Many people had gone home, but Simon was still standing in the sour-smelling ashes, contemplating the ruins and meditating on the transience of all things.
You have a house. Then you don't have a house.
Just one little match or a spark in the wrong place. That's all it took for everything you had walked around in for so many years, everything you had made beautiful and kept secure, to go up in smoke. A careless word or a glimpse of something you shouldn't have seen, and the web of life you had taken for granted was ripped up and scattered in pieces before your eyes.
The rug is pulled from under your feet.
You really can see it: the oblong rag rug you are walking on, but what's that figure down there at the end? Is it a devil or an angel? Or just a little old man in a grey suit, a tiresome individual who has been waiting for his chance? At any rate, he's holding the end of the rug in his hands. And he is patient, very patient. He can wait.
But if you lose your balance, if for some reason you are found wanting, then he gives the rug a quick tug. It's pure magic as your feet leave the ground and for a brief moment you hover, horizontal, the tips of your toes in line with your nose. Then the ground comes up to meet you with a crash and it hurts.
Simon pushed his hands deep in his trouser pockets and walked over to the remains of the house. There was a squelching sound from underfoot, and the smell of ash was suffocating. He had no particular relationship with the house that had burnt down, had never even been inside it. And yet it was as if it meant something.
He had had a confusing day and perhaps he was feeling oversensitive, but he had definitely had enough of looking at things that happened on Domarö as isolated incidents with no internal connection, he'd been deceived—
Yes. Deceived.
—for long enough. The sooty sludge beneath his feet squelched and slurped around his feet as he waded through. The firemen had said that the way the fire had started definitely sounded suspicious, but it wasn't their job to investigate. The police would take over when it was daylight.
Despite the risk that he might be destroying important clues, Simon carried on ploughing through the mess until it thinned out and stopped a couple of metres before he reached the well. That was where he'd been heading, although he hadn't been aware of it.
It was an old well. A circular wall a metre high, made of stones cemented together, with the well itself covered by a wooden lid. The older construction with its winding mechanism, chain and bucket was still there for decoration. A thick plastic hose emerged from a hole in the lid, and presumably had been attached to a pump inside the house. Now the hose was burnt off a few metres from the well.
Simon moved the lid slightly and looked down into the darkness.
What am I doing?
He didn't know. Just as he didn't know why he'd come here at all. There was just something.. .drawing him. He closed one hand around the matchbox and waited.
Nothing. It's nothing.
He felt something, but he couldn't put his finger on what it was. It was just a feeling, a breath of something vanished, the ripples on the water after a fish has surfaced, but the fish itself is already far away.
But still he unhooked the bucket and used the chain to lower it into the well. After perhaps five metres it reached the surface down below. When he hauled it up it was half full of clear water. He cupped his hands and drank a mouthful, first cleaning the cut on his hand which had already begun to heal.
Salt.
It wasn't unusual for a certain amount of salt to find its way into wells so close to the sea. If they'd asked him he wouldn't have advised them to dig just here, but there was nothing to be done about that now. He hung the bucket back in its place. The feeling grew neither stronger nor weaker, it was simply there like a faint aroma, and he didn't know what it was.
He took a step back and looked at the well.
What a pity.
What a pity that such a fine old well would no longer have a house to belong to. He turned to look at the devastation once again and caught sight of a person standing where he had been standing a little while ago. The starlight was not bright enough to see who it was, so he raised an arm in greeting. The greeting was returned.
When he got closer he could see that it was Anna-Greta, standing waiting for him. His body stiffened, he replaced his apologetic expression with one of rebuff, and squelched with the greatest possible dignity the last few metres through the ash porridge.
Anna-Greta looked amused. 'What are you doing?'
'Nothing. I was just thirsty, that's all.'
Anna-Greta pointed to the public tap at the crossroads a dozen metres away. 'Wouldn't it have been easier to...?'
'Never thought about it,' said Simon, walking past her. He carried on towards home as quickly as he could, but Anna-Greta's legs were considerably more sprightly and she had no difficulty in catching up with him. She appeared by his side and switched on her torch to light the way for them both.
'Are you angry?' she asked.
'No. Disappointed, mostly.'
'Why?'
'Why do you think?'
They reached the track between the fir trees and Simon was forced to slow down. His heart didn't want to run away from Anna-Greta. His physical heart, for heaven's sake. He didn't know where he was with the other one. But it was certainly an insight worth acquiring at death's door: he couldn't run away from Anna-Greta even if he wanted to. She was simply too fast.
A hundred metres inside the forest he stopped to catch his breath. Anna-Greta stood calmly beside him, shining her torch along the track. There was no one else around.
'Let me put it this way,' said Anna-Greta. 'It was for your own good that I didn't tell you anything.'
