Frozen Music (38 page)

Linus startled and turned, shooting out of bed. ‘What's happened? What's the matter?' His eyes were barely open and he seemed not to have recognised me at first. As he focused, he grabbed the duvet with one hand and wrapped it round his waist. ‘Esther? What on earth is it? Is it Bertil?'

‘No.' I took a step backwards. ‘No, everything is fine. I just thought I'd… I'd… I wondered if you had a stamp.'

I woke exhausted, my back and shoulders aching and my mouth dry. It was raining once again. I sat up and as my head moved my brain hit against the hard rock of my forehead. My memory, until now a grey mass, splintered into a thousand shards, each one piercing my consciousness more painfully than the next, as I remembered. I had risen from my bed in the early hours of that morning and wandered across the garden to the house in my oversized T-shirt and nothing else. I had walked upstairs to the room where Linus lay sleeping. I had gone up to the bed where he lay, naked, and he had woken and found me there. I had asked him for a stamp. ‘Oh God,' I groaned and buried my head in the pillow, pulling it up around my ears. ‘Oh God,' I groaned again.

Linus had been very kind. He had put his arm round my shoulders and given me a little hug. He had told me not to worry. That it had been a traumatic few days for all of us. He had grabbed a bathrobe from a hook on the door and pulled it on, letting the duvet drop as the robe fell down around his feet. He had insisted on walking me back to the cottage. I had allowed myself to be led into my room and up to the bed where he had left me, sitting on the edge, my feet dangling just above the floor. Five minutes later he had returned, carrying a large steaming mug. ‘Warm milk, dark rum and sugar,' he had explained with a little smile. ‘It'll help you sleep.'

He had been right. I had slept. I hadn't slept so late since I arrived on the island. Already it was ten o'clock.

I had just finished dressing when there was a knock on my door. It was Linus. He was smiling. I looked at him and realised that it was possible to love someone and want to hit them hard in the mouth with a vase of roses, both at the same time.

‘I came to see how you were?'

‘I'm fine.' I forced myself to smile back. I wished, fleetingly, that I had blackened my teeth as I used to when I was a child. It was a surefire way of putting people off what they were thinking. As it was, Linus just looked at me, still smiling, and shook his head.

‘Why are you being so kind to me? After what I did.' The words tumbled out of my mouth before I had a chance to stop them. I didn't dare to hold his gaze for fear of my naked love showing, so I studied a fly crawling up the wall just above his left shoulder.

‘Why on earth shouldn't I be? You were sleepwalking. It can happen to anyone.'

That wasn't what I was thinking of, but I grasped the excuse gratefully. ‘Sleepwalking.' I nodded. ‘
Of course
. I mean, I
do
. I'm known for it. “That Esther sure is one hell of a sleepwalker,” the folks at home say.' I paused. ‘But that's not actually what I meant. I was thinking of the opera house.'

Linus sighed. ‘I told you before; it was business. I did mine. You did yours. You don't buckle, you remain constant: that's important.' He nodded towards the white-painted chair by the dressing-table. ‘May I sit down?'

I nodded back, attempting a relaxed little smile, but inside I was begging him to tell me that it wasn't true, that there was no way he could hate me.
I love you Linus. Love you love you love you. Don't hate me back because I've never loved before and the pain might kill me
. I shrugged my shoulders. ‘Oh well.' What a bright, relaxed little thing I was.

‘You're sure you're all right?' he said. ‘This sleepwalking. You see I know you had that, that…'

‘Nervous breakdown,' I filled in. It was essential for lovers to be honest with one another and right now I was pretending that was what we were: lovers. Then again, one mustn't forget that even among lovers there was a place for deception. So I sighed and rolled my eyes. ‘It's an awful nuisance, though, this sleepwalking. I'm really sorry to have given you such a fright.'

‘Don't mention it,' Linus said, giving me another warm smile
before getting up. ‘I just wanted to make sure you were OK.' As I watched him walk towards the door I wondered if some kind of fit might stop him from leaving. Nothing too dramatic, just some twitching, a quick collapse on to the floor, no the bed, and some gentle foaming at the mouth. Before I had time to reflect further he was gone.

