Lucca (36 page)

Lucca . . .

She turned. She did not recognise him at once, the man who had spoken her name.

H
e had changed. He had grown a full beard, his hairline was receding and there were touches of grey in his beard and curly hair, but he was just as stooping and thin as before, and he wore spectacles again, oval and unframed. She noticed that in the taxi. You've stopped wearing your contact lenses, she said. He smiled, shy at her commenting on his appearance. Barbara had made him wear contact lenses. He said it in a way that told her they were no longer together, but she asked all the same. He met her eyes as he shrugged his shoulders and tried to smile like someone who has overcome the blows he had received. She leaned back and looked ahead.

He had just come back from Reykjavik. One of his compositions had been performed at a festival for new Scandinavian music. Although I don't feel so young any more, he added. He might have been right there, sitting with his well-trimmed beard and unframed glasses, grizzled and in a herring-bone coat. Was it Daniel? The short-sighted, unworldly Daniel she had once made so unhappy. She pictured him at the piano in his little apartment, as she stood at the window and made an end of it.

She told him about Andreas and Lauritz, about the house they had renovated, and how relieved she had been to move out of town and forget all the brooding over her career, totally absorbed in watching her son grow, seeing their home taking shape . . . Well, it must sound boring . . . He shook his head. He didn't think so. Incidentally, he had seen her on stage, in
The Father
. He had followed her progress. She borrowed his mobile and called Else to say she would be delayed. They walked beside the canal, he insisted on carrying her case. The reflections from the old street lamps trembled on the restless black water. The wind had got up, the boats rocked
beside the quay and tugged at their mooring ropes, making them creak.

She watched the cobblestones sliding to meet her through the lamps' circles of light. I wasn't very nice to you, she said. He made light of it, it was so long ago. They walked for a while in silence. How strange it is, he said, that we should meet, out of the blue! Yes, she replied, I meet you every time I am deserted. It leaped out of her. He looked at her in a way that made her lower her eyes. She told him how Otto had dropped her a few hours after she ran into him and Barbara one evening in a bar. He had thought she was the kind who did the dropping. She shrugged her shoulders. She had thought so too. He smiled ironically. If only he had met her the next day instead! She smiled back. Well, he was not free then. The cold made him shiver. Every time . . . he said cautiously. Did that mean? . . . He looked at her inquiringly. She told him briefly about Paris and the letter. What kind of daft shit had she married? She looked at him. Sorry, he just felt . . .

Daniel's houseboat was at the end of the quay. He crossed the gangway first, put the cases down on the deck and gallantly took her hand. It was an old barge. There's no electricity, he said on the way down the stairs. She stood still while he lit the oil lamps and a gas stove in the middle of the floor. The piano was on a dais at one end of what had once been the hold. At the other end there was a galley and a door into the cabin where he slept. She recognised his grandmother's teacups on a shelf above the kitchen table, with a rowing boat in moonlight and a romantic couple. The handle was missing from one of the cups. The place was covered with varnished boards that shone in the glow from the lamps and candles, and there were small portholes in the walls from which you could look out over the canal and the quay. He uncorked a bottle of wine, they sat on safari chairs. A chest between them functioned as a table.

He was quite frank. He had had one or two brief relationships since Barbara left him, but they had never turned into anything permanent, he was probably not fit for that. He poured out the wine. Gradually he had grown used to living alone. It had its advantages, he could do as he pleased. She told him how
surprised she had been when she met him with Barbara. Just imagine how surprised he had been himself! She took off her shoes and pulled her feet up in the chair. The red wine and the slight rocking beneath her had a calming effect.

Barbara had found herself a stockbroker. He smiled, but without bitterness. That probably suited her better . . . But he did not regret their relationship, she had been rather sweet, and she had helped him to get on. She had made him believe he was not entirely impossible. But he had been impossible back then, he could see that quite well . . . Lucca smiled. He raised his eyes and she regretted her smile when she saw the expression in his eyes. Now he had to smile himself. It's like a disease, he said, being hopelessly in love. And you almost go crazy, he went on, because you can't get it into your head that your disease isn't infectious.

