‘Where are you, Harry?’
He felt her hand on his forehead. A sudden gust of wind made the window rattle. Outside in the street came the sound of something hitting the ground. The storm. It was on its way now.
‘I’m here,’ he said.
The room was spinning. He could sense the warmth not only from her hand, but from the whole of her as they lay there just half a metre apart.
‘I want to die first,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘I don’t want to lose them. They can lose me instead. Let them see how it feels for once.’
Her laughter was so gentle. ‘Now you’re stealing my lines, Harry.’
‘Am I?’
‘When I was in hospital …’
‘Yes?’ Harry closed his eyes when her hand slipped to the back of his neck, squeezed gently and sent little jolts up into his brain.
‘They kept changing the diagnosis. Manic depressive, borderline, bipolar. But there was one word that was in all the reports. Suicidal.’
‘Hm.’
‘But it passes.’
‘Yes,’ Harry said. ‘And then it comes back. Doesn’t it?’
She laughed again. ‘Nothing’s forever, life is by definition temporary and always changing. It’s horrible, but that’s also what makes it bearable.’
‘This too shall pass.’
‘Let’s hope so. You know what, Harry? We’re the same, you and I. We’re made for loneliness. We’re drawn to loneliness.’
‘By getting rid of the people we love, you mean?’
‘Is that what we do?’
‘I don’t know. I just know that when I’m walking on the wafer-thin ice of happiness, I’m terrified, so terrified that I wish it was over, that I was already in the water.’
‘And that’s why we run from those we love,’ Katrine said. ‘Alcohol. Work. Casual sex.’
Something we can be useful for, Harry thought. While they bleed to death.
‘We can’t save them,’ she said, in answer to his thoughts. ‘And they can’t save us. Only we can save ourselves.’
Harry felt the mattress move and knew she had turned towards him, he could feel her warm breath on his face.
‘You had it in your life, Harry, you had the only person you loved. At least the two of you had that. And I don’t know which of you I’ve been most jealous of.’
What was it that was making him so sensitive? Had he taken E or acid? And, if so, where had he got hold of it? He had no idea, the last twenty-four hours were a big blank.
‘They say you shouldn’t meet trouble halfway,’ she said. ‘But when you know that trouble is all that lies ahead of you, meeting it halfway is the only airbag you’ve got. And the best way to fend it off is to live each day like it was your last. Don’t you think?’
Beach House. He remembered this track. ‘Wishes’. It really was something special. And he remembered Rakel’s pale face on the white pillow, in the light yet simultaneously in the dark, out of focus, close, yet distant, a face in the dark water, pressed against the underside of the ice. And he remembered Valentin’s words. You’re like me, Harry, you can’t bear it.
‘What would you do, Harry? If you knew you were about to die?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Would you—?’
‘I said I don’t know.’
‘What don’t you know?’ she whispered.
‘If I would have fucked you.’
In the silence that followed he heard the scraping sound of metal being blown across the tarmac by the wind.
‘Just feel,’ she whispered. ‘We’re dying.’
Harry stopped breathing. Yes, he thought. I’m dying. And then felt that she had stopped breathing too.
Hallstein Smith heard the wind whistling in the gutters outside and felt the draught right through the wall. Even though they had insulated the walls as well as they could, it was and would remain a barn. Emilia. He had heard of a novel that was published during the war about a storm called Maria, and that that was the reason why hurricanes were given girls’ names. But that changed after the idea of gender equality became widespread in the seventies and people insisted that these catastrophic disasters should have boys’ names as well. He looked at the smiling face above the Skype icon on the big computer screen. The voice was running slightly ahead of the lips: ‘I think I have what I need, thank you so much for being with us, Mr Smith. At what for you must be very late, no? Here in LA it’s nearly 3 p.m. What time is it in Sweden?’
‘Norway. Almost midnight.’ Hallstein Smith smiled. ‘No problem, I’m just glad the press finally realise that vampirism is real, and are interested in it.’
They ended the conversation, and Smith opened his inbox again.
Thirteen unopened emails, but he could see from the senders and subject lines that they were requests for interviews and invitations to give lectures. He hadn’t opened the one from Psychology Today either. Because he knew it wasn’t urgent. Because he wanted to save it. Savour it.
He looked at the time. He had put the kids to bed at half past eight, then had a cup of tea at the kitchen table with May, as usual, going through their day, sharing its small joys and venting its small frustrations. In the past few days he had naturally had more to tell her than vice versa, but he had made sure that the smaller but no less important aspects of the home got as much attention as his own activities. Because what he said was true: ‘I talk too much, and you can read all about this wretched vampirist in the papers, darling.’ He looked out of the window, could just make out the corner of the farmhouse where they were all lying asleep now, all his loved ones. The wall creaked. The moon was slipping in and out of the clouds, scudding faster and faster across the sky, and the bare branches of the dead oak out in the field were waving as if it wanted to warn them that something was coming, that destruction and more death were on the way.
He opened an email inviting him to give a keynote speech at a psychology conference in Lyon. The same conference that had rejected his abstract last year. In his head he composed a reply in which he thanked them, said it was an honour to be asked, but that he had to prioritise more important conferences and therefore had to say no on this occasion, but that they were welcome to try again another time. Then he chuckled and shook his head. There was no reason to get too full of himself, this sudden interest in vampirism would vanish again when the attacks stopped. He accepted the invitation, aware that he could have asked for more in terms of travel, accommodation and fee, but couldn’t be bothered. He was getting what he needed, he just wanted them to listen to him, to join him on this journey into the labyrinths of the human psyche, recognise his work, so that together they could understand and contribute to making people’s lives better. That was all. He looked at the time. Three minutes to twelve. He heard a sound. It could have been the wind, obviously. He clicked the icon to bring up the security cameras on his screen. The first image he saw was from the camera by the gate. The gate was open.
Truls cleared his throat.
She had called. Ulla had called.
He put the washing-up in the dishwasher, rinsed the two wineglasses, he still had the bottle he had bought just in case before that evening when they had met at Olsen’s. He folded the empty pizza boxes and tried to push them down into the bin bag, but it split. Damn. He tucked them out of sight behind the bucket and mop in the cupboard. Music. What did she like? He tried to think back. He could hear something inside his head, but he wasn’t sure what it was. Something about barricades. Duran Duran? It was something a bit like a-ha, anyway. And he had a-ha’s first album. Candles. Damn. He’d had women here before, but on those occasions the mood hadn’t been so important.