Three people so close to perfection that they would be less than credible in an IKEA catalogue, let alone on a scruffy campsite. The change of environment has made their presence less unnatural; the endless field is a more appropriate setting for Isabelle than a run-down mini-golf course. And yet she is the one who is most agitated.
‘This is absolutely fucking ridiculous,’ she says. ‘Where the hell are we?’
Stefan looks around at the grass, the caravans, the cars. He spots the black SUV parked next to the perfect family’s caravan.
‘Have you got GPS?’ he asks.
Peter slaps his forehead and runs to the car. The others follow him, with Molly looking up at Stefan as they hurry along. He smiles at her. She doesn’t smile back.
Peter opens the car door and slides in behind the gleaming dashboard. ‘Hang on, I just need to check.’
He presses a button and the engine starts up with a low purr. Peter’s posture changes. His shoulders were hunched; he straightens up, lifts his head. He is in the driving seat now.
The GPS screen turns purple, then a map appears.
Something is tugging at Stefan’s trousers. When he glances down, his gaze meets Molly’s. Her clear, unblinking blue eyes stare into his as she asks: ‘Why don’t you look at my mum?’
*
Benny has been awake for a while. He is lying in his basket in the awning, trying to understand.
The light is wrong. The smells are wrong.
His ears twitch as he hears human voices. His nose quivers, trying to pick up familiar scents from outside. They are not there.
Benny is seven years old, and he knows quite a lot. He is familiar with the concept of mechanised relocation. You get into Car or Caravan, there is a lot of rumbling and shaking, and rapid movement. Then you find yourself in a different place. New smells, new sounds, new light.
Benny knows that no such relocation has occurred. And yet he is not where he was when he went to sleep. This makes him feel insecure, and he decides to stay in his basket. For the time being.
*
‘For God’s sake, Peter, there must be something wrong with the bloody thing.’
‘There’s never been anything wrong with it before.’
‘No, but now there is. I mean, does it look as if we’re where it says we are? Does it?’
‘All I’m saying is that…’
‘Where are we, Mummy?’
‘That’s what Daddy’s trying to find out with his little machine that doesn’t work.’
‘It does work! Look at the position indicator…’
‘Peter, I couldn’t give a damn about the position indicator. It’s broken, just accept it! Oh yes, that’s a good idea. Just give it a little tap, I’m sure it’ll work. Know any magic spells while you’re at it?’
‘Okay, Isabelle. Give it a rest.’
‘Mummy, why is Daddy cross?’
‘Because his masculinity is threatened, and because he can’t get it into his thick skull that we have been moved. He thinks we’re exactly where we were yesterday.’
‘But we’re not.’
‘No. You know that and I know that, but Daddy doesn’t know that, which makes him feel stupid, and that’s why he’s cross.’
*
‘Bom.’
A laser beam strikes one wing of the spaceship.
‘Bim, bim, bim.’
Meteors, lots and lots of meteors crash into the windows.
‘Bam!’
Magnetic shock! The meteors break up, but…
‘Bom, bom.’
More lasers, warning, warning. There’s nothing we can do. We’ve had it. The spaceship tumbles towards the sun.
‘Heeeelp!’
It is warm in the alcove, very warm. Emil is so thirsty that his tongue is sticking to the top of his mouth, and yet he doesn’t climb down to get a drink of water. Something isn’t right. Mummy is snoring quietly below him and Daddy has gone outside. Emil can hear the faint sound of adult voices through the wall. He can’t make out what they’re saying, but he can tell they’re worried.
He doesn’t want to know why they’re worried; he would rather wait until the problem has been solved. He arranges his cuddly toys around his head with Bengtson, his teddy bear, right at the top. Sköldis, Bunte, Hipphopp and Sabre Cat down the sides. Emil’s eyes dart from side to side, meeting theirs.
We are here. We like you.
He licks the sweat off his upper lip and nods.
‘I know. I like you too.’
Where shall we go?
‘To Mercury—are you with me?’
We are with you.
‘Good. Bengtson, you can be Chewbacca. Let’s go.’
