by C S Duffy
‘Suppose that’s the CIA for you,’ I grinned. ‘Rude.’
He blinked at me in surprise.
‘Because they’re spies. Secrets and stuff. Kind of their thing.’
‘Yes.’
Abruptly, he turned away, leaving me to scuttle after them for the last little of the path. I looked over at Johan as we reached the garden, hoping to catch his eye, but he was deep in conversation with Mia.
The cottage was — not what I was expecting. When Johan had talked about his friend’s private island, I suppose it conjured an image somewhat more luxurious than the rustic little red clapboard cottage in front of me now, nestled in a small clearing. Half of it was covered in some thick creeping vine, almost as though the forrest were trying to reclaim it, and the sun-dappled garden was overgrown with long grass and wildflowers. Except for a bright orange kayak lying round the side of the cottage, it looked as though it should be home to a family of kindly rabbits.
Just as I was envisioning Mummy Rabbit inside cooking, complete with wire-rimmed glasses and gingham apron, I noticed the odd, wooden Maypole-like thing set up in the middle of the garden. It was decorated with wildflowers and leaves, and I stared at it uncertainly, trying to shake the notion that it was a bit disconcertingly… pagan. Like if you danced around it anti-clockwise while whispering a spell you’d raise a centuries-dead witch, or something. Krister caught me looking and grinned that little smirk of his.
‘That is the midsommarstång,’ he said. ‘We set it up at midsummer to celebrate how summertime fertilises the earth.’
I nodded slowly, not entirely sure how to respond to that, then frowned as I noticed something. The two circles at the top of the pole suddenly struck me as, not entirely — un-scrotum-like. ‘It’s a cock,’ I blurted, and Krister burst out laughing.
‘Yes, more or less,’ he said.
‘Covered in flowers, shagging your garden. Well of course.’
‘Welcome to Sweden,’ Krister sad, cracking a grin finally.
It was then I noticed the picnic table set up at the far end of the garden. It was covered in a pristine white tablecloth and set formally with delicate china, fancy silverware and flower centrepieces. Johan stood next to the table chatting to Mia. She had put on a crown of flowers and birch leaves, which didn’t do much to dislodge the impression I’d inadvertently signed up for a spot of witch-raising.
‘Is this — sorry, is it someone’s birthday?’ I asked, my heart sinking as I took in the fancy table and frantically tried to remember if Johan had told me it was a celebration and I’d somehow forgotten.
Krister gave me a quizical look. ‘It is Midsummer,’ he said.
‘Oh, right,’ I nodded, wondering what the longest day of the year had to do with the fancy-dancy table.
Another woman — Liv, presumably — emerged from the cottage, carrying a platter of smoked salmon. If I’d held out any hope of Johan’s other female best friend looking a bit less supermodel-like, it was swiftly dashed. Liv’s wavy, strawberry blonde hair bounced in tousled curls around her shoulders and she wore a cream, ankle-length sundress I can only describe as a sexy lace curtain.
‘We were expecting you one hour ago,’ she said, looking straight at me, and my heart leapt into my mouth.
‘I’m so sorry, our journey was a nightmare,’ I babbled, darting forward. ‘I’m Ellie, by the way.’
‘Liv,’ she said shortly.
I’m sorry, I didn’t actually realise it was a party — can I do anything to help?’
‘No, it is all done now.’
‘Right, I see. Sorry, again. Can I — carry something, maybe?’
‘No,’ she repeated, staring at me with pale blue eyes that managed to be simultaneously expressionless and cold, and an iciness slithered through me.
Liv had probably been cooking all day, I told myself, as we all took our places at the table, and was stressed to the hilt. One year at Christmas, my mum broke three wine glasses in a tantrum when she forgot about the roast potatoes in the oven and they got burned to a crisp. She was mortified and we’ve wound her up about it every year since. A slightly abrupt greeting was nothing compared to that. It was forgotten, I told myself firmly, taking a deep gulp of the rosé Krister poured for me.
