Little Star (6 page)

It was a mild winter,
and Laila was able to continue her outdoor excursions with the child well into December. At the beginning of January there was a cold snap with snow, and it was the snow rather than the cold that prevented her from going out when Lennart was away. She didn’t want to leave any tracks.

Lennart had strictly forbidden her from having any contact whatsoever with the child, beyond what was absolutely necessary. She was not allowed to talk, or sing, or make any noise at all. The child was to live in a bubble of silence, apart from the singing practice which Lennart conducted with her. Laila had understood the aim of his project and thought it was completely insane, but since she was able to offer the child small oases of normality, she left him to it.

One afternoon she was sitting watching as the child played, or whatever it was she did. The girl had learned to grip things, and would sit there for ages with the same coloured block, picking it up and dropping it, picking it up and dropping it.

Laila tried to give her one of the soft toys she had brought out of storage. A little fox came bobbing along, ‘Here comes Freddy Fox, sniff sniff sniff…but what’s
this
he can smell?’

The girl was completely uninterested, and took no notice whatsoever of Freddy, even when he nudged her thigh with his nose. Instead she grabbed hold of her block once again, lifted it up to eye level and looked at it, dropped it, and watched carefully as it fell and rolled away. When it ended up out of reach, she simply waited until
Laila handed it back to her. Then she carried on picking it up and dropping it.

The next day when Lennart had shut himself in the studio, Laila called the childcare centre in Norrtälje.

‘Erm, I have a question about…my child. She’s almost six months old and I was just wondering about her behaviour.’

‘How old is she exactly?’

Laila coughed and said, ‘Five months. And three weeks. And I was wondering…she doesn’t really react when…if you try to play with her, that sort of thing. She won’t look, she just…she’s got a block that she picks up and drops. And that’s virtually all she does. Is that normal?’

‘You say she doesn’t react; if you touch her and try to attract her attention, how does she react then?’

‘Not at all. She’s only…how can I put this…she’s only interested in inanimate objects. That’s all she wants to do.’

‘Well, it’s difficult to make any kind of assessment over the telephone, but I would suggest that you bring her in so that we can have a look at her. Have you been here before?’

‘No.’

‘So which centre have you been attending, then?’

Laila’s head was suddenly completely empty, and she said the first thing that came into her mind. ‘Skövde.’

‘Mmm. If I can just take her ID number, we’ll see if we can—’

Laila slammed the phone down as if it had burnt her hand, then she sat and stared at it for thirty seconds before picking it up again. The dial tone. No voice was pursuing her, and she went through the conversation in her mind. The critical point was
but.

It’s difficult to make any kind of assessment over the telephone,
but I
would suggest…

Her fears were not groundless. That
but
meant something wasn’t as it should be. Besides which, no doubt the staff at the childcare centre were very careful about what they said, so as not to frighten insecure parents.

When Lennart emerged from his home studio, Laila tried to raise the issue with him. Of course she didn’t dare tell him she had made the phone call, so she had only her own vague observations to go on, which got her precisely nowhere. Lennart might possibly agree that the girl was unusually passive, but was that really a cause for complaint?

‘Do you want her to be like Jerry? Getting up five or six times a night because he was lying there bawling his head off?’

It wasn’t Lennart who had got up five or six times a night, but Laila didn’t pursue that detail. Instead she said, ‘I just wish we could get her checked out somehow.’

She saw the muscles in his jaw tense. She was approaching the danger zone. Lennart clasped his hands tightly together as if to prevent himself from doing something with them, and said, ‘Laila. For the last time. If one single person finds out that we’ve got her, they will take her away from us. Stop thinking about all that, there’s no chance. And besides…if it is what you think, if there is something wrong with her, what do you imagine they can do? Are they going to give her drugs? Put her in some kind of clinic? What is it you actually want?’

This final question was entirely rhetorical, and was actually a statement:
you are such a stupid bitch.
Lennart’s hands were opening and closing, and Laila didn’t say another word.

He had a point, anyway. What did she actually want? Did she want the child to have some kind of medical care? Drugs? No. All she really wanted, when she thought about it, was for someone who knew what they were talking about to look at the girl and tell her everything was all right. Or that it wasn’t all right, but that the problem was called so-and-so, and there was nothing they could do. Just so she knew.

Two weeks later, Lennart went into the city for the final mix of the album. The snow had melted, but the temperature had dropped below freezing again and the garden was covered in ice in places; Laila wouldn’t leave any footprints.

And the girl needed to get out.

