‘You don’t recall anything in particular about the teachers?’
‘No, nothing. There were clear boundaries between the students, the teachers, and the family. Everyone was expected to know his place. Each group kept to itself.’
Rather like your policies, thought Erica, and she had to bite her tongue to keep from commenting. She could sense that Holm was starting to get impatient, so she asked her last question:
‘According to one person that I’ve talked to, there were some strange noises in the house at night. Do you remember anything like that?’
He gave a start. ‘Who said that?’
‘It’s not important.’
‘Rubbish,’ said Holm and stood up.
‘So you don’t know about these noises?’
‘Absolutely not. And now I’m afraid I must make a few phone calls.’
Erica realized that she wasn’t going to find out anything else, at least not now.
‘Thanks for taking the time to talk to me,’ she said, gathering up her things.
‘My pleasure.’ He’d turned on the charm again, but he rushed her out the door so fast her feet barely touched the ground.
Ia pulled up Leon’s underpants and trousers and helped him over to the wheelchair from the toilet.
‘All right, you can stop grimacing,’ she said.
‘I don’t understand why we can’t hire a nurse to do this sort of thing,’ said Leon.
‘I want to take care of you myself.’
‘Your heart is overflowing with kindness,’ Leon snorted. ‘You’re going to strain your back if you keep on this way. We need to have someone come in to help you.’
‘It’s nice of you to worry about my back, but I’m very strong, and I don’t want somebody else coming in and… getting in the way. It’s you and me. Until death do us part.’ Ia tried to caress the uninjured side of his face, but he shrank from her touch, and she drew her hand back.
He wheeled himself away from her as she sat down on the sofa. They had bought the house fully furnished, and today they had finally been allowed to move in after the bank in Monaco had approved their withdrawal. They had paid the entire sum in cash. From the window they could see all of Fjällbacka, and she was enjoying the amazing view more than she thought she would. She heard Leon swearing out in the kitchen. Nothing had been adapted for wheelchair access, so he was having a hard time reaching things, and he kept on running into corners and cabinets.
‘I’m coming,’ she shouted but didn’t jump up immediately. Sometimes it was good to make him wait for a bit. So he wouldn’t take her help for granted. The same way he had taken her love for granted.
Ia looked down at her hands. They were just as scarred as Leon’s. When she went out she always wore gloves to hide the scars from prying eyes, but here at home she wanted him to see the injuries she had sustained when she pulled him out of the burning car. Gratitude – that was what she demanded. She’d given up all hope of love. She was no longer sure whether Leon was capable of loving another person. Once upon a time she had thought so. Back then his love was the only thing that mattered. When had that love turned to hatred? She didn’t know. For so many years she had tried to discover her flaws, tried so hard to correct whatever he criticized, done her utmost to give him what he seemed to want. But he had continued to torment her as if deliberately trying to hurt her. The mountains, the sea, the deserts, the women. None of it was important. They were all his mistresses. And the long periods of waiting for him to come home had been unbearable.
She touched her face. It was smooth, without expression. She suddenly remembered the pain of the operations. He was never there to hold her hand when she woke up from the anaesthesia. He was never there when she came home. The healing seemed to take forever. Now she didn’t recognize herself when she looked in the mirror. But she didn’t have to try hard any more. There were no mountains that Leon could climb, no deserts that he could drive through, no women for whom he could leave her. He was hers. All hers.
Tobias frowned as he stretched. His body ached from the endless manual labour, and he’d almost forgotten what it was like not to be in pain. He knew that it was the same for Ebba. When she thought he wasn’t looking, she would often massage her shoulders and joints, grimacing the same way he did.
But the ache in their hearts was worse. They lived with it day and night, and the loss was so great that it was impossible to see where it started or ended. But Vincent was not the only one he missed; he missed Ebba too. And things had got worse when the loss was combined with the anger and guilt that they couldn’t escape.
He sat on the steps with a mug of tea in his hand, gazing across the water at Fjällbacka. The view was most beautiful in the golden light of the evening sun. Somehow he’d always known that they would come back here. Even though he believed Ebba when she said that she’d had a good childhood, he’d sometimes sensed that she carried with her a question that would not go away until she at least tried to find the answer. He was certain that if he had broached the subject before everything fell apart, she would have denied it. But all the same Tobias had remained convinced that one day they would come here, to the place where it all began.
When circumstances finally forced them to flee – to something that was both familiar and unfamiliar, to a life in which Vincent had never existed – Tobias had harboured such hope. He hoped that they’d find their way back to each other and be able to leave the anger and guilt behind. But Ebba had shut him out and rejected all his attempts at intimacy. Did she have the right to do that? The pain and grief were not hers alone; they were his too. Surely he deserved to see that she was at least willing to try?
Tobias gripped the mug harder as he gazed out at the horizon. He pictured Vincent in his mind. His son had been so much like him. They had laughed about that even in the maternity ward. Newborn and swaddled in a blanket, Vincent had lain in his pram like a little caricature of Tobias. The resemblance had grown stronger, and Vincent had worshipped his father. At the age of three he would follow Tobias around like a puppy, and it was always his pappa that he called for first. Occasionally Ebba had complained, saying that it was ungrateful of Vincent, after she’d carried him for nine months and endured a painful birth. But she didn’t mean it. It made her happy to see Vincent and Tobias grow so close, and she was content to take the number two spot.
Tears filled Tobias’s eyes, and he swiped them away with his hand. He couldn’t bear to cry any more, and besides, it served no purpose. The only thing he wanted was for Ebba to come back to him. He would never give up. He would keep on trying until she realized that they needed each other.
Tobias got up and went inside. He continued on upstairs, straining to hear where she was, although he already knew. Whenever they weren’t working on the house, she would be sitting at her work table, engrossed in making a new necklace that some customer had ordered. He went into the room and stood behind her.
‘Did you get a new order?’
She gave a start. ‘Yes,’ she said and continued shaping the silver.
‘Who’s the customer?’ Anger at her indifference surged inside him, and he had to stop himself from losing his temper.
‘Her name is Linda. Her son died when he was only four months old. Sudden infant death syndrome. He was her first child.’
‘I see,’ he said, turning away. He couldn’t understand how she could bear to hear such stories, all that grief from unknown parents. Wasn’t her own sorrow enough? He didn’t need to look to know that she was wearing her necklace. It was the first one she’d made, and she always had it on. Vincent’s name was engraved on the back. There were moments when he wanted to tear that necklace off of her, when he didn’t think she was worthy to bear her son’s name around her neck. But there were also moments when he wanted nothing more than for her to have Vincent close to her heart. Why did it have to be so hard? What would happen if he let it all go, accepted what had happened and acknowledged that they were both to blame?