He smacked his lips as he thought about the water he had drunk from the well at the burnt-down house. The faint taste of salt, the sea that had found its way in. The taste was gone now, replaced by the biting sweetness of the wine. Without opening his eyes, Simon asked, 'Do I belong to Domarö as well now? Am I also...damned?'
'Presumably. But only you can know that.'
'How do I know?'
'You just know.'
Simon nodded slowly and took a sounding in the very depths of himself, let the plumbline sink down through the darkness, the unspoken, the things he knew without being able to put them into words, and found that he reached the bottom sooner than expected. The knowledge was there, but he had not had the tools to find it. He belonged to the sea. He also belonged to the sea. Perhaps he had done so for a long time.
'Something has happened,' said Anna-Greta. 'That's what we met to talk about today. This business with Sigrid. As far as we know, no one has ever.. .come back.'
'But she was dead.'
'Yes, but even so. It's never happened before.'
'So what does it mean?'
Anna-Greta stroked his knee. 'Well, that's what we were discussing. When we were interrupted.'
Simon yawned. He tried to put into words one of the many questions writhing around in his head like indolent serpents, but before he managed it Anna-Greta said, 'There's something I want to ask you as well.'
'Oh yes?'
Simon yawned again, he just couldn't help it. He waved his hand in front of his mouth to indicate that he would have taken away this yawn if he could, but it just wasn't possible.
Anna-Greta tucked her legs up on the sofa and wrapped her arms around them. Simon sat there blinking, amazed at her suppleness and agility as she built her own little fortress around her like this. It must be fifteen years since he'd been able to do that, if then.
She leaned her chin on her knees and looked intently at him. Then she asked, 'Will you marry me?'
Despite his best efforts Simon was overcome by yet another enormous yawn which broke his eye contact with Anna-Greta. He held up his hands as if to say No more, no more, and said, 'That. Is the limit when it comes to what I can cope with during the course of one day. We can talk about that tomorrow.'
What are you looking at?
Anders woke to an unfamiliar aroma, unfamiliar sounds. The aroma was coffee, the sounds were someone moving around in the kitchen, opening drawers and cupboards. He lay in bed for a while and pretended that everything was normal. That the person who had made the coffee and was busy in the kitchen was someone he loved and wanted to be with. That it was another beautiful morning in a good life.
He folded his hands over his stomach and looked out of the window. A cloudy sky with patches of blue, a lovely and probably quite cold day in the middle of October. The smell of coffee was tempting, and he heard the clink of china from the kitchen.
Cecilia is making breakfast. Maja is sitting at the kitchen table, busy with something. I am lying here, ready and rested in...Maja's bed...
The fantasy was fraying at the edges. The dirt in his body after yet another evening's drinking and smoking made its presence felt. He looked at his fingers. They were slightly yellow, black beneath the cuticles, and they stank of tobacco. His mouth felt sticky and he leaned over the edge of the bed, found a plastic bottle a third full of diluted wine. He picked it up and drank, hair of the dog.
OK. Back to reality.
The excitement of the previous evening had faded. What Elin had told him about Henrik and Björn's disappearance had seemed feverishly promising at the time, but in the cold light of morning he could see that this wasn't necessarily the case. The two events were separate. There wasn't necessarily any connection, and even if there was, what could he do? Nothing.
He heaved himself out of bed. The floor was cold beneath his bare feet, and he pulled on cold socks and a cold T-shirt. The headache began to pound at his temples. He dragged on his jeans and went into the kitchen.
Elin was just putting bread and cheese on the table. She looked up and said 'Good morning'. In the bright morning light from the kitchen window she looked fucking awful. He grunted in reply and got a new carton of wine out of the larder, opened it and took a couple of big gulps. Elin was watching him. He didn't care. The headache was getting worse and he screwed up his eyes, massaged his temples.
'You've got a pretty big problem with alcohol, haven't you?' she said simply.
Anders grinned as a quip he'd heard from a stand-up comic shot out of his mouth, 'I'm a drunk and you're ugly. I can stop drinking.'
Silence fell, and that was the way Anders wanted it. He poured himself a cup of coffee and looked at the clock. It was after eleven. He had slept longer than usual. Despite Elin's escape attempt during the night, perhaps her presence had given the room some kind of security that had enabled him to sleep.
He took a couple more swigs of coffee and glanced at her. The headache was easing slightly and his conscience pricked as he saw her sitting there breaking a cheese sandwich into tiny pieces so that she could get it into her mouth. He wanted to say something, but while there are plenty of nasty, smart-arse remarks, the kind that can put something right are harder to come by.
He finished off his coffee and was about to pour her a cup when it occurred to him that she probably wouldn't be able to drink something that hot. She'd made it for him. He put the cup on the draining board and said, 'Thanks for the coffee. That was kind of you.'
