They’re sitting between two bushes. Light from the café on the other side draws the shape of their bodies. They’re making out. He creeps even closer, so close he can hear them whispering to each other. Daniel has his hand up under her top. He can’t see her hands; they must be out of sight, down his shorts.
It wasn’t them he saw. Not Ylva. Not Daniel. It was too dark to see who it was. They weren’t whispering together. Go down to her apartment. Knock. If she’s home, it must be someone else sitting up there in the bushes, in the darkness. If she isn’t home, he can tell her father where she is. Then sneak back up there. Find them lying in the grass, her with the tiny little skirt bunched like a sausage round her stomach and her knickers flopping on one ankle, Daniel on top of her, because not one single sonofabitch in hell could be in any doubt about who that is carrying on up there in that park.
– Ylva, he says aloud. Repeats the name several times, knowing that he’ll never, ever say it again.
There’s something in his pocket. The tin opener. He digs it out, flips up the corkscrew. It’s sharp and makes his fingers prickle when he jabs it around on his underarm. In the kids’ playground he finds a tree. Carve on it with that stiletto of a corkscrew. A couple of words he has to get one last time, not Ylva but Fucking Ylva. Ylva doesn’t give a fuck. Not Daniel. Daniel doesn’t know anything about Ylva and Jo. Cut around the whole trunk of the tree, peel off the bark in strips so it can’t live.
Something soft rubbing against his leg. He jumps. The one-eyed kitten. He bends down and gets hold of it by the skin of its neck. Yes, now you can fucking wail, you moaning bastard, always coming over here and rubbing your arse up against me, you hear me, fucking cat? It wriggles about and tries to scratch him, and that’s what makes him really angry. It’s small, not much bigger than one of Arne’s shoes, and the thought enrages him. With one hand he squashes it hard again the tree; he pulls his belt off with the other, passes a loop around the cat’s neck and pulls it as tight as he can. It hangs there, wriggling and squirming about. He fastens the belt around a branch and stares at it. Stares everything evil into that sick little cat face. It’s only got one eye, but that’s one too fucking many, it seems to him; not him, but the other one, he’s the one that’s there now, the one who stands in the dark and pounds away with a sledgehammer shouting Don’t let it see me, no one must see me. He holds the little head in an iron grip, pokes away at it with Ylva’s tin opener, holds the animal at arm’s length so it can’t reach him with its claws. It’s hissing and screeching; he squeezes harder, and something green spurts out of its tiny mouth. Spit on me would you, you little fucker. He gets a finger down in the good eye, holds it open, jabs at it with the corkscrew. The cat makes a sound like a baby, like Nini when she lies away screaming all night long. He pushes the coils inwards, twisting until the eye gives and something wet dribbles out on to the back of his hand. Twists a few more turns and pulls it out as hard as he can. The fur in his hand goes limp. He tensions the belt so much the thin neck closes up and is almost cut right through. And yet it still isn’t dead. He leaves it hanging there and walks over to the swing and finds a big, sharp stone. Throws the limp creature onto the ground, bends over and pounds the stone against the soft head until he hears it splinter like dry tinder and the tiny ear fills with blood.
Sometime later he loosens the belt and throws the clump of fur off into the bushes. Hears voices getting closer and hides in between the slide and the swings. No surprise if someone comes to see what all the noise was about. But they walk on by, disappear down the steps. He creeps over to the gate, opens it. There’s a cord hanging from it, probably from a sweatshirt. He reaches down into the bushes and pulls out the slimy fur body. Ties the cord around its neck and takes it with him. You know exactly what to do with this, the whisper in his ear says. Whose fucking door you’re going to hang this on.
Calmer now he’s done what he was told to do, he walks back up the steps and back into the playground. Sits on one of the swings. He’s too big and heavy, the whole structure sways, and this calm can’t be trusted, his stomach is still churning way down low and it won’t stop. The yellow flag was waving on the beach when he and Daniel went up in the afternoon. Bound to be still up. That’s the way it is now, he mutters. Not just medium danger any more.
