Me on the Floor, Bleeding

by Jenny J

  Debbie walked up to me and threw herself round my neck. I tried to duck, tried to protect my naked feet from her stilettos, and I almost toppled backwards with the weight of her alcohol-fuelled body. She felt my head, ran her hand over the back of my head and whispered that it felt like velvet. I liked it a lot, having her voice like that in my ear. Then suddenly she let go of me and carried on dancing. Her breasts moved unhindered beneath the fabric of her dress.

  I remained standing there, looking at her, looking at the others and the liberated way they moved around the floor. Then all of a sudden I realised something: during the past few hours I had experienced a sprinkling of pure happiness, absurdly enough, despite the fact that Mum was missing. I decided to go along with that feeling and not let myself be held back.

  The bass was so heavy that the air vibrated. I danced wildly. I danced even more wildly. More than anything I so wanted to feel like I was good at it, dancing. Perhaps it was the alcohol kicking in that made me go in for it a hundred percent, dancing with my arms above my head, my bandaged pulsing hand and all, so I shut my eyes and sang along. I felt as if I was floating in very salty water. I was happy!

  Then I heard someone laugh. I ignored it at first but it didn’t go away, that annoying high laugh. I opened my eyes. It was the glass artist.

  ‘Ha! Is that how people dance these days?’

  And then he imitated me, wiggling his backside exaggeratedly and moving his arms upwards as if shadow boxing. And sniggering. Not unkindly. Well, not that unkindly.

  It was hard to dance after that.

  I smiled at him even though that was the last thing I felt like doing. Like a puppy I lay down in front of the big German Shepherd.

  I left the sitting room and walked upstairs. There was a couple sitting on the landing sofa, snogging with their eyes closed. I caught a glimpse of their wet, pink tongues. I stared at them indifferently. It made me think of a bizarre mating game between two squirrels that I’d seen on TV once. The programme was all about animals in Costa Rica and the squirrels were massive. During foreplay the male peed on the female, which appeared to send her into unbelievable ecstasy and made her dance wildly. After a while the male peed on her a second time and she danced just as wildly again. After repeated peeing and dancing the actual mating finally began.

  You would never have thought squirrels could be so kinky.

  Suddenly the guy opened one eye, as if he had felt he was being watched. Hurriedly I disappeared into the bathroom and shut the door. The music sounded muffled and distant. I stared at my face in the mirror. I looked stupid. Pale and stupid. My mouth half open, my eyes watery and glistening with self-pity.

  ‘May every glass artist prick be eaten alive by Satan!’ I whispered, and then raised my voice: ‘Who cares about effing art? Who cares about making art out of effing glass? Who cares about effing sculptures? I hate you! I hate everyone!’

  I screamed that last sentence out loud. Then I fell silent and looked around me. I cleared my throat. Above the hand basin was a large hand-written note but my eyes wouldn’t focus; I couldn’t read what it said. The paper had gone wavy, like paper does when it’s damp. I imagined Justin’s pale body in the bath, imagined him showering in hot water.

  I strained my eyes to read, squinting, and made out:

  The most effective way for an organism to adapt to its surroundings is to die.

  Sigmund Freud.

  Feeling slightly nauseous I unlocked the door and crept past the snogging pair on the sofa and down the stairs. I searched for the pale yellow down jacket that was lying in a pile of footwear and outer clothing, thinking how practical it was that I didn’t have to look for any shoes. I looked around me, at the sitting room, at the kitchen. Everyone was busy with what they were doing: talking, dancing, flirting, drinking.

  As I went out through the front door I thought about that note, thought about Freud. I wondered whether death really was adapting. Whether dying wasn’t the most anarchic thing you could do in a society where everyone was so scarily glass-artistically alive.

  SATURDAY, 14 APRIL

  A Malignant Tumour

  When I woke up on Saturday morning fully dressed in my bed in my sparsely furnished room there was only one thought echoing in my head. It was so insistent that I wondered if that was what had woken me.

