The Boy at the Door

by Alex Dahl

  ‘I want to apologize to you for the other night,’ she says. ‘We were hard on you. It wasn’t fair. And it wasn’t our place to judge you.’

  ‘Yes, well, I’m sorry I tried to kill you all by throwing champagne bottles around,’ I say, and we stare at each other for a long moment before Fie starts to laugh, and then, surprisingly, so do I.

  *

  I wake in one of those black pockets of night when the deep silence is both exhilarating and frightening. I disentangle myself from Johan and lie awhile, looking at the faint contours of his face in the near-darkness. I smile at him and hope he can feel it in his dreams. I get up and creep quietly across the hallway to Hermine’s room. She is splayed out on her bed, face down like a starfish, duvet flung to the ground, and I gently cover her again, tucking in the sides. She stirs and smacks her lips the way hungry babies do. I smile at her, too. In Nicoline’s room, she and Tobias are sleeping head to foot, the way they have started to do sometimes, and Baby is on the floor next to the bed. When I enter, she looks up at me with her little black eyes and thumps her tail lazily on the floor.

  I’m about to head back to bed, snuggling in next to my sleeping husband, but am drawn to the window looking out onto the harbor. It is a moonless night, and though the rain has let up, the streets are wet and shining with frost. The inner harbor basin is faintly lit up by the glow of Vesterøyveien’s street lights, and I can see the exact spot where Anni was found from here. I feel suddenly and violently unhinged at the thought of her, again, bloody and alone, out there. I walked away from her. Would I have turned back for her if I’d known she’d be murdered moments later? It frightens me to realize that I wouldn’t have. Here I am, safe and warm in my house; a woman who has everything. And there she is – I imagine her out there in the frozen water – cold, dead and alone, a woman who has nothing and never did.

  26

  I walk up the long hill to the house. I’ve been down to the gym; I believe it’s important to keep to your routines, especially at times of upheaval, although Johan seems to think I should just lie about on the sofa and get chubby. When I left, the girls and Johan were getting ready to go to my mother’s house for lunch, but strangely, the Tesla is still parked in the driveway, so they must have not left yet, or come back for something. Tobias and Moffa are off somewhere with that crazy little dog, as usual, inseparable.

  ‘Hello?’ I say, taking my shoes off downstairs, but the house is completely quiet. The hallway is a huge mess of winter boots and shoes flung about – nobody is here to tidy now that we paid for Luelle to go home to the Philippines for Christmas and New Year. This makes me angry, and combined with the strangeness of the quiet house and the car in the driveway, I feel immediately anxious. ‘Hello?’ I say again, climbing the stairs to the first floor, but still, there is no response. I walk into the kitchen and stand awhile by the central marble island, warming my frozen fingers under the tap. They must have taken a taxi, Johan might have wanted to have a glass of wine with his lunch. If nobody is here, I suppose I could try to sneak a tiny glass of wine; I’ve had to sit out the entire festive season with San Pellegrino – my whole family watching over me like hawks, even peering into my glass to check it really is filled with water. I walk over to the integrated wine cooler and squat down to look inside, and only then do I see him, reflected in the glass door. Johan. I jump, and my heart begins to pound hard in my chest. He’s sitting silently on the low sofa by the bay window, in the last of the day’s natural light. I turn around.

  ‘Hey, baby,’ I say, but he doesn’t react. It’s like the figure on the sofa is a Johan-doll rather than the real thing. I walk slowly over to him. ‘Honey,’ I say, ‘What is it? Has something happened?’ On the low marble table in front of Johan is a stack of papers. I suddenly think back to that night just a few weeks ago, when Johan had said he wanted to speak to me, and I thought he was leaving me, but he ended up giving me the beautiful pink sapphire ring. This will be like that. The papers could be a printout of an amazing holiday he’s booked. Yes, that will be it. He’s so clever, my Johan; always knows exactly what I need, and then just goes and does it. I wonder whether it will be the Caribbean this time – I do hope so, I certainly made it clear that I didn’t much appreciate Thailand when he booked that back in September without even consulting me. I reach for the papers, but he swiftly pulls them out of reach. I then try to touch Johan’s shoulder, but he takes my hand, hard, and pushes it away. Fear, so very familiar by now, flaring up in my gut.

  ‘Jesus, Johan, what is it?’

  ‘You received an email. I printed it out for you. Why don’t you read it?’ My eyes won’t move from Johan’s frightening, empty ones, to the piece of paper between us.

  ‘I said, read it!’ It feels like my heart has dropped into the corrosive bile in my stomach.

  From: Santiago.Romero@icloud.com

  To: Wilborgs@Wilborg.com

  Date: December 28th, 3:38 p.m.

