The Merman

by Carl-Johan Vallgren

  I opened the door to the pantry, but there were only empty bottles in there – dozens of them on every shelf. The fridge was bare as well, with the exception of a few cans of beer and a bottle of gin, which, amazingly, lay untouched in the freezer compartment.

  I found half a loaf of white bread in the bread bin; there was always something. There was a tin of tuna in a drawer. I made two sandwiches for Robert and one for me and took them into the living room.

  Robert was sitting curled up in a corner of the sofa, smiling at something on TV.

  ‘What are you watching?’ I asked.

  ‘A nature programme. About unusual sea animals. Giant squid and stuff. And some species that people thought were extinct until some fishermen caught them in a net near Australia... Is Mum asleep?’

  ‘I guess so. Looks like she was partying pretty hard.’

  ‘Nice. That means we don’t have to see her.’

  The TV room was just as desolate as usual. We didn’t have any pictures on the walls, not even any potted plants in the window Just an old sofa and a coffee table that had been there as long as I could remember, and then the TV and the stereo, each standing on a soft-drink crate on the floor.

  There was another Parador bottle by the radiator. There were fresh burn marks on the lino; she had put out her fag ends right on the floor. Two days earlier I had cleaned and tidied the whole apartment, apart from the kitchen. And that morning, when we left for school, it had still looked habitable. I wondered how she was capable of trashing the place so much in a single day, and still having time to take care of her errands in town, cash her cheque and go to the off-licence.

  When I went upstairs, the bedroom door was shut. I could hear her snoring inside; a rattling sound like from a dentist’s suction tube.

  She had been in my room. If only I had realised what was going on that morning I would have locked the door and taken the key with me. She had gone through everything. The desk drawers had been pulled out. The chair was overturned. Books were lying every which way in the bookcase. The basket of old scavenged toys had been emptied onto the floor; a few dolls with their hair cut off, a Barbie doll, my collection of Smurfs. She had even pawed through my knicker drawer. Then, when she hadn’t found anything, or had maybe heard the postman coming with the cheque from the social, she had left without even closing the door behind her. I felt around behind the radiator: the envelope was still there, securely taped to the wall. My life savings were in there: three hundred kronor. I was going to need it in the near future.

  I went into the bedroom. Mum lay curled up at the foot of the bed, fully dressed. Her lipstick was smeared across her cheek. An extinguished cigarette was gripped between two fingers. She was wearing her red coat from the discount superstore. That was where we bought our clothes. A couple of times a year she managed to save up enough to take the bus out to Ullared and go shopping. Jeans of unknown origin. Winter clothes. A few sweaters and jumpers; hardly what you could call stylish. That required her to stay sober for a while and to set aside a little money. Otherwise another six months could pass before the next shopping trip, and in that time we would have grown out of the clothes we had and would have to go round in trousers and sweaters that were too short, looking ridiculous.

  There was a framed portrait of me and my brother on the bedside table. It had been taken shortly after we moved here. I was six and Robert was four. We actually looked quite happy at that moment. We were standing in the street outside the house, me in a denim skirt and T-shirt, Robert in a pair of shorts and a light blue shirt. I can’t remember who took the photo. Maybe it was Mum? But if it was her, with whose camera? As far as I knew, we had never owned one. Other families have photo albums and movies where you can follow the children’s lives through birthdays, holidays and confirmations. But not ours. It’s as if they’ve always been uninterested in their memories. As if life has been too dirty, too sad, and that’s why they chose to rub out the past.

  There was an envelope sticking out from underneath the picture on the bedside table. I could see what it was: a letter from Dad.

  When I came down into the kitchen, Robert was sitting in a chair, leafing through a comic book.

  ‘Finished watching TV?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing interesting on. Only kids’ shows. I’m too old for that stuff. How’s she doing?’

  ‘Sleeping like a log, with her clothes on.’

  ‘She could at least have tidied up a bit after herself. Look at the state of this place.’

