Free In Search of Mary by Bee Rowlatt Page B

holding Will, I can’t help staring. It is strange to see someone holding someone that you love – it’s almost a form of intimacy. Gunnar’s face seems to express something deep. Unsure why I feel the need to dispel the moment, I make a banal comment about babies being excellent hot-water bottles. Will looks over at me, and his eyes are deep blue like the blueness all around. He rubs his face, then without any protest he falls asleep right there on Gunnar’s chest.
    Onwards to Risør, I am buoyed up by the mini-drama of the temperamental boat on the high seas. It feeds into the thrill of our imminent arrival in Risør. What will it look like? What will we find? Mick and Gunnar will leave us here and head back home. I feel clingy, as though we all belong together. I don’t want it to be over. Is this what happens on boats – the interdependence, the team-building thing? Maybe I’m tired and cold, and in truth, perhaps a bit nervous. The next leg of the journey, after all, is the place that Wollstonecraft absolutely hated.
    Risør is the westernmost point of Wollstonecraft’s journey. This small town is hugely important: she will meet Captain Peder Ellefsen here and challenge him about the missing silver. Her success depends on the outcome of this meeting: this is her chance to prove herself and regain Imlay’s affections. She must be yearning for the sweet offer he dangled – the promise to come and join them for a holiday. He suggests Basel; she eagerly wonders if he could come sooner and join them in Hamburg. Something to look forward to. But first, to business. As we turn along the ragged coastline, island after island,rocks folding into rocks, I return to the pages of
Letters from Norway
with a sense of foreboding.
    Wollstonecraft detests Risør with a venom that’s strong even by her standards. The seedy people, dark smoky houses and glowering cliffs – everything here causes her disgust. “To be born here was to be bastilled by nature!” And she doesn’t stop there: “There is a shrewdness in the character of these people, depraved by a sordid love of money, which repels me.” Yet more inadequate dental hygiene: “disgusting” teeth. And although the men stink, the women aren’t bothered: “It is well that the women are not very delicate, or they would only love their husbands because they were their husbands.” Hey Wollstonecraft, why not tell us how you really feel about Risør?
    Will and I are to be hosted by Norway’s only communist mayor: Knut Henning Thygesen. Despite everything she says about the place, the mayor of Risør is a Wollstonecraft enthusiast and has offered us a place to stay for a few days. But he’s away on holiday. Will and I will be on our own among the looming cliffs, where the “tremendous bulwarks enclosed” her “on every side”, so that Wollstonecraft feels she can scarcely breathe. My expectations are low.
    What a surprise, then, to sail into a town so dazzling it’s as though it’s been scrubbed with salty water and dried in the bleaching sun. It’s early evening, and the late sun is dipping low. The houses are wooden, of course, and perfectly white. It’s so white my eyes ache. I gratefully touch Anjava on my way back onto dry land. With sadness, Will and I fondly say goodbye to Mick and Gunnar, our captain and our shipmate.
    Knut Henning Thygesen’s house is up high, right on top of the cliffs that Wollstonecraft found so oppressive. It’s next to the Risørflekken, a bungalow-sized white chalk circle marked onto the rocks. This is visible for miles out to sea and is used as a navigational landmark. Our new Norwegian home is a tiny studio flat at the bottom of Knut’s tumbling garden. A cherry tree sweeps over it. Waist-high flowers, spilling yellow daises and bursting lilies lean into Will’s buggy as we push through on the stone path.
    I get Will ready for bed. We share my last squashed sandwich and before long we are both completely unconscious. To