  Subject: Attempting This

  Dear Cecilia,

  I received your email of November the 30th, and while you can imagine it was a big shock, I tried to respond to you to the same address three days later, but received an ‘undelivered’ message. I hope it is okay for me to contact you here, I have spent some time on Google, trying to find you, but without a last name, it was rather difficult. Hopefully, this is your address. Anyway.

  I was shocked to read your email. I did, of course, remember you, though I’m sure we can both agree our first and only meeting was short but sweet. I wish I’d known before that a child had come from it. I can assure you that it is my intention to be there for the boy. Thank you for attaching the photograph of the boy, he is very beautiful, and he looks incredibly similar to my other son, seven-year-old Xavier. I am divorced from his mother, but we remain friends, and my son is a huge part of my life. I want Tobias in it, as well. As you may have gathered, I live in Miami. Can you please get in touch again at your earliest convenience to confirm that you have received my message, and perhaps we could arrange a time to speak on the telephone?

  Dear Cecilia, I am embarrassed to say I did not remember your name, or perhaps I never even knew it in the first place. But I do remember this; you were incredibly beautiful, though your smile was sad. I remember the dress you wore, and the droplets of seawater on your ankles, and your gorgeous green eyes. I am hopeful that life, in spite of unforeseen developments, has been kind to you, and that we can meet again, to find a way of supporting this lovely boy together.

  Very best regards,

  Santiago Romero

  Johan stands motionless, watching me, and before I manage to say even a single word, he pushes hard past me, knocking my hip against the side of a chair.

  ‘Wait,’ I manage to shout. He turns around in the doorway.

  ‘Fuck you, Cecilia.’

  ‘Johan, I can explain!’

  ‘Do you see those other papers over there? They’re divorce papers. You can explain yourself in court.’

  He rushes down the stairs, and I just don’t have the strength to run after him – it’s as though every drop of energy has drained from my body. No. No, no, no.

  Epilogue

  I.

  I can call the mother in the house Mommy now. She said. It’s because she’s my mother. She loved me when I was born but decided it would be best that I lived with Moffa and I’m not angry about that because I loved to live with Moffa. I still can if I want. Everybody’s talking a lot about what is best for me. I know this because they told me and because they asked me. I said to the tall lady with the glasses who brought me back here that I wanted to live here but also with Moffa at the farm and I want Baby with me all the time and she said that sounded really great.

  Every day when I wake up, Baby is in my bed. Sometimes Nicoline, too. She’s my big sister and she loves that I’m in the family. Most days Moffa comes after breakfast and we take Baby for walkies together. Moffa cries when he looks at me because he is very sad that Krysz and Anni stole
me from the farm. If they hadn’t died Moffa says they would be in prison until they were really old, or dead.

  Moffa is here now and we are going to walk Baby by the sea and then we will go to McDonald’s because children love it there. It’s very cold and the sky is blue-white, like ice, so I’m wearing a lot of clothes. The long hill from the house is very slippery and I like to hold Moffa’s hand in one hand and Baby’s lead in the other and slip-slide down it. We’re almost at the bottom when we hear strange noises – it’s like a very loud roar, then a whiny cry, like a dog that’s got stepped on. But it’s not a dog, it’s a car and it comes very fast past us down the hill, and on the bend it has to brake hard and that’s what the whiny noise is. It’s Mommy’s car but that’s strange because she is at the gym like every morning, and I want to say to Moffa that it’s strange but he’s already half running very fast the same way the car went, dragging me and Baby behind him.

  Across the road, slippery, so fast, Baby panting, Baby carried by Moffa, Moffa’s face very strange, me saying look, look, pointing at the car in the distance. It’s stopped in the middle of the wide-open space by the gas station behind Meny, and the door is open and the engine is still on and warm smoke comes out of it, making the cold air crumble. Cecilia, shouts Moffa, but we are still far away and she can’t hear us. She is running away from the car, falling a bit, then running more and from here she looks a bit like Anni. I get angry if I think about Anni so I look away from her, to the quiet gray sea. It has ice on it now and for two days the boat to Sweden couldn’t go because of it. Cecilia, shouts Moffa again, so loud his voice hollers across the road and down towards the water. He drags me along and I want to open my mouth to shout something but the air is just too cold and I can’t get a single word out while I’m running, too, not even Mommy.

  II.

  Sandefjord is a summer town; the Hamptons of Norway, they call it, but I can’t recall those long, white summer nights – it feels like this winter has stretched on and on. Like it has been dark forever, inside me, and out. I left the Range Rover in the gas station parking lot, and ran around the back to the boatyard, passing the spot where Pawel sat in his car, watching, that night I hit Anni. Over and over. He sat there, watching, waiting. And when I was done, he walked over to where she sat, crying and bleeding, realized she hadn’t got any money off me and tossed her into the water.