Midsummer may not involve occult rituals, but there was a special meal, endless toasts with shots of snaps that just about singed the back of my throat off, plus singing and dancing around the Maypole-cock. It was all a bit baffling. At some point during the meal, Mia noticed how bamboozled I was and they all started explaining the traditions, translating the songs and… something about dancing like a frog that I never quite grasped.
It was all so absurdly Swedish it almost seemed unreal. Between the blondes and the wildflowers and the pickled fish, they might as well be belting out Super Trouper while juggling meatballs, and… putting together furniture. Naked.
Johan seemed different in company, I thought, watching him horsing around on the grass with Krister. In Thailand it was just us. The first couple of times he visited me in London I’d arranged get-togethers to introduce him to my friends, but he’d always been really quiet, self conscious about his English — even though it’s pretty much flawless — and struggling to follow the conversation over the background noise of the pub. After the second or third round of awkwardness, I told people I just wanted him all to myself on our precious weekends together.
Being with his own mates brought out a whole other side to him. I was pleased to discover he wasn’t always so shy in company, but it was a tiny bit disconcerting. A little flicker of uncertainty brushed over me, and I took a healthy gulp of my wine.
It must have been after midnight by then. Though it was far from full dark, a shadowy twilight had descended and Johan and Krister were indistinct shapes in the gloom. Johan was verging on messy-drunk — we all were, to be fair — red-faced and shouting. He and Krister seemed to be mock wrestling for reasons that presumably made sense to anyone who understood the Swedish conversation. I was feeling a bit conscious that I was sitting there like a leaden lump, so when Krister shouted something and they all burst out laughing, I did too.
‘Oh do you understand?’ said Liv, her eyes as wide. Someone had lit the tea lights scattered around the table, and in their eerie glow she looked like china doll in a horror film.
‘No, I — I just — it looks funny,’ I muttered lamely, biting back the urge to point out I hadn’t understood anything in well over an hour and was starting to wish I’d brought a book with me.
‘Ellie, I am so sorry, we are so rude,’ smiled Mia, turning back to me. Her crown of flowers was slightly lopsided, but I didn’t detect any slur in her voice. Maybe she’d been pacing herself better than the rest of us.
‘Not at all,’ I insisted. I noticed I’d sloshed a few drops of my rosé onto the white tablecloth, and tried unsuccessfully to dab it up with my napkin. ‘I’m happy just to observe and learn.’
Liv got up to join the boys. She jumped onto Krister's back with a girlish squeal, and I found myself feeling slightly relieved it wasn’t Johan’s. Mia wasn’t the least bit fussed. She shouted something in Swedish to them, raised her glass, and turned back to me again.
‘This must all seem very strange to you.’
‘It’s different,’ I shrugged. ‘But so interesting. I’ve got so much to learn about my new life, but I suppose one day it will all just be second nature.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Just that — well, next year I’ll know about Midsummer. I’ve already learned that you have to take a number to queue for service in a shop.’ I laughed, remembering how I’d gone to a little hardware shop near Johan’s flat to buy a plug adapter on my first or second day and had stood there like a wally in front of the counter, getting more and more incensed as other customers kept strolling in front of me to be served. Finally I’d clicked that they had all taken little tickets and their numbers were being called. I’d meekly taken my own ticket and hoped I’d imagin
ed the judgmental look the girl behind the counter gave me when my number was called. ‘And that’s just my first week. Eventually I imagine I’ll forget how strange it all seemed to begin with.’
‘Oh, do you think you will stay with Johan forever?’ Mia asked, her head cocked slightly to one side. I felt my smile falter. I took a large gulp of wine.
‘Well I mean — it’s early days,’ I stammered. ‘But — well, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t -- I mean, he’s Johan. He’s pretty amazing.’
She nodded slowly. ‘Johan is one of my best friends, I love him to death — ’ She trailed off, shrugged and toyed with her wine glass, the candlelight flickering over her troubled expression. A little knot of nerves took root in my stomach.