Soundlessly he lets himself in. The light is on in the room. Truls must have woken up and turned it on. He’s sleeping up on the sofa beside Nini. The duvet has slipped off and is lying half on the floor. Jo stands there looking at the sleeping bodies. Truls will miss him. Truls needs you, Jo. Mother will be ashamed; she’ll start crying. She’ll feel so sorry for herself. Nini is too small to understand anything. Only Truls will miss him. He picks up the duvet and wraps it round his brother and sister.
He notices that the whole of his underarm is covered in green slime mixed with bloody goo. Slips into the bathroom and rinses it off. Silent in the bedroom. Mother needs to sleep. Arne isn’t back yet. Here’s something he can do. Go up to the bar. Find Arne slobbering over that skinny bitch who’s with the other bloke. Walk over, grab something from a table, a knife, a corkscrew. Shove it into the side of his neck so it goes all the way through whatever’s in there and the blood gushes up out of Dickhead Arne’s mouth like a garden hose. Rouse Mother. Shove her and Truls and Nini into the back of a taxi and drive to the airport. We’re finished here, Mother, never come here again, understand? With Arne lying on the floor of the bar, bleeding to death. On the plane, she doesn’t touch a drop, not when they get home either. She’ll make their packed lunches and drop off Truls and Nini and then she’ll go to work, because her head at the hospital called and said they want her back. She’ll never again spend half the day lying in bed, and she’ll be there when they come home, and there’ll be the smell of roasting meat and freshly baked bread, and she’ll stand on the steps and smile at Jo when he comes home from school. This is how it’ll be from now on, Mother. Now Dick head Arne is gone for ever.
On top of the fridge he finds an envelope, tears off the back of it. Fetches one of Nini’s crayons, a light green one. Write something or other. Hate you is how he might begin, but that’s not what he writes. When he’s finished, there are just two words on the paper: Forget me.
From the top of the steps, the breakers look like huge kittens licking milk. He takes off his trainers on the bottom step and walks barefoot across the sand. It’s cool now. Passes a group of deckchairs at a distance. From the corner of his eye it looks as though someone’s sitting there, but he’s no intention of checking. He reaches the point at which the foaming water has to give up and go back again. Follows the tideline along. The sand here is firm and hardly sinks underfoot. Keeps going to a point midway along the beach, the place he picked out a few days earlier, without having planned it. Swim out. Past the buoys. Out through the warm black water. Headed for Africa. He’ll never get there. He’ll grow tired. Afraid, maybe, but mostly tired. Swim till he can’t do it any more. The dark warmth will close around him … He feels suddenly light. Hardly even angry any more. Just happy. His disappearance will wake Mother up. She’ll leave Dickhead Arne. Truls and Nini will have a better life. What is required is that he take this swim. Ylva will never know it has anything to do with her. Or perhaps she’ll understand when she comes home and sees what’s hanging on her door.
He pulls off his trousers and underpants, keeps the yellow T-shirt on. Behind the tongue of one of his trainers he puts the note he wrote in the kitchen.
He stands just where the breakers turn. They foam around his toes, frothing so the small bubbles burst. They don’t come to bring something, he thinks. They come to fetch something. He starts to wade out.
– Hey, Joe.
He stands there without turning round. Tries to tell himself it’s his imagination. Realises that it isn’t. Realises that Jacket is standing on the sand behind him.
– Bit late for a swim, isn’t it?
No one can stop what he has started on now. Postpone it maybe, but not sto
p it. He has given a promise. Doesn’t know who to, if it’s not to the one who stands in the dark pounding with the sledgehammer. There is nothing in the world that can make him go back on his word.
He half turns. Jacket is wearing the same dark clothes. His hair looks dirty and uncombed. A cigarette in one hand. Jo’s trainer in the other, with the note.
– It’s going to be a long night, Joe, says Jacket, and doesn’t seem the least bit bothered. – You’ve got plenty of time.
He takes a drag on the cigarette and offers it to him.
