Fire (9 page)

‘Come off it,’ Ida snaps. ‘Why would G snog with someone like Minoo?’

If only she was as sure as she pretends to be.

Ida tries to interpret the body language between Minoo and Gustaf. Aren’t they walking closer to each other than they need to?

When Gustaf started going out with Rebecka last summer, she was devastated. And now, he’s with Minoo? Seriously?

Ida has felt like this about Gustaf ever since primary school. Now, her only comfort is that she hasn’t told anyone. No one except Troja, that is. But not Julia or Felicia. Not even Mum. The rule is never to admit to wanting something until you’re a hundred per cent certain you can have it.

‘I’m off now,’ she says.

‘Sure you shouldn’t wait just a little longer?’

Ida’s only reply is a snort. She bends to pick up her bag and her sunglasses slip off her nose. They hit the tarmac with a plasticky tinkle. She’d happily stamp on them.

‘Oh, look, there’s Erik,’ Felicia says.

The disappointment in her voice is palpable. In other words, Erik is alone. Ida doesn’t turn to look. She picks the glasses up, puts them on, then pretends to look for something in her bag. When Erik reaches them and tries to kiss her cheek, she twists her head away.

‘You’re late,’ she says.

‘Sorry.’

‘No point in saying sorry, just stop being late all the time.’

‘Kevin was doing this totally insane thing, we—’

Ida cuts him short.

‘Forget it. Not interested.’

Ida turns to Felicia, who won’t meet her eyes.

‘We’ll be in touch tonight.’

Felicia hesitates for another second.

‘It won’t do you any good to hang out here, Robin won’t come,’ Ida says.

Felicia forces her face into a surprised smile, as if ready to deny that she had thought of Robin at all. But she doesn’t dare challenge Ida, so she retreats with a little laugh and a quick hug. And almost runs away across the schoolyard.

‘What was all that about?’ Erik asks.

‘What was what?’

‘All that about Robin?’

Now, at last, Ida looks at him.

‘Don’t say you haven’t noticed that she obsesses about Robin all the time? Christ, she’s so embarrassing!’

‘Is she
in love
with him?’

‘Can’t we talk about something else? I want an ice cream before I go to the stables.’

‘Noooo, not again,’ Erik groans. ‘Can’t you forget about the sodding stables just for once? You’re too old to keep on cuddling your horse.’

Ida has given up trying to explain to Erik that going to the stables isn’t about being cuddly. It is a tough place and the work can be heavy and enervating. Dangerous, even. At least as dangerous as his ice hockey. And she loves it.

‘He’s not even your horse,’ Erik says.

‘I’m joint rider. So I’m
responsible
for him.’

‘I had planned we’d go to my place for a while. We’d have an hour before my parents come home.’

She hates the whining note in his voice. She’s positive G would never sound like that.

‘Really? Whatever you thought is hardly my problem. I never promised anything.’

Erik groans again. Ida picks up her bag and they start walking towards the bicycle racks. In silence. She has no intention of speaking first.

They unlock their bikes. Glancing his way, Ida realises that Erik is looking at her. He is about to give in.

‘Robin fancies Felicia, too,’ he says.

This is his little peace pipe, his way of saying that a possible quarrel is now behind them.

Ida fumbles for the silver heart on a chain that is always around her neck and starts twisting the chain around her fingers.

‘No way,’ she says. ‘He hardly even looks at her. Last time we went to the lake he seemed fixated on Vanessa Dahl. Like
certain
other people.’

She can’t be sure whether Erik hasn’t noticed the edge in her voice, or just pretends he hasn’t.

‘You know what Robin is like. He has to be tanked up before he’ll even chat to a girl … shit, I must tell him.’

He starts rooting around for his mobile, but Ida puts her hand on his arm. She’s got to buy some time. Work out what the consequences might be.

‘Don’t, not yet,’ she says. ‘Promise not to. I’d better talk to Felicia first.’

Ida is soaked in sweat after the ride through the forest. She brushes Troja and cleans out his hooves before taking him back into his box. Then she puts her cheek to his muzzle and strokes his neck.

‘Aren’t you the best horse in the world?’ she whispers. ‘And you love me, too, don’t you?’

She blows gently into one of his nostrils and gets a warm gust against her face in response.

