Let the Old Dreams Die (51 page)

When they reached Solberga, Hagar started pointing and exclaiming at the charming houses. Elvy, who had remained quiet for a while, suddenly said to Kalle, ‘Profit. The greatest possible profit. I
think that’s what they’re after. As if everything were a machine, and it has to work as efficiently as possible, spitting out as much profit as possible. That’s it. Profit and usefulness.’

‘Like the government recommendations on healthy eating,’ said Kalle, turning into Roland’s drive. This earned him the first laugh he had heard from Elvy. A high, chirruping laugh that blew away a fraction of his tiredness.

They got out of the van and Roland came towards them from the house. It was obvious that he had already started to get ready for the interview. His hair was neatly blow-dried, and in spite of a hard night his face looked fresher and less lined than the previous evening. When he caught sight of Elvy and Hagar he grew a little taller and threw his arms wide.

‘You must be Elvy and Hagar. I’ve heard so much about you.’

Kalle and Flora glanced sideways at one another. Kalle had mentioned Elvy and Hagar for the first time in his conversation with Roland an hour and a half ago. Flora unloaded the bags of compost while Roland shook hands with the ladies. Hagar bobbed a little curtsey and said, ‘You look even better in real life!’

Roland inclined his head. ‘It must be a good twenty years since anyone said that! But thank you. You’ve made my day!’

Before Hagar could expand on her theme, Elvy said, ‘This box.’

Roland’s smile dimmed only slightly as he made a sweeping gesture in the direction of the garage, inviting them to follow him. ‘I really do apologise for putting you to all this trouble, but it’s impossible for me to keep it here.’

Roland looked around. ‘Kalle, could you back the van up?’ The rest of the group moved towards the garage door, and Roland pointed at Kalle’s face. ‘You look like shit.’

‘Thanks,’ said Kalle. ‘I don’t suppose you could spare some of that cream you use?’

Roland smiled, and the laughter lines that had survived various
treatments became visible. ‘It doesn’t work miracles,’ he said, following the others.

Kalle reversed the van up to the door and got out. Even though the back seats weren’t folded down, there would still be room for the box. He took a deep breath before he walked into the garage.

Elvy and Flora were busy pouring the compost into the box, while Hagar and Roland stood to one side, mouths covered with their blouse or shirt collar. The stench inside the garage was like walking straight into a wall, and Kalle swallowed a couple of times to stop himself from throwing up.

He waved to Roland and Hagar to indicate that they might as well go outside, and they gratefully complied. Elvy and Flora had emptied the contents of the sacks into the box, and it was now full to the brim. Kalle found a roll of gaffer tape and they cut up the plastic sacks and taped them over the top of the box. When they had finished they glanced at each other, then ran outside to breathe.

A short distance away Roland and Hagar were walking around the garden. She had tucked her arm through his and Roland was chatting away, pointing out various trees and shrubs. Kalle shook his head.
He never turns it off.

Elvy nodded back towards the garage. ‘That was hell. What a mess.’

‘Do you think…’ Kalle began, then didn’t know how to continue.

‘What?’ asked Flora.

Kalle made a vague gesture somewhere in between Flora and Elvy. ‘Do you think your…your grandfather…your…might be…?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Elvy, compressing her lips into a thin line. ‘I didn’t look.’

Kalle dropped the subject and opened the back doors of the van. The three of them managed to manoeuvre the box over to the van and heave it inside. Roland and Hagar came back, and Kalle
asked, ‘Roland, I don’t suppose you’ve got anything to put over our mouths?’

It would be unbearable to travel with the box in the back of the van, and Kalle wished he’d thought of it when they were in Bauhaus. Fortunately Roland slapped his forehead and said, ‘Of course. Idiot.’

He went into the garage and rummaged through various drawers until he found what he was looking for: an unopened pack of dust masks. He handed it to Kalle.

‘I was going to do up the bathroom, but…’ He shrugged his shoulders, and Kalle realised the bathroom renovation had suffered more or less the same fate as the plans for the cutting torch. An idea that came to nothing, as was so often the case with Roland.

Roland looked at his watch and clapped his hands.