Simon snorted. 'How long have we been together? Almost fifty years? How could you.. .Are there more things you haven't told me?'
'Yes.'
The admission should have surprised him, but Simon knew Anna- Greta. She told it like it was, even if it was inappropriate. That was precisely what made all this so difficult to swallow: the idea that perhaps he hadn't known her at all, not really.
'Well, let me tell you something,' said Simon. 'I was married once, and do you know what Marita said about the fact that she was on drugs? That she hadn't told me about it for my own good. So you could probably say I'm allergic to that particular argument.'
'It's not the same thing.'
'But I think it is, you see. And I find it incredibly difficult to accept it. I'm not sure I want to be with you anymore, Anna-Greta. I don't think I do.'
Simon had been bending over, his hands resting on his thighs. He pushed himself upright and set off into the darkness. Anna-Greta's torch was not following him. He had a lump in his stomach and wasn't looking where he was going, but at least it had been said. Now he must take the consequences, whatever that involved. He couldn't live with someone who lied like that.
The forest was pitch dark and he had to go carefully to avoid falling in the ditch again. The circle of light from the torch was still fixed on his retina, and he stopped and waited for it to disappear. He looked back along the track and saw that the real torch was lying on the ground, illuminating Anna-Greta's legs; she was lying next to it.
Simon opened his mouth to shout something, but nothing suitable emerged.
That's not fair. That's not a clean fight.
He clamped his jaws together. He had made the situation perfectly clear, explained how he felt. And then she did this. It was disgraceful, it was...Simon peered at the figure on the ground and wrung his hands.
Surely something hasn't really happened to her?
Anna-Greta was in good health, and was hardly likely to have a heart attack or a brain haemorrhage just because she'd been rejected. Or was she? Simon looked along the track in the direction of the old village. What if that moped came back? She couldn't just lie there like that.
Why is she lying there like that?
With the taste of lead in his mouth, Simon
hurried back to Anna- Greta, guided by the glow of her torch. When he was a couple of metres away from her he could see that she was alive, because her body was shaking. She was weeping. Simon went and stood next to her.
'Anna-Greta, stop it. We're not teenagers. Don't do this.'
Anna-Greta sobbed and curled herself into a tighter ball. Simon could feel his own eyes burning, the tears welling up, and he angrily dashed them away.
Not fair.
He couldn't bear to see her like this, this obstinate, strong woman he had loved for so long, couldn't bear to see her lying on the forest track like a helpless, snivelling bundle. He had never imagined that something he said would provoke such a reaction. He had a lump in his throat, the tears were flowing, and he didn't bother wiping them away.
'Come on,' he said. 'Come on, Anna-Greta. Up you get.'
Between sobs Anna-Greta said, 'You're not. To say. That. You're not. To say. That you. Don't want. To be. With me.'
'No,' said Simon. 'I won't. Now come on.'
He reached out his hand to help her up, but she didn't see it. Simon didn't think he could manage to bend down and lift her up; there was a risk they'd both end up on the ground.
He had never been involved in anything like this. Not with Anna- Greta. She could be terrible if they had a quarrel, then cry for a while when it was over, but he had never seen her in utter despair like this. On the other hand he had never said, even hinted, that he wanted them to split up.
He waved his hand in front of her face. 'Come on. I'll help you.'
Anna-Greta snivelled up snot, her breathing slowed a little and she relaxed. Her breaths were slow but panting, and she lay quiet for a while. Then she asked, 'Do you want to be with me?'
Simon closed his eyes and rubbed them. This whole performance was just ridiculous. They were adults, more than adults. To think that everything could come full circle and end up with the simplest and most basic of questions, the one that should have been resolved decades ago.
But it hasn't been resolved, has it. Perhaps it never will be.
'Yes,' he said. 'Yes, I do. But now you need to get up. You're going to be ill if you lie there like that.'
She took his hand but didn't get up, she simply let her hand rest in his, caressing his palm with the tips of her fingers. 'Sure?'
Simon smiled and shook his head. For a couple of seconds he walked through the labyrinth of rooms in his heart, and was unable to find anywhere the feeling that had told him he wanted to leave her, never wanted to see her again. It was gone, as if it had never existed.
Nothing to be done. It's over.
'I'm sure,' he said, and helped her to her feet. Anna-Greta crept into his arms and they stood and held each other for so long that by the time they let go, the light of the torch had begun to fade from white to yellow. It was over.
For this time, thought Simon. They took each other's hands and found their way home by the fading glow of the torch. Both were exhausted by the unfamiliar storms of emotion, and their hearts were aching with the unaccustomed exercise. They held hands and that was conversation enough, but once they had emerged from the forest, Simon said, 'I want to know.'