So that was the power of love, I thought, as I listened to his footsteps disappear down the gravel path: to turn you into the kind of person you'd cross the street to avoid.

Bertil was up and about again, and he and Olivia were already busy organising the evening's event. As I walked in through the back door she bustled past me with a vase of raindrenched roses, Astrid's roses. The scent trailed behind her like a memory. ‘We'll just have to be inside.' She peered out of the kitchen window at the sky. There was no sign of any brightening among the solid grey. Olivia had explained to me a couple of days before, when she first suggested the party, that on the island it was considered bad form to issue invitations far in advance. ‘People come here to relax. They don't want to be tied down to schedules and checking their diaries every other minute. We all get enough of that in town. No, here spontaneity is the name of the game.'

I felt a tickle of unease. ‘I hate not knowing ahead.'

‘Why?' Olivia asked me on her way out of the room.

I shrugged. ‘I just do. Anyway, I thought Swedes lived organised, planned lives.'

‘Not in July,' Olivia said from the doorway.

I followed her out on to the veranda. Gerald was asleep in the rocking chair, and he stirred and mumbled, his mouth making little chewing movements, as Olivia passed, placing the vase of roses on the coffee table in front of him. Next she bustled off again, calling for Linus. He appeared from upstairs, carrying a half-finished Lego model of a racing car.

‘Is Pernilla able to come?' Olivia wanted to know. I crossed my fingers behind my back and shut my eyes.

‘Of course. She wouldn't miss it for the world,' I heard Linus
answer. I should have known better than to trust to superstition rather than good old hands-on measures like locking her in her bedroom or taking her eyes out with hot pokers.

‘What are you thinking about?' Olivia asked me.

I started guiltily. ‘Anyway,' she went on, not waiting for an answer, ‘it looks as if there'll be about thirty of us tonight.' At this, there was a roll of thunder, waking Gerald, and the rain started to fall once more from a blackening sky. How much better it would have sounded, I thought, against the mentioning of Pernilla's name.

‘Look.' Ivar came rushing in from upstairs, pointing out of the window at a sudden burst of forked lightning.

‘Your Aunt Ulla's being recharged,' Gerald said.

‘Is she like Frankenstein's monster?' Ivar asked, turning to look, round-eyed, at Gerald.

‘Not as pretty,' Gerald answered. Olivia looked as if she was about to tick him off when Kerstin appeared with a tray with coffee and buns, and those little squares of sugar-sprinkled chocolate biscuits that I had grown particularly fond of. They did a lot of eating at Villa Rosengård: cake and buns and biscuits and little toasted sandwiches with buttered chanterelles and rye cracker bread with strong cheese. In the evening, after supper there were bowlfuls of sweets and plates of green, seedless grapes. At least Audrey couldn't complain about the food. I myself was growing quite plump with it all, my stomach straining against my jeans button.

There was another crash of lightning and Ivar squealed excitedly, running from one of the large windows to the other. Puddles were forming on the gravel path and in the biggest, sparrows were having a bath. By the time Bertil and, moments later, Ulla had joined us, the entire path was flooded.

‘You should cancel,' Ulla said.

‘Certainly not, I'm British.' Olivia winked at me.

‘When it suits you,' Ulla muttered. ‘I suppose that next you'll both be wearing berets and serving garlic with everything. As it happens, the educated French abhor garlic in all its forms.'

Bertil, grey-faced under his tan and slightly stooping, as if he was
expecting something to collapse on his head at any second, smiled at her and shook his head. ‘Whatever are you talking about?'

They said he had made a full recovery, but looking at him, I wondered. Ulla, though, looked perkier than I had seen her for a long time as she bustled across to her favourite chair by the tiled stove with her sewing basket. ‘I thought I'd start on the vent pull.' She nodded towards the brass handle up high on the side of the stove. ‘I've found a lovely little pattern, forget-me-nots.'

Bertil and Olivia exchanged glances. ‘What's the point, you demented woman,' Gerald scoffed. ‘Unless you're planning it as a gift for the new owners.'

‘We might decide to stay, after all,' Olivia began. ‘These last couple of weeks have shown me the importance of having family and friends close as one gets older.'

