by Jenny J
Then suddenly the photos stopped. The rest of the album was empty. Fifteen blank white pages without a single picture. As if life stopped there, at the divorce. And perhaps it did, in a way.
But Thomas? I picked up the photo and examined it. I examined Thomas, his creased laughing eyes, his dark curly hair. Who was he, this man I had never met or even heard about? Did my mum have secrets from me? Did she? That had never occurred to me. Suddenly I realised that I didn’t know very much about her, about her life on the days I wasn’t here. I had assumed they were more or less the same as the days I was here, but perhaps I was mistaken.
I had a sudden impulse. I looked around the room for her phone bedside table, window sill, bed. It wasn’t there. I whipped off the duvet and heard a thud. Her mobile. I picked it up from the floor and scrolled through her contact list again.
There it was.
Thomas.
No surname, just Thomas.
I hesitated for a split second and then I pressed call.
As taut as a wire and with the phone pressed hard to my ear, I stood there listening to the monotonous tones at the other end. I had no idea what I would do, no idea what I would say, if he answered. Thomas. I prodded my thumb and the pain immediately radiated through my hand and up my arm.
I needn’t have worried. After what seemed like an eternity I reached his voicemail.
“Hi. You’ve reached Thomas. Leave your name and number and I’ll call you back later. Ciao!”
There was a beep. I stood there in silence. Paralysed. “Ciao.” Who says “Ciao”, for God’s sake? I ought to say something but I said nothing and the seconds ticked by. There was another beep and the call was disconnected. I had waited too long. After a few moments of indecision I decided not to give up so easily. I phoned again. The ringing tones, the recorded message.
‘Hello. My name’s Maja. Um … I’m Jana’s daughter. You might know her? Jana Müller?’
I asked him to call me back, reeling off my number so fast that I muddled it up and had to start again. Then I rang off and went into the kitchen.
I drank a cup of her herb tea that smelt of hay, ate some cheese-flavoured rice cakes and even smoked one of the evil-smelling cigarillos I found in the cupboard above the cooker.
This is what Mum likes, I thought a moment later, as I uncontrollably threw up the tobacco-smelling, herb tea-soaked pieces of rice cake into the toilet, my head thrust deep between the white porcelain sides.
These foreign flavours were very familiar in her mouth. Or perhaps she had only bought the rice cakes on an impulse because they were cheap, or because she was distracted and picked up the wrong kind. Here I am, jumping to the wrong conclusions, I thought. Like an incompetent archaeologist.
What did I know?
What did I know about her?
What did I know about anything?
Nothing.
I wanted to stay there forever, there in the claustrophobic security of the toilet bowl, but I stood up. I very carefully stood up without any part of my head touching the inside of the toilet. Because I wasn’t a mental case. I certainly wasn’t that. I closed the lid and flushed the toilet, hanging over the lid like an alcoholic over a bar counter. I tore off some sheets of loo roll and wiped my mouth.
Oh well. Perhaps I had come to know her a bit better.
But I still didn’t understand why she had abandoned me.
After I had finished washing I heard my mobile upstairs. A text! Maybe from Mum!
I ran up the staircase in five leaps and threw myself onto the bed. It was from Enzo and that made me disappointed, but I was happy after I had read it. It reminded me of another life in another town, one where I had a parent close at hand and a friend. Where I wasn’t so alone.
Ahoy! Wot u doing? How’s yr thumb? How is Norrköping? Have to tell u: finally bought control! My unsawn-off fingers really want 2 open the wrapper n watch the film but course I’ll wait till u get home. Film nite monday? Say u can, pls! x E
I smiled, ran my fingers through my hair, noticed my bangs were wet and realised it was water from the toilet.
Aloha compadre! 2 answer yr questions a) I’m throwing up and b) my thumb hurts cos someone sawed the end off and c) Norrköping is … confusing. Luv 2 come Monday! So u can help me with my hair … x M
An Ice-cold Embrace. And a Warm One.
I had to get some air. It wasn’t easy, recovering from that cigarillo. The retching came in regular waves up from my stomach and into my throat. As I sat down on the outer steps and tried to push my feet into my trainers without using my left hand I saw a familiar head on the other side of the hedge.
Justin.
He waved. I stood up, walked down the steps and stopped on the bottom one, hesitating. I realised I hadn’t changed my clothes since yesterday. Mint green jogging bottoms are hardly subtle but at least I had taken off the braces.
‘Hello,’ he said breathlessly. His cheeks were red with exertion and his eyes a shiny ice-blue. His eyelashes were so pale you could hardly see them.
‘Hello … Justin,’ I said, and walked the few steps over the drive. It struck me again how tall he was.
‘I’m not called Justin,’ he said, smiling, and my cheeks began to glow and turn as red as his. I waited for him to tell me what he was called but he didn’t, and we were silent for a while. His breathing was the only thing that could be heard. Apart from everything else, such as the distant cars, the birds and my heart.
‘How’s it going?’ he asked.
He was wearing the same trousers as yesterday, just like me. Now we had something in common. I liked having something in common. They suited him, those pink trousers.
‘Yeah, good.’
‘And your foot?’
