In the Name of Love (14 page)

‘Isn’t there a will?’

‘Who’ve you been talking to? Sune Isaksson? He feels sorry for them and that’s okay. Only I have a life too. And the place really does belong to me, Aunt Solveig always said that, even when I was little.’

‘What does the will say?’

‘The will is false. Aunt Solveig was dying when she’s supposed to have dictated it to some Yugo nurse who spoke Swedish like a donkey braying. The pygmy was there every day, of course, she knew the Yugoslavian woman. The whole idea of their taking over the place is crazy. Can you imagine Gabriel running it on his own when the old couple get past it?’

‘You know him well?’

‘As well as I’ll ever need to. I was still in the house with Aunt Solveig last summer when he arrived from France. That was when they set me up.’

There was little traffic on the mainland road. He changed the subject, asking her what the island had been like when she was small. A lot simpler, she said, with fewer holiday houses.

‘I used to go to church there when I was little. Aunt Solveig took me.’

They were coming into the small town. She pointed to a bungalow in a garden and said that was it.

‘My mother’s sister’s place. She’s nice but I can’t stay there for ever. Thanks again for the dinner, DeeJay.’ She leant across and kissed his cheek. ‘I’ll give you a ring sometime.’ And then she was gone.

On the road back he realized how close he’d come to being briefly, brutally interested in her body.
Your hands all over my anatomy
. Like a randy adolescent. Which could well be what she’d intended.
I might be hot stuff in bed, DeeJay
.

He lay awake, still perturbed but thinking that at least the banality had been avoided, the sordid game of a man his age groping a girl. Followed by the bruised ego, the cracked eggs. All in all, he’d begun to feel contented with himself when the phone rang. She said, ‘I forgot to thank you for the lift.’

‘It was nothing.’

‘Let me know if ever you come this way.’

‘If I do.’

‘Can I come out to see you again one day?’

‘See me?’

‘Listen. You know those nights you sometimes get out there in spring when the day’s been warm and yet the temperature suddenly drops below zero at night and everything freezes?’

‘What about them?’

‘The real magic is when they come later, in June. Then they’re called the iron nights. Those were the happiest times of my life. Aunt Solveig and Uncle Fritjof and I would cover the vegetable garden with straw to protect the buds. The same thing year after year. That was paradise. But you’re probably in bed?’

‘Yes.’

‘I love your set-up. That stone house. The blue eiderdown on your bed.’

‘You were in my bedroom?’

‘I just peeked in the door when I went up to wash my hands before dinner. See what sort of work Gabriel had done.’

Enough was enough.

‘Goodnight,’ he said and replaced the handset.

The next time Lena Sundman phoned Dan was trying to get a job ready that had to go by fax before the end of the working day. He let the phone ring several times but finally picked it up. She said she’d been talking to Anders Roos and Anders Roos was concerned.

‘He said he hasn’t seen you since the day we went walking. He wonders if you’re going through some sort of depression.’

‘And he asked you to ring me?’

‘DeeJay, I’m ringing on my own. How are you?’

‘Fine.’

There was a pause. Then she said, ‘I’m fine too, and thanks for asking.’

‘Sorry. My mind was on something else. Actually I—’

‘Listen. I’m in Stockholm in case you ever want to call me. I’ve got a two-and-a-half-room flat for ten days that someone lent me on Hantverkargatan. Do you know where it is?’

‘On Kungsholmen Island? Yes, of course.’

‘It’s on the top floor. If I put my head far enough out the window I can see Norr Mälarstrand and Lake Mälaren straight down Parmmätargatan.’

‘You rang to tell me that?’

‘Jesus, what a thing to say! You’re not strong on the social graces, are you, DeeJay? I rang to give you my phone number here. So you can ring me if you feel alone. Or even come in and say hello one evening and I’ll take you out to dinner.’

She gave him the number.

‘And don’t sound like a threatened species every time I call, as though I’m slavering to get my hands on your battle-scarred body. I do have other interests in life.’

A voice loaded with the mock menace of a street-smart kid.

Outside, in the smoky dusk, the rain poured down. Dan took an umbrella and walked over to see Sune Isaksson. Sune was in bed with a cold.

‘Why didn’t you ring?’ Dan demanded. ‘I could have come earlier, brought you some food.’