Ulla looked up with a little smile, a smug and, for her, curiously gentle smile. ‘It's as I've always said, there's nothing more important than family. You know my view on this move. I think it's madness even to contemplate it. You'd regret it, mark my words.'

‘Nonsense,' Bertil interrupted. ‘And it's not like you to fuss so, Olivia. A bit of tummy trouble, that's all. You heard what the doc said; I simply ate something that didn't agree with me.'

‘You ate a bit of Aunt Ulla.' Ivar giggled. ‘She doesn't agree with you.' At this he threw himself back on the rug and laughed uproariously.

Ulla glared, but Bertil ignored him. He lowered himself down into the wicker armchair by the window and said, ‘If you really want to know, I'm more determined than ever to make the move. While there's still time.' He picked out his pipe from his pocket and lit it, seemingly oblivious of Olivia's worried frown.

Ulla looked at them both. Then, all of a sudden she leapt to her feet like some malevolent jack-in-the-box. ‘Is that it? Is no one going to discipline that boy? Is that how he's going to be encouraged to behave?' And she stormed from the room.

‘Biscuit anyone?' Olivia passed the plate round.

I looked at my watch; it was gone eleven already. ‘What would you
like me to do?' I asked Olivia. ‘About the party, I mean?' I took the plate and helping myself to a chocolate square, held it out for Ivar who was sitting cross-legged on the floor next to my chair.

Olivia said that everything was under control. ‘Fru Sparre will be here in a minute.' She said that in the kind of trusting but awestruck way that is normally reserved for announcements of the coming of the Messiah. I soon saw why. Gertrude Sparre sailed into Villa Rosengård just as the physiotherapist was leaving after a session with Audrey. The two women, who obviously knew each other, stopped and spoke in Swedish, nodding now and then towards my mother's room. After that it took Fru Sparre only moments to assume command of all she surveyed. Audrey, who was about to defy the physiotherapist's instructions and sneak back to bed, was made to hobble out on to the veranda and a hard chair by the window. Gerald was sent off with the newspapers and Kerstin was put to work making meatballs. Bertil was told he looked as if he could do with a rest.

‘But I've just had one,' he protested, sounding like Ivar. He was told to have another one and meekly followed Gerald upstairs. ‘You,' she said in English, turning to me. ‘You shall take the child outside to play so that he does not run between our feet all day.'

‘But it's raining,' I protested, sounding as pathetic as Bertil.

Fru Sparre had learnt the first lesson in world domination well: reduce your subjects to the status of children. ‘There are rain clothes,' she said and disappeared into the kitchen.

I looked mournfully after her. ‘Come on then, Ivar, we'd better go.'

I had just donned a long blue oilskin coat and a bright-yellow sou'wester when there was a knock on the door and Pernilla stepped in, pulling back the hood of her red raincoat. ‘I've come to help,' she announced, bending forward and shaking out her hair. I looked around for Fru Sparre; she'd soon sort her out. And there she was, coming out of the kitchen herding Kerstin and Olivia off towards the dining-room ahead of her. She stopped as she spotted Pernilla and her face softened.

‘Hello
Sparrhök
.' Pernilla grinned, tossing her head and flipping her hair back over her shoulders.

I looked at her admiringly. She dared to call the Higher Being by a nickname even if it was a butch one like Sparrowhawk. To my amazement, Fru Sparre smiled. ‘How are your parents, my dear? Professor Lindholm's back still playing up?'

I shook my head sadly. How could I hope to compete with a woman who made even Fru Sparre smile. I grabbed Ivar's hand and walked out into the rain.

Wiping the water from my eyes and removing my mascara at the same time, I looked at Ivar. ‘So what do we do now?'

‘Canals,' Ivar said. Dressed from head to foot in tartan oilskins he was already on his way to the shed. He emerged from there carrying two small buckets and two plastic spades, one blue and one red.

‘Canals?' I repeated.

‘You dig them and make all the water run down them and then you make dams and all sorts of things. It's really good fun.' He tramped off towards the gate.

‘Can't we stay in the garden?' I asked him.

‘You like staying in the garden, don't you? You don't like going out much?' Nothing escaped that child, I thought. ‘Ulla said you were an agorogo… agorof… someone who doesn't like to go out.'