  So this is where I am. Alone. Doomed, destined for the dark ocean floor. I glance around – it’s still only mid-morning, but the town is quiet, stunned by the extreme drop in temperature that has resulted in most of the inner fjord freezing over in the last couple of days. I walk over to the exact spot where Anni lay as I smashed my fists into her face, the same spot I stared down at from the hallway window last night, when I still had everything. I think about how Anni’s life started – quite happily, it would have seemed, on that farm with parents who loved her. Her mother would have peered with wonder into the same face I struck with pure hate, shattering bone. She would have whispered sweet words into the same ear I’d whisper into, thirty years later, imploring Anni to die. Her mother would never have imagined that her baby would end up a murdered, heroin-addicted child-snatcher. My own mother would never have been able to imagine her only daughter in these moments, either – indistinguishable from the broken, bleeding Annika, crying silently, shaking with cold, reaching down towards the glassy surface of the ice-covered fjord, down, down... The surface of the sea is a mirror and the person staring back up at me is Annika Lucasson.

  I could swim. People do it all the time. I’ve seen them in the papers. Ice-bathers. They stand around afterwards, red-faced and laughing, rubbing stunned limbs. I could be like them. Or I could be like Anni; finally still, quiet, at peace. Yes, I could be her. The ice snaps easily enough into sharp, thin shards, and the water is not even that cold, but there is a loud noise, one that superimposes itself on top of the sound of my heart pounding, my jagged breath, the hiccupy sobs I can’t stop even though this is a joyful occasion; this is a return to where I’m supposed to go, yes, this is a chance to be at one with everything, to be at peace. It is the sound of a dog yapping, and it follows me as I swim further and further out from the boatyard, though the going is slow, because my arms are leaden. The silly animal runs alongside the harbor basin between where I am and a little jetty empty of boats that juts out in front of me around twenty meters away. On the jetty I can make out the outline of a person. It’s Tobias and he’s shouting. Behind him, the dog is spinning around and around, hysterical. I become aware of other voices and I would say something, but I can’t talk or even move; all I want is to close my eyes and let myself be carried off to sea on the current, but that doesn’t happen, and suddenly strong arms close around my waist and begin to drag me towards the shore.

  We hope you enjoyed this book.

  Alex Dahl’s next book is coming in summer 2019

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  Acknowledgements

  About Alex Dahl

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  Acknowledgements

  I have a lot of thanking to do – this book would not have been conceived, written or published without the incredible support of these wonderful people:

  A very big thank you is due my wonderful agent, Laura Longrigg at MBA Literary Agents. Your support and enthusiasm for this book has been wonderful. I am so lucky to have you as my agent! Thank you also to Louisa Pritchard, and to Jill Marsal of Marsal Lyons Literary Agency. Your fabulous work is very much appreciated.

  Thank you to my wise and insightful editors in the UK and the US – Madeleine O’Shea at Head of Zeus and Michelle Vega at Berkley – I am very fortunate to work with you both.

  Thank you to all the lovely people at my publishers’ who have contributed to making this book a reality.

  Thank you to Tricia Wastvedt, whose creative guidance and friendship over a decade has meant so much. And a big thank you to my writing workshop friends and colleagues, whose opinions and company I greatly value – Christine, Diane, Fiona, Jane, Mary, Mina, and of course, Tricia – what a lovely community we have – total soul food. Thank you to my fellow writers and friends Barbara Jaques and Katrine Bjerke Mathisen, who have both read and reread many drafts of this and other works, providing amazing support and advice. Thank you to my tutors and fellow writers at Bath Spa University’s MA Creative Writing – I wish I could do the MA every single year. Thank you also to all my other friends for the laughter, the support and the occasional force-reading… you know who you are.

  Sia, Lana del Rey, London Grammar, and Laura Pausini – thank you for the music, I rarely write a word without you!

  A big thank you to my grandmother, Kari, who was a writer, too, and who showed me a world of words and wonder. To my father, Henning, who would have loved to hold this book in his hands – I wish we’d had more time. To my mother, Marianne, who has gone above and beyond in her unwavering support – thank you for believing. I love you and this book is yours.

  To my children, Oscar and Anastasia, who inspire me and spur me on every day – I love you forever.

  And last, but definitely not least, a very big thank you is due Laura, my love, my queen and my rock; for everything.

  About Alex Dahl

  ALEX DAHL is a half-American, half-Norwegian author. Born in Oslo, she currently divides her time between London and Sandefjord.

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  We hope you enjoyed this book. We are an independent publisher dedicated to discovering brilliant books, new authors and great storytelling. Please join us at www.headofzeus.com and become part of our community of book-lovers.

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  First published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by Head of Zeus Ltd

  Copyright © Alex Dahl, 2018

  The moral right of Alex Dahl to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN (E) 9781786699220

  ISBN (HB) 9781786699237

  ISBN (XTPB) 9781786699220

  ISBN (PB) 9781786699251

  Author Photo: Nina Rangoy

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