I Am Behind You (20 page)

It couldn't be that Donald had tugged too hard, that his violent movement had caused his father to lose his balance, falling onto the blade which sliced off both his hands.

At first Donald couldn't process what he was seeing. His father slid down until he was on his knees. Blood was spurting from his wrists; it struck the spinning blade and was flung into the air. A few drops hit Donald's face; he looked down at the backs of his hands and saw the blood that had splashed onto them too, was still splashing onto them, and only then did his heart plummet in his chest like a lump of ice.

On legs that didn't want to obey him he ran over to his father, who managed to get to his feet, then fell back against the wall as the blood carried on pumping out of the stumps that were his arms, over his chest and stomach, over his face.

‘Dad! Dad!'

‘Donald,' his father wheezed above the whine of the saw. ‘Pressure…tie…'

In a panic Donald looked around for their shirts, a piece of rope, anything that he could use to tie around his father's arms to try to stop the blood from gushing out of his body. He spun around and almost threw up when he saw one of his father's hands lying on the belt, the other on the floor in a clump of dark-coloured sawdust. No rope.

Our shirts, our shirts…

They had hung them on a tree. Donald raced outside and grabbed them, letting out a sob when his shirt got caught on a branch. He pulled at it until the sleeve tore off, then dashed back towards the building.

His father came staggering out into the light, and Donald stopped dead as the image that would haunt him as long as he lived was seared onto his retinas.

His father paused as if the blazing sunlight had taken him by
surprise. His body was smeared with blood, shining like a fresh piece of meat in the harsh light. His hair was plastered to his head, and his eyes gleamed white through the blood that ran down his face when he raised his mutilated arms to the sky and dropped to his knees. There was no longer anything about him that resembled Dad; this was a horrific figure, a man covered in blood.

And yet Donald ran over to him, his hands shaking as he tried to knot the fabric around the Bloodman's forearms, where the blood was no longer spurting but merely trickling.

‘Dad, please Dad, please!'

His father took no notice of his efforts. He was looking up at the sky, his body swaying from side to side. Donald had managed to apply a tourniquet of sorts around one arm; he tied the knot as tightly as he could and the flow of blood stopped.

Maybe, maybe, maybe…

Everything around him had disappeared. The birds were no longer singing, there was no sun in the sky, the trees had gone. There was only Donald and his father and the blood; he had to get the blood to stay in his father's body.

As he straightened out a shirtsleeve before winding it around the other arm, his father's chin fell onto his chest. He looked at Donald and whispered: ‘My…boy,' then collapsed sideways.

Donald screamed and pleaded, he applied a tourniquet to the other arm, he shook his father and begged him to open his eyes, to say something, not to leave him alone. To no avail. His hands were red with blood by the time he got to his feet, his expression blank as he stared at the saw, which was still spinning, still emitting that monotonous whine.

He went inside and switched it off, stood and watched as it slowed down, stopped, fell silent. He considered picking up his father's hands and placing them next to his body, but he couldn't do it. Instead he went and sat in the truck.

He sat there for a long time. Now and again he glanced over at the driver's seat as if to check whether his father had come back, telling
him that the whole thing was just a stupid joke, let's go home now. He felt nothing. He couldn't move.

The sun was no longer shining in his face when he noticed the lunch box on the floor. He picked it up and opened the lid. He saw the usual sandwiches, wrapped in greaseproof paper. And a bar of chocolate. A great big bar of chocolate. Hazelnut, his favourite, which they could hardly ever afford to buy.

He and Dad would have sat side by side sharing the chocolate, satisfied with a job well done. Sat side by side on a flat rock in the shade. Savoured every bite. Donald started to cry, and he was still crying as he walked to the main road, the chocolate bar in his hand. A car stopped and he explained what had happened.

Somewhere during the tears and screams of that afternoon and evening, with friends and neighbours coming and going and the realisation that his father wasn't coming back, Donald decided that he would keep the bar of chocolate, that he would never eat it.

