‘What about a girlfriend?’ Lilian says quickly.
Jan slowly opens his mouth, but Marie-Louise leans forward, her expression slightly troubled, and says quietly, ‘That’s personal, Lilian.’
Jan notices that neither Lilian nor Hanna is wearing a ring on her left hand. He shakes his head briefly. No. That could mean either that he’s single, or that he doesn’t want to answer.
‘So what do you do in your spare time, Jan?’ The question comes from Dr Högsmed this time.
‘Oh, this and that,’ he replies. ‘I’m interested in music, I play the drums a bit... and I enjoy drawing.’
‘And what kind of thing do you draw?’
Jan hesitates before replying — this is also beginning to feel rather personal. ‘I’m working on a kind of comic strip... An old dream project.’
‘I see... Is it for a magazine?’
‘No. It isn’t finished, far from it.’
‘You’ll have to show it to the children,’ says Marie-Louise. ‘We read to them a lot.’
Jan nods, but he doubts whether pre-school children will want to read his comic-strip story about the Secret Avenger. There is too much hatred in it.
Suddenly they hear a muted cry from the snuggle room. Marie-Louise stiffens, Andreas turns his head.
‘That sounds like Matilda,’ he says quietly.
‘Yes,’ Marie-Louise agrees. ‘Matilda dreams a great deal.’
‘She’s got a vivid imagination,’ Lilian says. ‘She’s always making up stories.’
That is all Jan hears them say about any of the children. They sit in silence around the table; it is as if they are waiting for more cries from the snuggle room, but nothing happens.
Högsmed rubs his eyes and looks at his watch. ‘OK, Jan, perhaps you’d like to be heading home?’
‘Yes... it’s probably time.’ He understands the hint — the doctor wants rid of him. He wants to hear what the staff think of the male candidate.
‘I’ll be in touch, Jan — I’ve got your phone number.’
Jan says his goodbyes, with a friendly smile and a firm handshake for everyone.
Outside the autumn rain has passed.
There is not a soul in sight by the wall as he walks out through the gate of the Dell. But St Patricia’s itself looks almost alive; the rain has darkened the façade, and the hospital looks like a great stone colossus, looming over the pre-school.
Jan stops and gazes over at the hospital. At all those windows. He is expecting someone to show themselves — a head moving behind the bars, a hand placed against a pane of glass. But nothing happens, and eventually he begins to worry that one of the guards will spot him and think that a lunatic is standing there staring at the place. He sets off, with a final glance at the little pre-school.
St Patricia’s enormous wall is eerily fascinating, but he must stop thinking about it. He must concentrate on the Dell, the little wooden building with its sleeping children.
Pre-schools are like oases of tranquillity and security.
He really wants the job, even though he is still feeling tense following Högsmed’s scrutiny. The hat test. And even worse, the phone call to his former employer.
But what happened at Lynx is not going to happen at the Dell. He had been young then, a twenty-year-old classroom assistant. And totally off balance.
5
After the heavy rain, the autumn air in Valla is cold and fresh. The town looks as if it is contained within some kind of cauldron; it lies below Jan as he walks back through the residential areas, across the railway and down into the centre where the streets are full of pensioners and teenagers. The young people are standing outside the shops, the elderly are sitting on benches. He sees dogs on leads and small groups of birds gathered around the rubbish bins, but very few children.
The next train to Gothenburg leaves in an hour, so Jan has plenty of time to stroll around. For the first time he wonders what it would be like to live in Valla. Today he is a visitor, but if he gets the job he will have to move here.
As he is walking down Storgatan his mobile suddenly rings. A chilly breeze is blowing up the street; he shelters by a wall and answers.
‘Jan?’ The voice is croaky and weak: his elderly mother. She goes on immediately: ‘What are you doing? Are you in Gothenburg?’
‘No, I’ve been... I’ve been for a job interview.’
He has always found it difficult to tell his mother what he is doing. It has always felt too personal.
‘A job interview, that sounds good. Is it in town?’
‘No, a little way out.’
‘Well, I mustn’t disturb you...’
‘It’s OK, Mum. It went well.’
‘And how’s Alice?’
‘Fine... she’s fine. Still working.’
‘It would be lovely if you came up here some time. Both of you.’
Jan doesn’t reply.
‘A bit later in the autumn, perhaps?’ his mother suggests.
There is no hint of criticism in her voice, as far as Jan can tell; just the quiet wistfulness of a lonely widow.
‘I’ll come up soon,’ Jan promises, ‘and I’ll... I’ll check with Alice.’
‘Lovely. And good luck. Remember you have to be happy with your employer as well.’
Jan says a quick thank you and ends the call.
Alice. He happened to mention her name to his mother at some point, and slowly she has taken shape and become his girlfriend. There is no Alice in his life, of course, she was just a dream, but now his mother wants to meet her. Eventually he will have to tell her what the situation really is.
He carries on wandering around the centre of Valla and sees lots of imposing shop windows, but no church. And no churchyard either.
There is a very good local-history museum by the river, with a little café. Jan goes in and buys a sandwich. He sits down by the window and gazes out towards the bus station.
He doesn’t know one single person in Valla — is that frightening or liberating? On the plus side, a stranger can start a completely new life, and choose which details to share if someone should ask where he comes from. The fewer answers the better. He doesn’t need to say a word about his former life. Not a word about Alice Rami.
But it is thanks to his adoration of her that Jan is sitting here.
He first heard about St Patricia’s Hospital at the beginning of June, when his last temporary post at a pre-school in Gothenburg was just coming to an end. It was quite an enjoyable evening; he was almost feeling happy.
He was the only man in a group of women, as usual. His colleagues invited him out for a meal to thank him for his work, and he accepted. Afterwards he did something he had never done before — he asked them back to his small apartment in Johanneberg, a cramped one-room flat which he had taken on as a sublet.
What could he offer them? He rarely drank alcohol; he couldn’t really cope with the taste.
‘I think I might have some crisps at home if you’d like to come back with me.’
His five colleagues were delighted, but Jan had already begun to regret the invitation as he led them up the stairs and unlocked the door.
‘I’m afraid it’s not very tidy...’
‘That doesn’t matter!’ they shouted, giggling and tipsy.
Jan let them in.
His diary was hidden in a desk drawer, along with his drawings of The Secret Avenger. So he had nothing else to hide, apart from the pictures of Alice Rami. If he had known about this visit he would probably have hidden those too, but as his colleagues walked in they saw the framed record sleeve in the hallway, of course, plus a concert poster in the kitchen, and the big poster that had been given away with a music magazine ten years ago, pinned up next to the bookcase.