And I thought: foot? What flipping foot? He took a drag on the cigarette he was holding between his thumb and his index finger like a gangster. Then suddenly I remembered his face close to the sole of my foot and I went hot when I thought how much I had liked it being there. Which was perhaps weird.
‘Oh, my foot! Of course. Yeah, good, thanks,’ I said, and idiotically lifted up my foot only to swiftly put it down again. He kept looking at me. I smiled.
‘And how are you?’ I asked.
‘Good, good. I’ve tidied up. Couldn’t sleep.’
He dragged on his cigarette again and blew the smoke out in quick puffs.
‘I didn’t see you leave yesterday.’
‘No.’
He raised his eyebrows in surprise.‘I … I just went.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Is that what they do in Stockholm, then?’
‘No. Or … I don’t think so. I, um …’
He disappeared behind the hedge again and my ‘I …’ and my ‘um …’ were left hanging in the air like annoying insects. Through a gap in the hedge where the branches were sparser and the leaves fewer, I could see him stubbing out his cigarette with his shoe. I would have liked to take a photo just at that moment: the glowing cigarette stub, his white shoes, his reddish-blonde bangs, all filtered through that chlorophyll-green cover of leaves. When he popped up again above the bushes he was overtaken by a powerful fit of coughing and hid his face in the crook of his arm.
We stood there for a long time, each on our own side of the hedge, waiting for the coughing to die down. I wondered if it was a smoker’s cough or if he had a cold. When he had finished coughing he said:
‘I’ve got to go to the recycling.’
‘Oh, right.’
He nodded towards the cherry-red Volvo I had seen the day before.
‘My mum’ll be back soon and she’ll kill me if she sees all the bottles. Want to come with me?’
The question threw me.
‘Now?’
‘Yes.’
I looked at him, searching his face for a mocking smile and his eyes for a mysterious motive. It didn’t work. I saw nothing. Then again I’m not so good at interpreting mysterious motives. I shrugged.
He drove like a car thief and that was good: anything that made me think of something else was good. A kitsch Virgin Mary figure dangling from the rear view mirror swung violently with every powerful acceleration and sudden braking. We didn’t speak. The radio was playing de Blümchen’s manic Heit’ ist mein tag and I knew it would get lodged in my brain but I didn’t care.
We worked well together, him and me. Efficiently, like a team. He did the plastic and I did the glass.
I deliberately chose the glass and threw the bottles hard into the black opening. I heard them smash against each other. I got beer on my bandage and I didn’t want the noise to end, ever. I wanted to be surrounded by the deafening crashing, but the last bottle was approaching irrevocably and when that was also smashed the task was completed and everything went quiet.
‘Your mum might want to spend some time with you while you’re here?’ he said.
‘I don’t think so,’ I said bluntly.
He raised his eyebrows.
‘I don’t know why, but you are refreshingly straightforward somehow. And honest. Are you always like that?’
‘No,’ I said, in my refreshingly straightforward way, and he laughed.
‘I don’t feel like going home,’ he said. ‘It’s such nice weather. Do you want to have a go in a kayak?’ He happened to cough right in my face so that small warm spots of saliva sprayed my cheek. ‘Oh, sorry.’
I lifted my hand to wipe them away but he said:
‘Let me,’ and he smiled and stroked his sleeve and wrist against my cheek. His jacket sleeve was rough but his wrist was warm and soft. A few strands of hair from my bangs got caught in a button on his cuff and were ripped out, but I didn’t say anything. I just watched them trail after his hand like a long delicate veil.
Did he smile that nicely at everyone? Perhaps he did. I’m sure he did. But did it matter?
We drove to Lake Ågelsjö, a short distance outside Norrköping. He smoked in the car, something I hadn’t experienced since the last time I was in Germany five years ago, and. I had to breathe through my scarf or it would have been unbearable.
When he noticed what I was doing he wound down his window slightly and told me to do the same. That resulted in a fierce cross-draught which made it totally impossible to hear anything except the wind. We sat there in silence and froze, but at least I wasn’t being asphyxiated.
The area around the lake was covered in forest and very hilly. On its northern bank the rock face dropped vertically into the water, or so Justin told me, but I couldn’t see that from where we were standing.
The kayak was kept on a wooden frame beside a small hut covered in peeling blue-grey paint, and hidden under a huge military tarpaulin. Justin loosened a couple of rubber straps, stuffed them casually into his pockets and then pulled off the tarpaulin. It made a sound like thunder as it fell, creaking and heavy, to the ground. And there, underneath, was a dandelion-yellow one-man kayak. It was long, at least five or six metres. He lifted it up and began to carry it down to the water.
‘It looks like a big banana,’ I said, and he stopped, the kayak hanging heavily, his arms long and taut. I caught up with him and he smiled so beautifully at my stupid remark that I had to hug him. I hugged him tightly with my right arm, more carefully with the left, and then I ran my fingers through his red-blonde bangs. I shut my eyes and his hair felt remarkably soft, and then I hugged him outside his jumper before my fingers made their way inside and I felt that tense, warm, kayak-carrying body.
What the heck was I doing! He was too old for me! He was too old and he was too tall and most of all I didn’t know him. And anyway he wasn’t my type.