All evening he sat on a chair with the chocolate bar on his knee beneath the oak tree where his father used to rock him when he was little, and gradually a dreadful realisation took root inside him.

He had somehow managed to accept that he would never see his father again. That his father as a living person could no longer mean anything to him. But what was even worse was that Donald no longer meant anything to his father. His father's eyes could no longer see him, because the light in them had died. On some essential level, Donald had ceased to exist. He sat on the chair beneath the oak tree and grew lighter and more transparent as his very being disintegrated and dissolved.

That night he lay in his bed staring up at the ceiling, listening to his mother sobbing in the room next door. He got up and fetched the bar of chocolate.

Carefully he removed the wrapper, then stood for a long time contemplating the rectangular block divided into squares as it began to melt in his hands. He broke off big pieces and stuffed them into his mouth, chewing and swallowing as fast as he could.

He remained standing in the middle of the room for a minute or so as the heavy lump grew in his belly, then he went to the outside toilet and threw up.

*

Carina, Emil, Peter, Lennart and Olof have gathered around the caravan as Stefan slowly gets to his feet on the roof. He seems shaken rather than hurt as he looks down at the assembled company; he raises his mobile phone like a trophy and says: ‘I got through! I spoke to my mother.'

A grimace of pain passes across his face, and only Carina knows him well enough to suspect the reason. ‘So what did she say? How's Bengt?'

The look Stefan gives her is answer enough. She is about to ask for more details, but Peter pre-empts her; he strides forward, and in a second he is on top of the roof standing next to Stefan. He fishes out his iPhone and looks at the screen, shakes his head. ‘Nothing.'

‘You have to be higher up,' Stefan explains. ‘I stood on a chair. It gives you just enough of a signal.' He holds out his phone. ‘And of course I've got this.'

Peter glances from his own brand-new iPhone to Stefan's Nokia. A Bugatti versus a Volvo 240. But old phones often have better reception, so Peter reaches out. ‘May I…?'

Stefan shakes his head. ‘The battery runs down in no time. If we're going to make calls, we have to be sure we can get through.'

‘And how do we do that?'

Stefan looks at the sky. ‘We need to be higher up.'

Both men stare at the sky as if they are waiting for a rope ladder to drop down. Lennart clears his throat and steps forward, raising a hand as if asking for permission to speak.

‘Excuse me,' he says to Stefan. ‘You said you spoke to your mother?'

‘Yes.'

‘And she could hear you?'

‘Yes.'

‘Thank you,' Lennart says. ‘That's all.' Olof looks at him enquiringly, and Lennart shrugs. There is a brief pause as everyone considers the implications of this new state of affairs. Emil presses his body close to Carina and whispers: ‘Can we go home soon, Mummy?'

*

One of the secrets to a good cinnamon bun is the
rolling
. How thin you can make the dough before you spread it with the mixture of butter and spices before rolling it up. Normally it is rolled four or five times, in a patisserie sometimes six. Majvor's cinnamon buns are rolled seven times.

The children never needed to feel embarrassed in school when they were asked to bring in homemade cakes to sell at some event. Majvor's buns always disappeared in no time. People with no skill in baking have no idea why these particular buns are so light and delicious, but those in the know raise their eyebrows and say: ‘Seven, Majvor? How do you manage that?'

Skill with the rolling pin, that's all there is to it. The perfect balance between applying and releasing pressure. Plus of course lots of butter in the dough so that it doesn't stick to the worktop in spite of its thinness.

This is a concern at the moment. The kitchen worktops are a decent size for a caravan, but if Majvor is going to make a large batch of buns, she is going to have to divide the dough into seven or eight pieces and roll out each one separately, which to be honest would be a
hell
of a lot of trouble.

She has gone through the cupboards and laid out her ingredients. Flour, milk, sugar, yeast, butter, cinnamon and cardamom. Bowl, rolling pin, wooden spoon, dough scraper. The oven is also reasonably large, and she will probably be able to bake the buns in two batches. Only the work surface is lacking.