*
Peter has opted for a time-out.
The car doors are locked, and he sinks back in his seat. Isabelle is staring at him through the tinted side windows. He stares out through the windscreen.
An empty field is spread before him. It stretches as far as the eye can see, the horizon a curved incision between the shades of green and the shades of blue. That’s right, curved. The world has not become flat. Something to hold on to.
He turns to the GPS screen once more. According to the data displayed there, everything is as it should be. The map shows the track leading to the campsite, the markers indicating that the car is exactly where it is supposed to be, fifty metres from the lake, which is also there. Peter looks out of the window. There is no track, no lake. Only the field, the field, and the field.
‘Of course. Idiot,’ he tells himself. It’s so easy to check the GPS.
Peter releases the handbrake and applies gentle pressure to the accelerator. The car begins to move forward. He hears the sound of banging on the window; Isabelle is running alongside the car, yelling: ‘You fucking lunatic! What the hell are you doing?’
Peter can’t help smiling. She thinks he’s going to drive off and leave her. And who knows, perhaps he’ll do just that. He’s fantasised about this moment often enough; maybe he should actually do it?
He glances at Isabelle, still dressed in nothing but her underwear, and feels his penis begin to harden. During the week they have been staying in the caravan he hasn’t been allowed anywhere near her, and it was at least two weeks before that. His sexual sorrow is so obtrusive that it borders on hatred, and when Isabelle trips and falls, letting out a scream, he almost comes.
He blinks and concentrates on the screen.
The cursor is definitely moving, so the fault doesn’t lie with the GPS. It moves smoothly towards the lake, closer and closer. Peter pulls up when he reaches the shore, in spite of the fact that there is no shore in sight. He sits there for a few moments, looking from his foot on the brake to the screen and back again. He just can’t make himself drive out into the invisible lake.
More banging on the window, and this time he opens it. Isabelle leans in, demanding to know what the hell he’s doing. He explains.
‘And?’
‘I just wanted to check.’
Isabelle catches sight of his erection and smiles scornfully. ‘So what have you got there, then?’
‘Nothing that would interest you.’
‘Too right.’
Molly comes running, and in a voice much smaller than her six years says: ‘Mummy? Is Daddy leaving us?’
‘No, sweetheart, he isn’t. He had a silly idea and he wanted to try it out right away, that’s all.’ Isabelle reaches into the car and takes the iPhone out of the glove compartment. ‘I don’t suppose it occurred to you to try this?’
Peter shakes his head and gets out of the car. He is fairly sure of how this is going to go, and he is right, as it turns out. He can hear Isabelle cursing behind him: ‘What the fuck? No fucking…What kind of place is this?’
No connection. No signal. No contact. Peter’s eyes sweep across the empty horizon, the clear blue summer sky. Then he brings his hands up to his mouth and whispers: ‘The sun. Where the hell is the sun?’
*
T
he sun.
Stefan is standing outside his caravan, his arms hanging by his sides, his mouth wide open. He stares up at the sky once more, as if he had made a mistake the first time. Missed the thing that was right in front of his eyes. But there really is no sun, just the dazzling blue sky that seems to be illuminated by some internal light.
He takes a few steps in different directions to check the fragments of the horizon hidden by caravans and cars. No sun. He looks up again. The entire cupola of the heavens is equally bright, and exactly the same shade of blue everywhere. It doesn’t even look like sky; it is more like something that has been put there to resemble sky. The absence of shifting nuances or clouds makes it impossible to decide whether it is ten or ten thousand metres above him.
He searches around on the ground and finds one of Emil’s little toy cars; he picks it up and throws it in the air, as high as he can. It goes up perhaps twenty metres, then falls back down and lands on the grass, without having encountered any kind of obstacle on the way.
For as long as Stefan can remember he has lived with a feeling of fear in his chest. Sometimes it is stronger, sometimes weaker, but it is always there. If this fear had a voice, it would constantly repeat the same phrase: Everything will be taken away from you.