  He looked over to the sink in disgust and then out of the window.

  ‘That was so weird in that TV show,’ he said. ‘There’s loads of fish and animals that live way down in the ocean. I mean really, really far down, a few kilometres down, where there’s hardly any light.’

  ‘In deep-sea trenches.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what they’re called. And humans don’t even know they exist. There might be hundreds of species we haven’t discovered yet. And then I thought if we don’t even know what’s in our own seas, it might be the same everywhere.’

  It felt best to let him carry on. I began cleaning up as he went on, emptying the ashtray, clearing away the bottles, running water into the sink.

  ‘I mean, there might be a whole load of other creatures out there we haven’t discovered yet. Even invisible ones. Or maybe I’m the only one who can see them. Just imagine, Nella... Imagine if one of them tapped on my window at night. And then I’d bring him along to school, even though I was the only one who could see him, and he’d protect me even though nobody noticed.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘But that might be a while off. So pay attention in your lessons for now. And put some cream on if there’s anything left in the tube. You’ve got some new cracks in your hands.’

  He got up from his chair. And I was filled with that love for him again – that special love that I feel only for Robert: my little brother with the skinny body, the ugly clothes no normal human would wear if they had a choice, with eczema fingers, taped-up glasses and behind them, those nice grey eyes that seem to have seen things no one else has seen.

  Last spring when Robert was in Year Six, his class was supposed to go on a field trip. They would go to Denmark, it was decided. Visit Legoland and Copenhagen, go to museums, and last of all spend a whole day at Tivoli. They had been raising funds for the trip throughout their upper primary years: selling May Day flowers and raffle tickets, and holding jumble sales in the gym. Some of the mums had made baked goods for the raffles, and some of the dads who worked at the Falken bottling plant had got hold of free soft drinks, which the kids sold along with the cakes and buns.

  The plan was to leave around the Whitsun bank holiday in May and to be away for four days, but my brother had started dreaming about the trip long before then. In the spring term they had done a load of group projects about Denmark, learning things about Danish geography and history, and the names of the members of the Danish royal family. They had read The Little Mermaid in Danish, drawn maps and given presentations. They were really excited. Robert chattered constantly about how much he was looking forward to Legoland, where everything – even the streets – was made from Lego bricks, and especially about how they were going to stay in a hotel, a proper hotel, where everything was so nice and you didn’t have to make your own bed in the mornings, where people came and tidied up for you, and there was soap wrapped up like little presents on the toilet. It was as if he had forgotten that he would have to sit on his own in the bus during the entire journey, and that the other kids would tease him and nobody would include him in their gang.

  Then it suddenly emerged that they had not raised enough money. Their teacher sent a letter to the parents saying the trip might not happen. It was decided to hold a meeting to discuss it, and all the parents declared that they were prepared to club together to contribute what was needed for their children – minus our mum and dad, of course. They weren’t even there, and maybe that’s why nobody bothered to ask what to do abou
t the people who couldn’t afford it. And thus what I think my brother had feared deep down came to pass: the class went on their field trip without him.

  Throughout the Whitsun holiday I could hear him through the wall between our rooms. He was completely heartbroken. I suffered nearly as much as Robert, but there was nothing I could do to console him. The worst thing was that Mum had initially given him a vague promise that he would be able to go. But after a visit to Dad, she changed her mind. He had got in debt to some people, and things would be difficult for him if he couldn’t pay. That was basically the end of the discussion. My brother simply could not go along. The money, if there actually was any was needed for other things.

  That was what I was thinking about as I removed the letter from the envelope. About how we were all sort of tangled up with each other: me, my brother, Mum and Dad, and that whatever happened in their lives immediately contaminated ours.

  The letter was written on prison paper, with the correctional facility’s stamp at the top. It looked like it had already been opened and read by people at the prison. The glue on the envelope had come apart a little at the sides. The handwriting was childish and spidery, as if the letters were ashamed of how ugly they were and were trying to escape from the paper.