– Come and sit down here with me for a while. I’m not leaving until you tell me how things are working out between you and Ylva Richter.
DEAR LISS,
If you receive this letter, I am no longer. I sit watching how the dust slowly sinks down through the grey light falling from the window, and outside the wind whips up the autumn leaves and lays them down on the snow again. Even now that thought seems so strange. Not to be any more. It’s not a last-minute decision; it’s been latent for years, and now I’ve woken it up again. What you do will decide whether I send you this letter I’m writing, or burn it in the fireplace and carry on down my road a while longer. I won’t contact you, won’t lift a finger to influence you. The closest I can get to a feeling of relief right now is the thought that what is to come lies in your hands, not mine. And related to this relief is another thought: if you receive this letter, then you’ll also know what happened that time.
I first saw him on the plane. He passed by on the way to the toilet. I looked up from my book, the only luggage I had with me on that trip. His glance caught mine, but I don’t think he noticed me. I still remember the lines of verse I sat reading, over and over again, by the window:
Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together.
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
– But who is that on the other side of you?
I could have written a lot about Jo and Jacket. I could have described in detail the first meeting in Makrigialos that autumn. How I saved him from drowning himself. How he saved me. Not because I need to confess, Liss, but because it matters to me, sitting here, that you understand what you condemn me for …
PART I
1
Friday 28 November 2008
MAKE-UP OFF. RUBBING, revealing strips of pale red facial skin in the sharp light. The photographer had insisted she cover up with this thick white mask. Something he wanted to bring out. Something stiffened, in contrast to the almost naked body.
She unfastened the clip, let the hair tumble down her back. It looked darker than usual, but still reddish. She sat a moment, considering what she saw in the mirror. The arc of the forehead, the eyebrows she had allowed to grow out wide, the eyes that seemed to be too far apart. It had always looked odd, but a lot of the photographers obviously liked it. Wim, whom she was working with today, maintained with a grin that it made her look elfin. She began drawing a brush through her hair, slowly, following the waves; it got caught in a tug, a quick jerk which she felt at the base of her skull, a reminder that she mustn’t linger too long in this distant state. It was past eleven o’clock. Part of her was aware of the need to slip down into a dark hole, sleep there for a day or two, or more. But her pulse was too quick and too hard.
Her mobile phone vibrated on the mirrored shelf. She checked the number – no one she knew – put it down again, carried on brushing. Had never liked this thick, difficult hair, apparently inherited from her grandmother. Waves of fire, Zako might say, when he was feeling melodramatic. And against a white wall or a pale sky it shone and attracted the eye, which was then obliged to carry on and see the face with the greenish eyes. She straightened her back so that her breasts became visible in the mirror. They were too small, but Zako was firm about not having them enlarged, at least not yet; they suited her young girl image. Like something out of a Jane Austen novel, he said. Zako had never read Jane Austen. Nor had she, for that matter.
The mobile buzzed again. Message from Rikke. Liss, we’re in the Café Alto. Cool music, Zako’s asking about you.
A flash of anger passed through her. He’d started sending her messages via Rikke. Thought she still didn’t know he was sleeping with her. Rikke had let it slip one morning over a week ago. She could read Rikke. Could read most people. The look in Rikke’s eyes was different that morning. The laughter a note higher than usual. When Liss asked if she’d seen any more of Zako that night, she’d dropped the breadknife on the floor. Confessed immediately. As though there was anything to confess. So what, was Liss’s comment once she’d told the whole story. Rikke had been expecting her to flare up and make a scene. When that didn’t happen, she declared that Liss was the best friend she’d ever had, and that she was never going to let Zako feel her up any more. But how was she going to resist? Zako had done a thorough job on her. Taken her in such a way that she went around thinking about it for days afterwards, waiting to be taken again in exactly the same way. Walked around dreaming about him in a complete daze. He had her in his pocket. Literally, thought Liss, and noticed a smile in the now make-up-less face in the mirror.
