Painting followed painting. The place was crowded. People moved a few steps forward or back to take in sharp or blurred details that caused perspectives to change. A pair of citytrousers even produced a magnifying glass to scrutinise the finer points.
People pushed me casually so I pushed too. Sharing the experience with strangers made me uneasy. I longed for silence. And as usual I longed to be back home. Home at kippofarm or outside in the smalångerforest wandering up to the afta hill or down towards the strand.
Diana was moving among the people. Her height and long blond hair made her stand out from the crowd. She was answering questions gesticulating laughing chatting. Her manner was new to me. I only knew her through the fogs of fever and from the brief moment she had lain newly born on my arm.
She must have sensed that she was observed and turned. Our eyes met. I saw her apologising to the people she was with as she waded with long paces through the crowd.
Jesus who walked on the water.
Mum she said. We hugged. I only reached up to her chin. It’s great you could come.
I found it hard to behave normally. Wanted to stay wrapped in her arms. Sniff the scent of her skin and perfume and ignore all the noises and people and unimportant impressions.
Hello I said how is it going. Incredibly well she said. John is a success.
She didn’t say dad.
Where is he anyway I wondered. Maybe he hasn’t turned up yet. We looked around.
He was here earlier anyway but you know what he’s like. Not so keen on crowds.
Maybe he isn’t I thought. But what do I know. Clearly not as much as diana.
Wouldn’t you like a glass of wine she asked and led me with her hand on my arm towards the queue in front of the bar. On weekdays we run events for local companies. Like wine tastings and cooking with famous chefs. Ellanilsson was here last week. You’ll have seen her on tv. She’s the chef at cafeumeå.
I shook my head. Never heard of her.
Lost on me. I don’t watch tv.
Not often anyway? She smiled.
Never. We don’t even have a set.
Diana made her way to the top of the queue and leaned over the counter to speak to the guy serving drinks. He looked up and waved at me. He was like an american bartender in a film with swelling muscles under his tshirt and a perfect grin. How old might he be. About thirtyfive.
Roughly my age. But I felt at least twice that. Not in ageing terms but as if I belonged to another and much older generation. He took a bottle from the fridge pulled the cork out and filled a couple of glasses.
It’s a chablis from domaine brocard she said and raised the glass to me in a toast. We import a few wines ourselves. I go down there two three times a year. Kevin says hello and that I have a goodlooking mother.
Kevin who I asked. The barman she said. He’s from australia.
The wine was fridge cold and tasted like smalångerbutter.
I know next to nothing about you I said. But you seem already very much a woman of the world.
Isn’t that how it should be she said. As if one’s children belonged in another unknown world.
It sounds true enough I said thinking about mother.
We drank and diana got us another glass each.
She should have been mingling with the visitors. Instead she was stuck standing at a tall bar table drinking wine with her newly found mother.
Why did you christen me diana she asked.
I never had a chance to christen you I said. But I gave you your name. Have you been christened now.
She nodded. Christened and confirmed.
We talked as well as we could but the sounds of others kept butting in. And people came along to speak to diana and every time she said the same thing.
This is my mother. Her voice rang with a pride I did not deserve.
My child. My daughter I said to myself. My child my daughter.
A citysuited couple bore down on our table. They had a goal.
Ma chérie the woman said spreading her arms wide when they had almost reached us. She air kissed diana’s cheeks. Held her lightly by the shoulders and scrutinised her face.
You look tired chérie she said. Aren’t you sleeping well.
Diana turned to me.
Let me introduce my parents she said. Jacqueline. Stig. Jacqueline is french. Stig is swedish.
We all smiled at each other.
And this is my mother. Jana. While diana spoke to her parents her hand rested on my back.
More smiling. Diana has told us that you two are back in touch stig said to me. After all these years.
It would have been easy to understand if they felt threatened. After all diana had become their child in every legal way. Only now they faced a stranger their child chose to call mother.
It is thanks to diana that I have had the good luck to get to know her I said.
Diana left to go to the loo and jacqueline sent her husband off to fetch wine.
So you have been resurrected she said. It might make you happy to know that diana values the life she has had with us very highly.
I’m sure she does I said. She had expected me to bite.
Have you always lived in umeå I asked.
Mais non she said. We have travelled very widely. As a family.
I assumed that she felt threatened and noticed her not very discreet appraisal of my body. How badly dressed I was. The pale face the redrimmed eyes. My freckles and the way my sharp cheekbones stuck out.
Diana was back from the loo and stig followed soon afterwards.
Are you enjoying yourselves diana asked.
It was one thing to stand alone with that woman and answer her questions. In diana’s company it suddenly seemed unbearable. I finished my wine and excused myself.
Where will you sleep tonight diana asked as I was about to leave. I hadn’t thought that far.
I don’t really know I said. I’ll go home with john I suppose.
Why not stay overnight with me she said loudly. John is staying too.
Sounds good I said. Let me think about it.
I made another attempt to plough through the crowd. The large number of people seemed strange. A completely unknown painter had attracted a huge audience.