  He wrote that he was going to be released three months early, said what date and time it would be, and asked whether Mum could meet him outside the prison in Halmstad. Then there was a paragraph where he was more personal and asked how she was doing, and whether she had any money because he was flat broke himself and wouldn’t get his pay from the prison workshop until close to Christmas. He wrote that he had applied for jobs, at the chrome-plating plant and the fibreglass plant in Falkenberg, but that he didn’t have any great hopes of getting any work.

  I could see him in my mind’s eye as I read the letter. How he sat in his cell, dressed in the usual prison uniform: a singlet, tracksuit and bathroom slippers. A packet of John Silver cigarettes lay on the table fixed to the wall. There were pages from girlie magazines hanging on the walls, photos of girls with names like Annette or Susie who resembled younger versions of Mum. I could see how he struggled with the pencil, chewing on the middle while he pondered his next sentence, the effort it took him to form lines and curves into letters, and letters into words, spiky and ugly, written under the greatest possible resistance. And then the noise from the corridor, a prison guard rattling his keys, some inmate listening to the radio or just screaming.

  If I had counted the days correctly, he would be out in three weeks’ time.

  Late that evening, Mum woke up. Robert was already in bed asleep. I was sitting in the kitchen, trying to come up with a plan for the next few days.

  ‘Morning,’ I said as she came in and held out a glass of water.

  ‘Keep your voice down, please. I feel like crap.’

  ‘Obviously. You haven’t even taken off your coat.’

  She sighed as she searched the cupboard for some fizzy headache tablets.

  ‘Dad’s getting out in a few weeks. I was happy about that. Celebrated a little, if that’s what you mean. He’ll be home sooner than expected.’

  ‘I know. I read the letter.’

  She lit a cigarette. Her eyes flitted back and forth, like a butterfly. Then she noticed the envelope on the kitchen worktop and stuffed it into her coat pocket.

  ‘Is Robert in his room?’

  ‘He’s asleep.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘They were nasty to him at school again today’

  ‘So why doesn’t he defend himself? He can hit back, can’t he?’

  She sat down at the table and poured a sachet of the headache powder into her glass. She looked terrible: big bags under her eyes, hair sticking out everywhere. I didn’t actually think badly of her, but it was about as hard to judge her as it was to understand her. That was something I sometimes thought about: if I tried to understand who she was, there was basically no room for judging her, and if I judged her, that reduced the chances of understanding her. She hadn’t always been the apathetic woman I saw before me now. There were small islets of light in my memory where I sat on her lap as she painted my fingernails, afternoons where she could still bring herself to play with Robert and me, playing cards with us or football out in the street... Now, when she put out her hand to give me a pat, I flinched so strongly I nearly lost my balance.

  ‘You shouldn’t read other people’s letters, you know,’ she said. ‘That’s not nice.’

  ‘And you shouldn’t have been in my room looking for money. I had to spend half an hour tidying up in there.’

  A long cylinder of ash fell from her cigarette. It landed in her lap without her noticing.

  And it looked like a pigsty down here. Sorry to mention it, but you’d puked in the hall... ’

  I could hear how that sounded: crazy. And yet it was true.

  She got up and went over to the wall calendar. She was incapable of taking in what I had said, or else she didn’t remember anything. I was happy about that, because I couldn’t bear her guilty conscience.

  ‘What day is it today?’ she asked.

  ‘Friday.’

  ‘Dad will come home in three weeks’ time. I want you to move in with Robert then. You’ll have to share a room for a while.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘We’re short of money. Dad and I have decided to let out the ground floor, so we’ll have to make your room into the TV room. We need to be able to watch TV, don’t we?’

  She opened the fridge door and took out a beer, then looked out of the window. It had started to rain – a heavy, steady Halland rain.

  ‘Who’s going to move in?’

  A mate of Dad’s. They’re getting released at the same time, and he has nowhere to live. He’ll pay half the rent.’

  ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘No, but Dad does.’