‘Whisky’s in the cupboard.’

As Dan took out the bottle Sune said, ‘Nahrin told me a while back that you’d walked all the way over to Bromskär to pay Gabriel the same day he finished. They really appreciated that you took trouble.’

‘Did they? I had the feeling I was intruding.’

‘Oh you’re not intruding. As long as they know it’s you. Otherwise they’re careful.’

‘Are they afraid of people here?’

‘No, not here. But Josef and Nahrin are a little wary in general. Because of what they’ve been through. Go and chat with them. Really, they’d like that.’

‘Forgive me if I doubt it.’

‘Give it a try and you’ll see. And if ever they invite you to eat with them, don’t miss the chance. Nahrin’s a wonderful cook. She knows more about wild herbs and plants than many a qualified botanist. Makes wonderful conserves too. That might be something for them to develop later on, market-gardening stuff. There’s no way a small farm can compete with anything else, not nowadays.’

‘The place must be worth a lot of money. The land runs right along the coast.’

‘And so far it’s untouched. Of course it’s heavily mortgaged since the years Solveig was on her own. I used to go there a lot after school when I was a kid. I’d cycle over and meet Lena’s father, Bertil Sundman. We used to cycle to the beach together and flirt with the summer girls.’

Now that his hair was growing back Sune’s face took on a different form, a little battered, older than its fifty or so years, but still with a residue of craggy charm.

‘You miss the past?’

‘God no. Spare me the past. A series of flickering moments come and gone. A fuck is a fuck as long as it lasts. The rest is pornography.’

‘How far back did Bertil Sundman die?’

‘About ten years ago. He wasn’t even fifty. I don’t think he and Lena saw much of each other after he’d broken up with her mother. And she and her mother didn’t get on too well either. She hasn’t had it easy, I’ll say that for her.’

Walking home in the dark Dan was conscious of the shadowy evergreens all around him, the sounds of forest animals. In front the emptiness of the night flowed in from the sea. There was silence now where all spring he used to hear the ice crack. No place on earth, it seemed, could be so calm, so safe. He felt every muscle tingle, every nerve. The feeling lasted no more than a minute, maybe less. Followed by a memory of Connie’s face cold and hard as marble in the hospital morgue.

He had been avoiding Norrtälje for quite some time but the day came when he had no choice. He needed to stock up on printing ink and paper. Once there he found he was both half longing to run into Madeleine and half nervous that he might.

Passing a maternity shop he caught sight of a set of baby clothes, hat, jacket and booties in soft white batiste, hand embroi­dered, and went in and bought it, asking that it be delivered to Fru Roos on Estunavägen. No message, no name. She wouldn’t have the faintest idea where it came from. Or would she?

Then on the way home, his madness continued and he suddenly swung off the country road and up to the dual car­riage­way that led to Stockholm. By the time he reached the suburbs his madness had begun to fade. He found him­self stolidly gauging just how pitiful he would appear when he arrived. Lena Sundman, who thought him unusual for living stoically alone, would see a common-or-garden loser at her door.

And still he drove, carried by nothing more than the momentum of having started. He knew, with bitterness, that he would not have a single thing of interest to say to her when he arrived. He tried to think of an opening phrase at least. All that came to mind was one lie or another.
I happened to be passing and thought I’d look in. I just left a meeting with a client and ditto. I was seeing someone off at the Central Station and…
And then what would he suggest? That they have dinner. Supper? A drink? Or simply say some idiotic phrase with deliberate brightness:
You know. I have never been inside a two-and-a-half-room flat before.
Or, worse:
You told me to drop in. Well, here I am!

When he arrived at the telephone box on Kungsholmstorget the handset hung broken. Further up on Hantverkargatan the next one was broken too. From across the street he stared at the top-floor windows of the building on the corner of Parmmätargatan. Some of the lights were on. He willed her to appear, to glance down, see him, wave.

He studied the names listed alphabetically on the plate, undecided which button to press, then decided to press them all, one after the other, when an elderly couple came out of the lift. The man politely held open the door for him to enter.

On the top floor he looked at the three doors, one to the left, one in the centre and one to the right. He decided on the centre one. The building was so silent he could hear the bell ring inside. He rang again and Lena Sundman’s Gothenburg voice asked, ‘Who’s there?’ He told her.

