Everyone tells him he must be patient, that he must wait for a sign of improvement. They don’t understand shit. Erik’s eyes rest on Anna’s motionless face.
“Are you in there?” he says, his voice breaking. “Can you hear me?”
It’s torture. He needs to talk to someone who won’t just give him the standard ‘hopefully she will wake up soon’. He picks up the phone to call Rob, but notices he has a missed call from Tina. He immediately phones her back. Maybe she has more information?
She answers on the second ring. “They spoke to Pernilla Arvidsson,” she says so quickly the words fall on top of each other and he struggles to understand. Pernilla? “She says you’re together.”
“Together?” He thinks for a second. “I only see her when I drop the children at day care.”
“According to her it extends to outside of day care.”
“I’m sure we see each other at the supermarket from time to time.”
“She says it’s more than that.”
“It’s not.” What the hell?
It was only the one time, but he’s not keen to tell Tina or anyone else about it.
Rob had begged him to go out and he had agreed, a boys’ night was probably not such a bad idea. Except it had been. They had drunk far too much and when he went to the bathroom to piss, Pernilla had been in line to the ladies.
“Hey there.” Blue eyes, sparkling along with her smile. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“Hi.”
It felt good. To be looked at that way.
“Do you want to have a drink?” she asked.
“Sure, I just…” he pointed to the bathroom.
She smiled and giggled. “Me too.”
They reunited in the bar. He looked for Rob but couldn’t find him. Knowing him, he had probably left with someone already. Another night, another girl, he laughed. The joke was getting old. He knew it. Erik knew it too but sometimes he felt jealous. Of the attention Rob got, the variety, the excitement of flirting and sealing the deal.
“So what’s the occasion?” she asked.
“Boys’ night out.”
“You’re such a good dad,” she said and punched him gently on the arm.
She was drunk, her words slightly slurred.
“Thanks. I guess.”
“So sweet.”
They spoke about the children, about the town, the weather. Anything really. Soon the eyelids that had batted at him seductively, started to move at a slower pace, as if she was about to close them all together and fall asleep.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m tired. I want to go home.”
“Where are your friends? Should I get them for you?”
“They’ve gone home,” she said, now leaning her nose on his shoulder. He felt her go heavy, her head sinking into his arm, her body closing in, pressing against his chest.
“Don’t fall asleep!” he said. “I’ll put you in a taxi.”
“I can’t afford that,” she mumbled.
“I’ll pay for it.”
He couldn’t just leave her. After hailing a taxi and placing her in the backseat, she pulled him in.
“Please stay, I think I’m going to be sick.”
The taxi driver refused to drive. “Get out, I don’t want puke in my cab.”
“Are you sure your friends aren’t still around?” Erik asked desperately. If he took her out of the taxi, where would he leave her?
She didn’t reply; she was leaning against the headrest, fast asleep. He needed to get her home.
“Look,” he said to the taxi driver. “Please just get her home. She hasn’t had that much to drink,” he lied. “She’s just tired. Been working a lot.”
The driver didn’t look convinced but he too needed to get her out of the car and agreed to drive if Erik joined them. Luckily, he had managed to get her address before she started snoring.
When they arrived at her apartment block, he had to pay the taxi driver and get out to assist her. She could barely get the key in the lock. He could have asked the driver to wait. He could have… but he didn’t.
Tina clears her throat, alerting him to the present.
“Pernilla says that you are,” she tells him.
He hates the excitement in her voice and wants to tell her to fuck off. But right now, she is the only link he has to the latest news and he needs to maintain it. It’s what’s keeping him sane.
“She’s mistaken,” he says. “I mean, we get on really well and we always talk when we see each other but that’s it… I’m married,” he adds even though he realises that isn’t a foolproof defence.
“Okay,” she says.
Okay? That’s it?
“Not sure where she got that idea then,” Tina says and he imagines her twinning her hair, biting it between pink lips, enjoying pushing him into the corner just a little bit further. Then he remembers Rob’s comment about her bad breath and that makes it easier: now she’s a frog barfing down the phone and he almost laughs. Almost.
“Look,” he says, thinking hard. “We’ve got a good rapport. We talk when I’m picking the children up. Have I bumped into her outside of day care? I’m sure I have.”
Why does Pernilla have to complicate matters? He hasn’t seen her since Anna was hospitalised. Mum is like a taxi driver, taking the children back and forth. While he sits with Anna, Mum does the shopping, cleaning, washing, ironing and cooking. Sooner or later, Dad will need her back of course.
“They might want to question you again.”
“What? Why?”
If you were seeing someone else, you could have a motive for hurting her. Is that what they’re thinking? He tries not to panic.
“Someone is going to call you,” she says.
“Wait, please… Tina.” She can’t hang up just yet. “What about the note I gave Linda Johansson? Do you know if it’s led to anything?”
“Eh, hang on.” It sounds as if she’s ruffling through some papers.
“No, sorry. I don’t know.”
“Oh…” That’s disappointing.
“Well, it’s not your fault. Thank you.”