‘I mean, of course you know —’
‘Of course,’ I said firmly, with no idea what she was talking about.
‘I just hope he —’
‘You and Krister — Johan was telling me you’d all been friends since school?’
If she was surprised by the abrupt change of subject, she didn’t show it. ‘Yes,’ she smiled. ‘We knew one another back then, but Krister and I didn’t really become friends until university, where we studied on the same course. It was five years later when I looked at him one day and thought kissing him might be a good idea.’
‘And now you’re engaged. That’s a really sweet story.’
‘It’s quite boring, really.’
Johan, Krister and Liv came back to the table then, laughing their heads off, and I tried to shake the cold feeling that had settled over me. Krister seemed to be explaining to Mia whatever the joke was in Swedish, but when Johan flung himself in the chair next to me and reached over to rub the back of my neck, I felt a sudden wave of claustrophobia. Krister started to pour another round of shots and I shoved my chair back.
‘I’m just — just going to get some air, for a second,’ I muttered, fully aware of the ridiculousness of what I was saying in the middle of a garden. No one seemed to notice. Johan was leaning across the table talking to to Liv, and Krister had started to hum one of the numerous drinking songs under his breath as he handed the glasses round.
I made my slightly unsteady way across the garden. The sky overhead was white, but the thick canopy of leaves shrouded the woods in darkness and just a few feet in I shivered. I turned to glance back at the table, telling myself I was being an idiot, telling myself I should just slip back and join them.
It looked as though my chair had been pushed farther away from the table, leaving their gang of four balanced once more. Johan was facing me. I felt like a voyeur, spying on him from the shadows, but I couldn’t take my eyes off him. His chiseled cheekbones suddenly appeared harsh and distorted in the candlelight. I could only see the back of Liv’s head, but as he raised his glass in her direction, he looked at her with such an unmistakeable air of intimacy that my stomach heaved and for a second I thought I was going to throw up. I turned and fled, icy dew trickling over my sandals as I marched over damp moss and bracken.
Without a clue where I was going I walked and walked, deeper into the woods, fully aware I was probably walking round in circles. If this were a London night gone a bit tits up, I’d have been hailing a taxi and slipping into the night, and the thought that there was no way off this tiny island sent panic churning in my guts.
I was famous for my disappearing act. One of my oldest mates once told me she genuinely worried that one day I would actually get kidnapped and no one would raise the alarm because they would assume I’d just taken off.
Finally, I emerged from the trees onto another rocky beach on the other side of the island and the sight that greeted me took my breath away. The sunrise sat brooding on the horizon, a furious blood red, turning the sky the deepest, purest shades of pinks and oranges I had ever seen. Scarlet and amber and cerise and ochre were reflected on the glass-like sea, making it look as though it were somehow peacefully on fire, silhouetting the pine trees on neighbouring islands in black.
It was spectacular.
I resolved to go back to the party and try again, to climb onto Johan’s lap, do a quick couple of shots to catch up and ask him to teach me the song about doing housework. I’d even choke down a bit more herring if it helped. It was all fine.
It was all new. We were strangers. I was an awkward Midsummer virgin, intruding on a celebration that was clearly precious to them.
Mia hadn’t really meant anything about Johan, she was just a bit pissed. Of course Johan and Liv had an air of intimacy for heaven’s sake, they’d been friends since they were kids. And Krister couldn’t possibly think I was a complete moron. He didn’t even know me. He just had resting judgmental face.
I’d been out of step with things, which was totally natural, and it had left me feeling a bit oversensitive and wobbly, and more than a bit daft. I took a deep breath. It was just like I’d said to Mia: in years to come, we’d look back on our first Midsummer together and piss ourselves laughing about how tense and weird it was.
It was about then that I noticed I was staring at a human skeleton, tangled in the reeds at the edge of the water.
3
I know how I sound right now. I know you’re writing me off as delusional, but please just—
Let’s start from the beginning. Was there anything unusual about his behaviour that morning?
No. Absolutely not. It was all completely normal.
He didn’t seem stressed or anxious?
