by Koppel, Hans
‘It’s doing well,’ Anna said.
‘The last two were a bit too old.’
‘The people who died, you mean?’
‘Yes, and it was cancer in both cases, wasn’t it? Cancer is a bit like the flu these days. Are there no other interesting diseases?’
‘I’ll check with Calle.’
‘It doesn’t even need to be an illness,’ Sissela continued. ‘It could be an accident. Or a natural catastrophe. The main thing is that they died young, and preferably under dramatic circumstances.’
‘Okay.’
‘But the pitch is good, bloody good. He’s not interested in doing any celebrity stuff?’
‘He wasn’t the last time I spoke to him. But I can check again.’
‘Good. Do that. And what about our life stories…?’
They finished at four o’clock. Trude went up to her room for a rest, Sissela declared that she intended to have a long soak in a warm bath, and Anna went for a walk.
She followed the street closest to the water, out towards the cliffs, which were being gradually swallowed by the dark. The best houses stood empty after August. There were no cars or people. And yet the odd light shone here and there inside the houses. Anna guessed they were on timers and didn’t fool anyone, not least any local kids in search of a drink, who had the decency only to smash up the furniture of stingy townies who hadn’t had the sense to leave a couple of bottles in the cupboard. A kind of local tax that outsiders had to pay for the right to roam around in towelling robes in summer, to feel real and greet other similarly clad people from Stockholm with air kisses and falsetto voices.
‘Oh, hi! Fancy meeting you here!’
Mölle was a summer place. Could never be anything else. It was too far from Helsingborg. You could buy the same sort of property for about the same price in Hittarp, Domsten and Viken, where the commute into town was less than half an hour, and people lived there all the year round, unlike Mölle.
Anna decided that she’d had enough of an adventure and turned around. The southwest wind that had been on her back felt raw against her face and she pulled her coat in at the collar. By the time she got back to the hotel, she was totally windswept. She switched on the TV for company and stepped into the shower.
4
The waiter spent ages fussily garnishing the fish dish with some expensive drops that were supposed to be sauce. He drew a brief outline of the fish’s life, which had apparently been happy right up until its inevitable demise. And, as with all posh restaurants, it neither tasted particularly good nor was particularly filling. When they’d finished eating, Sissela disappeared out for a cigarette and Trude and Anna went to the bar to order Irish coffees. Two middle-aged men in golf gear burst in, drunk and happy. The ever-attentive Trude sent them furtive, doe-eyed glances over the top of her glass, which made them squirm.
What was expected of them? An invitation should never be rejected out of hand. It would be unnatural and self-disqualifying as they were now in close company with a business card burning in their pocket.
The bait was laid and Trude played the innocent.
‘Not again,’ Anna said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know very well what I mean.’
‘Ach.’
Sissela came back, reeking of cigarettes.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Trude,’ Anna sighed, exasperated. ‘She’s at it again.’
‘But there’s no one here,’ Sissela said, looking around.
She spotted the men, deep in discussion as to the best strategy.
Trude was too attractive, it made them uncertain. Sissela looked at her colleagues.
‘Bagsy the one with the hair,’ she said, and waved over the waiter so she could order.
Anna gasped like a fish, Sissela gave a crooked smile.
‘I get no attention at home. A glass of red wine, please.’
Sissela put her hand on Anna’s shoulder and burst out laughing.
‘You should see your face. We’re having you on, didn’t you realise? Oops, look smart, they’re coming over.’
‘Hi, can we join you?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘My name’s Sven, and this is Olof.’
‘Hello.’
They shook hands and said their names.
‘So,’ the man ventured. ‘Are you here with work?’
‘Yes, we’re having a scheduling day. We usually come here.’
‘Scheduling?’
‘We work for Family Journal.’
‘The magazine?’
Sissela nodded.
‘Excellent magazine,’ the man said, spontaneously.
Sissela straightened her back.
‘Thank you,’ she said, as if the magazine were all her own work.
‘Just the right mix, lots to read. My mother gets it.’
Sissela deflated. The man noticed and adjusted his tactic.
‘I’ve thought about subscribing myself, but my wife only reads fashion and interior design magazines. It’s a shame really, because Family Journal beats them all hands down.’
He looked like he genuinely meant what he said.
‘Lots of people think it’s just for mumsies,’ Sissela sighed.
‘But you have male readers as well, don’t you?’
Sissela shrugged. ‘Men flick through it,’ she said. ‘But generally they’re most interested in the crossword. What about yourselves? What do you do? It was Sven, wasn’t it?’
He nodded.
‘We run an advertising company, a small one. It’s just the two of us and another colleague.’
‘Any good clients?’
‘Yes, actually.’
He mentioned a clothes chain and a travel agency.
‘We’re here to celebrate our first anniversary, play a little golf, calling it a meeting.’
Sissela laughed.
‘Might have guessed that you worked in advertising,’ she said. ‘It’s hard to tell you apart.’