How many times have Majvor's good intentions been derailed by irritating deficiencies in her surroundings? If she had ten kronor for each one, she would be rich by now!

Come on, kids, let's build a snowman.
The wrong kind of snow.
Donald, look at this lovely sweater I've bought you.
Too tight around the neck.
I've made muffins—I thought we could all have a lovely cosy evening together.
Everyone has other plans.
Wasn't that delicious?
No idea, I've got a cold.

And so on and so on.

Majvor stands in the middle of the caravan clenching her fists. Donald is still hunched on the sofa, his lips moving. Ridiculous man. Majvor remembers a letter he wrote her in the long-distant past. His final words were: ‘You are my dream.' Who would have thought they would end up like this?

She wipes a tear from the corner of her eye. What Donald has said is pure
arrogance
, claiming that Majvor is not a real person, but merely a figment of his imagination. Who has brought up his children, run his household, washed his clothes and suffered through something like forty Åsa-Nisse films in the darkness of the cinema? A fantasy figure?

Majvor stares at Donald's bald head, allegedly the only place she exists. Then her eyes drift to the rolling pin. She could…

No, Majvor.

She draws a big cross through the picture, deletes it. The cross changes slightly, turns into the one on the outside of their caravan, on all four caravans.

Delete.

‘Donald, can you move please?'

‘Why?'

‘I'm going to do some baking.'

‘You're going to do some baking?'

‘Yes, I'm going to do some baking.'

‘Why?'

Sometimes Majvor feels so very tired. It seems as if she has spent
years
of her life having this kind of conversation. She sharpens her voice, finding the stern tone she so seldom uses: ‘Donald. Move. Now.'

Donald may well regard her as non-existent at the moment, but he knows when she is serious. He mutters something, gets to his feet and goes and sits on the bed.

Right.

Majvor clears the table, which gives her a surface of approximately one square metre as she hums the Mona Wessman song she heard on the radio earlier. Now everything is as it should be. She is busy in her kitchen, making something nice for everyone to share. Not that anyone will thank her, but she's used to that. Her role is to nourish and nurture and care for others. People are just small children, when it comes down to it.

And no child refuses Majvor's cinnamon buns!

*

The group around Stefan's caravan has drifted away. Stefan and Peter have climbed down from the roof and are discussing the best way to construct something which will give them extra height. Lennart and Olof are heading back to their caravan.

‘That question you asked,' Olof says. ‘About his mother. Why did you do that?'

‘Because it's strange. It means we are somewhere after all.'

‘Didn't we think we were?'

‘Well, no, I didn't,' Lennart says. ‘Did you?'

Olof stops, his brow furrowed. After a while he says: ‘No, I don't suppose I did, come to think of it.'

‘No. But now…' Lennart gestures towards the open field. ‘Now anything could happen. Perhaps it was a good idea to set out those canes after all.'

‘But probably not.'

‘Probably not, as you say. But we can't be sure.'

‘Exactly.'

Lennart goes inside, while Olof checks on their experiment. This is completely pointless; it can't be more than ten minutes since they planted and sowed. In certain cases plants can react quickly to a change of soil, but not this quickly.

And yet…Isn't the colour of the pelargonium leaves a little darker? Under normal circumstances a plant will wilt slightly until it has recovered from the shock of moving, but that doesn't seem to apply here.

Olof is about to hunker down to examine the pelargonium more closely when Lennart pokes his head out and whispers: ‘Psst. We've got a visitor.'

The visitor in question is Molly. She is curled up on the sofa and appears to be asleep. Lennart and Olof stand side by side, gazing down at her. In their scruffy caravan she seems like an elf who has strayed into the kingdom of the trolls and fallen asleep—indescribably cute.

The trolls themselves have no idea what to do. Lennart and Olof look at one another, whispering about the best course of action to take. Should they let the child sleep and tell her parents where she is, or wake her up? In the midst of their deliberations Molly sits up and makes a great show of rubbing her eyes. ‘I fell asleep,' she says in a very small voice.