The paintings demanded my attention. Shouted after me as I passed them. I didn’t feel up to confronting them. I wanted to drive home to smalånger and make myself a pot of tea. Digest diana’s parents. Perhaps even turn them into clay figures.
As your hands work the clay they create images of defeat john had said. That’s why your figures look so real. What they say counts for nothing. Denial is useless.
He was behind me. I picked up his smell where I stood in the sea of people and watched myself being dragged down to the bottom. He stood close to me. Warmed my body that had chilled and stiffened in the encounter with diana’s parents. Click. Someone had taken a photo. We both turned towards the camera. Another click. Someone asked for my name. I didn’t reply.
Seems you’re a celebrity now I said.
No way he said. You don’t get instant celebrity status because you’ve painted a few pictures. Have you seen the whole exhibition.
No I said. I haven’t got the energy. It must wait for another day.
There’s one painting I would especially like to show you. You have never seen it. It is of.
I interrupted him. No don’t. I said. I don’t want to.
He took a step back.
Then I remembered that I had brought him a present. I had wrapped it in tissue paper and written something for him on a card. I scrabbled in my shoulderbag. Found it and handed it to him. Here you are it’s for you I said. Why don’t you look at it later.
Aren’t you happy for my sake he asked. Of course I am. You know that. But it’s just that.
I know he said. Diana’s parents. I’ve just met them.
Presumably she had lots of lovely things to say about your art.
She did actually. I thought they seem
ed nice. He is an art dealer but perhaps you knew that already. We’ll go to their home for dinner afterwards.
Did you say yes to the invite.
Yes. But that was arranged quite some time ago he said. Surely you’re coming.
No I said. I’m not invited. Diana asked me to stay the night at her place. It seems the idea was for me to hang out in a pizzeria until the dinner party in your honour is finished.
She probably didn’t think that far ahead he said.
It’s possible I replied. I was already on my way out. I heard him call me. It was not an appeal to make me stay. His voice carried other overtones.
Outside the frost had started to bite. I scraped the ice of the windscreen with a cd cover. The cold made my fingertips ache. I had left my woolly hat in the cloakroom.
Hello mum wait for me. Don’t go. Diana came running towards the car.
Sorry she said. I screwed up. I do want you to come for dinner tonight. It won’t be the same without you.
All that made a bizzing noise like midges when you lay awake at night in the summer.
She went on to say something else just as I was rubbing some life back into my ears. The chill inside me wasn’t so easily dispelled.
I looked at my daughter thinking that it was all a mistake. We were matched biologically but I meant nothing without the software. John had his fantastic paintings. I on the other hand had little to offer. Didn’t even know who ellanilsson was.
I jumped into the car and shut her out. That was a signal as unmistakable as her parents’ dinner party. Without another glance at her I drove off. The road that joined the efour was deserted apart from the odd timber truck.
I had thought about her every day since she was born. Recreated the pain from the first contractions to the last moment of expulsion. How she lay newborn on my breast. I had even given her a name. Diana. The goddess of the wild animals.
There could not ever be any different feeling to replace the longing I had lived with since then. She was like a lingering aching phantom pain in my breasts in my womb. For twentytwo years I had hoped that we would find each other again. Before I hadn’t known who she was. Whom she shared her life with. And what it had been like. How she had looked and thought.
And that made all the difference. Now she was within reach and still not. It hurt so much I could hardly get enough air into my lungs.
I was driving faster now and tried the brakes. It was slippery. The diesel engine struggled to respond. The landscape with its neverending massed rows of fir and pine seemed to lean in over the road.
A speed camera flashed in the dark but I didn’t care. An elk ran across the road but I didn’t care.
In the other lane a car had overtaken on a bend and was careering towards me but I didn’t care. I didn’t brake. Didn’t even slow down. We came so close I could see his terrified face in the side windscreen pane.
Finally I reached the smalångerroad and our farm. The whole house was lit up. A warm light from advent candles and stars. Music played in the bestroom. Jameslast.
Bror and angelika were lying on the velvetclad sofa. They looked like a couple in a medieval painting. An angelic boy resting on the breasts of a fullbodied woman.
When I came in they sat up straight. Angelika tried hiding her breasts behind a cushion.
Are you back already bror said. Weren’t you meant to stay in town. Yes I said but it didn’t work out.
Has something happened he asked. We’ll talk tomorrow I said. It’s that bastard john he said. As always.
You might be right I said. Never mind. You seem happy. I won’t disturb you I said and closed the door behind me. Mostly to shut out jameslast.
My tea water boiled. Texts pinged in. The washing up had been done. Even the cooker had been cleaned up. I made tea and stirred in honey.
The phone pinged again. And again. I turned off the sound and then the phone.
FIFTY
The church was filling up with people who had come to the early christmasday service. Most had come by car or on their kicksleds.
I had walked. It wasn’t very cold. Only a few degrees below.
