And so we get into the car and set off on our journey northwards through Denmark. When we reach the Öresund Bridge an hour and a half later, it starts snowing.
It’s Gunvald who rings first. I’ve stopped at a petrol station just outside Helsingborg, and am about to get out of the car and fill up when I see the call is from him, so I drive over to a parking bay instead.
‘Hi,’ he says, ‘Is it true?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I’m afraid it’s true.’
‘Good God!’
‘Yes indeed.’
‘Where are you?’
‘On the E4 north of Helsingborg. I’m on the way home.’
‘When did it happen?’
‘Last night. We came on the ferry from Puttgarden.’
‘And he. .?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you see it?’
‘No. But he didn’t come to the car when we were instructed to drive ashore.’
‘I didn’t know. . I mean, he did write. . And so did you.’
‘I had no idea, Gunvald. I didn’t realize it was that bad. I thought going home was the right thing to do, but. .’
‘You can’t know things like that.’
‘No.’
‘But they haven’t found him, have they?’
‘No.’
‘Is there any chance that-’
‘No. It’s too cold.’
‘Good God.’
Then we have nothing else to add, neither I nor Gunvald. But we don’t close down the call. I sit staring out at the swirling snowflakes for a while, listening to Gunvald’s breathing. I recall lying awake at night when he was newly born, listening to his breathing. Now I’m sitting at a petrol station and his dad is dead.
‘I’ll try to get up to Stockholm tomorrow,’ he says. ‘Does Synn know about it?’
I say that I’ve e-mailed her as well, but of course they are several hours behind us in New York.
‘You don’t need to come tomorrow,’ I add. ‘Wait a few days, let me come to terms with it all first. We can keep in touch by telephone.’
‘Okay,’ says Gunvald. ‘Let’s do that. Mum. .?’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m so sorry. .’
‘So am I, Gunvald. We’ll just have to try and get over it.’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘We’ll have to try.’
Then we hang up. I drive back to the pumps and start filling up.
The snow persists. I buy an evening newspaper which says that it will continue all evening and all night as well. Drivers are warned to be careful.
When we are somewhere in the Småland hills Synn rings. She has just got back from a jog in Central Park and is crying loudly. That surprises me.
‘I’m so sorry that I wrote what I did, Mum,’ she sobs. ‘I didn’t realize he was that bad.’
‘No, but he did,’ I say. ‘I never told him what you wrote, so you don’t need to worry about that.’
Then we say more or less the same things as Gunvald and I had said an hour earlier, and suddenly the connection is lost without warning. Perhaps it’s the snow, perhaps it’s something else. She doesn’t ring back until after we have passed Gränna, and she announces that she is looking for flights home.
I tell her to wait for a bit. It’s better to take things easy for a few days and try to come to terms with what has happened. And there’s no body — without one there’s no hurry when it comes to the funeral.
‘I didn’t realize,’ says Synn, and starts crying again. We finish the call just as I’m passing the slip road to Ödeshög.
It’s half past nine in the evening when I park outside our house in Nynäshamn. It’s minus eight degrees according to the thermometer in the car, and the snowfall has eased off a little. Judging by the snow in our street the snow ploughs have passed through not long ago.
I remain sitting in the car for a while before I feel up to opening the door and getting out of the car. Castor remains on the passenger seat, and doesn’t move a muscle.
57
The sixteenth of February.
Twelve degrees of frost. It’s half past five in the evening, I’m in the kitchen preparing roast fillet of beef. I’ve browned it on the outside and am now wrapping it in foiclass="underline" then it will go in the oven for an hour on low heat. I can hear Chet Baker from the living room.
Just a salad and a mushroom and rosemary sauce to accompany it — I’ve prepared this dish a hundred times and it never goes wrong.
Blinis with sour cream, whitefish roe and shallots for starters — that’s a Nordic classic, and I want to give him something I don’t think he’s ever tasted before.
Mind you, at first I tried to stop him. Obviously, fitting him into my Swedish existence, overlapping his Exmoor and my Sweden in this way without any precautionary measures seemed both unmotivated and risky. But then he explained that he only wanted to meet me as usual. An evening, a night and a morning. Just as in Heathercombe Cottage. When I still protested he told me he had already booked flights — from Heathrow on Saturday afternoon and back again from Arlanda on Sunday afternoon. He didn’t want to go on a guided tour of Stockholm and Sweden. He didn’t want to meet my friends. Didn’t want to visit the famous archipelago or see the Town Hall. He simply wanted to be together with me for half a day, as usual.
I gave way. He gave me no time to think it over: he rang on Thursday and today is Saturday. I asked if he wanted me to meet him at Arlanda, but he said I should stay at home and prepare a meal. He was very keen to become acquainted with my cooking skills.
He laughed. I laughed.
‘And I suppose you’ll then take another taxi to the airport on Sunday afternoon, will you?’
‘Exactly,’ said Mark Britton. ‘You won’t even need to step outside.’
‘What about Jeremy?’ I asked.
‘My sister’s coming here,’ he said. ‘She couldn’t be away from home any longer than this, otherwise I’d have stayed for a few days. To tell you the truth.’
‘I understand,’ I said. ‘Okay, you’re welcome.’
‘How long does it take from the airport to where you live?’
‘About an hour and a half. The quickest way is to take the Arlanda Express into central Stockholm first.’
‘I’ll fix that. So I’ll be at your place around seven. I’ll ring if there are any delays. But you can count on my being there. Even if I have to swim over.’
‘Give me a call when you’ve landed.’
‘Of course.’
When we had hung up I passed by the hall mirror and saw my face in it. I smiled.
I shall drive Mark back to Arlanda. Of course I shall. I have to be out of the house tomorrow afternoon anyway, as there will be people coming to look it over then. The official viewing time isn’t until next weekend, but the estate agent said he had a few very promising prospective buyers, and so it would be silly not to give them an advance viewing.
Everybody says I’m being too precipitate, but I let them think so. They reckon I should continue living here for at least six months, and see how it feels. But you don’t know the whole story, I think to myself as I listen to their arguments. You don’t understand. You shouldn’t make important decisions when you’re in a state of crisis, they say: you should at least finish mourning first.
I’m not in a state of crisis, I think. I’m not mourning.
Christa is the only one I’ve told that I can’t bear the thought of carrying on living in this house. Not another week, barely another day. I think she understands me. Or at least, understands the fiction I present her with.
Gunvald and Synn have been here, then left again. We were together all last weekend, and as far as I was concerned it was a flawed and stiff theatrical performance. I know that they are both deeply affected by Martin’s death, but we’re simply not on the same wavelength. We are three individual instruments, all out of tune, trying to pretend that we are a trio — despite the fact that we have never been one, and have little prospect of ever becoming one. But it seemed to me that despite everything, I might — eventually — be able to establish a better relationship with Synn. I had that feeling, in brief moments when our eyes met; but the presence of Gunvald and the situation we found ourselves in closed all doors for the time being.