Savage Spring (31 page)

Confused.

Obviously very confused. I’ve never felt more confused.

Malin looks over at the pub, the Pull & Bear. Bound to be full of people now, and she hears Sven’s words: ‘Alcohol can’t solve your problems,’ is that what he said? And her body is screaming that Sven is wrong, she wants nothing more than to settle down at the bar and drink her way into another dimension full of cotton wool and free of memories and future.

But there are lights on up in the flat.

Daniel Högfeldt.

You bastard. All men are fucking bastards who ought to have their dicks cut off. They’re completely in thrall to their fucking cocks, and she steps through the door and thinks that she really doesn’t have any right to demand anything from them, yet their behaviour still drives her utterly mad.

Jealousy.

She hates the word.

But knows that’s what she’s feeling.

I shouldn’t feel like this.

Tove. What do you know about that girl Janne’s seeing? Have you known about her but not told me? In that case, then . . . then what? No confrontations tonight. Don’t say anything, don’t do anything.

Tove can go and gets pizzas.

What do I want on my pizza? Ham, prawns, and salami. Maybe some artichoke hearts. Pizza with artichokes on is seriously good.

Tove’s sitting at the kitchen table, in the cone of light from the ceiling lamp that Malin bought from Rusta a month or so ago, after the old lamp from Biltema broke.

She’s got her head buried in a book, but looks up when Malin comes into the kitchen and says: ‘You’re home late.’

‘You’d never guess what sort of day I’ve had.’

Then Malin realises that she can’t help herself, and yells at Tove with a voice so full of fury that it takes even her by surprise: ‘So, why haven’t you said a word about your dad’s new lover, then? Well? Did you think I wouldn’t find out sooner or later?’

Tove stares at her.

Surprised. Roused from her literary dreams by sudden danger, and Malin watches as Tove pulls herself together, stands up and yells back at Malin: ‘Stop shouting! What did you say? Has Dad met someone?’

Malin stops, wants to say something, but her tongue feels paralysed.

Instead Tove goes on in a calm voice, as if what her mum’s just said has sunk in.

‘I don’t know anything about any lover. He isn’t seeing anyone, is he?’

And Malin goes over to Tove and hugs her, feeling her thin, wiry, edgy teenage body against her, hugs her tightly and whispers in her ear: ‘Sorry.’ Then they sit down at the table, opposite each other, and Malin tells her what she just saw, and Tove listens, slightly distracted, and seems to think a thousand thoughts before she asks: ‘What did she look like?’

Is that what you’re wondering? What she looked like? And Malin feels like throwing the question back at Tove, but resists and says instead: ‘Blonde, pretty.’

‘How old was she?’

‘Maybe twenty-five. No more.’

‘But Mum, there’s no need for you to be angry. It’s not as if you’re together, you and Dad. It’s good if he meets someone, isn’t it, so he doesn’t have to be alone? You should try to find someone, so you don’t have to be alone.’

Alone, Malin feels like asking, what do you mean, alone?

‘He’s hardly alone, is he?’ she says. ‘He’s got you in the house. And I’ve got you, we aren’t alone, either of us. I just don’t want him to rush. I suppose I just don’t want anything to happen.’

Tove smiles.

Seems to be weighing something up.

Then she seems to make her mind up, and Malin can see a nervous twinkle in her daughter’s eyes.

‘You’re right, Mum. You’re not alone. But you’re soon going to have to get used to the idea of me not being around all the time.’

Then Malin sees Tove pull an envelope out of her book and put it in front of Malin, with a proud smile and eyes sparkling with anticipation and a look that shows she’s being brave, doing something that has to be done.

‘I haven’t told Dad,’ she says. ‘I wanted you to be the first to know.’

Malin puts her hand on the envelope.

Not something else, she thinks, not something else, and tries to force a smile. I can’t deal with anything else, and Tove says: ‘Read it, Mum, read it!’

Malin doesn’t look at the logo on the back of the already crumpled and opened envelope. She just opens it.

She unfolds the paper, then she sees an old-fashioned logo, and reads the words ‘Lundsberg Private School’, then:

It gives us great pleasure to inform you that Tove Fors has been awarded a full scholarship for the school year 2010–11 from the Grevestål Memorial Foundation for students with artistic talent from less privileged backgrounds.

