Never End

by Ake Edwardson

  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  By the Same Author

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  NEVER END

  Åke Edwardson was born in 1953. He has worked as a journalist and as a press officer for the UN, and has written books on journalism and creative writing. Now a professor at Gothenburg University, he also is a prize-winning author, both for his best-selling detective novels and for his books for children. He has on three occasions been awarded the Swedish Crime Writers' Award for best crime novel.

  Laurie Thompson was the editor of the Swedish Book Review 1983–2002 and has translated many books from Swedish, including novels by Henning Mankell, Håkan Nesser and Mikael Niemi.

  ALSO BY ÅKE EDWARDSON

  Sun and Shadow

  ÅKE EDWARDSON

  Never End

  TRANSLATED FROM THE SWEDISH BY

  Laurie Thompson

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  ISBN 9781409078319

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  Published by Vintage 2007

  4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3

  Copyright © Åke Edwardson 2000

  English translation copyright © Laurie Thompson 2006

  Åke Edwardson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs

  and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

  This electronic book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  First published with the title Låt det aldrig ta slut by Norstedts,

  Stockholm, 2000

  First published in Great Britain in 2006 by

  Harvill Secker

  Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,

  London SW1V 2SA

  www.vintage-books.co.uk

  Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited

  can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm

  The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009

  A C1P catalogue record for this book

  is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 9781409078319

  Version 1.0

  To Kristina

  1

  She felt a prick in her right foot, under her toes. She had been feeling her way forward, but the bottom was covered in seaweed here, a sort of long, thick grass that swayed with the current. It was brown and nasty. Like dead flowers.

  Now she was standing on a small sandbank. She balanced on one leg and examined her right foot: she could see it was bleeding, but only a little. It wasn't the first time this summer. Par for the course.

  She suddenly found herself thinking about a cramped classroom smelling of musty clothes ... and musty thoughts. Rain against the windowpane. Questions on a sheet of paper and the scratching of pens, answers that would be forgotten as soon as the papers had been handed in. Now it was all over, though. She'd passed her final exams, three bloody big cheers. And now a summer that would never end. Neeeverend. She could hear the tune in her head.

  The cut would be no more than a little scratch by tonight, and it wouldn't hurt at all; but she would still feel the heat on her skin, from the sun and the salt. From the shower. Before the evening got under way.

  She swam, kicking with her legs, and water flowed all around her. A sailing boat chugged slowly into the bay on its engine. She could see the little ferries, three of them, from where she was swimming. All the people on their way down to the islands in the southern archipelago. She was drifting on her back. She couldn't feel the water any more, it was like floating on air. I can fly, she thought. I can do anything. Be whatever I like. I can be famous.

  I can forget.

  Summer, and then she'd be starting at the medical school – but that was a million years away, millions of drops of water tasting of salt and sand when she dived.

  The water was green and a bit cloudy. She saw a shadow that might have been a fish.

  She'd study for a year and then take a gap year, no matter what her father had to say. He'd comment that she was good at planning sabbaticals, but what about all the rest?

  She didn't want to be at home.

  She stayed under water for as long as she dared, then kicked off and tried to leap high above the surface. She swam back to the rocks – picking her way carefully through the seaweed – and heaved herself up onto one jutting out into the water.

  The wound under her big toe was still bleeding. She clambered up to her blanket, pulled her towel from her bag, dried her hair and took a drink of water, then sat down on the blanket and blinked away some drops of salt water from her eyes. She took a breath, then another, a deep one, full of sun that almost scorched her lungs. The surface of the water was glittering like fish scales, as if tens of thousands of fish were wriggling away out there. She could hear faint sounds from boats heading in all directions. Some disappeared into the horizon, melted away. The sky was nearly white in the distance, but there was no sign of any cloud. She lay on her back. A drop of water ran down from her hair and over her cheek, and she could taste it on her lips. She'd already closed her eyes. Everything was red and yellow inside her head now. She could hear snatches of voices from people nearby, half words, a splinter of laughter that sparkled like the surface of the water in the sun.

  She hadn't the strength to read. She didn't want to do anything at all, just lie there for as long as possible. Do nothing, just live for ever.

  The sun was at eye level when she gathered her things together and scrambled over the hill and down through the little ravine to the cycle stands. She felt quite dizzy. Her shoulders were smarting, in spite of the cream. Her cheeks were burning, but not too much. It would have died down by evening, sort of sunk in. It would look good in the lights of the open-air café.

  She was starting to forget.

  She cycled past the marina, threading her way through the crowds of people flocking off the archipelago ferries towards the trams and buses. Everybody was going home at the same time, as if they all had the same habits. Maybe we
do, she thought. That's the way it is in summer. Everything is simpler. Sunbathe, swim, shower, party. Swim, sunbathe, shower, party. Shower, sunbathe, swim, party. She stopped, parked her bike and stood in the ice-cream queue to buy a tub with two flavours: tutti-frutti and old-fashioned vanilla. The ice cream started to melt straight away, but it would have been worse if she'd had a cone. A woman next to her said it was 33 degrees. Thirty-three degrees at 6.00. 'We shouldn't complain,' said a man to the woman's right. 'Oh, I don't know,' said the woman, who could have been anywhere between forty-five and sixty. 'The gardens could do with a bit of rain.'

  Bugger your gardens, she thought as she rode off. Let this never end. The gardens will get their fill of rain come autumn.

