“But can’t you lie down here, in the living room, at night? Alone? Then you might be able to sleep.”
“The children find me anyway,” she said. “They don’t want you at night. Just me.”
“That’s not my fault, is it?” I said.
She looked at me and rolled her eyes.
“Do you know what it’s like not to be able to sleep?” she said.
“No,” I said. “I’m afraid I don’t.”
This was one of our most done-to-death topics of conversation.
“I have to work now,” I said. “Couldn’t you try to sleep a bit more? At least until Johnny wakes up?”
“Yes, I suppose I can,” she said as though she were doing me a favor.
* * *
She went to bed late, got up early, and was still full of energy. She glowed with it. I walked past the kitchen at nine in the evening, she was sitting there with a black bowler hat on her head and wearing some clothes I had never seen before. She looked like she was in Cabaret or some musical or other. She smiled at her friend and when she noticed I was there turned to me with glittering eyes.
I went to bed and fell asleep at once, I had worked all day, then woke up to a bang, it was Linda coming in.
“Can’t you be a bit quieter?” I said. “I was actually asleep.”
“Can you believe this guy?” she said. “That’s the best I’ve heard yet.”
She flounced back out and slammed the door hard.
I got up and rushed after her. She was lying beside Vanja in her bed. I stopped in the doorway. She looked at me with eyes that shone white in the darkness.
“Come and lie down, Linda. I didn’t mean what I said. I was asleep and woke up a bit abruptly.”
“No,” she said. “I’m sleeping here tonight.”
“Come on. Come and sleep with me.”
“No.”
When I got up the next morning she was sitting in the kitchen with a cup of tea in front of her. It was five o’clock.
“Haven’t you slept?” I said.
“No,” she said. “I’m so tired now. I’m dying for some sleep.”
“I can understand that,” I said.
“I have an appointment with the doctor today,” she said. “Maybe she’ll give me a stronger sleeping tablet.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Will you come with me?”
“Is it vital?”
She looked at me.
I nodded.
“Of course I’ll go with you. When is it?”
“At eleven.”
“OK,” I said.
* * *
We set off at a little before half past ten. In our small covered entrance she lit a cigarette, looked at me, and slowly blew out the smoke.
“Ready to go?” she said.
I nodded.
She strode out, I had to walk almost as fast as I could to keep up. Her face was determined, closed, her strides quick.
Along the pedestrian street, over the bridge, and into the little park on the right.
“I’ve been thinking about something,” she said, lighting another cigarette. “It might be a good idea to go to the hospital just for one night. They can give me some stronger medicine. And I’d have peace and quiet there. No children. What do you think about that? It’ll be like going for a health cure. I’d get food and a bed and someone would make sure I sleep.”
“Is it that bad?” I asked. “Are you so tired?”
“I long for sleep so much it’s unreal,” she said.
“Then do it,” I said. “I’m sure it’ll be good.”
“I think so,” she said.
We were a bit early and had a coffee at a 7-Eleven nearby. She was still as determined, I was reminded of the image she often used when she wrote, she was a soldier. Black leather jacket, black jeans, black shoes. A small black backpack on her back. Wan, determined face.
“So you can just tell the children I’m sleeping at Jenny’s tonight,” she said.
“Yes, that’s probably best,” I said.
Her friend was leaving that afternoon, so it was good timing.
“I suppose we’d better go now,” I said.
The doctor came out the moment we sat down in the waiting room. She radiated the same qualities she had the first time I met her. Friendliness, caring, impersonal professionalism. I was also the same, I assumed, but Linda was a very different person. Then everything had been slow, every movement an effort. Now she was bristling with energy and impatience when she sat down. Nothing could go fast enough. She started talking long before the doctor had taken a seat.
“You said there would always be someone here I could talk to,” she said. “But I called and you were on holiday. And there was no one else to talk to! That’s not good enough! I needed you! I really needed you!”
She began to cry.
I didn’t understand a thing and looked at her, then at the doctor, who was taking notes on her pad.
“I’m very sorry about that,” the doctor said. “There was a misunderstanding. You should’ve been given my colleague to talk to.”
“That’s not good enough,” Linda said. “I’ve been so frightened.”
She sobbed.
“I’ve been so frightened!” she repeated.
The doctor looked at her without saying anything.
“How are you?” she asked at length.
“Things are moving faster and faster,” Linda said. “It’s as though soon I won’t be able to hang on, if you understand what I mean.”
“Are you sleeping?”
“No. I hardly sleep. Can I be admitted to the hospital and have some sleeping tablets? For one night only.”
The doctor nodded.
“I think that’s a good idea,” she said. “I can sort it out right away, so that you can go straight there, if you like.”
“I just have to go home and pack first.”
“Of course. But it’s a good idea, Linda. I think it’ll do you good.”
I tried to understand what was going on as they talked. Why did she burst into tears? She hadn’t said a word to me about her fears and hadn’t shown any of what she was showing now.
The doctor told Linda which ward she would be in. She was given a slip of paper with the address on it. They set a new appointment, which was also put on a piece of paper.
“If there are any problems, ask them to call me,” she said. “But I’ll arrange everything from this end, so they know you’ll be coming.”
We rose to our feet, shook her hand, and went down to the street.
Linda was happy again.
“I’ll come home tomorrow morning. The children won’t even notice I’ve been away.”
“That’s not a problem,” I said.
We hurried through the streets, she was excited, I was bewildered but in a way also reassured, perhaps because of the way the doctor had reacted to her. It had been accepted without question that she could sleep one night in the hospital and surely that was how it should be.
* * *
Linda packed a few things into a backpack, said goodbye to her friend and me, I didn’t need to accompany her, she would take a taxi, then she was in the elevator with a smile on her face, and gone.
I started to clean up the apartment. Linda’s friend helped me. We had never actually talked, now we did. I told her what Linda had said, about her house being a mess and how that didn’t bother her. She laughed and said that was probably how Linda would have liked it to be, but she was only projecting her own desires onto her. Once Linda had visited her in Stockholm, she said, many years ago, then she had been as high as she was now, she’d taken a bath with her friend’s little daughter and more or less demanded to be treated like her.
What I didn’t understand was how she could accept that. She’d accepted it at the time and had accepted it here. But this clearly wasn’t Linda. And I refused to give any room to what wasn’t Linda. I didn’t want to see it. But her friend obviously didn’t hav
e the same demands for authenticity.
We worked our way through the rooms as we talked about Linda’s mother and father, me and my father. She knew something I didn’t, I thought. Everything related to Linda’s excesses was beyond me, it was part of the unknown, and I felt prejudiced, limited, and very, very ordinary.
When the place was clean and tidy, she packed her things, lifted up her son, who had been playing on his own while we were busy and had hardly got in our way, put him in his stroller, and headed for the train station.
It was a strange feeling to be alone. Usually I liked it, but now Linda wasn’t out somewhere, she had been admitted to the hospital, and for some reason or other this made me feel lonely.
For the first time it struck me that usually I wasn’t alone, I always had Linda there.
I went through the fridge, tossing out everything that had passed its sell-by date, and I did the same in the cupboards. Then I took out a bag of chicken fillets from the freezer, left them to thaw on a plate, emptied the dishwasher, and had a smoke on the balcony before going to pick up the children. It was Friday, our ice-cream day, and I took them to the café in the mall as usual.
“Mommy’s not at home,” I told them. “She’s sleeping at Jenny’s tonight.”
“Why?” Vanja asked, putting the little orange plastic spoon and its heap of blue ice cream with thin red stripes into her mouth while studying me.
“She’s working,” I said.
“Is she coming home tomorrow?” Vanja asked.
“Yes.”
“What are we doing tomorrow?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “What would you like to do?”
“Go to the park,” Heidi said.
“No, that’s boring,” Vanja said.
“It is not,” Heidi said.
“We can do that,” I said. “But we don’t need to make up our minds until tomorrow.”
“Carnival,” John said.
I smiled.
“You don’t miss a trick, do you,” I said.
“Yes, the carnival,” Vanja said.
“Yes. Me too,” Heidi said.
“That’s decided then,” I said.
* * *
After I had put them to bed the peculiar feeling of loneliness returned. I watched some TV, retired early, woke up to sounds from the kitchen, which turned out to be John banging around, he had dragged a chair to the counter, turned on the water, and filled the sink with washing-up liquid.
I made him some breakfast, saw to Heidi when she got up, and last of all Vanja. It was Saturday, their TV morning, while I sat beside them in a chair reading the newspapers. At half past seven the phone rang. It was Linda.
“How was it?” I asked.
“It was fantastic,” she said. “I’ve never slept so well. And they’ve been so nice to me. There are some fantastic people here. How’s it going at home?”
“Fine. When will you be home, do you think?”
“Ah, that’s what I was going to tell you. The doctors here say they’d like to keep me in for one more night. To get the best possible effect. I don’t think that’s such a stupid idea. Then I’ll be able to rest properly.”
“Yes, that sounds wise,” I said. “But what should I tell the children? It might seem a bit odd if you’re at Jenny’s for two nights and don’t come home in between.”
“Can’t you just tell them I’m in the hospital?”
“Yeah, but then they’d want to know why.”
“Tell them the truth. I’m here to get some sleep.”
“OK. I’ll do that.”
“I love you so much, Karl Ove.”
“I love you too,” I said. “You enjoy the day, OK?”
“OK. Give the kids a kiss from me.”
I pressed off and went in to see them. All three sat staring at the TV without taking any notice of me.
“Mommy just called,” I said. “She won’t be home until tomorrow.”
“Why not?” Vanja said.
“You know she’s been sleeping badly the past few nights, don’t you? Now she’s in the hospital so that she can get some help. She’ll be there tonight.”
“Can we visit her?”
“Well, it’s only one night. She’ll be home tomorrow. Let’s go to the carnival, shall we?”
* * *
Folkets Park played a major role in the lives of our three children. It had a big pond, in which they splashed around and paddled during the summer and on which they skated during the winter. And a large terrarium where the parrot in the Pippi Longstocking film was spending the autumn of its life, plus a few motionless crocodiles. And a little ice-cream stall and a mini zoo with rabbits and pigs. As well as a riding center, where Vanja sat on a horse for some months of her young life, and a wonderful big playground. Not forgetting a café with a dance floor and a rock ’n’ roll club. But the biggest attraction of all was the carnival. It was second rate, but the children couldn’t see that and whenever we went to the park in the summer months we had to agree before starting out that there wouldn’t be any discussion of the carnival today. This day was one of the few when I didn’t say that. Instead I said that they could each choose three rides. If there was the slightest protest we would go home, was that understood? Yes, it was. Standing outside the entrance to the fair they would have promised me anything under the sun.
“I want to go on the mewy-go-wound!” Vanja said.
“Merrrrry-go-rrrrround,” Heidi said.
Vanja flew at her, I had to grab her arms and lift her up.
“Come on, let’s go for a walk and have a look around before we decide. Who wants to go on the caterpillar roller-coaster?”
“Me!” John said.
“Not me,” Vanja said.
“What about the bumper cars?”
“Can I?” Vanja said.
“Yes. But you’ll have to go on your own. I have to look after Heidi and John. Do you dare?”
She nodded. And immediately she drove around the oval track with an expression that was part terror and part joy. Afterward we all had a ride on the caterpillar. And then I drove one of the veteran cars on rails with John while Vanja and Heidi stood watching. Finally they got on two separate merry-go-rounds. Once that was done we walked to the playground, where they ran into two friends from class. I stood with the parents for a while, they kept an eye on the three of them while I went for a coffee, on my return we talked a bit about football, the man from one family supported Hammerby, which had sunk down the table like a lead weight after winning Allsvenskan, the Swedish premier league, the previous year. I liked him but couldn’t meet his eyes, he was mentioned in Book 2 in a way that was not uncontroversial. He congratulated me on its success and I realized he had not been curious enough to read the Norwegian version anyway.
I spent half an hour trying to encourage the children to make a move homeward.
Vanja was unusually quiet.
Not far from Hemköp I found out what was bothering her.
“Why can’t I say r, Dad?” she said. “After all, Heidi can. And I’m bigger than her.”
“I couldn’t say r when I was little either,” I said.
“When did you learn then?” she said.
“At about your age,” I lied.
“I don’t want to start school,” she said. “I want to stay in nursery school.”
“Of course you do,” I said. “But when you start school, you won’t want to stop there either. It’s the same as with nursery school. You’re a big girl now.”
We did some shopping, then wended our way home, they watched a film, had pizza in the evening, and then took a bath. As I was about to tuck them in a chorus for Mommy rose.
“She’ll be back tomorrow,” I said.
“Do you promise?” Vanja said.
“I promise,” I said.
* * *
The next morning I was woken by the phone ringing. It was six o’clock, I saw, and hurried to pick it up.
“Hi, it’s me,” Linda
said. “Good morning.”
“Hi,” I said.
“How’s it going at home? What did you do yesterday?”
“We went to the carnival,” I said.
“What are they doing now?”
“They’re asleep.”
“Oh, right, it’s still pretty early.”
“It is. How are you? When are you coming home?”
“It’s going very well here. I just need a few things from home. Especially my laptop.”
“I asked you when you were going to come home.”
“I don’t know. We’re taking one day at a time.”
“You’re not coming back today?”
“They say I ought to stay here for another week. Then we’ll see.”
I said nothing.
“There’s Nanna. Hi, Nanna. She’s fantastic. Strict but good. Motherly. Well, you know. Solid as a rock whatever happens. She’s on nights.”
“Linda, are you going to be there for another week?”
“I think so. It’s voluntary, though, so they can’t keep me. If I want to go, I can. But it’s so good for me here. It’s exactly what I need. A few days of peace and quiet. It doesn’t matter, does it?”
“No, of course it doesn’t.”
“I’m so hungry. I’m waiting for breakfast. That’s why I called. I get a bit restless. If only I had my laptop, then at least I could write.”
“Right,” I said.
“Now they’re bringing breakfast. I’ll call you back. Bye, my prince.”
I turned the phone off and went into the bedroom, lay down on the bed. From the children’s room I heard a strange sound. A few seconds passed before I realized what it was. Someone was jerking the door handle up and down as fast as they could. I got up. Someone was knocking on the door and shouting Dad! Dad! I opened it. It was John. He had tears in his eyes.
“Couldn’t you open the door?” I said.
“No!” he said.
“Come on. Let’s have a little breakfast.”
I was frozen inside as I sat down and watched him eat. I hadn’t understood a thing. I had actually assumed she was there to sleep. Like a naïve child. I had imagined they would administer some strong medicine in slightly more controlled circumstances and she would come down from her high as soon as she’d had a good night’s sleep. God knows where I’d got that idea from, but that was what I had imagined.
My Struggle, Book 6 Page 128