The times when Laila dressed the girl for an outing were little special occasions. As she busied herself with the child’s top, trousers, snowsuit and hat she felt a closeness to her that was otherwise missing. As she rolled up the tiny socks and put them on the child’s equally tiny feet, she even allowed herself to formulate the thought:
I love you, Little One.

It wasn’t that she was indifferent to the child on a day-to-day basis, but there was never any response to the feelings she expressed. At best the child might explore Laila’s face with her fingers, but she did it in the same way as she did everything else: methodically, almost scientifically. As if she were trying to understand how this particular object worked.

Perhaps that was why the business of dressing the child created a perception of mutual understanding. As Laila gently pushed the slender limbs into the snowsuit and slipped on her mittens, she was treating the girl like an object. Gently handling something that needed to be protected.

She carried the girl to the door and put her down on the step. The ice crunched beneath their feet as Laila held the girl’s hands above her head so that she was half walking, half being carried up the steps.

The garden was covered in ice and lumps of frozen snow. Laila manoeuvred the girl towards the lilac arbour, its branches now bare of leaves. ‘See this, Little One? This is ice.’

They hadn’t got round to giving the girl a name. They had discussed the matter, but since she wasn’t going to be christened and nobody had got in touch to demand a name, they hadn’t come to a decision. Laila had heard Lennart say ‘Little One’ as well when he spoke to the girl on one occasion, and that was as far as they had got.

They sat for a while on the bench in the arbour. Laila gave the girl sticks and dry leaves to examine. Then they went for a little walk. The child’s unsteady legs had difficulty with the conditions underfoot, and the cold made Laila’s knee stiff, so they shuffled along a little bit at a time.

They were perhaps twenty metres from the house when Laila heard the sound of an engine. She had heard it often enough to recognise it. Jerry’s motorbike.

She heaved the child up into her arms and staggered towards the cellar steps. She had managed ten metres when a sharp pain stabbed through her knee. She slipped on a patch of ice and fell forward. As she fell, she managed to twist to the side so that she landed on her shoulder instead of on top of the girl. Her head snapped downwards and hit the ice; everything went dark red before her eyes, and the girl slid out of her arms.

From inside the red veil she could hear the motorbike coming closer, and then the engine was switched off. The side stand clicked down and footsteps approached. A patch of light grew inside the redness and continued to grow until she could see the snow and the ice and the girl’s blue woolly hat once more. Jerry’s biker boots entered her field of vision and stopped.

‘What the fuck are you doing, Mother? And who’s that?’

Lennart was in the car
on his way home. He wasn’t dissatisfied, which was unusual. Normally he was more or less furious after a studio session or a meeting in Stockholm. But this time things had gone his way.

A new producer had come on board for the final phase of the album. When Lennart first saw the young lad ambling around the studio in his yellow shades, all hope had drained from his body. But surprise surprise, the new guy liked Lennart’s stuff, called it ‘updated Motown sound’ and ‘a fantastic vintage vibe’. He had picked up two tracks that had been recorded but weren’t going to be included, and Lennart was now down as the composer of three of the tracks on the album. One of Lennart’s songs was actually under consideration as the first single.

So Lennart didn’t even pull a face when he saw Jerry’s motorbike parked outside the house; not so much as a small sigh escaped him. He was temporarily wrapped in a protective cloak. He was a
composer,
and was above the trials of everyday life.

He and Laila had been married for twenty-five years, and had lived in the same house for almost as long. As soon as he closed the door behind him and began to undo his shoes, he could feel that something was different. Something had altered in the atmosphere of the house, but he didn’t know what it was.

When he walked into the kitchen, he had his answer. Laila was
sitting there. And Jerry. And on Jerry’s knee sat the girl. Lennart stood in the doorway and the protective cloak fell around his feet. Laila looked at him with a pleading expression, while Jerry pretended to be unaware of his presence, grabbing the girl under the arms and lifting her above his head while saying, ‘Toot, toot, toot.’

‘Be careful,’ said Lennart. ‘She’s not a toy.’

How much had Laila told him? Lennart waved at her and said, ‘Laila, come here,’ whereupon he turned on his heel and headed for the studio, where they could talk undisturbed. But Laila didn’t follow him.

When he came back into the kitchen, Jerry said, ‘Don’t start, Dad. Sit down.’

Lennart walked over to Jerry and held out his arms for the child. Jerry didn’t hand her over. ‘Sit down, I said.’

‘Give her to me.’

‘No. Sit down.’

Lennart couldn’t believe this was happening. ‘Is this some kind of…hostage situation, or what?’