Had it gone on a long time? He shrugged it off. A year and a half, two years, until he met Barbara. She cured him. He laughed and shook his head at himself, raising his glass again. Lucca tried to remember the girl with the big red lips and bulging breasts. That was what it took, obviously. But two years . . . exactly the same time she had been with Otto. In all that time Daniel had been thinking of her even though he knew it was hopeless. She almost smiled again but stopped herself. He looked as if he thought it was quite funny himself when he thought back on the heartbreak of his youth. But who had ever loved her so faithfully, knowing well he hadn't the ghost of a chance to have his love requited?

It was odd to be on Daniel's houseboat drinking red wine. Their chance meeting and the unusual surroundings matched her feeling of observing her life from outside, as if she was someone else. She felt strangely untouched by what had happened in Paris, as if she was divided in two. Her twin sister took all the pain on herself and gave herself up to all the unanswered questions about what would happen if Andreas left her, and what was wrong with her to make him fall for a Swede with black curls and blue eyes.

How different they were, she and Daniel. He had gone on
loving her long after their relationship had ended, although he knew she had met someone else. His love had not lessened when he no longer had her near him. It had merely grown stronger and more faithful in her absence, away from his reach. The loss of her had filled him to the brim with love, when she was no longer there to receive it. It had grown and grown, and he had been at bursting point because he could not get rid of it. Whereas she had started to think of her love for Andreas in the past tense as soon as she realised she could no longer count on him.

Daniel had loved her in spite of himself and in spite of her, until it was driving him mad, his love turned into a disease. She was not like that. What made her twin sister suffer was not the fever of emotion, apart from jealousy at the thought of the polaroid picture of the pale beauty sitting on an unmade bed with a halo of morning sun in her unruly hair. What hurt wasn't anything inside her, but the feeling that something had been amputated, leaving only a bleeding wound.

Reading the terrible letter had been like the stroke of an axe, and that axe had been so sharp and slashed so hard and unexpectedly that several minutes passed before she felt pain and realised that a part of herself had vanished. Even more time passed before she understood that it was not like losing an arm or a leg. Not until next morning when she sat sunning herself on the balcony and trying to imagine what it would be like to jump off, not until so many hours later did it strike her that the axe had cut her in two. One who could actually have swung her legs over the rail, and another to whom that was merely an unreal idea. One was already in the train bound for home, leaning her forehead against the window as she stared despairingly into the darkness. The other sat on a safari chair on Daniel's houseboat drinking red wine.

She rose and looked at her watch and realised it would have looked more convincing if she had looked at it before getting up. She said she would try to catch the last train. He fetched her coat and held it out for her while she put her arms in the sleeves. He carefully lifted her pony tail so it fell over the collar. When she turned round he looked quite frightened at his own intimate
gesture. It had been good, she said, to see him again. He smiled and looked into her eyes. It had . . . She walked towards the stairs, he followed. She had already taken two steps up when he said it. She stopped and turned round. She wasn't sure she had heard aright. He wished she didn't have to go. He looked at her without blinking. Bravely, she thought, as he raised his hands to the side a little with an apologetic movement. Now it was said. He caught hold of her without faltering when, slightly theatrically she had to admit, she let herself fall into his embrace.

She still had her coat on when she lay back on his bed. She closed her eyes as he kissed her. It was an unusual feeling, she had never had a lover with a full beard. He unbuttoned her with practised fingers. She recalled how she had admired his confident hands when they struck even the widest chords. He stripped off her pants and tights. As he kissed her nipples she regretted not leaving. She suddenly felt she was a retrospective reward for his faithful, fruitless love.

The bed rose and fell in time with the rocking movements of the boat, and she felt the rough prickling of his full beard on the thin skin of her thighs. In a detached flake of a second she saw the waving tufts of pine needles. She locked her thighs around his neck and felt his scratchy beard and the firm grip of his hands round her ankles, and once more she was carried on a pair of broad shoulders in the same rocking rhythm among the tree trunks towards the dunes and the sea.

