s strange for a woman to be so strong and yet so meek, so capable and incapable. Her name was Elise. We weren’t friends: that much you can tell. But it’s hard to feel the sting of her dislike since she hadn’t made the decision. Her opinions were shaped entirely by Håkan. If he’d signalled his approval, the very next day she’d have invited me round for coffee, allowing me entry to her circle of friends. Subsequently if Håkan had signalled his disapproval of me, the invitations would’ve stopped, the circle would’ve closed ranks. Her behaviour was consistent only with her fanatical belief that Håkan was right about everything. When our paths crossed she’d offer bland statements about the crops, or the weather, before departing with some remark about how exceptionally busy she was. She was always busy, never on the veranda with a novel, never swimming in the river. Even her parties were another way of keeping busy. Her conversation was a form of work – scrupulously asking the right questions without any genuine curiosity. She was a woman without pleasure. At times I felt sorry for her. On most