  She may have sent an email.

  Of course. I had to check. Now.

  It was strange I hadn’t thought of it earlier. That was usually how we kept in touch in between the Norrköping weekends. I had been so busy checking Dad’s emails that I had forgotten to check my own.

  I got out of bed quickly, too quickly, and a heavy, leaden ache spread from one side of my head to the other, forcing me to sit down again. My mouth was dry. I touched my tongue with my finger. It felt as if it didn’t belong to me. It felt like a foreign object, like a little animal that had curled up in there and died. I felt like doing the same. But I didn’t; I made myself get up and walk the couple of metres to the office where I switched on Mum’s laptop. I drummed patiently on the keys as it started up. I felt a sudden pressure on my bladder that I tried to ignore. I went into Hotmail and quickly scanned the lines. Spam. Spam. Spam.

  Then: would you believe it.

  There. An email from Mum. It had been sent yesterday morning and it was addressed to both me and Dad.

  On the subject line it said: Can’t see Maja this weekend!

  Maja.

  Jonas.

  I am very sorry that this is such short notice but I have to let you know that Maja can’t stay here this weekend. Unfortunately it is not possble for me to phone, the way things are at the moment, but I assume Jonas that you will read this in time to cancel the visit. I promise to make this up to you Maja and will phone as soon as I can. I hope you can get the money back for the train tickets, Jonas, otherwise naturally I will reimburse you.

  Best wishes,

  Jana

  At first I only stood there in silence, staring at the screen. I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or, well, what? She was alive, at least. Had I ever thought anything else? I didn’t know.

  Then I felt it come. The rage. Slowly at first but then more and more intense, like those burning pins and needles when your foot has gone to sleep. Hot and corrosive like caustic soda it raced around my blood stream.

  I spent two days with her every other week. Was that too sodding much? Was that so sodding difficult? Was that so sodding unimportant? I seriously felt as if I wanted to damage something, kill something.

  I tried to convince myself: this is good news; she hadn’t simply disappeared. Wasn’t that right? Then why was I in such a terrible rage?

  There was something in the objective tone that was unbearably painful, that fed the flames. As if she didn’t care at all about what she was writing, about what it would do to me. Actually the formal tone was not unexpected. Irritating and sad, yes, but at least it was like her. In fact that was the only thing that wasn’t strange, even if clearly it ought to have been.

  What is more important than me, Mum?

  The thought detached itself suddenly and hung there, exposed. I didn’t want to think it, didn’t want to touch it. It was too ugly. I tried to force it away, suppress it, remove it like you remove a malignant tumour. Because I didn’t want to care. But I did.

  A less emotionally damaging question: why hadn’t Dad said anything? He checked his emails at least fifty times a day. His job flipping well depended on it, or so it seemed. I quickly checked his inbox but couldn’t see an email from Mum, only one from that pathetic Denise wanting to give him her door code just in case he turned up that evening, making her “such a very lucky girl”. Girl. Pathetic. I felt exhausted.

  Had he deleted Mum’s email? There was nothing in the recycle bin but it could have been emptied, of course. I clicked on Sent but there was no answer to Mum. Odd. I double checked that she really had sent the email to him but yes, she had his email address was there after mine.

&n
bsp; The whole thing was completely baffling! The questions attacked me, shooting through my head like projectiles: why was she doing this where was she why hadn’t she phoned why hadn’t Dad said anything what was she doing when was she going to come back why was she doing this why was she doing this why was she doing this???

  All of a sudden my body took over and I had to run to the toilet. I just about got my trousers and knickers down before my bladder emptied itself. I let it run. I put my hands on my face and shut my eyes. It hurt. Everything hurt. My thumb, my heart, my brain. I washed my hands carefully to avoid getting the bandage wet and looked in the mirror which was covered in glittery lilac dinosaur stickers I had put there ages and ages ago. In my calmest voice I said to the reflection in the mirror:

  ‘You are overreacting, Maja. Everything is all right now, don’t you get it? She has been in touch.’