Sometimes, her love for him is so strong she is close to tears. They are the same age, she and Troja. It is so strange to imagine that he is well past middle age while she is still young.

‘You mustn’t die, not ever,’ she whispers.

He buffets her belly with his muzzle.

While she changes afterwards, she becomes conscious of the world outside the stables. Perhaps she will never have to see Troja die. Tonight she will be in the cemetery and helping dig up a grave. And then they are supposed to prevent an apocalypse as well. Troja’s chance of reaching twenty-five is better than hers.

She leaves the stables. One of the annoying little girls who usually hang around Troja is staring at her. Ida shoots her an icy glance.

She gets her mobile out and scrolls down to find Felicia’s number.

Felicia has always specialised in being unlucky in love. As far as Ida knows, this is the first time her feelings have been reciprocated.

Felicia and Julia have been her best friends for as long as she can remember. Sometimes she wonders if they would even be mates if they hadn’t grown up in the same neighbourhood and if their mothers hadn’t been friends. Sometimes, she isn’t even sure that she
likes
Julia and Felicia. Still, she knows one thing: she never again wants to feel as lonely as she did last autumn, when Anna-Karin stole them from her.

If Felicia starts going out with Robin, Ida’s world will become unbalanced. She has fought long and hard to make it perfect. She has no intention of taking any risks with it now.

She puts her mobile back in the bag.

Vanessa has settled in Wille’s mum’s living room and is pushing the zapper to the limit, slaughtering enemy soldiers as they rush at her on the TV screen.

She let herself in with the key she has kept since she stayed here last winter. Wille promised to be home when she finished school, but she has waited for hours by now. His mobile is in his room. She heard it when she tried to call him.

Vanessa selects the flame-thrower and pretends that the soldier she aims it at is Nicke.

The secret has swelled inside her all day. By now, it feels fit to burst any minute.

She
must
talk to somebody. And Wille is her only option.

When she hears the key in the lock, she leaps up from the leather sofa and runs into the hall. Wille looks surprised to see her.

‘Oh, Nessa … shit, I forgot …’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she says quickly. She is angry, but her need to talk is more urgent. ‘Listen. We’ve got to talk.’

‘All right if I get a glass of water first?’

‘No!’

Wille looks scared. He kicks off his sandals and follows her into the living room.

She turns the TV off and they sit down on the sofa together.

‘Nessa, what’s up?’ he says. ‘What’s happened?’

Suddenly she can’t say a word, even though she tries. Wille’s eyes widen.

‘What’s happened?’ he says again.

She just shakes her head. He puts his arms around her and she leans her head against his chest.

‘Nessa …’ he says. ‘You’ve got to speak to me. What’s the matter? I’m getting worried.’

And she explodes. Her head is a mushroom cloud, a mass of snot and tears. She sobs so hard she becomes breathless. This is crying of the kind that makes your whole body hurt. And yet it is such a wonderful release. Wille strokes her hair, pats her back. It’s enough just that he is there for her.

Then it’s all over. The weeping ceases as suddenly as it began. Vanessa feels utterly empty, drained of both tears and energy. She quickly dries her eyes and straightens up.

Wille still looks quite terrified. He must think that she’s crazy. Perhaps he’s right.

‘Is it something someone’s said?’ he asks.

‘Something someone’s said?’

Vanessa wipes her eyes and cheeks again. Her fingers go black with mascara, diluted with tears. Snot clogs her palate. She clears her throat.

‘No, but I saw something …’ she begins.

Wille suddenly gets up, walks to the kitchen and comes back with his mum’s cigarettes and an ashtray. He hardly ever smokes ordinary fags, only sometimes, at parties. His hands are shaking a little as he sits down again and lights one of Sirpa’s menthol cigarettes.

‘I really wish I hadn’t seen it,’ she says. ‘I so wish I’d just buggered off.’

He inhales without looking at her.

‘I saw Nicke,’ she explains. ‘With a … some female. They were having … like, she was …’

Talking about sex normally is no problem at all for Vanessa, but the combination of sex and Nicke feels totally different.

‘He was unfaithful,’ she finally said.

‘Oh, Christ,’ Wille says. ‘And you
saw
it?’

‘I saw enough to be certain. They were right at it when I got there.’

Vanessa shudders, remembering the smirk on Nicke’s face as he sat back in the driver’s seat.