  There was a smell of hay coming from the field sloping down to the creek on the other side of the road. She passed through a cluster of houses, speeded up when she came to the cycle track alongside the tram lines, and was home within ten minutes. Her father was sitting on the verandah with a glass of what seemed to be whisky.

  'Here comes a beetroot.'

  She didn't answer.

  'Still, better that than a leek.'

  'A leek?'

  'The white bits on a leek.'

  'I'm going up to my room,' she said, walking up the steps. It was whisky. She recognised the heady smell.

  'I'll be lighting the barbie in exactly ten minutes, Jeanette.'

  'What are we having?'

  'Skewered salmon, angler fish. And a few other things.'

  'When are we eating?'

  'Precisely forty-five minutes from now.'

  Her father took a sip and turned away. The ice clinked. She liked wine, or a beer, but never whisky.

  By the time Jeanette was doing her make-up, the sun had already sunk into her skin, its colour grown deeper. The room was in shade: she had drawn the curtains and dimmed the light, but she was radiating a warm, dry, wholesome smell, from her skin. She stood in front of the mirror, wearing only her pants. Her breasts glowed as white as her teeth.

  Now the room smelled of the after-sun gel she'd just applied. Her skin had already softened in the fresh water from the shower. A lovely term: fresh water.

  Her father was shouting from the bottom of the garden and, at that very moment, she could smell the grilled fish and, at that very moment, she felt ravenously hungry. Ravenously. And thirsty.

  Elin's teeth were gleaming on the other side of the table.

  'What are you doing tomorrow?'

  'Sunbathing and swimming.'

  'Shall we have another one?'

  'I don't think so. This one's gone to my head,' Jeanette said, indicating the beer glass on the table.

  'You really do look brown,' Elin said.

  'Thank you.'

  'And your hair's turned white.'

  'I don't know if I should thank you for that.'

  'It's fabulous.'

  'OK, thank you.'

  'I think I'll have another beer,' Elin said. 'I'm permanently thirsty.' She stood up. 'I reckon I'd better go in and serve myself. The waitresses never get this far out.'

  They were sitting in the far left-hand corner of the open-air café.

  'Sure you won't have one as well?'

  Jeanette nodded. Elin headed for the bar. Jeanette watched her threading her way through the tables, just as she'd threaded her own way through some jelly fish earlier that day, out at Saltholmen.

  'Hang on,' she shouted. 'I will have just a little one.'

  They stayed out for ages. The heat piled up between the buildings, having sunk slowly down to street level.

  'It must still be as hot as ever,' Elin said. 'No sun, but just as hot.'

  Jeanette nodded without replying.

  'Evenings really are the best part of hot summers in Gothenburg.'

  She nodded again.

  'Cat got your tongue?' Elin said.

  'It's just that I'm so incredibly tired.'

  'But it's only just gone twelve.'

  'I know. It must be the sun.'

  'Some people have all the luck. I've been slaving away at a check-out all day.'

  'It's your day off tomorrow.'

  'That's precisely why we've got to have a little paarty.' She said it again: 'Paaarty.'

  'I don't know, Elin.'

  'For God's sake! When I said that about you having white hair, I didn't mean it literally. Having white hair doesn't mean you can act seventy-plus. My God! Now you're yawning again.'

  'I know. I'm sorry.'

  'What's it going to be, then?'

  'Tonight? Or this morning, rather?'

  'No, I mean one night in November next year, of course.'

  'I don't know ...'

  'Am I going to have to go to the club on my own?'

  'No,' she said, 'the gang's coming.'

  There they were. Three boys and two girls, and it was perfect timing, because she didn't feel like partying the night away. It must be the sun. A massive overdose of sun. And now she wouldn't have to go just for Elin's sake.

  'Now you don't need to come along just for my sake,' Elin said.

  'What are you on about?' one of the boys asked.

  'Time for bye-byes here,' said Elin, nodding at Jeanette and smiling.

  'I'm really tired, that's all,' she said.

  'Go home and get to bed then,' the boy said. 'Shall I ring for an ambulance?'

  She stuck her tongue out. He laughed.

  'I'm off.'

  'Walking?'

  'Yes, walking.'

  'It's a long way. And the last tram's probably gone.'

  'There's always the night bus. Or I might take a taxi for the last bit.'

  'Get one now,' Elin said.

  'Eh? You can't mean that ... What do you mean, in fact?'

  'You shouldn't walk through town on your own.'

  She looked round.

  'On my own? The place is full of people.' She looked round again. 'People of all ages, come to that.'

  'You do as you like,' Elin said.

  'Are we going, then?' asked one of the gang.

  They stood up.

  'Eleven tomorrow morning, OK?' Elin said.

  'Can you manage to get up by then?'

  'I can manage when there's some sunbathing in store.'

  'You know where to find me,' she said, bade them good night and set off walking southwards.

  'Rest in peace,' said one of the lads.

  'That was a ridiculous silly thing to say,' Elin said.

  Jeanette hesitated when she got to the taxi rank. She suddenly felt livelier, as if walking had triggered off some spare engine inside her or something. She paused. Looked at the park. There were as many people there as had been at the pavement café, maybe more. There were lights everywhere, the trees and bushes sparkled in bright colours that seemed to have been painted onto the leaves. There was a pleasantly cool breeze coming from that direction, she could feel it. It smelled good. And cool. She could take a short cut through the park to the street beyond. There were thousands of people around, everywhere. She could hear music coming from the café across the pond to the right. It was only a hundred metres away.