Jerry laid his cheek against the girl’s. ‘This is my little sister, for fuck’s sake. Well, nearly. Can’t I spend some time with her?’

Lennart perched on the very edge of the chair, ready to leap to his feet if Jerry tried anything. It was many years since Lennart had thought he had the slightest idea what went on inside Jerry’s head. He was afraid of him, as we are afraid of everything unknown and therefore unpredictable.

The girl looked small and fragile as she sat there wrapped in Jerry’s great big arms. All he had to do was squeeze, and she would crack like an egg. It was hard to bear, and Lennart tried to speak the only language he was sure Jerry understood.

‘Jerry,’ he said. ‘You can have five hundred kronor if you give her to me.’

Jerry looked down at the floor, apparently considering the offer. Then he said, ‘Do you think I’m going to hurt her or something? Is that really what you think of me?’

The offer of money had been a mistake. If Jerry realised how much the girl meant to Lennart, the situation could only get worse. So he picked up the newspaper and pretended to be interested in the US air-raids on Iraq without even glancing at the child.

After a while Jerry said, ‘She’s so bloody
quiet.
I mean, she doesn’t make a sound.’

Lennart carefully folded the paper and rested his hands on it. ‘Jerry. What do you want?’

Jerry got up, still holding the girl in his arms. ‘Nothing in particular. How long were you intending to carry on like this?’ He held the girl out to Lennart, but when Lennart reached up to take her, he pulled her away and gave her to Laila.

Lennart’s fingers itched but he controlled himself. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Keeping her hidden like this. I mean, somebody’s going to find out in the end. Somebody’s bound to say something.’

Lennart managed to keep his tone indifferent as he asked, ‘There’s just one thing puzzling me. How did you find out we had her?’ He glanced at Laila, whose lips were tightly clamped together.

Jerry shrugged his shoulders. ‘Just glanced through the cellar window. And there she was. Anyway. I’ve been thinking.’

Lennart stopped listening. There was something wrong here. Why would Jerry decide to ‘just glance’ through the cellar window? And anyway, could you actually see the cot properly from the window?

Jerry’s hand waved in front of his eyes. ‘Are you listening to me?’

‘No.’

‘A computer. I want a computer.’

‘What for?’

‘You’re always complaining that I’m not interested in anything,’ said Jerry. ‘Well, now I am. Computers. I want a computer. A Mac.’

It had indeed been a hostage situation; it was still a hostage situation even though Jerry had handed over the child.

‘How much,’ Lennart asked. ‘How much does one of those cost?’

‘It’s a Classic I have in mind,’ said Jerry. ‘A Macintosh Classic. Ten thousand kronor, more or less.’

‘And what do I get for that?’

Jerry snorted and punched Lennart on the shoulder. ‘You know what I like about you sometimes, Dad? You cut to the chase. No pissing about.’ Jerry rubbed the back of his neck and thought it over. Then he said, ‘A year. Or six months. Roughly. Something like that.’

‘And then?’

‘And then we’ll see.’

Lennart hid his face in his hands and rested his elbows on the kitchen table. At some point during Jerry’s worst years, Lennart had wished his son dead. Now he was doing it again. But what use was that? He heard Laila’s voice beside him.

‘Well, it’s good if Jerry has an interest. That’s what I think.’

Lennart dug his nails into his scalp and said, ‘Not a word. Not one word.’ Then he raised his head and turned to Jerry. ‘Would you like the
home delivery service
as well?’

‘Yes, that would be nice. Cool. Thanks.’

Lennart’s throat was so constricted with rage that he could barely manage a whisper. ‘You’re welcome.’

As Jerry moved towards the door, Laila got up and handed the child to Lennart without looking at him. She went over to Jerry, lowered her head and said quietly, ‘Jerry, can’t I come with you?’

Jerry frowned and he looked from Laila to Lennart. Then he seemed to realise what was going on, and said, ‘I couldn’t give a fuck what you two get up to, actually. But let’s put it this way.’ He turned to Lennart. ‘If you so much as touch Mother…you can forget the kid. Got it?’

It wasn’t only Lennart’s throat that was constricted. Every muscle in his body had been twisted into ropes and pulled as tight as possible, until they started to tremble. Jerry took a step towards him. ‘I’m asking you if you’ve got it. You leave Mother alone. One bruise, that’s all it will take. Gone. OK?’

Lennart managed to move his head up and down in a stiff nod. The child moved uneasily in his arms. Jerry stroked the girl’s cheek and said, ‘Toot, toot, toot.’

Then he left. Laila didn’t go with him.