‘I don’t really know what to say.’ He looked at Elvy and Hagar and bowed. ‘Lovely to meet you. If I can be of any further assistance, then I am at your disposal.’ The memory of what had been said during the night lingered on, and Roland knew it. In a more serious tone of voice he added, ‘Truly.’

When they got in the van the stench wasn’t as bad as Kalle had feared. The compost and the plastic helped. They wouldn’t even need the masks; driving with the windows down would probably be enough. Roland waved as they set off, and they all waved back. Kalle caught one last glimpse of Roland outside his house—the image that would no doubt turn up in the gossip magazine sooner or later.

As they pulled out onto the motorway Elvy leaned over to Hagar, who was gazing blankly into space, and asked, ‘Did you get his autograph?’

‘Better than that,’ said Hagar, patting the pocket of her blouse. ‘I got his phone number.’

Flora turned around. ‘Hagar, please!’

‘What’s the matter?’

Kalle groped for Flora’s hand and squeezed it reassuringly. It
was one of Roland’s foibles that he gave out his phone number right, left and centre, which meant he had to change the number roughly every six months. Women called, and in the worst-case scenario he ended up in Södertälje in the middle of the night. It was a mixture of egocentricity and thoughtlessness. Instead of a lock of his hair, he gave away his number. Same idea, but with more complicated consequences.

After a quarter of an hour Kalle was reversing up to their destination, Hagar’s garden shed. They stowed the box in among garden tools covered in cobwebs, then camouflaged it with an old oilcloth tarpaulin. Hagar’s first husband had built and used the shed, and since their divorce thirty-five years ago it had never been touched.

When they had closed the half-rotten door and dusted off their hands, they stood outside the shed in a disparate little group. Kalle’s brain wasn’t working properly; he suddenly felt completely exhausted. He looked at Hagar’s unassuming functionalist house thirty metres away, seeing faces and shapes in the crumbling plaster.

Hagar broke the silence by clapping her hands and saying, ‘So! What now?’

There wasn’t really a satisfactory answer to that question, so they went inside for tea and sponge cake while they talked things over. Something had to be done, but nobody knew exactly what. What bothered Elvy most was ‘reinforcements in the enemy camp’, as she put it: the man who had come to visit Kalle that morning.

‘Perhaps you two should come and stay with me for a while?’ she suggested. ‘Just to be on the safe side.’

Flora gathered up a little pile of cake crumbs, tossed them in her mouth and said, ‘Until?’

‘Until when?’

‘Exactly. Until when?’

‘Oh, you mean…well, I don’t really know. Until…things settle down.’

‘And when will that be?’

Before Elvy had time to come up with an answer, Kalle chipped in, ‘I’ve got a feeling it…that thing would find us anyway. Wherever we are.’

Elvy looked at him sharply. ‘On what are you basing this feeling?’

‘I just…that’s how I feel.’

Elvy’s eyes were locked onto his, but after a few seconds she sniffed, nodded, and said, ‘Fine.’

Kalle yawned. The back of his neck was about to give way, and his head kept drooping down towards his chest. He went over to the sink and sluiced his eyes with cold water, trying not to wet the dressing. The blood was throbbing underneath it, sending out constant pulses of pain that sparked flashes of orange before his eyes. He turned to the others.

‘OK, we need to make a decision. I want to go home and get some sleep.’

Nothing was decided. Kalle and Flora went home to sleep. As they drove away from Hagar’s house, Kalle glanced back and said, ‘Your grandmother…she’s pretty tough, isn’t she?’

‘Yes,’ said Flora. ‘And she really wants to do something. She… kind of messed up last time.’

‘What do you mean, last time?’

‘Last time we had a chance. Before they closed the Heath.’

A cold draught was blowing through the apartment when they walked in, and they were both on the alert straightaway. However, it was just that the window the man had opened was still ajar. Kalle closed it and fell into bed without getting undressed. He closed his eyes and heard Flora lie down next to him. Then he heard nothing more.

It was dark outside when he woke up. He was alone in the bed. He could hear the music to the video game Double Dash playing
quietly in the living room. He lay there for a while looking at the streetlight outside the window; it seemed to be floating all by itself like the smallest moon in the universe, orbiting around Kalle Liljewall. His nose felt blocked, and he tentatively tried blowing air through it, but without success. He pressed a little harder and a thin stream of air forced its way out of the battered channels and the hole in the dressing.