‘That’s easy enough. I’m Sven, S as in suave, and he’s Olof, O as in ordinary.’
‘But you’re wearing quite an ordinary suit,’ Sissela joked.
‘You’re right, it’s not easy.’
Ten minutes later, Anna had discovered that the men weren’t as pathetic as drunk men in hotels usually are. They actually listened. One of them was quite funny. But it did follow the usual pattern. Anna and Sissela got most of the attention, Trude stood beside them, unobtainable in her beauty. Men seldom knew how to behave in her presence. But everything changed when the third man turned up.
‘Aha, here he is. This is Erik, Erik Månsson, our new star.’
Even Trude was taken aback. Erik, the advertising company’s new copywriter, had gone up to his room to try to remove a red-wine stain from his shirt, without much success. So he was now dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, an outfit that accentuated his muscles and showed that, more than anything, he was fit. Trude’s beauty had no effect on him: she probably looked like all the women he went out with. And what was more, he was far younger than the others.
Anna sighed to herself. She could image the next couple of hours. Sissela would giggle like a studio audience at jokes that weren’t funny, wind her hair round her finger and lick the bottom of her front teeth with tip of her tongue, she would do all she could to spark his interest and then, if she did succeed, against all odds, she would pull out at the last moment like the prick-teaser she was. While Trude wouldn’t hesitate for a moment if the opportunity arose.
Anna was wrong. It turned out to be a good evening. The flirting wore thin after a while and instead wallets and purses were pulled out and photos of children and spouses passed around. Erik, who was single and didn’t have any children, rolled his eyes at all this, but they were beyond conference flings, they were mature men enjoying themselves and were good company.
‘So you’re from Stockholm?’ Sissela asked Erik.
‘Yes.’
‘Which agencies did you work for there?’ she continued, knowledgeably.
‘None,’ Erik replied.
‘Oh, so you’re completely wet behind the ears?’
‘Yep.’
‘What did you do before?’
‘Served behind the fish counter in a supermarket.’
Sissela threw back her head and laughed.
‘Seriously?’
Erik nodded. Sissela couldn’t hide the smile playing on her lips.
‘I’ll bet you smelt good on a Saturday night,’ she said, smoothly.
‘Haha, I’ve never heard that one before,’ Erik said, wearily, dismissing her as yet another witty Gothenburger.
The atmosphere changed and Anna slipped out to the toilet. When she came out, Erik was standing there, waiting for his turn. There wasn’t much room and just as she was about to squeeze past, he kissed her. She barely had time to register it.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and slipped into the toilet.
Anna went back to the others and sat down. The atmosphere was relaxed again. Erik came back and sat down opposite her. A quick questioning look, but otherwise nothing. Sissela went out to smoke, and the older men decided to keep her company. Social smokers, cigarillos, to be on the safe side. Trude had to go to the ladies’ room. Anna was left on her own with Erik. He looked at her.
‘I’m in room eighteen,’ he said. ‘You’re welcome later, if you’d like company.’
‘I’m married,’ Anna replied. ‘I’ve got a ten-year-old daughter.’
‘I know,’ Erik said. ‘You showed us the pictures.’
The smokers came back. Erik stood up.
‘Well, I’m think I’m going to go to bed.’
Trude came back from the toilet. She had fixed her make-up, fluffed up her hair, tightened her bra and, just to be sure, opened another button on her shirt.
‘Where’s Erik?’
Maybe it was the feeling of being the chosen one, the power had gone to her head. Anna wasn’t used to that kind of attention. Or maybe a reaction to the fact that her colleagues always said she was so proper. Or perhaps it was pure lust, a momentary aberration.
‘God, you’re so lame,’ Sissela said, when Anna got up to leave a quarter of an hour later.
Neither she nor Trude would ever have guessed.
Anna went up to her room, brushed her teeth and stared at herself in the mirror.
‘Go to bed,’ she said to herself.
She took out her phone. Magnus had called. She looked at the clock – quarter past eleven – and phoned him. He answered, half asleep.
‘Sorry, did I wake you?’
‘No problem.’
‘We were sitting in the bar,’ Anna told him. ‘Met some golfers. They bought us a drink.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘Is Hedda asleep?’
‘What do you think?’
‘Sorry I didn’t ring earlier.’
‘Darling, I was asleep.’
‘Okay, okay. Sorry. Just wanted to call and say I love you.’
‘And me you. Sleep well. See you tomorrow.’
‘Yes.’
She hung up and took the charger out of her bag. The telephone buzzed when she plugged it in. A summer snap of her husband and daughter flashed up before the screen went dark and the phone switched to idle mode.
Anna looked around. The room was like any other hotel room. Bed, wall-mounted TV, a desk where no one sat on the chair, which was only used as a dumping ground for clothes. On the table, a faux leather file of information about WiFi and breakfast times, and some local tourist brochures. A small bathroom with an extra roll of toilet paper, and a full soap container on the wall.