Who was I trying to kid? As if I had a type.
Eventually he groaned loudly, not from desire but from exertion because of the weight of the kayak. And I said:
‘Oh, the kayak. I’d forgotten.’
But of course I hadn’t.
You don’t forget that someone is standing there holding a flipping great bright yellow kayak.
I took my hands away but didn’t exactly know what to do with them, so I let them hang uselessly at my sides. He gave me an odd look, kind of squinting, but he said nothing. My cheeks grew warm and I didn’t know what was happening to me. Perhaps I was going insane and I didn’t want to think this but I did think it: perhaps it’s hereditary.
Insane?
Or just a little bit in love?
He carried his awkward yellow burden down the bumpy slope towards the water and I said something about not intending to paddle because it wouldn’t work with my thumb anyway, but he just gave a loud sniff and grunted and I couldn’t interpret that. I wasn’t used to talking to people while they were carrying out physical work. I was hardly even used to physical contact, come to that. He gently lowered the kayak into the water and anchored it with the help of the rubber straps.
Then he climbed carefully into the kayak as it swayed.
‘It’s a sea kayak,’ he said, and because I didn’t know what to do with that information I kept my mouth shut.
He showed me how to sit with my back straight back and my legs slightly bent. He showed me how to paddle, how you use your whole body and your stomach muscles and even your legs. He explained all this as the sky clouded over above us. He showed me how to keep my balance too, and I resisted. I didn’t want to. I couldn’t. I didn’t dare. And, to be honest, how would it work with a thumb that was exploding with pain?
Then he said:
‘If a boat comes past, don’t be scared if there are a lot of high waves. All you have to do is paddle straight towards them, towards the waves. Put all your effort into it and just paddle right towards them.’
And for some unfathomable reason, that appealed to me, that one particular thing. Quickly I pressed four painkillers from the blister pack and a moment later I found myself standing close to him in a neon-orange life jacket with a dangling whistle as he tied a transparent plastic bag around my left hand to protect the bandage. He helped me into the kayak with his arm around my waist and everything started spinning when he did that – either that or the fact that the kayak was “rank”, as he called it.
At first the kayak did more or less as it wanted, and I found it hard to hold the paddle with my damaged thumb and with my hand in that slippery bag. It was hurting like mad but after a while I worked out how to steer and discovered the kayak was not going to tip over as easily as I had thought. Justin yelled loudly that I was a natural and his voice echoed between the rocks. I didn’t believe him but I smiled when he wasn’t watching and paddled determinedly into the waves.
The water shone like a mirror, reflecting the mottled grey from the clouds overhead. It was as still as night time and all I heard was my own paddling and my breath. I saw the drops from the paddle form small rings that spread out across the water. I paddled past a jetty, a tree whose branches rested on the surface of the water, and a boathouse painted red. I stroked the green and cloudy water with my uninjured hand, and in return the wetness enveloped it in an ice-cold embrace. I didn’t see or hear anyone else. There were no other boats, no people. The kayak glided slowly on past a small island with a rocky shoreline and scrawny pines. There were big yellow water lilies on long stalks that went all the way down to the lake bed. I tried to pull one up but it was attached so firmly the kayak started to rock so I let go.
I thought of nothing. Felt nothing. No pain. No longing.
I stopped paddling and closed my eyes. I breathed and glided, leaned back and looked up at the sky where the light grey clouds made a ceiling.
Are You Okay?
‘Where is your mum?’ asked Justin, as he drove up the driveway to his parents’ house.
He turned the key and the car fell silent, but not the radio. A cover of Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal was playing, but twice as fast and with rock-hard drums and bass.
Annie are you ok
So Annie are you ok
Are you ok Annie
‘I don’t know,’ I said truthfully.
‘You don’t know?’
‘No.’
‘Do you know when she’s coming home?’
‘No.’
Annie are you ok
So Annie are you ok
Are you ok Annie
He turned to face me, letting his hand brush my arm. A tingling caress. I looked at it, that hand. The broad back, the long fingers, the black-edged nails. Why was he touching me? Why did he care? Was it brotherly? Was a sexual invitation? Then suddenly I remembered who had touched who down at the lake. Who had invited who.
‘I … I’m sorry for that … down at the lake … touching … hugging you. When you were carrying the kayak.’
He gave a laugh and threw his head back. I presume he wanted to emphasise how little it meant to him, but it looked a bit exaggerated, as if he had just suffered a whiplash. His arm slid kind of unnoticed from my arm.
‘It’s cool,’ he said. ‘I’m used to it. Not.’
He cleared his throat and turned away, looking out of the window on his side of the car. I looked at him sideways. He blushed. I smiled to myself. There was something uplifting about it. There was something uplifting about the fact that I had managed to make him embarrassed.
He cleared his throat again, and then he coughed. At first it sounded theatrical but it led to a real attack of coughing with running eyes and a throat full of phlegm. Now it was my turn to look away. I might have enjoyed making him embarrassed but there was a limit. When the attack was over he blew his nose in a paper napkin that he pulled out of his jacket pocket. With his face hidden in the napkin he said: