I stared at her. Ulla and Bertil. Had Ulla loved him? Then again, why should that seem so impossible? They were the same age. Judging by a couple of blurred family snapshots she had been quite attractive in a perky Scandinavian-troll kind of way. I wondered if Olivia knew? Then again, why should she? It was all a very long time ago.
‘Did you ever resent Olivia? Did you mind her stepping into Astrid’s shoes, coming here?’
Ulla shook her head. ‘I did at first, but she loved Bertil and Linus. I didn’t know then that he had made Astrid so unhappy. Of course, at the time I thought Olivia rather a poor substitute, so large, coarse even, compared with my Astrid. But she was always careful not to tread on Astrid’s memory. She didn’t demand for things to change. Bertil offered to sell up, both the flat and Villa Rosengård, but Olivia said no, why should he? He and Linus loved this place and the flat was perfect for their needs and in the nicest part of town. So I told myself that she could have been a lot worse.’
‘I’m glad you told me everything. I mean, not just because I’m a nosy old thing but because, well you know because of how I feel about Linus.’ I gave her a sideways look. ‘I didn’t think you even particularly liked me.’
Ulla gave me a small smile. ‘I don’t not particularly like you. And you asked me about her. You were interested. I believe you felt her presence in this place, the way I always have. I’ve seen you look at her roses. And you’re a journalist. It’s your job to spread news. I want people to know how that man, Jonas Aminoff, killed Astrid. All those people at the time, her so-called friends, who acted as judge and jury. She got all the blame, then. She was the hussy, the flighty one, the scarlet woman. The men got away scot-free. Maybe that’s the way of the world, but why should we put up with it? No, I want you to put the record straight.’
‘But Ulla, a journalist deals with news. This happened a long time ago and most of the people who cared then wouldn’t care now, if they’re even alive.’
Ulla stamped her foot like a child. ‘Why should he get away with it? And her, Astrid, what about her reputation? All those evil things they wrote about her.’
‘Bertil is a sick old man. Jonas Aminoff does seem to have been a grade A bastard, but we only have Astrid’s side of the story. Maybe it wasn’t quite as black and white as she makes out?’
‘I didn’t think you were much for moderation.’
‘I’m getting to be. I’ve learnt the hard way about the beiges and greys that make up our world. It’s easier to live your life in black and white, but it’s not truth. I’m finding it increasingly hard to judge.’
‘I don’t,’ Ulla said.
‘Thank God I didn’t give the diary to Linus. He probably should see it some day, but not without some kind of careful preparation. I dread to think what it might do to his relationship with his father… Actually, how much does Linus know?’
‘Some. He seemed early on to have given up asking the questions that might provide a painful answer. I think he’s frightened of what he might find out. So he asks instead about what she was like when she was a child or as a young girl. Or what she used to like to cook. If she had some pet names for him that he hadn’t remembered. No, as I said, I think he’s frightened to ask too much.’
I found myself staring at Ulla. Where had she hidden all this understanding and sympathy? Under her helmet of hair?
‘And now Bertil is abandoning Villa Rosengård, her home,’ she said. ‘As if he hasn’t done enough.’ Her voice was quiet, her words carried out over the water by the wind. ‘She loved that place. He’s prepared to hand it over to strangers. It’s her house and we, all there together, her family, are all that’s left of her. He and Olivia were prepared to break that up, scatter what was left of Astrid as if it were her ashes all over again. I’ve watched over that family, over that house, for all these years and now he’s throwing it away. That seems to be what people do; they throw away your life’s gifts as if they were nothing much more than an empty cigarette packet.’ She looked straight ahead as she walked. ‘Well, I’ve had enough. And you, you do what you will with what I’ve told you.’
What could I do – other than love Linus all the more?
He was there when we returned from our walk. Sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee.
‘Linus, you’re back,’ I said unnecessarily. And I thought it was unfair to blame the dumbing down of the population on television when romantic love was so obviously the greater culprit. He looked up at me and smiled, a small, tired smile. He hadn’t shaved.
All at once I felt worried. ‘Bertil is all right, isn’t he?’
‘He’ll be OK.’
‘That’s what the hospital told Ulla. But you got me worried, sitting there looking so glum.’ I took a step towards him and put my hand, just lightly, on his shoulder.
‘What’s wrong? Is there something else?’
Linus stared down into his mug of coffee. ‘My father has been poisoned. They analysed some samples and they’ve concluded that he’s been poisoned, some stuff you find in mushrooms. Every time, it’s been the same. The thing is, Bertil never eats mushrooms. He says they give him wind.’ Linus smiled, a joyless smile.
I sat down next to him. ‘So what are you saying?’
‘Not me, the police. They say someone has deliberately poisoned my father and that the someone is likely to be a member of his own household. They also told me that this person, whoever he or she is, is apparently either inept or not serious about killing him. I suppose that’s meant to be comforting. I’m afraid I don’t find it makes things that much easier.’ His voice broke and he flopped down across the table, resting his head in the crook of his arm. I realised that he was crying and, before I could stop myself, I was sobbing too. A man weeping was always a pitiful sight, but when you loved the man it was almost unbearable.
‘Linus, darling Linus,’ I mumbled. I slipped down on to my knees in front of him, turning him gently towards me. I put my arms round his waist and leant my face against his knees. ‘It’ll be all right,’ I mumbled. But how could it be?
‘Esther!’ Audrey called from her bedroom. I pretended not to hear. ‘Esther!’ she called again. Audrey might have had the body of a weak and feeble old woman, but her voice had all the carrying power of a middle-class matron at bay.
Linus straightened up. ‘Your mother is calling.’
I got up. ‘So she is.’
* * *
Audrey was sitting up in her narrow bed, a baby-blue shawl draped round her shoulders. She was looking displeased. ‘What’s going on, Esther? Something is going on.’
I sighed. Of course it is, I thought. You’re wrecking my life. I didn’t say that, though. And anyway, it was unfair. ‘Of course something is going on,’ I said instead. ‘Bertil is in hospital, you know that.’
‘Something else. There’s something else.’
So I told her. As I spoke, I looked at her cheeks: they were growing pink; and at her eyes: they sparkled. There was nothing as certain to perk up an invalid as other people’s trouble, I thought.
‘So who is it? Who’s done it?’ Audrey asked, practically levitating from the bed with excitement.
‘I thought Olivia was your best friend in the world,’ I replied. ‘Shouldn’t you at least pretend to be worried?’
‘Of course I’m worried. But you say that Bertil will be fine and it obviously isn’t Olivia, so…’
‘Can I rely on you not to blab?’ I asked her.
Audrey looked indignant. ‘Do you need to ask?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Well you can rely on me entirely.’ I decided to trust her; after all, she was my mother and I needed to talk to someone. ‘Well, the thing is, had it happened only once and had that once been today, I would have said it was Ulla.’
‘Ulla?’
I told Audrey all about the diary. She looked genuinely shocked. ‘That poor woman. And little Linus.’ Sometimes my mother surprised me by showing normal human emotions. I liked it ev
ery time.
‘But you see,’ I continued, ‘Ulla only read the diary last night and by then Bertil was already in hospital. Anyway, they think that he was poisoned the same way on the other occasions too.’
‘So who?’
I shrugged. ‘I keep thinking it’s some awful mistake. That Bertil has been secretly feasting on dodgy mushrooms, not knowing they were dodgy of course, and hang the consequences; he could always pass his wind on to Gerald, so to speak.’ I looked hopefully at Audrey.
She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so, darling.’
I sighed. ‘Neither do I.’
Then the police arrived. Two of them, a man and a woman. They asked to look around the house. Who was going to refuse them? They went into every room, turning out the kitchen cupboards and bathroom cabinets. They searched through the rubbish, both from the kitchen bin and the dustbin outside. They asked to see the cottage. I told them I would alert Ulla so as not to give her a fright, the police turning up on her threshold like that. But Ulla was on her way over already; I met her halfway. We left the police to their search, but it wasn’t long before they were back in the house. They asked when Olivia was due back, and Gerald and Kerstin. Linus told them Kerstin and Gerald were expected later that day, but that Olivia was staying another night at the hospital. They left, saying they would return the next day to speak to everyone. They had been polite enough right through, but I had noticed that smiling at them was a waste of time, they never smiled back.
‘What did they ask you?’ Kerstin, looking old in her little-girl’s clothes, grabbed my arm as I returned to the sitting-room after my interview.
‘Nothing much,’ I said. I was tired. I hadn’t slept much that night, then again, I don’t suppose any of us had. ‘They wanted to know which meals I had prepared and who with. How long I had been staying here. Whether I knew of any family quarrels or tensions, that kind of thing.’
‘Ah.’ Kerstin nodded and went to join the police officers in the dining-room.
‘This is a nightmare,’ Olivia whispered. She seemed to have shrunk in the last few hours, withered and wilted, and the sparkle had left her brown eyes. ‘It’s been bad enough Bertil being taken ill, but this, that it’s some kind of deliberate attack and by one of us. Ulla is right, it’s like some stupid detective story. But it isn’t a story, it’s us and it’s real.’ She buried her head in her hands and wept. I went up to her, patting her awkwardly on the shoulder while all kinds of inane words of comfort auditioned in my head. The police might have got it wrong. The hospital might have got it wrong. Maybe there was a mix-up of samples. None of them passed muster, so I stood there wordless, patting away at her shoulder.
I was alone in the garden. The late sun bathed it in golden light. The wind had stilled. Across the street they were having a party. In normal circumstances, non-poisoning circumstances, I would have said it was a lovely evening.
‘What’s going on?’ Pernilla came striding towards me, fair hair dancing. She seemed to have got even more tanned in the last day, her bare arms and her legs under the white shorts the colour of the ginger biscuits Ivar liked for his elevenses. ‘How is Bertil?’
I filled her in on what had happened about Bertil’s progress, but I didn’t say anything about the police’s suspicions. I didn’t think that having a poisoner in the family was something the Stendals would want known at this stage. Pernilla tut-tutted, then she asked where Linus was. I told her he was inside. I added that I thought he was just about to go off to the hospital. Actually, I wanted to run inside and put a screen around him so that she wouldn’t find him.
‘Pernilla! Oh Pernilla, it’s all so dreadful.’ Kerstin came running towards us, tottering slightly as her bare feet hit the gravel. She said something to Pernilla in Swedish, but I recognised the word police.
Pernilla turned to me, her eyes wide and hostile. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? This is unbelievable, awful.’ She pronounced the aw in awful in a mournful elongated way, as she looked accusingly at me. Kerstin, too, turned to me, eyebrows raised.
I hung my head. ‘I wasn’t sure how much I was supposed to tell anyone.’
Kerstin gave a little laugh. ‘Pernilla isn’t anyone, Esther.’
I agreed there. Pernilla certainly wasn’t anyone, she was a ginger-biscuit princess with fair hair, green eyes and right now I wanted to push her down on to the ground and sit on her head.
Kerstin was speaking to Pernilla in Swedish again as they walked towards the house. I went back to the cottage.
I sat on my bed thinking over and over about the ease with which the dream had turned into a nightmare and how seamlessly it had happened. What a surprise it all was. You could be the most inveterate pessimist and yet, when it happened, when that giant boot in the sky descended on your head, you were left disbelieving. Crushed too, obviously, but disbelieving to the last.
Bertil remained in hospital. His heart was not as strong as it could be and it had been weakened further by the latest ordeal.
‘I’m glad, really,’ Olivia told me. ‘At least there he’s safe.’
‘As soon as the police say we can, Audrey and I will be leaving,’ I told her. ‘I spoke to Dr Blomkvist and he said she’ll be OK to travel. At least then you won’t have us to worry about.’
‘Oh Esther, you know how we’ve enjoyed having you here. But I admit that once this is over all I’ll want to do is go away somewhere with Bertil, just the two of us.’ She sank down on to the chair next to me at the kitchen table. ‘The worst is not knowing who did this dreadful thing. It doesn’t matter how many times the police tell me it had to be someone here, I still can’t believe it. I mean Gerald, or Kerstin? Linus, Ulla? You, or your mother? Me? It’s all crazy.’
‘What’s crazy?’ Pernilla stood in the doorway. I hadn’t heard her come in. ‘I let myself in,’ she said. ‘The door was open.’
Olivia made a half-hearted attempt to get up, but she didn’t make it to her feet. She collapsed back into the chair and burst out crying. After all the weeping there had been at Villa Rosengård lately you would have thought I’d got used to dealing with it, but I hadn’t. As usual, I just stood there feeling hopeless and like someone getting a glimpse through a door that should be shut.
By the time I had thought to ask if she wanted a cup of tea, Pernilla was at her side. ‘You’re still in shock,’ she said. ‘Let me take you to your room. Du borde vila.’ She switched to speaking Swedish as they disappeared upstairs, Olivia allowing herself to be led by Pernilla, the daughter-in-law in waiting.
I was appalled at myself. How low could I get? To think like that at a time like this. It was the problem with love, another problem, it had no respect for the accepted rules of behaviour. Love had no decorum, it just barged in where you least wanted it, however unsuitable the occasion, bringing with it, as likely as not, its unattractive offspring, jealousy and selfishness. And I’m ashamed to say that in my mind they were both blondes.
I went in to see how Audrey was. ‘How’s Bertil taking the news?’ she asked as soon as I got through the door. I noticed that she was looking perkier than she had for a long time. Disaster obviously became her.
‘What news in particular?’
‘About the police believing he’s been deliberately poisoned.’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’
‘I don’t know.’ As I spoke, I wondered how many mothers and daughters across the world were at that moment exchanging just those words.
‘How can you not know?’
I felt that the conversation wasn’t getting anywhere, so I asked her instead if I could get her some books from the library. She said, sulkily, as she always did, that she had read them all. I looked at my watch. ‘The physio will be here in a minute.’
Audrey leant back against her pillows. ‘I’m feeling quite weak,’ she said. I had noticed lately that she affected some undetermined middle-European accent when she wanted sympathy. ‘Be a
darlink and get me some of those heavenly white roses from the garden. I need something beautiful to look at.’
‘You’ve got me,’ I said and I was not entirely joking. I mean, what hope had I to turn Linus’s eye from Pernilla if my mother didn’t think I was pretty?
Audrey sat back up and peered at me through those great big baby-blue eyes. Then she sighed and fell back once more against the pillows. I got up from the bed. ‘I’ll get you some roses.’
‘Esther.’ Audrey called me back. ‘If you would only stop scowling you could be quite lovely.’ My heart did a little leap in my chest. ‘But then, what do I know? I’m your mother.’ My heart moved back to its normal place, skulking in the depth of my chest cavity.
I thought the kitchen was empty until I spotted Linus in the corner by the scullery door where the light never quite reached. He was standing completely still, leaning against the cupboard. I didn’t know if he’d noticed me coming in.
‘How’s Audrey?’ His voice came from the shadows.
I turned and walked up to him, smiling, because however awful things were, his mere presence made me smile. I couldn’t see his eyes, but as I came closer I could feel his pain; it hung in the air around him like an A note at the end of a song.
‘Audrey’s fine,’ I told him. ‘In fact, you should be getting rid of us as soon as the police confirm it’s OK for us to leave. Dr Blomkvist says she’s well enough to travel whenever we’re ready.’
‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that what everyone says?’ He looked up at me suddenly and the hurt in his eyes made me want to rush up to him and take him in my arms. ‘You step from the light into darkness.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘Like that. In a second everything has changed. Someone in this house has poisoned my father. How are we supposed to live with that?’
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