  It could have been because I was looking at myself in her mirror but for the first time in my life I thought that I looked like her, as Dad kept telling me. It was something about the eyes. The look had become so sharp, almost hard. Had the anger done that? The disappointment? Wasn’t it weird that I only resembled her when I was in such a state? And wasn’t it sad that was the only time?

  I went back to the laptop and sat down, feeling as if I wanted to be sick.

  One weird thing was the spelling mistake. Possble. Mum never made spelling mistakes. She was far too obsessive for that. The incomprehensibility of the whole thing somehow increased my rage. I didn’t understand! I stood up, feeling annoyed, and went down the stairs and into the kitchen.

  The police. I should have phoned them a long time ago. Why did I feel so paralysed? I grabbed the phone that was lying on the window sill, recharging.

  How strange. Now that I knew she was … alive, I wanted to call them. Why was that?

  Does that mean I had thought she was … dead? Is that what I had been afraid of?

  I keyed in the emergency number one one two. Because this was an emergency situation, wasn’t it? I put the phone to my ear, opened the freezer door, and allowed the cold to wash over me, seep into me. Why not? I let it make my head cold: I broke off a handful of snow-white frost and wiped it across my forehead. It made the skin go numb and that helped the headache slightly. I heard the ringing tone and I stood as close as I possibly could to the freezer, pulling the door towards me until I was enfolded by the cold. The hairs on my body stood on end, my nipples hardened. I scraped off some more icy-cold frost and crammed it into my mouth. There was a woman’s voice in my ear:

  ‘SOS alarm. How can I help you?’

  And then.

  ‘Hello?’

  Suddenly.

  ‘Hello, is anyone there?’

  Suddenly I realised something wasn’t right.

  I cut off the call and stepped slowly away from the freezer. Purposefully I walked the fourteen stairs of the staircase. The screen saver had kicked in and a colourful ball was bouncing off the edges as if it was trapped inside a two-dimensional aquarium. I moved the mouse and the email reappeared.

  Precisely as I thought.

  Dad’s email address. It was wrong. It said: filantropen@homail.com.

  Homail.

  The ‘t’ was missing.

  A Kind of ‘Right, That’s It!’

  The sun had been hiding behind a hazy covering all morning but then the sky cleared and everything became so blue and dazzling that I opened the terrace door, deciding to drink my juice outside on the steps.

  It was chilly and I wasn’t wearing enough clothes. It all felt pretty miserable and I thought about Mum and tried to understand how she was feeling. I wasn’t good at it but then I don’t think anybody is, really.

  Mum wasn’t like other people. That’s the kind of thing you say about people, sort of in passing and dismissively when you can’t be bothered trying to understand them, but in Mum’s case it was true. It might sound cruel but she genuinely was socially inept. I’m not sure but I think she didn’t really understand what made other people tick, what they were thinking, how they felt. Perhaps that’s why she didn’t know how to behave in social situations? Either that or – and this is what I sometimes suspected – she simply couldn’t be bothered.

  I almost laughed when I thought about how she actually spent her working life trying to understand others. But only almost, because how could such a thought be even the slightest bit funny?

  A cold wind swept over my arms and gave me goosebumps. I so wondered why she wasn’t here, why she wasn’t with me now. I felt empty, totally drained, and it was so desolate around me, so colourless and ugly, that the surroundings seemed to have been drained as well. I wondered if I really knew her at all, my own beautiful Mum. A teardrop fell into my juice but I was tired of crying, crying for Mum. I couldn’t do it any more. Instead my body started itching with something like rage but not exactly that, and I got hot and the goosebumps disappeared. The lump of crying I had in my throat, that I refused to let out, became hard and it was absolutely impossible either to swallow it or to ignore it. I flung the glass down on the stone slabs beyond the terrace and it shattered into hundreds of small pieces and I saw the sun glittering on the juice, the glass, and the foolish lonely tear.

  When I went back into the house I was overcome by a powerful anger. A kind of Right, that’s it!

