The Dinosaur Feather

even though time was running out? Anna found that very hard to imagine.
    The older woman returned with a white envelope which she placed on the table. They ate rolls and drank tea for a long time, and they discussed the communes in Brænderup which now had either been knocked down or renovated beyond recognition. They even discovered that one of Anna’s old teachers turned out to be married to Ulla Bodelsen’s nephew.
    Eventually she said, ‘The envelope is for you.’ She looked at Anna. ‘I don’t know precisely why you’re here, and . . .’ she hesitated. ‘And you don’t need to explain anything if you don’t want to. That’s quite all right.’ She hesitated again. ‘I can’t work out how I could have ever met you before, but after last night, after we had spoken, I went through my files.’ Ulla Bodelsen gestured to the dining table at the other end of the room. On top of it stood four cardboard boxes with metal edges. ‘Our conversation kept troubling me. I found the photo at the bottom of the third box. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of snapshots in those boxes. Of children and their parents during all my years as a health visitor. And there was one of a father and a child whom I remember, Jens and . . . Sara. Some corner of my mind remembered that photo and I found it.’ She looked away.
    ‘The health visitor, who had initially been assigned to the family, moved to Greenland when her husband was offered a job up there, and I took over when Sara was around seven months old. The mother had injured her back during the birth and been in chronic pain ever since. She had had several operations and been hospitalised repeatedly for long periods and whenever I visited, the father was always alone with the baby.’
    ‘Is there a record? Did you make notes about . . . Sara?’
    ‘Yes, and that’s what triggered my memory last night. I remembered that Sara’s record was missing,’ Ulla Bodelsen said. ‘When I took over, everything was in a state of flux. We had just been merged with Odense Nursing School, and the result was chaos. Before my first visit to the family, I looked for her record, but I couldn’t find it. When I explained this to a colleague, she convinced me that my predecessor must have left it with the family with instructions to pass it on to their new health visitor. But when I asked for the record, the father said it had never been given to him. So together we created a new one. Sara was thriving and gaining weight, and there was really very little for me to do. During what I thought would be my last but one visit, Jens was delighted to share his good news with me. Sara’s mother had had another operation, at a private clinic somewhere, in England I think it was, and it had been very successful. That was the day he gave me the photograph.’ She nodded towards the envelope. ‘I was very moved when I left. I looked forward to visiting the family three months later, to finally meeting Sara’s mother, and I hoped it would all work out for them. But I never saw them again. Jens called to say there was no need for me to come.’
    ‘And you never got an explanation?’
    ‘No,’ Ulla replied. ‘Life moved on. New children, new family histories.’
    ‘The other health visitor . . . what was her name?’ Anna wanted to know.
    ‘Grethe Nygaard. She’s dead. I saw her death notice in the local paper three years ago. She died in Greenland.’
    Anna cast a sidelong glance at the envelope.
    ‘Open the envelope, Anna,’ Ulla Bodelsen said, gently. Anna reached for the envelope and her hands were shaking. I’m going to die, she thought. She opened the envelope and carefully pulled out a picture. She looked at the back of the photo.
    ‘Jens and Sara Bella Nor, August 1978’ it read. Anna stared at it. Then she turned it over. It had faded slightly, but only a little. The background showed hessian wallpaper and part of a brown window frame. There were two people in the picture. A very young Jens with masses of hair and a beard. He was looking into the camera and his smile was crooked, but his expression was dark and mournful. On his lap sat a small girl in a pinafore dress and a nappy. She was the spitting image of Lily. The tears started rolling down Anna’s cheeks.
    ‘There can be no doubt,’ Ulla Bodelsen said carefully. ‘You’re like two peas in a pod.’ She looked gravely at Anna. ‘And I swear on my Hippocratic oath: the little girl in that photo, that one,’