If the sun can disappear, then anything can disappear. Stefan’s chest is aching, as if something is tugging at it from the inside. He looks over at the door of the caravan. As long as Carina and Emil exist, almost anything is bearable.
And what if they’re not there? What if they’ve disappeared too?
Suddenly he cannot breathe. He takes a step towards the door, stops. He is seized by an insane urge to put his hands over his ears and simply run, run.
He makes a huge effort and takes a couple of deep breaths. The panic subsides, only to be replaced by a new torment. He doesn’t want to wake Carina to this world, doesn’t want to introduce Emil to a sky with no sun.
Stefan closes his eyes. Screws them shut as tightly as he can. He conjures up a sun in the sky, brings back the mini-golf course, the kiosk and the trampoline. He creates sounds: the morning breeze whispering through the trees, the shouts of children who have just woken up playing by the water’s edge. Everything that is supposed to be there.
When he opens his eyes, it has all gone. He has no world to offer his family, and he cannot create one. He glances towards the door, and the fear returns. Is he looking at an empty caravan?
He can’t stand it any longer. He dashes forward and yanks the door open, steps inside and stands there with his heart pounding, gazing at his sleeping wife and listening to his son’s voice. As long as he stays there, not moving or speaking, it’s as if nothing has happened. It’s just an ordinary morning on their caravan holiday. In a little while they will have breakfast. Emil will come up with a tricky question about the world around him…
World? What world?
Stefan pulls himself together and climbs onto the bed so that he is lying face to face with Carina. He strokes her cheek and whispers: ‘Darling?’
Carina blinks, then opens her eyes and says, ‘Ooh.’ She often does this when she wakes up, as if she is surprised that she has been asleep. ‘Ooh. Morning. What time is it?’
Stefan glances at the alarm clock; it is ten to seven. Does that mean anything any more? He brushes a strand of hair from Carina’s sweaty forehead and says: ‘Listen. Something’s happened.’
*
As there is no phone signal and no internet connection, Isabelle decides to look through her portfolio instead.
Synsam, 2002. A close-up that brings out her blue-green eyes in contrast to the black-rimmed glasses she is wearing. Her lips pout as if she is sucking on an olive.
Guldfynd, 2002. A luxurious full-length shot with chromatic lighting, a backless evening gown. A hunk in a dinner suit is approaching cautiously, as if he is unsure about speaking to such a beauty. Micro-spots glinting on a bracelet, a ring. The lighting alone took four hours.
Lindvalls kaffe, 2003. Her perfectly shaped nails around the bone-white coffee cup (false nails—she has always had a tendency to bite her own), the light that seems to come from the dark liquid creating shadows that emphasise her cheekbones.
Gaultier, 2003. The top of the tree in terms of professional credibility, but this was a men’s fragrance campaign, so Isabelle is slightly out of focus behind the dark-haired man, his features as sharply delineated as if he were a cartoon character. Greek. The handsomest man she has ever worked with. Gay, unfortunately.
H&M, 2004. The most professional sessions ever. The summer campaign should have been her big break. At the last minute they decided to go down the ethnic route instead. Africans, Asians and an Eskimo. For the summer campaign. It was during this period that Isabelle started using Xanor.
Ellos, 2005. The only reason she has kept these pictures in her portfolio is because they show off her body to its best advantage. Swimwear and lingerie, fortunately. No frumpy blouses.
PerfectPartner, 2009. No one could fail to believe that she is madly in love with the man whose cheek she is caressing; her eyes say it all. Peter wasn’t happy when the ad popped up as a banner on his email.
Gudrun Sjödén, 2011. When you’re thirty you have to swallow your pride. But it was a pretty cool shoot in Morocco. Earthy colours, flowing fabrics, the afternoon light in the desert. Her eyes sparkling, hungry, as if she has just arrived in an oasis. As if she is the oasis.
Molly curls up beside her on the bed, moves her hand through the air in front of the screen.
‘You’re so pretty, Mummy!’
*
Benny has ventured as far as the opening of the awning. What he sees confirms what his nose and ears have already told him. There has been no transportation, but he is in a different place.