  I moved about like a search and destroy robot, looking at anything that could possibly reveal something about her. Where she could be. Who she was.

  I read all the journals that were lying about, especially the articles that were stained, wrinkled or torn, the ones she had read. I studied the dirty dishes in the sink, coming to the conclusion that she had been drinking tea, coffee and instant soup and eating sandwiches during the last few days, just like she usually did. I went through her wardrobe to try to work out which clothes were missing, but despite the fact that Mum’s wardrobe is not what you might call impressively large it was of course impossible to remember all the items. Possibly a greyish-blue short-sleeved silk blouse was missing, but I wasn’t at all certain. I searched a good half hour for the suitcase before I found it crammed into the hall cupboard and could dismiss the idea that she had gone away, at least with that particular suitcase. I switched on the radio to check which channel she had been listening to and not surprisingly it was P1, and I checked the DVD player to see which film she had watched last, but it was only the vampire series True Blood that I had loaded myself fourteen days ago when everything was still normal.

  I flicked through the books that lay on her bedside table, concentrating on the dog-eared ones containing her notes and underlinings, question marks and one or two exclamation marks. The English was complicated and I hardly understood a thing, either the contents or the words. Even the Swedish books were fascinatingly incomprehensible. Small fragments broke free from the page and shone like sparklers against a black night sky:

  Living is considered an art. As with all art the artist improves only through practice. Insight into the secret of the art can be achieved by making mistakes.

  Mum had underlined these sentences twice with a pencil so sharp it had almost perforated the paper. In the margin she had written: “Living is an art!” followed by one of those rare exclamation marks. That must be what she really thinks. That living is an art.

  My headache intensified. My temples thumped so hard that I was forced to go to the mirror to check if it was visible from the outside.

  I rummaged through the drawer of her bedside table and apart from the mouth guard, a packet of tissues, two yellow ear plugs and the DVD player manual, I also found a photograph.

  A photograph in the bedside table drawer. To take out and look at before going to sleep. It must be significant, I thought. It must be a clue.

  It was taken a year ago. The date was there in red digital letters in the bottom right-hand corner. It was a picture of Mum and a man with dark curly hair who I had never seen before. Even though the photo was out of focus you could see how beautiful s
he was: shoulder-length, shiny dark brown hair, conspicuous eyebrows and large grey-green eyes. High cheekbones. There was something special about her mouth, a strikingly full lower lip with a considerably thinner upper lip. You could make out the beginnings of a smile on her mouth, while the man was laughing as if he was on the point of insanity. I think you could see every flipping tooth in his mouth. She was wearing a dark-green long-sleeved silk blouse that I had just seen in her wardrobe. She liked silk, said it was like being caressed, that all other clothes felt heavy and shapeless in comparison. He was wearing a jacket and underneath that a white T-shirt. He was touching her, brushing her lower arm with his fingers. Her cheeks were red and since she would never do anything as irrational and meaningless as wear make-up, they must be roses in her cheeks caused by the heat or the cold.

  On the back of the photograph in capital letters in blue ink was written THOMAS. Not THOMAS AND ME but just THOMAS. As if she herself was unimportant.

  I looked for more photos, on shelves, in boxes and in drawers, but all I found was the photo album I had looked at so many times before that the corners of the hard cardboard covers were now worn smooth and rounded. This was the photo album I had looked in so many times that I could describe every single picture in the smallest detail, from Dad’s patterned shirts to Mum’s functional metal hair slides, and the concentrated look I had when I was eating my porridge. The photo album I had looked at so many times that I knew each unnecessary caption by heart: “Maja playing with a train”, “Jonas, Jana and Maja at Kolmården wildlife park”, “Jana and Maja in the kitchen”. The photo album that showed me as a tiny new-born baby with thin hair, lying in Dad’s arms, Mum standing close by looking serious, all the way through crawling, standing and the first staggering steps, to the chubby stubborn three year-old cycling on a bright-red tricycle.