Elin nodded and took a cautious sip of juice from her glass. The wounds must have healed a little, since she didn't need to use a straw. What she had done to her face was incomprehensible. She was thirty- six, like him, but was starting to look like a sixty-year-old who'd had a difficult life.
'I'm going to check the post,' said Anders.
He hurried out of the kitchen and pulled on his Helly Hansen top, fleeing the agonising desolation that lay like a fog around Elin.
Down below the porch stood the GB-man, wrapped in the plastic sack. He couldn't understand why it had frightened him so much. He picked it up and carried it over to the woodpile, where he kicked it and made it fall over.
'Not so fucking tough now, are you?' he said to the prone figure, which had nothing to say in its defence.
The air was clear and cold, the demons of the night were dispersing. He looked with satisfaction at the well-filled wood store, pushed his hands into his pockets and set off towards the village. It was as if he had two different states. One which was comparatively clear and lucid and could chop wood, think sensible thoughts, and was on the way up. And then there was the other, the night side, which was in the process of getting lost in a labyrinthine darkness of fear and speculation, and was on the way down.
At least it's a fight,
he thought. In the city there was nothing hut apathy.
That's how he chose to see it at the moment, at any rate, as he approached the shop with his work-worn hands in his pockets. When the rays of the sun broke through the cloud cover at irregular intervals and made the sea sparkle, when he was in the light of the new day. When the night came no doubt everything would look very different.
He opened the old mailbox he had been given by Simon, expecting to find nothing as usual, but today there was a yellow envelope in the box. The films. The pictures had been developed.
He weighed the envelope in his hand. It was thinner and lighter than usual, because he had only taken a few pictures before his photography stopped for good. But they were in there. The last pictures. He picked at the flap of the envelope and looked around. Not a soul in sight. He ripped it open.
He didn't want to go home because Elin was there, he wanted to be in peace with this moment. He sat down on the steps of the shop and pulled the smaller folder out of the envelope, weighing that in his hand as well. How many pictures were there? Ten? Eleven? He couldn't remember. He took a deep breath and carefully fished out the little bundle of photographs.
My darling..
.
First of all a couple of bad pictures of the Shack, and then there they were, on the way up to the lighthouse. Maja in her red suit, ploughing ahead through the snow, Cecilia right behind her, straight- backed despite the difficult terrain underfoot. There they were in front of the lighthouse, side by side with rosy cheeks. Cecilia's hand on Maja's shoulder, Maja pulling away, off somewhere else as usual.
More photographs of the two of them in front of the lighthouse, the two people he had cared about most in all the world, both gone. Different degrees of zoom, the hands in different positions. Pictures from a distance, head and shoulders, close-ups. Maja up by the reflector.
A lump formed in Anders' throat, and he found it difficult to breathe. How could they be gone? How could they have ceased to exist for him, when he was sitting here holding them in his hands? How could that be?
The tears began to fall; a screw was boring its way through his chest. He lowered the pictures and let it happen. He wrapped his arms around himself and thought: If there was a way...
If there was a way, a machine, a method of releasing people from photographs. Of capturing those frozen moments and thawing them out, making them real and bringing them back into the world. He nodded to himself as the tears continued to flow and the screw was twisted around and around.
'It ought to be possible,' he mumbled. 'It ought to be possible...'
He sat like that until the pain began to subside and the tears had dried. Then he looked at the photographs one by one, running his finger over the two-dimensional faces that would never be his again.
That's funny...
He flicked back and forth through the pile. Maja wasn't looking into the camera in one single picture. Cecilia was gazing obediently into the lens every time, in one she had even managed a beaming smile. But Maja...
Her eyes were looking away, and in a couple of pictures it wasn't only her eyes. Her whole face was turned to the left. To the east.
Anders studied the pictures more closely and could see that in every picture her eyes seemed to be fixed on a particular point. Even when she was directly facing the camera, in the close-up for example, her pupils were drawn to the left.
He lowered the bundle of photographs and stared straight ahead, open-mouthed. He remembered. Up in the lighthouse. How she had pointed and...
Daddy, what's that?
What do you mean?
There. On the ice.
Far away in the distance Gåvasten was no more than a diffuse elevation in the grey-blue sea. With his index fingers and thumbs Anders made a small diamond-shaped hole, and looked through it to sharpen his focus. The contours of Gåvasten became slightly clearer, but he couldn't see anything in particular.
What was it she saw?
He got up from the steps, pushed the photographs in his pocket, and strode purposefully home. He had a job to do.
Anders walked around the upturned boat, looking at it from a more pragmatic point of view. Yes, it looked scruffy, but could it serve its purpose: to stay afloat, and to carry an engine that would get him to Gåvasten?
