‘How’s school, then?’
‘Fine.’ She kept eating.
‘Do you have a lot of tests?’
‘Some. Not that many.’
She drank her milk and got up to get more from the fridge. He realised that time was running out. He made another stab.
‘I just wanted to say that, that, uh, if you want another piece of bread I can get you one.’
‘No, thanks. Where’s Mamma?’
‘She’s still asleep.’
‘I can’t find my green hair-slide.’
In a single gulp she finished her milk and put the glass in the dishwasher. Before he could say anything else, she vanished towards their bedroom and he could hear murmuring voices. Private conversations that never included him.
Ellen was one of the reasons why he had stayed. He would lose her if they separated. The bond between them was much too fragile to compete with the chain that Louise had managed to forge. But there was also another reason, so secret that only he and his father knew about it. It had to do with appearances.
Ragnerfeldts did not get divorced.
At the time Ellen was born, his father had not harboured particularly high hopes regarding Jan-Erik’s talent for marriage, and even though the criticism could now only flash like lightning from his eyes, it would become quite clear the day he died and the inheritance was distributed. Jan-Erik could not be denied his legal right of inheritance, but his father had always been clever at manipulating the law. With his deft pen he had seen to it that Jan-Erik’s share would be as small as possible if he wasn’t living an honourable life on the day the will was read. Jan-Erik himself had been allowed to read the document. It was dated on Ellen’s first birthday, and in impeccable legal language his father had confirmed his supremacy. With words oozing with contempt he had bequeathed large sums to Louise and Ellen. As long as the marriage was intact nothing would change; Jan-Erik would remain the executor with the obligation to render accounts to the auditor. But in the event of a divorce, everything would be disclosed, and Louise would be the major beneficiary.
‘It’s for Ellen’s sake,’ his father had explained. ‘She’s our bequest to the future.’ They had returned to the dinner table, and Jan-Erik had got drunk on vintage wine. He had joined half-heartedly in the harmless chatter that hid the rage he was feeling. Why had the important future heritage skipped a generation?
That evening he had tried to overcome his aversion and have sex with Louise.
It had felt like fucking his jailer.
6
Alice Ragnerfeldt didn’t need an alarm clock to get up early in the morning. Even though she would rather stay asleep. She’d always said she preferred the night-time, revelling in the space those sleeping left behind. But being awake and having insomnia were two different things. Nowadays she wanted nothing more than to be able to sleep, but the sleeping pills only worked for a few hours. In the small hours she would wake up with vascular cramps. A heaviness around her heart, as if all the world’s horrors had landed on her chest. Getting old was nothing but one long, drawn-out torment. The face of a strange old woman in her mirror. The anticipation of youth had been transformed as if by magic into the bewilderment of old age. The realisation that everything had gone so fast and so little had been accomplished. Chance occurrences that imperceptibly slid over into conditions that could not be budged. Decisions were made even though she could never remember being involved. People appeared, briefly kept her company and then departed.
Everything had become dispersed but nothing had been lost. The essence of her life remained, like preserved fruit from a season long gone.
Yet it wasn’t the vascular cramps that woke her this morning, but a pain in her right calf. She had been waiting for it, and as she stretched out her foot to alleviate the cramp, she turned on the light and pulled out the newspaper clippings from her nightstand. Taking them out of the plastic sleeve she immediately found the right one. 15 September. 900,000 Swedes are struck by kidney disease – most of them without knowing it. A simple test can reveal kidney failure. She read through the list of symptoms again: headache in the morning, fatigue the first and most common sign, itching, swollen legs, then at a later stage nausea and vomiting. There, there it was. She knew she had seen it. Leg cramps are also common, probably because of the disturbance of the salt equilibrium. She would ask Jan-Erik to drive her to the clinic. Ring and get an appointment. She would demand that they take a new sample, even if she had to pay for it herself.
She stood up and raised the window blind. Outside it was still dark. She put on her slippers and dressing gown, and went out to the kitchen. Tore a page off the calendar and filled the coffee-machine with water. Not just one cup today. Jan-Erik and a Marianne Folkesson were supposed to visit around ten, so she might as well make the coffee now. And she needed to see if she had anything ironed to wear, now that someone from outside the neighbourhood was coming to have a look at Axel Ragnerfeldt’s wife.
Gerda Persson.
She hadn’t a clue why they should have anything to do with Gerda’s funeral, but Jan-Erik had insisted. She poured a glass of water and took her pills. She skipped her little shot of whisky today; she didn’t want to smell of booze when Jan-Erik arrived. He didn’t come very often, as he was so busy. It was mostly Louise she heard from these days. Imagine, he was already fifty years old. Her Jan-Erik. How the years flew by. Annika would have been forty-five. She clenched her jaw. It happened less and less, but now and then the memory would flit past uninvited. The tyranny of age. The slowness of the present speeded up the past.
As a young girl she had known everything. Strong-willed and choosy, she’d had definite ideas about the way life should be. Influenced by the feminist movement, she’d be damned if she’d follow the paths that others had taken before her. The modern woman had to be strong and take responsibility for herself, demand more of herself but also of men. Together men and women would create a better world. That’s what the feminists had written, and Alice had agreed with every word.
As the third in a family of five children, she’d obediently helped out with chores on the farm, trying out of sheer self-preservation to adapt to the little community in which the path one was expected to take was blatantly clear. But in secret she harboured a hope for something greater. She had been the odd one out in her childhood home. She wondered why she couldn’t be satisfied like her siblings. Why she could never fix her eyes on things within sight, but always felt compelled to direct her longing towards the horizon. Away from the crunch of the gravel path under her bicycle wheels and the distant cries from a football pitch. Away from the smell of new-mown grass and the familiar faces in the little town. Away from the security of the season’s recurring daily chores.
Books had been her refuge. And she had counted the days until she could head off for the big city and all its opportunities.
She poured herself a cup of coffee and put the rest in a thermos. Sitting down, she looked at her legs. They were a bit swollen, especially the right calf where the cramp was. She would ring the clinic as soon as it opened. She glanced at the kitchen clock. In three hours Jan-Erik would be here. Before that she’d put her hair in curlers so she’d look nice when he arrived. As nice as she could look, these days. Her thick, chestnut-brown hair was also a thing of the past, but she could always amuse herself by thinking about it.
Back then, in the late forties, she had worn her long hair pinned up. She had turned twenty-one, thus was of age, and her parents could no longer force her to stay at home. Even so, her departure had occurred with much commotion, and she had left with only ominous warnings in her bags. She took lodgings with an angry lady in Vasastan, in the centre of Stockholm, and went out looking for a job; what sort was not important. She wanted to write, and all hardships were acceptable since she knew where she was headed and nothing could stop her. Damned if she wouldn’t show her family back home that she’d made the right decision. On the second day she was hired as an assistant at a Wassberg’s beauty parlour in the City Palace building at Norrmalmstorg. Her duties were to wash the customers’ hair, make coffee, and keep all the hairdressers’ equipment clean, the brushes combed out. She could perform most of her tasks while listening to the rich conversations between customer and hairdresser. Sometimes usable as inspiration for the stories she wrote at night; in the best cases for small articles that she sold for cash to some newspaper.