Bror and angelika were not going. They were cooking instead. Since that evening on the sofa angelika hadn’t gone back to her own place. She moved into bror’s boyhood room. I couldn’t think how they managed in his narrow bed.
I didn’t object in the slightest. On the contrary. Bror was wallowing in angelika’s loving care and stayed reasonably sober. Besides she was an orderly person and not a slob like bror.
I felt the need to thank somebody. Went to sit in the front of the house because of the candles.
The weeks between john’s exhibition and christmas had passed quickly. I had been working all extra hours there were and apart from work I went bird shooting or made clay figures. Without john and diana I felt an emptiness as greycold as the afta hill. I had no idea what to do about it.
Across the aisle a few rows further in front I spotted his black hair. He turned now and then to try to catch my eye.
We have a cancellation of this morning’s service the church warden said speaking so close to the mike scratchy noises came through the loudspeakers. The minister who has recently become a father is too unwell.
I felt he was out of order. Just this morning he could surely have taken an aspirin and pulled himself together for a mere pathetic hour. For the sake of his congregation. This was after all the most important holy day of the year. People were coughing and snivelling everywhere in the pews. The timbers of the old wooden church were creaking. Cold draughts swept around our legs and made the flames of the altar candles flicker.
We have to help each other to make this christmas service feel as heartwarming as possible she said and went on to read a passage from the christmas gospels.
Once she had sat down a woman seated in the front pew rose and walked to the altar. She was clearly moved even before she spoke. Perhaps it was the seriousness of the moment.
I’ve been thinking of that maria she began. Her voice was pleasant and free from the pathos of the clergy. We all know her as the mother of Jesus but still we don’t know much about her. There she was in Nazareth walking around with her big belly about to give birth any moment.
Ever since returning to smalånger I had been thinking about that maria too. The force of her presence had been such that the village is still reeling though she had been dead for some time. I had heard from angelika that the shop manager had been the last of the men she had picked up on the way. Mricander. That explained why bror misbehaved towards him. She had dumped bror for the grocer.
Get your head round that one angelika had said. An obese eightyyearold who is suddenly being courted by the village femme fatale. It was so weird I had to ask her why. Guess what her answer was.
No. Can’t.
She said she quite fancied the possibility that the fat icamanager would breathe his last under her body.
When I emerged from my thoughts the stand in for the minister was rounding off the story of the birth of jesus.
You can imagine can’t you how fearful and exposed she must have felt as she clomped about she said. With the baby due so soon. If the worst came to the worst they wouldn’t even have a roof over their heads. She was fourteen and knew nothing about giving birth. She must have been missing her mother once the contractions began to hit her. Joseph was doing his best to find somewhere to spend that night but he had to take her to an old byre where he bedded maria down in the straw. Their baby was born during the night when the stars were shining most brightly. Especially the star that had followed them all the way from nazareth.
It must have been sirius I thought.
Then we prayed and we sang and we prayed and we sang but I wasn’t thinking about maria and jesus. I was thinking about diana. Her serious face as she lay newly born in my arms and her sleeping face in the armchair in my hospital room. Her bright figure as it moved without haste through the crowd and her desperate expression as I left
her behind in the cold car park.
I was thinking about my child and mourned a life passing me by as quickly as a moment spent with a neighbour who dropped in to borrow sugar. It could have been different. I looked across to john. He turned his head so quickly I didn’t have time to avert my eyes.
Not even the large candles on the altar sent out enough light to be reflected in his eyes.
I wondered why death had decided it wasn’t my turn to die. I had lost the will to live when I drove away. I had never felt this before. Living has something to do with hope.
John and I stepped into the aisle at the same time because a woman next to me had been struggling to get into a tricky coat.
I must talk to you he said. It’s important. He took hold of my hand in a grip that couldn’t be waved away.
Come home with me he said when we were outside the church and he had lit the flame on his torch for the christmas night procession.
I don’t want to I said. He pretended not to have heard or maybe he hadn’t heard.
Let’s go he said. Put your hand on my arm. If you don’t want to come home with me we can at least talk as far as the crossroads.
Did the exhibition work out well I asked.
Yes it did he said. I sold almost everything but then I regretted it and decided to keep most of them.
Which ones I asked.
All the paintings about us he said. You ought to have sold them I said. Just memories.
No he said. They are not only about memories.
It started to snow. Large silent flakes fell densely. We were like a couple in a glass dome that someone had given a shake to make the snow whirl about.
Tell me about maria I said. How she died. I won’t go on seeing you unless you tell me.
Vapour clouds swirled around our mouths. He pulled my arm closer still. This blizzard was different from the one when we met last time. We were coming close to a crossroads where honesty would decide what directions we would take.
I helped her to die he said. She asked to die in the clearing near the birch and it happened as she wanted it.
Why did she want to die there I asked.
I don’t know he said. But she was ill with cancer. It had grown inoperable. They gave her chemotherapy but when the cancer spread all the same she made up her mind to die. She didn’t want anyone to know that she was ill.
My Brother Page 24