The weakest element from a practical point of view was the mounting for the engine. The metal plate in the stern had virtually fallen to bits with rust, and if you tried to attach an engine to it, it would probably fall into the sea. Anders studied the construction. With a couple of bolts through the whole thing, the metal plate could be reinforced with a piece of wood. It wasn't a complicated job, but the boat would have to be turned over so that he could get at it.
He went up to the house and asked Elin to help. It was hard work, but eventually they managed to tip the boat up so that it was balanced, and Anders was able to go round to the other side to take the weight and break the fall as it landed the right way up.
Elin looked at the cracked seat, the splits around the rowlocks and the fringes of fibreglass along the broken gunwale. Are you intending to go out in this?'
'If the engine works, yes. What are you going to do?'
'About what?'
'About everything. Your life. What are you going to do?'
Elin tore off a couple of wormwood leaves and crushed them between her fingers, sniffed at them and pulled a face. Anders glimpsed a movement behind her, and saw that Simon was heading towards them. When Elin caught sight of him she whispered, 'Don't tell him it's me. If he asks. I can't...'
She had no time to say any more before Simon reached them. 'So,' he said, nodding towards the boat. 'Are you off to sea?'
'Yes.'
Simon turned to Elin and gave a start. He stood there frowning for a couple of seconds, staring at her face. Then he held out his hand.
'Hello. Simon.'
He continued to stare at Elin's face as if he were trying to remember something. Anders couldn't understand his reaction. OK, Elin looked ghastly, but Simon's behaviour was downright rude, and not like him at all. If you bumped into a person whose face was scarred from severe burns, for example, you didn't stand there gawping at them like that.
Simon seemed to realise this himself; he let go of Elin's hand, smoothed away his stunned expression and asked, 'So, are you...'
Elin didn't stop to listen to the question, but excused herself and went back up to the house. Simon watched her go. Then he turned to Anders. 'Is she a friend of yours?'
'Yes. Or...it's a long story.'
Simon nodded and waited for Anders to continue. When he didn't oblige, Simon contemplated the boat instead and said, 'This doesn't look too good.'
'No, but I think she'll float.'
'And what about the engine?'
'Don't know. I haven't tried it.'
'You're welcome to borrow my boat if you need it, you know that.'
'I want something of my own. But thanks.'
Simon clasped his hands together and walked around the boat, saying 'Hmm' to himself at regular intervals. He stopped beside Anders and rubbed his hands over his cheeks. It was obvious he had something to say. He cleared his throat, but it wouldn't come out. He tried again, and this time things went better.
'There was something I wanted to ask you.'
'Ask away.'
Simon took a deep breath. 'If Anna-Greta and I were to...if we were to get married. What would you think about that?'
Simon looked deeply worried. Something burst out of Anders' chest and for a fraction of a second he didn't know what it was, he was so unused to the feeling, but it was a laugh. 'You're going to get married'? Now?'
'Well, we're thinking about it, yes.'
'What about all that business of not knowing another person?'
'I think we'd better regard that as...somewhat exaggerated.'
Anders looked up at Anna-Greta's house as if he expected to see her standing up there, anxiously eavesdropping. He didn't get it. 'Why are you asking me about this? What do you want?'
Simon scratched his head and looked embarrassed. 'Well, I want to, of course, but I mean it's also a question of...I mean, I'd inherit everything, if she were to die before me. Which doesn't seem particularly likely, but...'
Anders placed his hand on Simon's shoulder. 'I'm sure we can get something in writing. Something that says I can keep the Shack. If it comes to that. I'm not bothered about anything else.'
'That's OK with you? Are you sure?'
'Simon, it's more than OK. It's the first piece of good news I've heard in a long, long time, and...' Anders took a step forward and gave Simon a hug. 'Congratulations. It's about time, to say the least.'
When Simon had gone, Anders stood with his hands in his pockets for a long time, staring at the boat without thinking about the boat. For once his internal organs felt warm and easy to carry. He wanted to hang on to that feeling.
When he went up to the timber store after a while, he discovered that he could take the feeling with him. It stayed with him while he cut a piece of treated wood, lingered as he drilled holes in it and fixed it to the stern.
Will there be a wedding?
He hadn't asked Simon if
they were planning a proper wedding in the church at Nåten, or if they were planning to have it at home, or just a civil ceremony. They probably hadn't thought about it themselves either, since nothing was decided yet.
Who proposed to whom ?
He just couldn't picture it, how it had happened or what had led to it. But it was fun to think about it. The feeling remained with him.
It was only when he had nailed a plank between two trees, hauled the engine on to it and connected a pressure tank that the usual gloom began to take over once again. The engine wasn't co-operating. He pumped up the petrol, pulled out the choke and yanked at the starter until his arm started to go numb. Nothing.
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