‘It’s such a fucking awful thing to do,’ she continues. ‘Why bother about a relationship if you want to have it off with other people? I mean, why not be honest about it? Why do people have to lie?’

Wille mumbles in agreement.

‘It probably isn’t the first time, either. Mum’s rotten bad luck with guys strikes again. And then
she
tries to tell
me
who I should go out with. Imagine her meeting someone who is the tiniest fraction as good for her as you are for me. Like, in her dreams.’

Wille nods. He is turning his engagement ring round and round.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ Vanessa says. ‘I’m not even sure what Mum would believe if I told her … And
if
she’d believed me …You’ve never seen her the way she is when one of her men walks out on her and I can’t help worrying about Melvin … But on the other hand, I can’t just shut up about something like this. Or, can I? What I can’t bear is the thought of having to see that swine every day if I …’

Her flow of words stops. Wille is crying.

‘Oh, Christ … Nessa,’ he moans. ‘Fuck it … I’ve done something so totally fucking stupid.’

He hides his face in his hands. Vanessa’s heart is racing.

‘Wille, what have you done?’

Thump-thump-thump
inside her ribcage.

‘I don’t deserve you!’

‘What have you done?’ she repeats.

‘I’ve been with someone else.’

His hands muffle his words but they cut right through her all the same. They slice her world into strips.

And then it stops hurting. As if emotional overload has blown a fuse. She feels numb. As if none of this has anything to do with her, as if it concerns another Vanessa. It is a good feeling.

Wille is howling now.

‘I’ve been so scared you’d find out. I thought that was what had happened now, when you were so upset. You have no idea how awful I’ve been feeling!’

He lowers his hands. His face is bright red.

‘Why are you telling me this?’ she asks.

Because, so far as she has any feelings left, she feels that she didn’t want to know this.

‘I just wanted to be honest.’

‘Honest? It would’ve been more honest not to screw someone behind my back, don’t you think?’

‘Yes, it would.’ Wille’s voice is thick with sobbing. ‘But ask me anything you want to know now. I’ll answer.’

‘Was it just once?’

When Wille hesitates, she has her answer.

‘How many times?’

‘Twice. Just twice. Once last winter. Just when you’d moved out from here,’ Wille says. ‘The second time was last Saturday.’

‘When you went to Götis?’

He nods.

Suddenly everything seems so obvious she cannot think how she has failed to see it.

‘Was it the same chick both times?’

‘I’ll never see her again,’ Wille assures her. ‘I promise. If she phones, I won’t even answer.’

‘What? You gave her your number?’

‘I was drunk. It meant nothing.’

‘Why do it twice, then?’

Vanessa stands. Her legs are wobbly, but she must get out of here. Now.

‘Please forgive me, Nessa. Please don’t go.’

‘There’s only one more thing I want to know.’

‘Anything,’ he says and stands, too. Starts coming closer.

She backs away, out into the hall.

‘What’s her name?’

Don’t say Linnéa, she thinks. Not Linnéa, not Linnéa.

‘Elin,’ Wille tells her. ‘She’s older than us. You don’t know her.’

She stays silent, just nods. Feeling almost absurdly relieved.

‘Nessa …’

She pulls the ring off her finger and wonders what she should do with it. Throw it at him, like someone in a B-movie?

‘I’ll do anything if you’ll only forgive me,’ he sobs.

She lets the ring fall. It rolls across the floor and disappears in under the chest of drawers in the hall.

And then she leaves.

The sun has almost set. The sky above the Holmström family home is a cascade, a cloudburst in pink and violet.

‘Bloodyfuckingstupidmachine!’

Ida’s father kicks the lawnmower. It stands mute and immobile in the middle of the lawn.

‘Hi, Dad,’ Ida says as she pushes her bike into the garage.

‘Hello there,’ her father says wearily and bends over the mower. ‘How was school?’

‘The usual,’ Ida replies.

Her father hums absent-mindedly as he starts poking about in the mushy grass that is sticking to the cutting blades.

Suddenly, Ida has a vision of the engine starting and blood spurting all over the lawn as her father’s hands are ground to mincemeat.

She closes her eyes, opens them again. Her father is still crouching by the machine, muttering threats. There is an elongated sweaty patch on the back of his shirt.