As if…as if…
As if someone had come to get him. Someone following an order. Someone who had the right to take him. His legs were ready for flight as he slipped off the sofa, shuffled across to the fire and seized the poker.
He stood there with the poker held aloft, waiting for the pounding to come again. There was no sound apart from the growing fury of the sea, the creaking as a half-broken branch twisted in the wind.
Calm down. Perhaps it's just…
Just what? An accident, someone needing help? Yes, that was probably the most likely scenario, and here he was looking as if he was expecting an alien invasion. He took a few steps towards the outside door, still holding the poker in his hand.
'Hello?' he shouted. 'Who's there?'
His heart was pounding and it felt as if something was tightening around his head.
There's something wrong with me.
Someone had run aground in their boat, their engine had failed in the strong wind and they had made their way up the rocks to his door, perhaps they were standing there now, soaked to the skin and freezing.
But why are they hammering on the door like that?
Without switching on any of the lights that might dazzle him, Anders crept over to the hall window and peeped out. Nobody was standing on the porch, as far as he could see. He switched on the outside light. There was nobody there. He opened the door and looked out.
'Hello? Is anyone there?'
Maja's swing was flying wildly to and fro in the wind, dry leaves whirled around the yard. He put the door on the latch and stepped out on to the porch, closed the door behind him and glanced around, listening intently.
He thought he could hear the sound of an engine from the direction of the village. A small outboard motor or a chainsaw. But who would take a boat out at this hour, who would be cutting trees in the middle of the night? It could be a moped, of course, but the same question applied.
Maja's swing was disconcerting. The way it was moving it looked as if someone was sitting on it and swinging, someone he couldn't see. A cold blast of wind swept across his chest and stomach as he took a few steps away from the door and called 'Maja?' out into the empty air.
No reply. No change in the frantic movement of the swing. He lowered the poker and ran his free hand over his face. He was still drunk. Drunk and wide awake. The sound of the engine-if that's what it was-had stopped. All he could hear was the creaking of the broken branch.
He went back to the door and examined the outside. No damage from the knocking. The corners of his mouth twitched.
I know what this means.
His grandmother had told him about one occasion when her father had spent the night in a hut on one of the little islands out in the archipelago. He had been on 'an errand', which at the time was the euphemism for smuggling spirits. He had probably arranged to meet some Estonian cargo boat outside the three-mile limit towards dawn, and had decided it would be safest to spend the night out in the archipelago.
In the middle of the night he is woken by the sound of hammering on the door. It's a simple cottage door, and the heavy blows are making the latch jump. He thinks it's customs that are on his trail, but this time they have made their move too early. He has nothing they can confiscate, and he is perfectly happy to explain why he is spending the night here-he has brought his fowling piece with him for appearance's sake. He is quite happy to open the door.
No one is there. There is not a soul in sight, and only his own fishing boat is moored by the jetty. However, to be on the safe side he picks up the money he is going to use to pay for the contraband and takes a walk around the island with the gun in his hand. He manages to frighten a couple of eider ducks out of a clump of reeds, but nothing else.
As dawn breaks he sets off for the meeting place. After a few nautical miles he catches sight of the cargo ship at anchor just beyond the limit.
Then he hears an explosion.
At first he thinks it might be his own compression ignition engine, but he realises that the resonance of the explosion is too deep, that it has come from outside his boat. He picks up the telescope and looks over at the cargo boat he is to meet.
Something has happened to it. At first he can't make out what it is, but as he gets closer he can see that it is listing and beginning to sink. By the time he reaches it there is no longer anything to reach. He scans the surface of the sea with the telescope, but there is nothing to be seen.
'Four men and at least a thousand litres of schnapps went down that day,' his grandmother's father told her later. 'That was what it wanted to tell me, whatever was banging on the door. That something bad was coming.'
Anders' grandmother had retold the story using exactly the same words, and ever since it had been an expression that came into his mind from time to time when he wanted to describe something. It came to him now, as he examined the door and found not a trace of whoever had been hammering on it.
Something had is coming.
He looked up at the pine trees, their swaying tops invisible in the darkness outside the circle of light from the outdoor lamp. A loose piece of metal on the woodshed banged once, as if to underline the point.
Something had is coming.
It was impossible to go back to sleep. Anders lit the kitchen stove, then sat at the kitchen table staring at the wall. His head felt as if it were full of lukewarm porridge, enclosed in a perverse membrane of clarity. He was able to think clearly, but not deeply.
The wind was howling around the walls, and Anders shivered. He suddenly felt exposed. Like an unwanted child left out in the forest.
Exposed. His fragile little house stood alone, exposed on the point. The deep sea was forcing its way upward, reaching out its arms. The wind was curling itself around the house, flexing its muscles and trying to find a way in.
Something had is coming. It's after me.
What 'it' was, he had no idea. Just that it was big and strong, and it was after him. That his fortifications were inadequate.
The old wine tasted like rotten fruit in his mouth; he drank half a litre of water straight from the tap to rinse away the taste. The water wasn't much better. Salt water had probably got into the well-the tap water had a thick, metallic taste. Anders rinsed his face and dried it with a tea towel.
Without thinking about it, he went into the bedroom and fetched the bucket of plastic beads, then sat down at the kitchen table and started picking them out, pushing them together. First of all he made a heart in red. Then a blue heart outside the red one. Then a yellow one, and so on. Like a Russian doll, the hearts surrounding one another. When he got to the edge he got up and put some more wood in the stove.
The beads he had taken to make his heart design hadn't made any noticeable difference to the level in the bucket. He had plenty of beads and plenty of tiles. He would really have liked a bigger tile. So that he could make an entire picture.
If you stick them together…
He dug a hacksaw out of his toolbox and set to work. When he had sawn the edges off nine tiles, he smoothed them down with sandpaper to make an even surface for the glue to stick to. The work took up all of his attention and he didn't even notice as the dawn came creeping across the sea.
Only when all the edges were smooth and he got up to look for the unopened tube of araldite that he knew should be somewhere did he glance out of the window and realise that the morning sun had leached the brightness from the beam of the North Point lighthouse.
Morning. Coffee.
He washed away the worst of the lime scale from the pot and poured water into the coffee machine. In the larder there was an open packet of coffee, which had doubtless lost all its flavour. He compensated by using twice as much as usual, and switched on the machine.