‘Spark? Zest for life?’

  ‘Yes. It’s only natural for things to get us down sometimes, but are there still things you can find fun in?’

  Valdemar took off his glasses and started polishing them on his shirt. ‘Listen, Gordon,’ he said, ‘if I really am depressed, what could be done about it anyway? I don’t want to start taking a load of stuff. Happy pills and that kind of crap.’

  Gordon Faringer nodded and put on a professionally grave expression. ‘I can well understand that you don’t, Valdemar. But they can give you a little lift, and that means quite a lot. Give you back some pleasure in life and sense of purpose; you’d be surprised how many people are on a mild dose. Zest for life is damned important, anybody can see that. Going round feeling everything’s at rock bottom really wears us down, to put it simply. Do you often think about death?’

  ‘Off and on,’ said Valdemar. ‘But it’s the same as the rest, I always have done.’

  ‘Your father committed suicide, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes he did,’ said Valdemar. ‘Thanks for reminding me.’

  Faringer quietly studied his nails for a few seconds.

  ‘Why do you say that?’ he asked.

  ‘Eh?’ said Valdemar. ‘What did I say?’

  ‘You said: “Thanks for reminding me.” About your father’s death, that is.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Valdemar. ‘I don’t know why I said that.’

  ‘But you’re not thinking of doing the same thing?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Valdemar. ‘Once you’ve managed to keep it at arm’s length for so long, you can do it for the years you’ve got left as well.’

  ‘Is that how you see it?’

  ‘I don’t really know how I see it. Life’s bloody complicated . . . yes, that’s more the problem as I see it. And it seems easier to lie to yourself, the older you get.’

  ‘I don’t quite follow,’ said Faringer. ‘You’re sure nothing’s happened recently to drag you down?’

  ‘No,’ said Valdemar.

  ‘Absolutely certain?’ said Faringer.

  ‘I’ve no idea what it could possibly be, if so. Shall we go and see how they’re getting on in the kitchen?’

  ‘By all means. I’m glad to see you’ve got an appetite, anyway; that’s a good sign. But, you know, I wouldn’t mind seeing you again to do this a bit more formally, a proper appointment. How does next week look for you?’

  ‘I’ve got a lot on next week,’ said Valdemar.

  ‘The week after?’

  ‘All right,’ said Valdemar. ‘If you really think there’s any point.’

  ‘I most certainly do,’ said Gordon Faringer, raising his glass. ‘Here’s to you, and now let’s rejoin the womenfolk and get to work on those mussels.’

  She finished the painting job late on Saturday night.

  She judged it to be finished, at any rate, but it was tricky to be sure without seeing it in daylight. She would check in the morning, and there was plenty of paint left if she needed to do any touching up.

  She knew he wouldn’t be fussy, though, because he had said so and it was only the cheapest kind of topcoat. No need for it to be tip-top, Valdemar had stressed; she liked the word tip-top. It sounded so old-fashioned and safe, somehow. Especially the fact that there was no need to strive to be it.

  Like with life, she thought, that didn’t need to be tip-top either, but it could still have a touch of style. More or less like these walls, clean and neat, but not excessively smooth or special.

  She’d enjoyed the work, too. The taping, the brushwork for corners and fiddly bits, then the tray and the roller, from the top down in long, even strokes; you could see the result straight away, and the whole thing looking smarter and smarter, stripe by stripe, metre by metre. There certainly weren’t many jobs where you could see such instantly rewarding results as you could when you were painting, she thought. And it was easy to have a few general thoughts about life while you were doing it; nothing too deep, half your concentration on what you were doing, half on whatever happened to come into your head. It was a good combination. And then of course there was the symbolism of it: painting over all the old dirt and starting something new. Looking forward.

  But now it was Saturday evening and the job was finished, both the kitchen and the living room. She couldn’t do any more to it for now, at any rate. She put on her thick jumper and her jacket, went outside and sat in one of the new garden chairs. She lit the pipe and thought that the house really ought to have a lamp at the corner, or some other sort of outdoor lighting; maybe she could take it up with him on Monday. Suggest straight out that they fix up a lamp, why not?

  Or even tomorrow. She hoped he might get time to come for a while on Sunday, as he had hinted. She shivered, in spite of her layers of clothes; there was a distinct feel of encroaching autumn, it couldn’t be many degrees above zero this late in the evening and the darkness felt denser somehow. As if the cold was packing it more closely together and making it harder to forge your way through.

  When there’s no light, it’s more important to be able to listen than to see, she thought. At night it’s the sounds that matter, not the pictures; she tried to focus on her hearing but could only hear the usual muffled murmur of the forest. She wondered what kind of wildlife there was out there. Elk and foxes, that was for sure. Badgers too, and lots of smaller species: mice and voles and all those other names she couldn’t bring to mind. And birds, of course; she wasn’t very good at species of anything except snakes, because she had gone to a Montessori school for a term and a half, and they had spent almost all their time on snake-related projects, for some reason. But there weren’t many kinds in Sweden. Adders, grass snakes and slow-worms, if she remembered rightly. And wasn’t the slow-worm actually a lizard, if you wanted to split hairs?