Not at all.
What about over the previous few days?
Please, you need to understand that none of this — none of it makes sense. Everything was fine. Normal, boring, lovely. Just life.
No money worries, concerns about his job, nothing like that?
How many times do I have to say it? You’ve got it wrong. He’s not what you — it’s not how it looks. You need to investigate, find out what really —
What do you think might have happened?
I don’t know.
So how could you be certain it wasn’t how it looks?
It’s not my job to figure these things out, I don’t know how it all works. But I know him, and I’m telling you that there’s something not right. You have to investigate. You can’t let them get away with it.
Let who get away with it?
I don’t know!
Then how —
Someone. Someone did this to him. Please.
4
‘When they told me about their plans for Midsummer I assumed that meant I was invited, but when I woke up on the Friday morning they were gone.’ Cas, an Iranian PhD student, shrugged. ‘I spent the weekend reading.’
The café where the newcomers to Sweden coffee morning was held was bright and airy with huge open windows, art crammed every which way on the back wall, and the chairs and tables were battered and mismatched, as though it had been all been furnished by a car boot sale. I’d hesitated by the counter when I’d got my coffee, wondering how to approach the noisy group who had taken over one corner, then firmly told myself to get a grip. When I joined them, Cas had been chatting about Swedish for Immigrants classes with a couple of young Polish women — Nadja and Krista, I thought — who were both breast feeding babies.
I had just introduced myself to a German viola player called Nadine, and Jacob, a computer engineer from Nigeria who had gone to university in London, when a woman with short spiky red hair and an impish grin arrived in a flurry of warmth and apologies for being late but it was because she dropped her phone in the bath and now she knew nothing about anything.
‘G’day, how’re you going!’ she’d shouted, greeting everyone with hugs. ‘New blood! I love it. I’m Maddie. Welcome!’ She enveloped me in a huge hug and announced she was off to order enough cake to feed an army.
‘That’s nothing, I lived here for more than one year before any of Henrik’s friends spoke to me,’ Nadja laughed, and her baby mewled in protest. ‘For months I sat silently at dinners and parties wondering if I had b
ecome invisible.’
Maddie wallowed a mouthful of carrot cake. ‘Lena’s friends are great,’ she said, ‘and I get on with them really well now, but the first time she took me to a party — I guess I didn’t consciously think about the fact that I dexpected her to introduce me around until she didn’t. She just kind of wandered off and started chatting to someone, and I was like… guess I’m on my own then. And it was fine, because I don’t mind making a pest of myself and just barging into conversations. But you’re right, bless their little anti-social bums.’
‘They are lovely after a while,’ added Krista, changing her baby from one boob to the other. ‘A long while, but still.’
‘In my country,’ Jacob said, ‘when a new person joins, whether it is a community or a social gathering, it is natural for us to welcome them in. We say hello, who are you, this is us and this is what we are talking about. But this is not natural to Swedes. It is as though their conversation is a moving train and while the new person may be welcome to join, it is their responsibility to jump on the train, it will not be slowed down to allow them on. It is not cruelty or rudeness, it is just what is normal.’
‘Totally. This Liv you mentioned,’ Maddie added, pointing her fork at me. ‘Bet you dollars to doughnuts one of these days it will be like the sun coming out from behind a cloud and she will be the loveliest person you ever met. Loads of Lena’s friends, I honestly just figured they were mute or something, then all of a sudden then one day it was like where have you been, you beauty? It’s like an initiation, I swear — in fact, I bet you that’s it. I bet you they all got together and voted unanimously to ignore the new people for about six months to a year — and only if we were still around after that, they’d allow us into the inner sanctum of eye contact and smiling.’
I laughed. ‘I’m not sure I can imagine that with Liv just yet,’ I said. ‘But I’ll take your word for it.’ I tried to smile but my breath caught in my throat suddenly and for a horrible moment I thought I might cry or scream or something. I hadn’t told them the half of it. ‘It was just a bit — new and weird,’ I finished lamely.