Anna-Greta squeezed his hand.
'I'll tell you.'
When they were back in Anna-Greta's house they flopped on the sofa for a while, regaining their strength. It was as if they were shy, and found it difficult to look each other in the eye. Every time it happened they smiled hesitantly at one another.
Like teenagers,
thought Simon. Teenagers on Mum and Dad's sofa.
Perhaps teenagers didn't behave like that nowadays, but to keep the analogy consistent Simon went into the kitchen and fetched a bottle of wine. To lighten the atmosphere. Loosen tongues and.. .make things happen.
Not like
that, though, no thank you. That would just he...
He paused with the corkscrew halfway to the cork. Was it three days ago he and Anna-Greta last made love? It felt like much longer. But the fact they were behaving like teenagers didn't mean their bodies were singing from the same sheet.
The cork was stuck. Simon pulled as hard as he could, and realised that wasn't actually all that hard.
As I said...
He took the bottle in to Anna-Greta, who sat up, pushed the bottle firmly between her thighs and managed to extract the cork. As if to excuse Simon, she said, 'It was stuck pretty firmly.'
Simon sank down on to the sofa. 'Mm.'
Anna-Greta poured and they both took a sip, rolled the wine around their mouths and swallowed. The unaccustomed taste remained on his tongue, and Simon sighed with pleasure. He didn't often drink wine these days. He gave Anna-Greta a challenging look; she put down her glass and rested her hands on her knee.
'Where shall I start?'
'Start with the question I asked you. Why didn't people move away, why don't people move away? And what did you mean when you said you didn't tell me for my own good? Why has no one—'
Anna-Greta raised her hand to stop him. She picked up her glass again, took a tiny sip, then ran her finger round the rim.
'In a way it's the same question,' she said. 'If I tell you this, you won't be able to move away from here either.' She glanced out at the dark sea. Although it's probably already happened. You probably can't leave.'
Simon tilted his head on one side. 'Like I said. I have no intention of going anywhere. You don't need to scare me into staying.'
Anna-Greta gave a wan smile. 'It comes looking for us. If we try to leave this island, there is a considerable risk that it will come looking for us.'
'"It"', Simon interrupted. 'What do you mean by "it"?'
'The sea. It comes looking for us and it takes us. Wherever we are.'
Simon shook his head dubiously. 'But you go to Norrtälje, you go to Stockholm sometimes. We go over to Finland on the ferry, you and I. It's all been fine, up to now.'
'Mm. But you've suggested going further afield now and again. To Majorca, places like that. And I've said no, because.. .then it might think I'm trying to get away.'
Anna-Greta licked her index finger, ran it around the rim of the glass and produced a sound. A lonely, wailing sound rose from the glass and spread through the room like the voice of a ghost. A perfect note, so pure and clear that it seemed to strengthen itself by using the air as a sound-box. Simon placed his hand on Anna-Greta's finger to silence it.
'But this sounds crazy,' he said. 'You mean the sea goes ashore and finds you? That just doesn't happen.'
'It doesn't need to,' said Anna-Greta. 'It exists everywhere. It's connected to everything. The sea. The water. It doesn't need to go anywhere. It already exists everywhere.'
Simon took a bigger swig of wine. He thought back to the experience he had had the previous day. When he held Spiritus in his hand and saw how the water ran through everything, how everything basically consisted of water. Now he widened the perspective in his mind, and saw all the seas connected by rivers, creeks, streams. The veins of water running through the bedrock, the bogs and the pools. Water, water, everywhere.
It's right so far, hut...
'I'm just wondering what you mean by "take". How does it "take" you?'
'We drown. In the most unreasonable places. In a little creek. In a puddle. In a handbasin.' Simon frowned and was about to ask the logical follow-up question, but Anna-Greta pre-empted him, 'No. I have no idea how it happens. Nobody has. But those who...belong to Domarö and try to get away.. .they are found drowned, sooner or later. Usually. Those who stay, survive. Usually.'
Simon placed his hand on top of Anna-Greta's, which was still resting on the rim of her glass. 'But this just sounds completely—'
'It doesn't matter what it sounds like. That's the way it is. We know that. And now you know it too. To use a word that has fallen out of use, we are damned. And we live with it.'
Simon folded his arms over his chest and flopped back against the sofa. It was a lot to take in at once, to put it mildly. The ans
wers he had been given led to even more questions, and he didn't feel as if he could cope with much more tonight. The small amount of wine he had drunk was enough to make him sleepy, since he wasn't used to it.
He closed his eyes and tried to see everything in front of him. The fishermen who had made their pact with the sea, how it had continued and propagated itself over the years, continued and spread like the sea itself, seeping into every crack.
Seeping into...
Harbour Page 27