  Wolves? The thought suddenly occurred to her: what if there are wolves in the forest? Maybe there’s a big male with yellow eyes and slavering jaws out there staring at me, over by the earth cellar.

  But the idea didn’t scare her, even if it was the case. Wolves didn’t attack people, she knew that. Hardly any other animals did either, come to that, according to her biology teacher at upper secondary. No, it was humans who were humans’ worst enemy, he told them in his distinctively mournful tone – he had just got divorced and moved to the area from some other town. She could sense that his wife was one of the enemies he had in mind.

  And they were the only species on earth to behave like that, he added, more mournfully still. Svante Mossberg – his name suddenly came into her mind. The boys had called him Mossy, of course.

  She moved a few metres, across to the currant bushes, pulled down her trousers and squatted to pee.

  Humans are humans’ worst enemy? That was undoubtedly correct. Why are we so bloody brilliant at being horrible to each other and hurting each other? As she pondered this conundrum, a penguin film she had seen a few years ago came into her head. It was about emperor penguins, those comical creatures that lived down in Antarctica in the harshest of conditions. Keeping their eggs safe, the male and female taking the responsibility in turns, walking long distances across the ice to get food and being entirely dependent on one another for their survival. Even though they barely met.

  She pulled up her trousers and went indoors. She locked the door and thought that was exactly what he was. Valdemar, her penguin.

  Emperor penguin, no less.

  She had a wash, cleaned her teeth and got into bed. I must remember to tell him, she thought.

  Valdemar the Penguin. Perhaps she would have a go at writing a song about him. Why not?

  She fell asleep with butterflies of expectation in her stomach.

  Waking several hours later, she had an entirely different feeling. She stayed still, lying on one side with her hands between her knees, and tried to work out what it was. What had woken her. Whether it was something external or something internal; a sound from the house or the forest, or something she had dreamt. It was pitch black all around her, without a single streak of dawn light; she realized it couldn’t be more than three or four o’clock, but stupidly enough she had left her watch over on the table, which she could not even see in the dense, inky blackness, however hard she strained her eyes. It made no difference whether her eyes were open or closed. Darkness, nothing but darkness.

  But the sense of unease quivered within her. Maybe it didn’t even need an excuse, she thought. Maybe you could be scared and distressed without particular cause? As if it was a sort of underlying state, at least at this time of night.

  Could it be as simple as that? When you let your guard down and weren’t ready for action, all the horrible, frightening things could worm their way inside your shell. Even though they had no name. Perhaps this was how small creatures felt, lying low in the primitive shelter of their holes while birds of prey circled beneath the sky with their sharp beaks and talons, trying to spot them.

  The permanently ticking clock of fear. The undefined anxiety. The fragility of life. It could break at any moment; when you were least expecting it, death came knocking at the door.

  Fuck, she thought. Why am I lying here worrying like this? It doesn’t help to imagine myself as some cowering little creature, waiting for the hawk. What’s the matter with me? What was it that woke me up?

  She hadn’t felt like this at Lograna before. Not even when that man was outside, staring at the house; that time she had known what it was that had scared her, but now it was kind of shapeless and inexplicable. And she’d always been afraid of the dark.

  So I suppose it’s the solitude, she thought. Sooner or later it’ll drive you mad; her mother had said that once, and she couldn’t remember if it was directed specifically at her or if it was a more general statement. You need other people in your life, she’d said anyway, no one can manage on their own in the long run.

  Just like the penguins then, thought Anna. A solitary penguin is a dead penguin. And wasn’t that precisely the warning Sonja at Elvafors had been trying to give her? Not to withdraw, because it was the contact with the others that offered the route to healing.

  The others who were in the same boat. Yet you were supposed to cut all ties with the fellow addicts you’d hung around with. That was necessary in a way, she knew that, but it certainly encouraged you to seek solitude. Especially if you were already the kind of person who thrived on it.

  But of course there were different kinds of people. The only thing you really had to fear was certain other people, she thought. And the only thing you absolutely couldn’t do without was . . . certain other people.

  Sensational conclusions I’m coming to here, she observed. There are people called Valdemar and there are people called Steffo. What a scoop.

  She sighed and got up. Fumbled her way to her jumper and jacket without putting on the light. Pipe, tobacco and matches; then she put on Valdemar’s boots and went out into the pitch black autumn night.

  21

  The ICA store in Rimmersdal was open on Sundays, just as he had hoped. Only for a few hours, but it was eight minutes to closing time as he pulled up on the gravelled area outside, so they wouldn’t have to stay late on his account. He was only buying a few bits today.

  Yolanda wouldn’t have to stay. It was funny: he hadn’t been in her shop for several days now, and in that time he had barely spared her a thought. That’s the way it is, he thought. When you get a grip on your life, it fills up with substance and meaning.

  Never better than this.

  He hadn’t told Alice he was going out for a couple of hours, but he didn’t need to, either. The opportunity simply presented itself: Alice had a meeting of her women’s network Nymphs Unbound that afternoon, and Wilma and Signe still weren’t back from their Stockholm jaunt.