She’d realised immediately once Rikke began doing little favours for him. Got him coke if he’d run out. Rang for a taxi when he was leaving. Rubbed her bulging arse up against his crotch every chance she got. Liss laughed at her on the quiet. To see Rikke as a panting bitch was liberating. Probably because she knew Zako would never get that kind of hold over her. Liss didn’t need him and wasn’t afraid to tell him that. Then he might talk nasty and be threatening. She owed him money, he might say. And didn’t he pay for the flat she shared with Rikke? He kept far too much of what she earned on her photo shoots, she might come back at him. Soon she’d have enough good contacts to run the show herself. She didn’t need a PhD in economics to make a few phone calls and read through a few contracts. She owed him for coke, he growled. Do you mean to say you’re making all this fuss over a few thousand kroner? she might shoot back. Do you want it now? Damn it, Liss, get a grip, he would hiss, but he’d already been driven back, way back inside his own territory.
One morning, this was in the little kitchen in the flat, he’d grabbed both her arms, twisted them behind her and pushed her up against the fridge. It hurt, she had bruises for several days after, but she looked him straight in the eye without showing the slightest sign of pain. He could have hit her, in the course of a few minutes destroyed her physically. But she wasn’t afraid of him. His threats aroused nothing but her contempt, and that made her different from all the other girls he had. She didn’t need him. He needed her. He’d realised that a long time ago, but he still laboured under the delusion that she hadn’t realised. He’d made a few connections for her. A lot of them were useless, because she had no intention of going into pornography. Only a handful of the photographers he knew had other ambitions. She’d try them. Not commit herself. Not be tempted by empty promises. Zako wanted her to stop taking the design classes, thought it took up too much time. She had no plans to stop. Had enough talent to get some use from it. The modelling jobs were just a series of tests: what sort of effect did her picture have on others, and why? What else could be done with that picture? How far could she get from what she was, or had once been?
She was finished with Zako. Had started looking for a new apartment. Wouldn’t have any problem paying back what she owed him. If the worst came to the worst, ask at home. Not Mother, obviously, but Mailin, who would send money immediately, no questions asked … The thought of her sister brought a stop to the long, flowing movements of the hairbrush. She sat there squeezing it in her hand. The eyes in the mirror held her. Something had happened. Three days ago. Yet again Zako had insisted that she escort some businessmen for an evening on the town. He had three or fou
r girls who earned money for him that way. He provided the service, it brought in a lot of money, and he let them keep quite a bit for themselves. They didn’t have to sleep with anyone, just hang around at receptions and go to nightclubs. With unlimited access to champagne, coke and the best restaurants in town, in Zako’s tempting description. Rikke was just about hooked. Easy money, he promised. He sounded like a used-car salesman, and it started Liss off laughing. He asked what the big joke was. And that was when she dropped the hint, the thing she’d now made up her mind about, that she was going to break with him. His eyes darkened. Maybe you don’t give a damn about what happens to you, he hissed, but you’ve got someone you do give a damn about, just like everyone does. What do you mean? she had to ask, suddenly struggling to hide her uncertainty. Don’t you have a sister? Then something happened that hadn’t happened for a long time. The light in the room changed. It got brighter, and at the same time seemed to sort of withdraw. Aren’t I here? She felt the thought race through her, and a pounding began in her chest, so hard she had to take a hold of herself just to go on breathing. And at the same time, that other thought: he mustn’t see what’s happening to me. She held on tight to the edge of the table. He smirked. Didn’t say anything, just that smirk, as though to show her that he knew he had her now.
She put down the hairbrush, pulled on her jersey and trousers. Zako had no idea how idiotic it was of him to try to bring her sister into it. The final straw. She would make that blindingly clear to him next time they met.
She put her mascara on, a thin layer, took out her eyeshadow. Suddenly she saw Mailin in her mind’s eye. Standing in front of a bed. She’s wearing pyjamas, and even though the room is in darkness, Liss knows that they’re pale blue. Her sister’s hair is gathered in two long braids, the way she used to have it when she was a child. She’s standing there saying something or other.
Death By Water Page 5