It rained all the way from Copenhagen. The raindrops crawled sideways across the windowpane as houses, trees and fields rushed past under the low clouds. When she stepped off the train she noticed a young girl humping a heavy bag. The girl broke into a run when she caught sight of a tall man in his forties coming towards her. They had the same colour hair, chestnut brown. The man embraced her slightly clumsily and took her bag. Probably a divorced father, thought Lucca and followed them out of the station where they got into a car. She tried to picture what it would be like if she and Andreas took
turns to have Lauritz. She couldn't imagine living alone in the house. But where then? She thought how she had moved away, first from Otto and then from Harry, with her cases and bags. There were no taxis. She rang for one and stood in shelter for a long time in the cold, gazing at the depressing, unchanging square with its provincial shops and parked cars.

Else sat in the kitchen reading the paper. She hadn't yet cleared the breakfast things. As usual Lauritz had shaken out more cornflakes than he could eat. The orange flakes had gone soft in the yellowish milk. Else put her head on one side with a worried look in her eyes. Lucca put down her suitcase and leaned against the fridge door as she slid down onto the floor and began to weep. Her mother rose and went to kneel beside her. What had happened? Lucca pulled herself together, got to her feet and walked into the living room. She tore off her coat on the way and let it fall on the floor. Else followed her, they sat down on the sofa. Lucca bent over. The weeping broke out of her throat again in cramped contractions, as if she was vomiting. Else put an arm around her and stroked her back.

Lucca explained in disconnected sentences interrupted by sniffing. Else clasped her close. I suspected as much, she said, stroking her hair. Lucca snatched her hand away with an angry movement, rose and went to one of the windows looking onto the garden. What did she mean, she thought as much? Else made no reply. It had stopped raining. Lauritz's little plastic tractor lay overturned on the muddy lawn. The branches of the plum tree dripped. She turned round. Else stood beside the stove, she bent down and picked the coat up. What do you mean by that? repeated Lucca, herself surprised at her accusing tone. Else laid the coat over one arm and stroked it slowly with her hand. Say it then! shouted Lucca as she went to sit on the sofa. Else sat down beside her in the opposite corner.

Now she must try to calm down a bit. She had not exactly gone around expecting it, but she had to admit she had had her ideas through the years. You're sure to be cross with me, she said, pausing. She brushed dust off the stove with the flat of a hand. In a way she had been asking for it herself. That was
probably an awful thing to say, but . . . She looked firmly at Lucca. Now I'm being honest, she said. Lucca looked out of the window again. She could see the neighbour's horse in the meadow beside the drive, unmoving except for its tail fluttering limply like a pennant. She had worshipped him far too much. Else's voice had grown cool and confident, it was the voice she used on the radio to all and sundry. A small bird flew over the black field, itself black against the grey sky. It rose and fell in arcs, as if it wanted to imitate the curves of the plough-land.

She had become subservient to him. What did she think it was like, to be worshipped in that way? She had completely neglected herself for the sake of him and the boy. Lucca squeezed up her eyes. The rainwater had gathered in pools on the lawn, and the grass blades were reflected in the quiet water, black against the greyish mirror image of the sky. She breathed evenly again. Good Lord, there were enough suckers about who thought it was lovely to have a sweet, home-loving woman always ready and waiting. But Andreas was no sucker, he was an intelligent and sensitive person, and an artist too. He needed challenges, even opposition, and she had not given him any. When all was said and done he was only a man, and men tended to grow tired of women who clung to them and only yearned and sighed for confirmation. It was no surprise to find he had succumbed to temptation. Lucca looked at her. What do you want me to do then? she said. Else fell silent and looked at her for a long time, as if reading her face for an answer. Get yourself a lover, she said.

Lucca pulled up her feet and stretched out for a cushion, she clutched it to her stomach with her arms crossed over it. She looked down at the floor. The cloud cover was thinning, and pale sunlight lit the floorboards in softly outlined squares. What about you? she asked. Else smiled. What did she mean? Lucca hesitated for a moment before going on. What about the time she was with Ivan and suddenly started wearing completely different clothes and changing all the furniture? As for her friends, she had exchanged even them for Ivan's advertising chums. Else looked past the stove into the kitchen. She had even demanded a church wedding although Ivan didn't want that at all. She
who had always held bourgeois traditions to scorn and talked of marriage as a form of prostitution. That hadn't hindered her from parading as a fifty-year-old bride with a white veil and naughty underclothes.