Sun and Shadow (5 page)

“I suppose it’s a sort of emancipation,” she said. “And if your mom’s a vicar the emancipation is all the more hotheaded. More marked.” She looked at Morelius again as they crossed over the Avenue and waited for the lights to change at Södra Vägen. “Do you think that’s what it is, Simon?”

“I really don’t know,” he said, staring straight ahead. “I’m not the right person to ask about things like that.” He could feel the sweat breaking out under his cap. He hoped she wouldn’t see it. Sweat trickling down his face.

“Why not?” They crossed the road and aimed for the farthest corner of the car park. “Surely you can have an opinion on it. Why not?”

“I don’t have any children.”

“So much the better.” That dry laugh again. “No, I must stop this.” She halted and looked around. “I’m not quite sure where I left it. The car, that is.” She looked again. “I didn’t think about it. Then.”

“What does it look like?”

“It’s a Volvo. One of the early models. It’s about ten or eleven years old.”

“License plate number?”

She looked around again. “Do you know, I can’t remember. This is ridiculous.”

“It’s pretty common,” Morelius said. “Forgetting your car’s license plate number.”

“Especially when you’re under stress, is that right?”

“Yes.” He scanned the surrounding cars. Volvos everywhere.

“There it is, over there.” She pointed and set off toward it. “The one with the empty space at the side of it. To the right.”

The car was very dirty. He could see that from thirty feet away.

“We wouldn’t have been able to read the license plate number in any case.”

“That’s what happens when you keep putting things off,” Hanne said. “But it’s not good, when you think of rust and whatnot.”

“No.”

“It doesn’t seem to matter just at the moment.”

They had reached the car. Hanne unlocked it and sat down behind the wheel.

“Anyway ... thank you,” she said.

“It’s a pleasure.”

She was staring straight ahead with the car keys in her hand, then turned to look at Morelius, who was leaning toward the car. She started the engine.

“And I always thought we had such a good relationship,” she said, but Morelius didn’t catch every word.

When Winter arrived at Room 1108 his father was awake. He approached the bed. It was a difficult moment. Winter had trouble swallowing. His father held out a hand. Winter took it. The hand felt warm and firm, as with a healthy man, but Winter could feel bone and sinew. He tried to say something, but his father got in first.

“Good of you to come, Erik.”

“Of course I came.” Winter could see that his father was in pain. Moving his hand had been awkward. “Take it easy now.” Winter squeezed the hand gently. “That’s the main thing.”

“It’s the only ... possible thing.” Bengt Winter looked at his son. “This wasn’t exactly how I’d planned to greet you when you finally got yourself down here to the sun.”

“That doesn’t matter. Hurry up and get well and then you can greet me as planned later.”

“You can ... you can bet your life I will. Oh sh—, can you move this pillow up a bit?”

Winter pulled up one of the pillows behind his father’s head. He noticed a pungent smell, and something more. It took him a second to recall his father’s aftershave. When he did, his headache returned. The sadness of the situation stuck in him like a lump of stone.

He fluffed up the pillow a little.

“That’s fine,” his father said.

“Are you sure?”

“It’s perfect,” his mother said. She was sitting on a chair next to the bed. Winter didn’t want to look at her.

“How was the journey?” his father asked.

“Everything went well.”

“Which airline did you use?”

“Some charter company. I forget what they’re called.”

“That’s not like you.”

“Hmm.”

“It was short notice. But they found a seat for you even so?”

“Yes.”

“I bet some golfer or other had to wait for a few more hours, was that it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Serves him right. There are too many of ‘em down here nowadays. They ought to have something better to do.” He looked up at Winter. “Look what happens. One minute you’re out on the golf course and the next you’re lying here.”

“Yes, it’s not good.”

“It’s an extremely dangerous sport.”

“You’ll soon be back.”

“On the golf course?”

“Yes. And ... everywhere else too.”

“I wouldn’t put a hell of a lot of money on that. This feels like the big one.”

“Hmm.”

“It feels like ...” Winter couldn’t hear what came next. His father’s speech became slurred. Winter waited, but no more words came. His father’s eyelids drooped, shot up again, drooped once more. Winter realized that he was still holding his father’s hand when it lost strength and sank down.

“He needs to rest again,” his mother said, who had stood up and come to the bed. “He was so pleased that you’d come.” She gave Winter a hug. “He was quite excited when he heard you were here.”

“Hmm.”

“He woke up about a quarter of an hour before you came back.”

“He seems to be pretty ... strong, despite everything,” Winter said, looking down at his unconscious father. Could he hear what they were saying? Did it matter? “Everything will turn out all right.”

“That was a lovely conversation you had,” his mother said.

It was a careful conversation, Winter thought. No risks taken. It went in big circles around a big fucking hole.

He could hear the hum from the air-conditioning. It was the first time he’d noticed it. Maybe his nervousness was fading. Next time he would ask a few questions, and maybe get a few answers.

 

They’d gone into the living room. She had turned on the video and bodies were writhing.... The only light in the room was the blue glow from the television screen, the shadows flitting around the walls like living beings.

The sound was rising and falling. He couldn’t stand it. He wanted to march up to the television set and switch it off, but he couldn’t interrupt her ritual. He was sure she was the one who’d decided what was going to happen.

“Why are you standing there? Come and sit down here. With us.”

She beckoned from the sofa in front of the television where they were both sitting. The other man had his hand inside her blouse. On the table in front of them were glasses and bottles. He hadn’t touched a drop, but the pair on the sofa were well oiled.

He closed his eyes and it was like another time, when he’d come home and caught her on a sofa just like this one. He shouldn’t have been there. They had been surprised. He’d turned on his heel and left.

It wasn’t the first time this sort of thing had happened.

