The cabin was surprisingly spacious and had modern appliances mixed in with the old decor.
The first room they walked into was an open plan lounge and kitchen area. The lounge had a three seater sofa and a matching armchair to the right of it, with a simple coffee table in the middle. A bookcase was standing flush against the wall to her right. A brown, navy and beige Persian rug lay horizontally on the dark wood floorboards between the armchair and the bookcase.
On the left wall was a log fireplace with an off-white mantelpiece displaying a clock and two single candle holders either side. Above it was an oil painting of a naked woman's back. Her generous-sized behind was half covered by a silvery, silk sheet that she held across her chest with one hand, while daintily laying her head of dark waves on the other. She had her face turned to the side, revealing a pretty face and a coy smile.
Jaz stared at it and Edda looked in her direction, saying in a low voice, “Beautiful, isn't she?”
Jaz said nothing but her face showed she was admiring it.
“Well, let me show you around. Maria, I can take it from here. Alf, please put Jaz's bag in her room and then you can go.”
Alf marched down the wide corridor that led off from the kitchen and disappeared right, through a doorway.
Maria studied Jaz's face before giving her a farewell nod and vacating out the door.
Edda moved towards the kitchen and invited Jaz to sit on a bar stool. There were three of them altogether, placed evenly around the breakfast bar.
In front of her on the left, above the Belfast sink was a window; the view of the trees half blocked by the cabin next door. The kitchen walls were duck-egg blue, the cupboards white-washed and adorned with round wooden handles. Big, light-blue tiles covered half of both walls. On her right, a partition wall separated the kitchen from the corridor that Alf had disappeared down.
Alf came back into the living-room/kitchen, glanced Jaz's way, smiled lightly and then marched towards the door. He called, “I'm off,” to Edda who was rummaging in the pastel-blue Smeg fridge.
Edda called back, “Okay!”
He disappeared out the door, shutting it behind him.
Jaz turned to look back at Edda. She was a stranger to her and had been left alone with her. But oddly, she didn't feel scared; maybe a little uncomfortable, which was normal when you didn't know a person.
Edda's hands were piled high with sandwich items from the fridge. She carried them to the breakfast bar in front of Jaz. She put them down, grabbed the chopping board from the wall by the sink and placed it down. There was a knife block next to where the chopping board had been and she pulled out a small knife. She washed two big tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber, cabbage and then began slicing. “How do you like your sandwiches?”
Jaz shook her head. “I'm not really hungry.”
Edda stopped slicing the tomato and looked up at Jaz with a serious expression; the smile moments ago had evaporated.
Jaz tensed.
“I didn't ask if you were hungry.”
Jaz blinked, unsure of what to say.
Edda was suddenly smiling again and the rapid change in expression made Jaz dizzy and a little terrified.
Edda's next words were gentler in tone. “Whilst you're here, you're gonna have to listen to me and do what I tell you. It's for your own benefit. One of my rules is that you have to eat. Even if you don't feel hungry. You need the strength. You need a balanced diet, but most importantly, you need a lot of iron.”
“But it doesn't matter how much iron I consume. My body can't absorb it properly.”
Edda shook her head. “You need a lot more than what is daily recommended for an average human woman. The doctors could never work it out because what levels of iron they think would kill you, would actually be exactly -maybe a bit less even- than what you've always needed.
“Those iron shots you take are a temporary fix. So are the pills. They're also not the natural stuff: not the iron your body can perfectly, naturally absorb. Your body is starved of red meat, even of vegetables and fruit teeming with iron. Of blood. That is why you crave it so much. That kick start drug you were given when you were brought here just made your body realize what it needed all along.”
Jaz swallowed, unable to look her in the eye. It surprised her when Edda's rough hand rested on hers. Jaz nearly pulled away but something stopped her. It was the understanding, affectionate look in the woman's eyes.