Daddy. My very own darling daddy.

Pain stabbed through his stomach, and he suddenly felt very sorry for himself. Nothing he did turned out right. Everything just went wrong, however hard he tried. He had finally met someone he liked, and where had that taken him? You only had to summarise the events of the past twenty-four hours to see that it had taken him even further down the toilet than he had been before.

Why can things never be simple?

His childhood, his mother, his youth, his…everything scrolled past, and he just wanted to curl up in a ball beneath the covers and never come out again. If you stick your nose out, it gets smashed. Lie low. Lie low, for fuck’s sake.

I want to be alone.

He was more suited to being alone, he wasn’t made to be with someone. He could sit here in his apartment, watching his TV programs and feeling bloody sorry for himself, but at least he would have some kind of order in his life. Yes. Sit in an armchair, let the hours go by. Be alone. That would suit him.

When Flora came in half an hour later, these thoughts had been going round and round in Kalle’s head in an ever-descending spiral, and as she sat down on the bed he said, ‘Flora. I can’t do this anymore.’

She didn’t answer. She gently pushed back his hair, laid her hand on his forehead. Kalle let it happen. He had nothing more to say. He was curled up inside, and he didn’t want to come out. After a short
silence she simply said, ‘It’s you and me against the world.’

Her expression was totally serious. Kalle sighed.

‘Isn’t that some pop song?’

‘Yes. But it’s still true. Come and have something to eat.’

Flora had made a lentil stew, which they ate with couscous. Candles on the table.

You and me against the world.

Now that Kalle had woken up properly and got some food inside him, he could see his brooding thoughts on loneliness for what they really were: romanticism. A sentimental picture, the fruits of his tragic isolation. If that was the case, it was perfectly possible to swap it for something different, something equally melodramatic:
You and me against the world.

And the situation in which they were caught up was so extreme that ‘you and me against the world’ wasn’t even incorrect. It was an accurate description of the state of things.

So yes. You and me against the world.

The events of the day had left them both so exhausted that they spent the evening watching a load of rubbish on TV, laughing at stupid ads and actors styled to within an inch of their lives. Flora said Elvy had called to check that everything was OK. Kalle nodded. Yes, everything was OK. Not good or even comprehensible, but sitting here on the sofa with Flora curled up beside him and Buffy the vampire slayer entangled in yet another unbelievable dilemma, it was OK. Very definitely OK.

Before they went to bed at around two o’clock, Kalle took a couple of Alvedon for the pain in his face. Flora fell asleep in no time, but Kalle lay awake, feeling the blood stabbing at the top of his nose.

I am not alone.

No. In fact, he had never felt more as if he were part of a group than he did now. Funkface was a different matter. They rehearsed, they chatted, they were mates. But it was nothing serious. This was
different. He, Flora, Roland, Elvy and Hagar, God help them, were involved in something much bigger than themselves. And…

I want to be a part of it.

To his surprise he realised his attitude had completely changed since the last time he lay here in bed. Perhaps it wasn’t until now it had happened, the thing Flora had talked about. He wanted to be a part of it. He wanted to do his bit.

The Alvedon started to work and his thoughts drifted off into the great darkness.

He woke up at six and couldn’t get back to sleep, so he went into the hallway and picked up the newspaper. It took him a couple of seconds to grasp what he was seeing on the front page, something he recognised so well: a photograph of the gates at the Heath. The headline read: ‘Reliving isolated’.

He switched on the coffee machine to warm up yesterday’s coffee, sat down at the kitchen table and began to read.

During the previous day the reliving had suddenly become extremely aggressive, for some unknown reason. A number of people had been injured, and in order to improve supervision, all the reliving had now been gathered together in one location. A box at the side of the article gave a series of facts about the course of events and the number of deaths that had occurred when the reliving escaped three years ago. A doctor whose name Kalle vaguely recognised stated that the violence displayed by the reliving was much greater on this occasion; it was sheer luck that no one had been killed.