It was something to do with him. He’d thought it was to do with them, but he was beginning to realize that it was something inside himself.

He was trying to crack it. He was there now.

“Don’t laugh,” he said. “Please don’t laugh.”

They both looked at him. Their faces were patchy in the blue light. They looked as if their foreheads were tattooed.

“We haven’t laughed,” she said. “Nobody laughs here.”

“Please don’t laugh at me.”

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” said the other man, half-rising from the sofa.

“Nothing.”

“I think you’ve come to the wrong place.”

The other man stood up and started toward him. She stayed where she was, glass in hand, her body following the movements of those on the television screen.

“I’ve brought some music with me.”

“Eh?”

“I’ve brought some music we could play.”

“Music?” The other man was still standing by the sofa, and pointed to the television screen. “We already have something going on here. Or didn’t you notice?”

“Have you got a cassette player? This is something else.” He’d already seen the stereo system over to the right, various pieces of equipment stacked on top of each other in a tall, black shelving unit. He walked over to it, taking the cassette out of his breast pocket. For a fleeting moment he saw another face in his mind’s eye, like a hovering head. He recognized it. He knew that it meant something. Now the head was gone. It hadn’t had a body. The song was already echoing in his brain, he didn’t know if it was coming from his throat, if the others could hear it as well. His own head was spinning, floating toward theirs, everything was merging. He saw the face once again. Then the real music started.

 

Dusk would soon be falling, but it was still hot. Winter drove into Marbella. A flamenco singer gave vent to her pain over the car radio. Winter turned up the sound and rolled the window down. There was a smell of gasoline and sea. When he parked on a side street off the promenade, there was a smell of grilled octopus and eggs fried in oil. His back felt sweaty as he got out of the car and locked the doors.

The hotel was in the Avenida Duque de Ahumeda, near the beach. Winter had to wait a quarter of an hour in the foyer, then took the elevator up to the twelfth floor with his bag. He wanted to see the room before checking in. That was his usual routine.

The door lock was hanging loose. The suite comprised two rooms and a kitchen. The window facing the balcony was ajar, and the wind was making the awning flap. It was ragged, faded by the sun and the salt air. A loose strip of the awning was slapping against the window. Winter investigated further and saw that the balcony faced east with a view of another hotel. He looked around the large living room. The furniture in imitation leather had once been white.

He went to the bathroom. There was a trail of rust underneath the bath taps. There were bits of soap in the washbasin. He examined himself in the mirror. He had lost weight in the last five hours, turned paler.

He shared the elevator down with a couple in their forties who tried to avoid eye contact with the man of their own age. They had a five-day tan and were dressed for dinner.

“I don’t like that room,” Winter said to the man at the desk, handing back the key. Why do I always end up in situations like this? he wondered.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“I don’t want the room. Do you have anything else? Lower down?”

“But what’s wrong with it?”

“I DON’T WANT THAT FUCKING ROOM,” Winter said. “It’s out of order.”

“What isn’t working?” the man asked, his eyes darkening.

“Nothing’s working. Things are broken. The bathroom’s dirty. Do you have another room?”

“No. We’re fully booked.”

“For how long?”

“For another month.”

“Can you recommend another hotel near here?”

Winter had seen the hotel next door, but hadn’t been tempted. He was tired and hot and sweaty and miserable. He wanted a nice room and a shower and a glass of whisky and a little time to think things over.

“No,” the man said.

“A smaller hotel, perhaps. A more modest establishment.”

“No idea,” the man said, turning away. He has every right, Winter thought, It’s not his fault. I could have been more polite.

“Do you have a town guide that lists the hotels here?”

“What am I going to do with that room?” the man said, avoiding the question. He eyed Winter up and down like a hostile barrister. “I’m stuck now with an empty room.”

“Board it up,” Winter said, and marched out, trailing his case behind him.

 

He was lucky. When he’d driven into town earlier that day, he’d noticed a sign attached to a wall. It couldn’t be more than a hundred yards away.

He drove back a short stretch of the Avenida de Severo Ochoa and found the sign on the corner of a little side street that was for pedestrians only. He parked and walked down the Calle Luna, which was filled with afternoon shadow. About a half block along, on the right, was the Hostal La Luna, behind a glass door at the back of its own patio. Winter could see that each room had a little balcony.

There had been a last-minute cancellation, and he took a look at the room, which was very Spanish and quiet and clean, with a refrigerator and a bathroom.

He had a shower, then drank his whisky naked in the semidarkness. The elderly couple who ran the establishment were chatting quietly down on the walled patio. Marble floor and whitewashed walls.

They couldn’t speak English, not a single word, but the man had assessed Winter’s state and served him a chilled San Miguel on the table in the shade of a parasol, even before Winter had checked in for an indefinite stay.

The whisky circled around his mouth and slid into his brain. His head cleared somewhat. The room had an unfamiliar smell to it, as if it had been scrubbed with sea salt and southern spices. The twin beds were of timeless Latin design, medieval in style. Between them was an image of the Madonna, praying for him and his father. That was what occurred to him when he first saw the picture in his simple room. It was the only item of decoration.

This is the way to live.

He reached for his mobile. It was nearly seven and the sun was much weaker now. The door to the patio was ajar, and the wooden venetian blinds were half up in the glassless window opening, protected by a black wrought-iron grille.

“Angela here.”

“It’s Erik.”

“Hi! Where are you?”

“In my room. But not the hotel whose number you have.”

“So you moved,” and he knew she was smiling.

“Of course.”

“How’s your father?”

“They’ve moved him out of intensive care. Is that a good sign?”

“I suppose it must be.”

“Suppose? You’re the doctor.” He hoped he didn’t sound as if he were complaining.

“I don’t have access to his chart, Erik.” She paused. “Did you speak to him?”