As soon as he puts the phone down it buzzes, alerting him to a new message. Pernilla’s name appears and two perfectly shaped, round breasts fill his screen. What on earth is she doing? He doesn’t respond.
He sits down and moves his chair closer to Anna’s bed. Her translucent skin is fresh from the sponge bath, which makes her look somewhat thinner, paler, camouflaged in the sheets. He leans forward and whispers in her ear:
“I’m sorry.”
Chapter 11 – Anna
September 2015
Spit was hanging from the ceiling in Anna’s classroom. The girls were pretending to vomit while the boys broke out laughing. Daniel just looked at her, his light-brown eyes defiant and intense.
“Daniel, please can you step outside with me?”
Anna detected a faint smile, which annoyed her. This wasn’t meant to be a reward. She just couldn’t deal with him in front of the others, ignoring her every request. He stood up and she was glad that at least he was doing as he was told. The boys whistled as he made his way to the door, papers went flying. Chaos was breaking out in her orderly environment. It had to stop.
“The rest of you read from page twenty-five. If you don’t settle down, you will all get detention.” At least it worked with the rest of the class.
As she followed Daniel out of the classroom, she thought of his latest letter, which could be likened more to a note, only containing one line: I need a mum, okay? No threats. And her heart did ache for him. At the same time, she wasn’t sure if she could trust it. Was it just a game for him? It was also the way he chose to communicate: she still wasn’t sure how he managed to get the letters into the teacher’s lounge.
In the corridor, she pushed her hair back, folded her arms and applied her serious voice.
“This can’t go on, Daniel,” she said. “If you don’t stop disrupting my le
ssons I will request that you are moved to another class.”
This wasn’t as easy as it sounded but hopefully he wouldn’t know about school procedures. She wasn’t sure how his last school had operated and despite numerous tries, hadn’t been able to speak to a former teacher.
“You can’t do that,” he said.
“I can,” she said. “The principal trusts my judgement and if I suggest you’re better off in another class, he will consider it.”
Now he didn’t look so sure anymore. He was biting his lip, shuffling his feet from side to side, hands deep into his pockets.
She had spoken to the principal, not about moving Daniel to another class but about additional support.
“I don’t understand,” Johan had said while vigorously looking through a pile of papers. “What is the issue exactly?”
“You know Daniel is the reason for the fire alarms going off and all the fights?”
Johan had nodded, his greasy hair and penguin-clad tie making it difficult for her to take him seriously. He kept searching for something and soon his eyes lit up as he found it. With a piece of paper in his hand, he quickly glanced up at Anna – as if to check whether she was still there – and said: “Anna, you’re the best person to deal with a boy like that.” He might as well have added: ‘there, there, off you go now’.
Johan had only been in the position for a year and during that time he hadn’t managed to gain the teachers’ confidence. His focus seemed to be on his bosses at the council office. MÖRNA SCHOOL SAVES MONEY UNDER NEW LEADERSHIP read the headline in the local paper, except nowhere did the article mention that new books hadn’t been ordered, that the courtyard was in desperate need of repair, or that staff training was on the backburner. Anna had kept an open mind, not wanting to judge too soon, but she felt her patience weaken.
“Daniel needs help,” she had explained. I need help dealing with him.
“Speak to the parents.”
The oblivious look on Johan’s face, his hands up in the air. She had stood up and excused herself, realising that she would have to sort this out on her own.
Now standing in the corridor, Daniel whisked his growing fringe out of his eyes. In the fluorescent light, the reflection of emerging stubble was just about visible on his upper lip. It made him look older.
“You know what I want,” he said. “And if I get what I want, you get what you want.”
“I don’t really understand. You want a mum? You already have one.”
“She doesn’t give a shit about me or my brother. She’s a total slacker. Martin was arrested last week and she did nothing about it.”
“Maybe she’s giving him tough love?” she suggested.
You’re way out on a limb, Kent would say. Keep it real, Anna. The students respond to that.
“Okay, so what do you want? You want to talk to me?”
He hesitated.
“I want to live in your house,” he said.
The words didn’t sound like a naif boy’s wishful thinking.
She braced herself. “Daniel, it doesn’t work like that.”
“I know you like me,” he said.
“I think…” she started, sighing. What could she possibly respond?
“Don’t,” he said then, his eyes narrowing. “Don’t give me sympathy, that’s not what I want.”
“We can’t always have what we want.”
She took a deep breath. There had to be a solution, a middle ground.
“Let’s talk to your mum, together? In the meantime, please can you wipe off the ceiling, then sit down and listen?”
A compromise.
He shook his shoulders, either he couldn’t care less, or he was agreeing. Then he nodded and headed back towards the classroom. Hopefully his mum would profess her undying love for her son. Hopefully. If not, she would talk to Kent and ask his advice.
*
At the end of the school day, she sat in the teacher’s lounge with a couple of other teachers. They all had their heads down, working away. Kent had left early and she wished there was someone she could call, just to talk. These days, it felt like phone calls with old friends had to be scheduled. When they were younger, her sister Helen would phone her regularly with various issues, but she wasn’t someone Anna in turn could call for support. These days they hardly ever spoke; Helen was wrapped up in her new family.