  A couple of buns and a litre of milk for their coffee, a bit of fruit and an evening paper, that was all, but when he got to the till he saw it was a different checkout operator. A rather pale young woman, who couldn’t be much older than Anna or Signe. But of course, he thought, of course Yolanda has to have her days off, too.

  Like everyone else.

  He paid, packed his purchases in a plastic bag and left the shop. He got into the car and was just closing the door when his mobile phone bleeped. A text message had come in, something that seldom happened to Valdemar, and it was even more of a rarity for him to send one.

  He thought he could still remember how to do it, though. He put the key in the ignition but didn’t start the engine, fished the phone out of his breast pocket and brought up the message.

  Why are you hiding from me? You’re mine and I shall be with you very soon. S

  He stared at it, not understanding a word. Who was S? Who was he supposed to have been hiding from?

  You’re mine? It sounded like . . . like a message of love. A woman writing to him and saying she would be with him. Good grief, thought Ante Valdemar Roos, surely it’s not possible that . . .?

  No, he decided. Absolutely not. However much you had taken your life in your own hands, there were limits to what could happen. He was still in so-called reality; the notion that a woman with a name beginning with S was secretly in love with him – had been yearning for him for a long time, and was now going to be with him in some way or other – no, that was simply too much.

  Or any woman beginning with any other letter, for that matter.

  One has to understand life’s possibilities, thought Ante Valdemar Roos, but also appreciate its limitations. Draw a clear boundary line between them, that was the trick.

  So it had reached the wrong recipient. As simple as that. The sender had put in the wrong number, which he had quite often done himself, mainly because the pads of his fingers covered three or four keys simultaneously.

  He reset his phone to its home screen, started the car and pulled out of the parking area. He was aware of a faint thrum in his temples; perhaps he’d had a few glasses too many last night with the Faringers, but if so, he was in good company. They hadn’t gone home until after one, and even though the menu was only mussels, with fruit and ice cream for dessert, it was still quarter past two before he and Alice finished the washing-up and got to bed.

  All these blessed glasses, Valdemar had found himself thinking. Why couldn’t people just carry on drinking out of the same glass, maybe rinsing it out between times if they felt the need?

  But he had downed at least a litre of water in the course of the morning, so hopefully his temples would stop throbbing once he was out in the fresh air at Lograna.

  Imagine if I could simply stay over, he suddenly thought. Say to hell with going back tonight. We could both squeeze into that bed, the girl and me, couldn’t we?

  He cast a glance at his reflection in the rear-view mirror and reminded himself what he had just been thinking about boundary lines. Between possibilities and limitations.

  I’ll have to make do with coffee and a pipe of tobacco, he decided.

  And an inspection of the paint job, of course.

  ‘You’ve finished already?’

  ‘Yes, I think I have.’

  ‘What a difference it makes. You ought . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You ought to be an interior designer or something.’

  She laughed. ‘Interior designer? Oh Valdemar, I only painted the walls. It takes a bit more than that to be a designer.’

  ‘Maybe so,’ nodded Valdemar. ‘You made a bloody fine job of it, all the same. But what sort of career were you thinking of? Even if things have veered a bit off course for you lately, you must have plans?’

  Anna stuck her hands in the pockets of her jeans and thought. ‘Um, well, I don’t really know,’ she said. ‘Maybe I ought to carry on studying. Finish upper secondary, at least. I’m not very good at deciding, it’s difficult.’

  ‘It isn’t easy,’ said Valdemar. ‘It was simpler in my day.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Anna. ‘In what way?’

  He sighed. ‘You ended up in some line of work. However you approached it. I happened to study economics, but was I interested in it? Like hell I was. Money’s nice to have, but sitting there counting it day in and day out? No, stuff that.’

  ‘So what would you have liked to do instead?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’m just like so many people, getting grumpy and less satisfied as the years go by.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  He did not reply, and after a while she prompted him. ‘What are you actually trying to say, Valdemar?’

  He gave another sigh. ‘Well I expect you’ve noticed. I find it hard to make contact with people, hard to make contact with life, you could say. I suppose that’s the big question, really . . .’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘What the hell the meaning of my life is.’

  She sat down at the kitchen table and he joined her. She was watching him, her eyes looking restless and a bit uneasy, and he wondered why on earth he had said that to her. She was at least fifteen years younger than his son.

  ‘Are you unhappy, Valdemar?’

  ‘Oh no.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’

  ‘Hmm, I suppose there are plenty who feel better. I hope so, anyway. It doesn’t bloody well bear thinking about, otherwise.’

  ‘So what would you like to do?’

  ‘To do?’

  ‘Yes.’

  There was a long silence. He looked round the freshly painted walls, scratched the back of his neck and eventually his face broke into a cautious smile.

  ‘It’s really nice, Anna.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Anna. ‘But you haven’t answered my question.’

  ‘About what I’d like to do?’

  ‘Mm.’

  He cleared his throat. ‘Maybe that’s the problem,’ he said, and looked out of the window. ‘If I really felt some real urge, it probably wouldn’t be all that hard to set about it. But when you don’t know, when you just feel out of place but haven’t got a clue where you really want to be . . . well, then it seems a bit gloomier, somehow.’