The essay that Miss Fors enclosed with her application, ‘Love in Jane Austen’, was deemed by the scholarship committee to be a mature and accomplished piece of work, suggesting that we could be dealing with an author of the future.

Words.

More words.

Then a request for Tove’s guardian to contact the school’s headmaster, an Ingvar Åkerström, to arrange the details of the scholarship, free accommodation, and everything else, all the formal arrangements that are required for a sixteen-year-old minor, even if the signature on the application was formal confirmation of parental consent.

Malin lets the letter slip from her hands.

Where the fuck is Lundsberg?

In Värmland.

She knows what sort of establishment it is.

It must be six hundred kilometres from here?

Formal confirmation? Signature?

She looks at Tove, who looks as if she’s about to burst with pride, and it feels as if two fists are wrenching Malin’s guts and heart out, and she stands up, throws her arms out, looks at Tove and says: ‘So this isn’t good enough for you? Well? Is that what you want? To go to some stuck-up school with a load of stuck-up toffs? Do you really think they’re going to see you as one of them? Do you?’

She hears her words, how cruel and hurt they sound, their unvarnished, unforgivable self-absorption, but she still can’t stop herself, and raises her voice before going on: ‘For God’s sake, surely you could have said something? Did you imagine I’d be happy just because you got a scholarship to some stuck-up school? Did you think I’d be happy about you going so far away? Bloody hell, I love you, Tove, and I want you here with me, surely you can see that? I’ve never seen anything so selfish. And what’s this about signatures? Did you forge my signature?’

Tove looks past Malin, picks the letter up from the table, folds it carefully, and puts it back in the envelope, then tucks it inside her book, before standing up.

‘I thought you’d be happy for me,’ Tove says firmly, without sounding the least bit sad. ‘You should be. Do you know what it means to get in there? Do you know what it costs? The contacts it gives you? And yes, I faked your signature on the application, because I was expecting you to be angry even if I hoped you might have changed your bloody behaviour.’

‘That’s against the law, Tove! Did you know that? Does your dad know about this?’

‘You’re mad, Mum, you know that, don’t you? No, he doesn’t know anything. I only needed one signature, and I didn’t want to ask him either, because he’d have insisted on talking to you. And I wanted to tell you first.’

Malin breathes.

Snorts.

Shuts her eyes.

Rubs her temples, feels like screaming, screaming out loud, roaring meaningless sounds there in the kitchen, bellowing like a cornered animal, and only when her scream has died away does she open her eyes, look at Tove. Before her stands her daughter, smiling.

‘I’m not going to listen to what you say, Mum,’ Tove whispers. ‘I know things must be hard for you right now, with everything that’s going on, with Grandma.’

Calm, Malin calm. Pull yourself together.

And she manages, even though she can feel the tears running down her cheeks.

For the second time in just a few minutes Malin hugs her daughter, and whispers in her ear.

‘Sorry. Sorry. I want you to be able to trust me. Let’s go out for pizza, and I’ll tell you something really weird,’ she says.

‘
Sturm und Drang
,’ Tove says, and Malin tries to work out what she means, but fails.

Ham.

Prawns and ham.

But no artichoke.

They’re sitting at a table for two in the Shalom Pizzeria on Trädgårdsgatan, in a brightly lit room with yellowing wallpaper, and Tove is eating greedily, only interrupting herself to take gulps of Cuba Cola.

They walked past the main square on their way here. A dozen candles were burning in the darkness, casting flickering, anxious shadows across the dark pavement. Most of the bars and restaurants already had new windows fitted.

They didn’t talk about the bomb on the way to the pizzeria, discussing everything else that had happened instead.

The fact that Janne seemed to have met someone new really didn’t seem to bother Tove, she didn’t seem to feel any jealousy or desire for them to become a normal family unit again.

They talked about Lundsberg, and Malin told her about the boy in the care home, and now Tove says: ‘We have to go and see him. I want to meet him. We can go tomorrow. He’s my uncle.’

‘We will visit him,’ Malin says.