He sits down and scratches his ear with his hind leg, then tentatively pokes his nose through the opening. Certain scents are still there. The caravan that smells of Cow and contains Cat. Perfume.
He gazes out into the emptiness, blinks in the light. It is not at all like yesterday, and there are hardly any smells. Benny yawns, has a good shake. He turns around, then sits down again, peeps out and looks in the other direction this time.
Cat is lying in the window of the caravan that smells of Cow. Benny stretches and forgets his fear. He will give Cat a good telling off.
He has just stepped off the wooden floor of the awning and placed his front paws on the grass when he sees someone coming towards him. A big He. Benny stiffens, irresolute for a second. Then he withdraws, turns around and scuttles back to his basket.
*
For Peter, this holiday was a last attempt to save his marriage, a final shock with the defibrillator before declaring the patient dead.
They usually went to a five-star hotel in some exotic location, where Isabelle could indulge in a series of spa treatments while Molly was looked after in the children’s club and Peter read crime novels by the pool. A luxury break made Isabelle more amenable, and they drifted along in a limbo that made them feel neither better nor worse. When they got home it was usually a few days before the quarrelling started again.
Needless to say, Isabelle had been less than enthusiastic about the idea of hiring a caravan, but Peter had insisted, on the grounds that he wanted to relive memories of childhood holidays with his mother. There was a certain amount of truth in that, but above all he wanted to give Isabelle one last chance. She hadn’t taken it, and to be honest he had always known that was going to happen. He’d just wanted to be able to look back at this week and think: That was when I’d had enough. That was when it all got too much.
He has had enough, and it is all too much. He has to get away from here. Soon.
He walks over to Donald’s caravan. A little beagle turns and scampers back into the awning as Peter stops and looks around.
The caravan is a Kabe Royal Hacienda, ten metres long and hooked up to a Cherokee SUV. Plus an awning at least twenty metres square. Teak furniture and a
smallish garden made up of pots. On the supporting poles there are photographs of Elvis Presley, plus a couple of airbrushed pictures of wolves and native Americans. In the middle of the garden table there is a small flagpole flying the American flag. Half-hidden behind the beautiful plants is a gold brocade wall hanging: ‘A kindly word at the right time helps the world go round.’
The beagle’s basket is next to the door of the caravan, and the dog whimpers as Peter moves closer; its entire body is saying: I know you’re going to hit me, but please don’t.
The fear of a beating is provocative; one is tempted to become what one is presumed to be, and Peter has a sudden urge to give the dog a good kick in the head to make sure it keeps quiet. Instead he crouches down, holds out his hand and says: ‘I won’t hurt you.’
The dog’s eyes dart from side to side, and it presses its chin against the bottom of the basket. If we run out of food we can eat the dog. Peter shakes his head and straightens up. He is not in his right mind. He has to get out of here. Soon.
He knocks on the door. After a few seconds the caravan rocks and he hears the sound of heavy footsteps. Peter thrusts his hands into his trouser pockets, screws up the sweet wrapper and clears his throat. The door is flung open.
The man standing there is in his seventies. He is completely bald, although his chest is covered in white curly hair. An impressive tanned belly conceals the upper half of a pair of red and white striped boxers. The slightly bulbous eyes give a kind of hunted intensity, as if he is both prey and predator at the same time. His face lights up when he sees Peter.
‘Wow! A visit from sporting royalty at this early hour!’
‘Morning,’ Peter says, lowering his eyes.
The previous evening Donald had come over uninvited and sat down to discuss the penalty against Bulgaria in 2005. In his opinion, Peter’s career in the national team had been much too short, and he proceeded to go through a number of reasons for this, incidents that Peter himself had long forgotten.
Peter had supplied him with several drinks to keep him talking, in spite of meaningful sighs from Isabelle. He had served up a few anecdotes from his time in the Italian league, and Donald had taken it all in with admiring comments. Peter had basked in the glow of his fame, simultaneously ashamed of himself while revelling in the attention.
I Am Behind You Page 2