Erik had a close family. That had added to the attraction when they first met. He seemed so secure and she was sure it was as a result of all the love he had been surrounded by growing up. Her own parents had been strict and controlling, at least in some ways. If she started eating before everyone was served, forgot to put something back in its place, or didn’t say ‘thank you’, then she would be shouted at, but if she was out late with her friends, no one seemed to miss her. Helen had rebelled as a teenager but Anna had kept her head down and counted the days until she would leave.
She wished that her family had been closer. Although she had read that once you passed the age of thirty-five you could no longer blame your parents for the mistakes that you made. She had two years to go.
She wondered about Daniel’s family. Did he know his father? What little she had found out had revealed that he lived with his mother, Frida, and his brother, Martin. There were no notes about the father. It was a sad situation and she just knew she couldn’t turn her back on him. Too many children were left disappointed by adults in their lives, whether it was parents, teachers or government officials, and they tended to end up in a downward spiral of criminality. Daniel’s brother was a perfect example of that and she didn’t want Daniel to follow in his footsteps. Although he obviously could not move in with her. She felt relieved to have found a line that could not be crossed.
She left work early to spend the rest of the afternoon with Sebastian and Lukas. Erik was working and she decided to bake something with the boys. They loved getting messy in the kitchen and she tolerated that better than Erik, even though he wasn’t exactly a neat freak.
“We had muffins at day care today,” Sebastian told her.
“Really? I didn’t think parents were allowed to bring cake?”
She was sure a health conscious note had been sent out proclaiming that only fruit would be served at children’s birthdays.
“Pernilla brought it.”
“Oh.”
The young day care teacher with the long eyelashes. Anna had only met her a few times but it was as if the teacher was assessing her every time, eyeing her from top to toe.
“Is she nice?” she asked.
Lukas shrugged his shoulders. “I like her,” he said.
“Good, that’s the most important thing,” she said.
Twenty-four chocolate muffins later she made spaghetti Bolognese and then rounded the children’s evening off with a massive apple-flavoured bubble bath. Sebastian and Lukas put white foam on their chins, pretending to be Santas, singing Christmas songs even though it was only September. Anna joined in, both in the singing and the Santa look-alike competition.
“Mine is better.”
“No, mine is.”
“No,” Anna said. “I believe mine is best.”
There were bubbles everywhere, even on the ceiling, but it wasn’t a big deal. It could easily be washed off. Listening to the boys’ laughter was more important.
Being with her children, Anna could think of nothing else. Not work, not Erik, not even the latest book she had devoured, Affinity, which had been recommended by the librarian. Time with Sebastian and Lukas was like a soothing tonic much appreciated after a long day at work.
When the children were in bed, she went downstairs and waited for Erik. He was late even though he had promised to be home in time for her to go out. She had planned to go to the library, which was open late that evening. He didn’t answer his phone so she called Rob.
“Is Erik there?” she asked.
“Sure, do you want to talk to him?”
Bingo.
“Yes
, please.”
“Anna?” Erik’s voice. She said nothing. Would he figure it out by himself?
“Oh, sorry,” he said and she felt relief. That meant she wouldn’t have to sound like a nagging wife. “I completely forgot. You had something on?”
“That’s right.”
“On my way.”
“Thanks.”
While she waited for him, she opened her wardrobe to get changed. Did she own anything that didn’t scream ‘teacher’? Perhaps something that would flatter her figure? Erik always used to complement her breasts and so she picked out a black V-neck jumper and added a pair of dark grey figure-hugging trousers. It didn’t look too shabby. She stood in front of the mirror, deciding which necklace to use. The white moonstone pendant or the silver Bismarck chain? She opted for the moonstone. What about shoes? She mainly wore trainers, boots or ballet flats. There were only a few heels in her wardrobe since she felt awkward increasing her height. She opted for a pair of leather boots with a low heel and sprayed Calvin Klein One on her wrists.
“Fancy.”
Erik stood in the bedroom door, his eyes taking her in. He was dressed in loose hanging, low-cut jeans and a dark green hoody, a classic staple Erik outfit that most likely consisted of famous brands. When they first started dating, she found his style to be cool and stylish. At that time he had a wide collection of trainers as well. It was casual but fashionable. She walked across to him and planted her lips on his. He tasted of beer.
“So where are you going, looking so dressed up?” he said, grabbing her waist.
“Work do,” she said.
He wouldn’t be talking to her colleagues anyway and he didn’t need to know about Hågarp’s library; he wouldn’t appreciate that she yearned to go back for more books. Books were apparently boring, unlike movies.
“You smell so good,” Erik said, burying his nose in her hair.
He kissed her ear, her cheeks, her neck; his hands slid down over her curves and she tensed.
“Not now, Erik,” she said but he didn’t stop and so she stretched her hand out and flicked the lights off.
She tried to think about the tanned, muscular bartender, lovemaking under a whirring fan, his laughter, their bodies sticky between warm sheets; flamenco music from a nearby bar, tourists laughing, the slight breeze from the open window.
When I Wake Up Page 6