Tove had fallen silent when Malin told her about the reading of the will, and about her brother. Every time Malin repeated the story to someone else it became more real to her, as if it had somehow all been a dream, and now, when Tove says the words ‘my uncle’, for the first time Malin feels that there’s someone else out there apart from Tove who is almost her.

She shakes her head.

‘But I can’t go tomorrow. I have to work.’

‘Maybe this is more important,’ Tove says.

‘It’s much more important,’ Malin says, and her cheeks feel greasy from the pizza, and it occurs to her that Janne and his new girl might be sitting just a few blocks away.

Never mind that now.

Think about Peter Hamse instead.

Her little brother.

Tove.

Try to live in the moment.

‘So, do what feels most important,’ Tove says. ‘Anyway, what’s his name?’

‘His name’s Stefan.’

‘Do they call him Steffe?’

Malin shakes her head, says: ‘I don’t know what sort of nicknames he’s got. I know we ought to see him, but this case I’m working on right now . . . I get the feeling something’s going on, something big and small at the same time, it feels like it’s a matter of life or death, and that it’s urgent, but I don’t know how.’

‘How do you mean? That there’s someone you have to rescue?’

‘Maybe,’ Malin says. ‘But I don’t know who.’

‘Maybe it’s you, Mum,’ Tove smiles. ‘Maybe you have to rescue yourself. You’re worried about seeing him, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, I suppose I am worried.’

‘What about doing it for my sake, Mum? Can’t we go right away for my sake?’

‘We will go, Tove. Just not yet.’

‘Then you’ll be letting him down as well.’

As well. And Malin feels her shame flare up, at the way her drinking and long hours almost made her ignore Tove altogether. Am I doing the same thing again? No.

Shame is pointless, she knows that.

‘Tove. I’m only human.’

‘Really?’ Tove says with a smile.

Then she takes a piece of pizza, pops it in her mouth, chews and swallows, evidently thinking, carefully weighing her words before she says: ‘What are you going to do about Grandad? I can understand you being angry with him.’

‘I don’t know, Tove. What do you think?’

‘There’s only one thing you can do, Mum. You have to forgive him. You only get one dad.’

Mother and daughter walk hand in hand through the late spring evening.

They don’t know it, but they’re nudging up against one of the watersheds that make up the core of human life, balancing along the fragile line of their story.

Tove asks her mum: ‘You’re not going to report me for forging your signature, are you?’

‘What do you take me for? Of course I’m not.’

‘You are happy for me, aren’t you? This is what I’ve always dreamed of.’

Malin lets go of her daughter’s hand and wraps her arm around her instead, pulling her close, and they weave their way up the illuminated street.

‘Of course I’m happy for you,’ Malin says. ‘I’m just scared of losing you.’

35

Friday, 14 May

Can’t sleep.

Have to sleep. Have I slept? Yes, I fell asleep to begin with, slept for a few hours, then woke up again, and now there’s nothing I can do with my body, or my mind. I want to get away from it, into sleep and dreams, but there’s no point trying.

Malin sits up.

Beyond the venetian blind she can just make out the still of night, and she knows Tove is lying in the next room, and Malin hopes she’s sleeping.

Lundsberg.

Don’t think about it. Let it happen. It’s what Tove wants, and that’s the most important thing. It was smart of her to forge my signature on the application, but why didn’t she just ask us about it?

What must you think of us, Tove?

And Malin closes her eyes again, sees her mother’s face in her mind’s eye, chasing her through the house, going on at her to tidy up after herself, shouting at her not to talk so much, to be quiet when there are adults present, that nice girls do this or that, and you never give me a moment’s peace, and Mum, you’re dead now, gone, you don’t exist, but you’re going to be with me for as long as I live. You’ve done that to me, how can I move on from that?

You have to forgive.

Forgive the one who’s still here. Make the most of the time we have.

I know what I have to do, she thinks, and gets up. She pulls on a pair of jeans, doesn’t bother with a bra, just pulls a pink cotton top over her head.

Her tiredness is gone.

Her body had got a second wind.

She goes in to Tove.

Shakes her daughter awake. Tove sits up bewildered, looking around the room in the dim lighting from the hall.

‘I’m going to see Dad,’ Malin says.

‘Don’t,’ Tove says. ‘He’ll be with that girl.’