When the door opened he said, ‘Hello,’ and, embarrassed now, asked, ‘May I come in?’ She said, ‘Of course,’ and then she said, ‘I’m not alone.’ There, everything stopped. What he thought he heard in her voice, almost bitterly, was, ‘Don’t you have any sense? Don’t you know enough to phone first?’

A well-dressed man, somewhere in his late thirties, sat on the sofa and looked with calm curiosity at Dan. There were two empty coffee cups on the table in front of him. It was the first time Dan had seen Lena in anything but jeans. She wore a short skirt and a black sleeveless T-shirt. She touched his elbow a moment when she introduced him as ‘a friend from the deep sticks’. The man’s name was Lennart Widström. His thin features gave him a slightly hawkish look, the look of a man who knew his worth.

Lena asked Dan, not bluntly but not delicately either, why he had come. All his stories seemed pointless. He said, ‘To talk with you.’

For a long time she said nothing, just looked at him, her eyes bright with sadness. Then, turning back to Widström, she said, ‘I’m sorry. You’ll have to go.’

Dan told her he couldn’t stay, it was just a quick visit, he had an early start the next morning.

‘Tomorrow? Saturday?’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘I have work to do.’

‘On a Saturday?’ she said again. ‘Why?’

‘I didn’t get everything done during the week.’

‘Nice try,’ she said. All this time Lennart Widström’s face, watching them, remained calm. He might have been observing a landscape, searching for some feature he recognized. ‘Well,’ she said to him. There was a sort of frozen urgency creeping into her voice. ‘Thanks for the dinner.’

Once Widström knew he had no choice he was very good about it. He shook Dan’s hand again and said goodnight and told Lena he’d be in touch. After he’d gone Dan said, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you.’

‘It’s all right.’

‘Your friend—’

‘Would you like some coffee? Or tea? It’s all I have at the moment.’

‘No. I don’t want anything. Just to see you.’

‘Well, sit down.’

He sat down and thought of what she had said to the man, Lennart Widström.
Sorry
. And he left. He must be wondering who this rustic was, dressed in farmers’ boots and old trousers. And now that they were sitting opposite each other, he and Lena Sundman, he couldn’t think of a way to break the silence. A long time passed, a minute or more.

‘Are you thinking of something nice to say to me now?’ Lena asked, smiling.

‘If it was that I wouldn’t have to think long.’

‘That’s already nice. Maybe that’ll do.’

They talked about what she had been up to in Stockholm, mainly looking for work, she said. ‘I don’t want to do just anything though. Not any more.’

She said that the man who was here, Lennart Widström, might be able to find something for her in WingClub. Dan had to ask her what WingClub was. As he put the question he remembered the name from advertisements in the papers a few years back, holidays in unusual places like Yemen. Jeeps and tents in the desert.

‘Lennart founded it,’ Lena added. ‘He’s a friend of Anders. They have art deals going.’

‘How is Anders doing?’

‘Anders? Fine, I suppose. I haven’t seen him for a while.’

‘Why not?’

She looked up with an abrupt little movement and then smiled again. ‘What the fuck are we talking about Anders Roos for? Tell me about you, DeeJay. How are you? Still holding up?’

‘I don’t know. It was crazy what I did tonight. I was in Norrtälje and I took a wrong turning out, I took it deliberately and drove straight here.’

‘I’m glad you did. Have you eaten? Not that I have anything here but there’s a pizzeria across the street. Do you want me to ring for something? They stay open late.’

‘I’m not hungry. Are you?’

‘No. I had dinner with Lennart.’

She leant a little forward and took his hand and held his fingers in a reassuring way, as one would for a friend in distress. Then abruptly she let go and sneezed twice. She got up and fetched a packet of paper handkerchiefs from the bedroom. When she came back he realized how tired she looked. There was a tightening in the skin beneath her eyes. He told her he’d be going now.

‘Back to the house? No way.’

‘Lena—’

‘I’ll make up the sofa for you.’

‘—I just wanted to see you.’

‘That’s nice but you’re not driving back to that house tonight.’

She prepared a bed for him on the sofa. In the time that had passed since he got here he had learnt one thing for sure: she knew about solitude, about how it can make you do crazy things.