  ‘So he could just be any lunatic.’

  ‘Please, there’s nothing to discuss.’

  It didn’t matter what arguments I came up with, because never in her life would she question Dad’s decision. I didn’t want to start crying in front of her. There is nothing I hate about myself more than when I start to blubber. I cannot afford tears. They are precious, and you can’t waste them if you’re in my situation. The mere thought of one of Dad’s jailbird mates in the apartment made me feel ill. And my room was pretty much the only thing I had. If I locked the door around me, any kind of storm could blow up outside and I wouldn’t care.

  ‘Come here, let me comfort you,’ Mum said.

  And once again, I viewed the situation as if from outside: a woman with greasy, straggly hair, with her lipstick smeared halfway across her cheek, reeking like a sick old dog, a mother who lifts up the tab on a can of strong beer, downs half of it in one gulp as she extends her hand to her fifteen-year-old daughter to comfort her.

  I did start to bawl, even though I didn’t want to. Like a little child. Bawled and bawled until my body felt completely exhausted, drained of all liquid, like a dry old loaf of bread.

  It’s not easy to piece together the bits of Mum and Dad’s lives because they don’t like to talk about themselves. Dad comes from a village near Umeå, as far as I know. He got kicked out of the house when he turned sixteen. He had ended up falling in with a bad crowd, he once told me, and his parents wouldn’t put up with it. Grandad worked in forestry up there, and both he and Grandma were teetotallers and very religious. They fell out, and after Dad left they never saw each other again.

  For a few years he roamed around with no fixed address. He lived in a boarding house for single men in Stockholm for a while, then spent time in Borås and Norrköping, and a while down in Karlskrona, where he worked at a boatyard. Then he headed to Gothenburg to look for a job.

  He found employment at a small factory that made trawler nets for the fishing industry and camouflage nets for the army. He travelled all over the west coast of Sweden to deliver them: small crayfish nets and big
mackerel nets, and even bigger cod nets with panels that let the by-catch out before the net is raised. That’s how he ended up in Falkenberg a couple of times a year. The factory had customers in Glommen and Träslövsläge, and he met a load of people around here, including the crowd that Mum hung around with.

  Mum had just turned eighteen when Dad showed up at a party in town, and she fell head over heels in love. She was training to become a seamstress in those days and was living as a lodger with a family in Falkenberg. At weekends she would go back to Okome, the village where my gran lived. The weekend she met Dad she was actually supposed to be there, but there was a snowstorm, and the bus that went to Ätradalen had been cancelled. So instead she went to a party with some friends from school, and a few of them had boyfriends who were fishermen. One of them brought Dad along, and that’s how they met. That same evening they went out dancing. Dad paid for everything; he was dressed like a gangster, Mum had told me, in a suit and hat, and he must have stood out from everyone else. It’s amazing to think, but she was only three years older than I am now.

  They continued to meet up whenever Dad’s route brought him to the area, and within a year she was pregnant. I don’t think they really wanted to become parents. Dad liked going round the west coast as a free man, selling nets and trawls, and conducting shady deals on the side. And Mum was really too young.

  When she got knocked up, she quit school and took a job at the same factory where Gran worked. She moved back into her old room at home and lived there until Dad quit his job and moved down here. They rented a ramshackle house in the village. Dad got a job at a timber yard. Then I entered the world.

  After a few years the removal van headed to Vinberg, much closer to town. They had had a feud with Gran, who thought that Dad was going to ruin Mum’s life. They were already drinking quite a lot in those days; social services came round and investigated; there was talk of my going to live with Gran or to stay with a foster family, but ultimately it came to nothing. Dad had also made himself unwelcome at work, got into fights and served a stretch for possession of narcotics. When he came out, he had no desire to take a regular job. He had contacts down at the docks, would buy vodka and diet pills from the Polish ships and sell them to shady characters throughout Halland. I know all this because I happened to find a box containing old court judgments and appeals in his wardrobe.