He tasted like strawberries. Or something. Early teenage lipgloss. Maybe she was imagining it, making the association because he was so much younger, a kind of cerebral red light. She wasn’t damn well going to do anything she’d regret later. She wasn’t even drunk, certainly not enough for it to be used in her defence.
She breathed into her hand and sniffed, picked up the key and went to room eighteen. She glanced quickly in both directions and knocked on the door. He opened it.
‘I thought you weren’t going to come,’ he said.
His voice made it sound like a nice surprise. He stepped to one side and held open the door. Anna went in, she didn’t want to stand in the corridor and risk anyone seeing her.
‘Well, I just wanted to say that I’m not coming,’ she said.
‘Okay.’
‘I don’t do things like this, I’m happily married. We have a daughter. But I’ve told you already.’
‘Would you like something to drink? Wine?’
‘No thank you. I’m going to go. I am.’
Erik looked at her, nodded.
‘Okay.’
He didn’t say anything else, didn’t try to get her to stay. Anna was restless, shifted the weight on her feet, looked around. The room was identical to her own.
‘Can I just ask something?’ she finally blurted out.
‘Of course.’
‘Why did you kiss me?’
‘Because I wanted to.’
‘So you think it’s okay just to kiss anyone you feel like?’
‘And because I thought you wanted it too.’
Anna nodded, tried to fill her lungs with air. Her breathing was uneven, almost agitated. Erik took a step towards her.
‘No obligations.’
She turned her head, looked down at the floor, felt his hand on her hip.
5
He snored on the in-breath, which meant he was asleep. Which meant that Anna could get up and slip out. She had put one hand on the mattress to push herself up when his arm landed over her stomach.
A strange man’s arm lay across Anna’s stomach. Proof of her waywardness. She had been unfaithful to her husband, slept with someone else. What had been unthinkable only five hours ago, something she could never have dreamed of, was now an inescapable fact. She looked at the arm. Like the rest of his body, it was taut and muscular.
The sex. God, the sex was powerful and naked, and not least, natural. Physical encounters with a stranger often amounted to nothing more than awkward fumblings, flavoured with reassurances and misunderstandings and incompetence and pretending to be interested. At least, that was how Anna remembered her teenage years. Good sex was something you had to work on. It required intimacy and security and trust. It had never occurred to her before that two bodies could be a perfect fit, like pieces of a puzzle.
She carefully lifted Erik’s arm and got out of bed. It was still dark. Anna looked around the room for her pants and found them at the foot of the bed. Her blouse had been thrown on the floor, as had her bra. She could roll her tights up in a ball in her hand, but she didn’t want to go out into the corridor without her bra on. God help her if she ran into anyone, if Sissela was out there. The sun wouldn’t even be up before the rest of the world knew then. Trude would be bad enough, but Sissela was something else.
Anna bent down to pick up her bra and heard a click behind her. She turned around. Erik was lying in bed with his hand stretched out, pointing a mobile phone at her. He smiled.
‘Did you take a picture?’ Anna asked.
She walked towards him and reached for the phone in his hand. He snatched it away, obviously amused by the possibility of a fight.
‘Give it to me.’
‘You have to let me have a memory to keep,’ he said, and ducked away from her hands.
‘Don’t you believe it. Can I have the phone?’
‘No, it’s mine.’
‘Stop messing around. Give it to me.’
Erik laughed when she wrestled with him, but in the end he gave up and handed her the phone. She opened the album and studied the picture.
‘Ugh, is that what I look like?’
‘What do you mean, ugh? You’re a hot milf.’
‘Hot? More like fat. There, gone. Would’ve been fun if that went live, wouldn’
t it?’
‘Then I’d have had something to wank to.’
‘Wank? How old did you say you were?’
‘Fourteen.’
‘As old as that?’
He put out his hand and stroked her arm, let the back of his fingers glide down over her soft skin, the curve of her breast. She closed her eyes.
‘I have to go,’ she said.
He gave an understanding nod.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yes. Absolutely. It was…’
Anna tried to find the right word and felt her eyes fill with emotion and guilt. Erik sat up, lifted the hair that had fallen over her face and pulled her to him. She held her arms up in front of her in a half-hearted attempt to fend off any more intimacy.
‘Wait,’ he said, and disappeared into the bathroom.
He came back with some tissues and a glass of water. Anna blew her nose and drank the water.
‘Sorry,’ she said, with an embarrassed laugh.
‘Don’t apologise.’
‘I’ve never…’
She was about to start crying again, but managed to stop herself.
‘So,’ she said, and patted him on the knee, ‘I should go.’
Erik nodded.
‘Have to.’
‘What time is it?’
They both turned and looked at the blue digits on the radio-clock. Nearly five. Erik looked at her.
‘I’ve got an idea,’ he said.
‘Is this your car?’
‘No, I’ve got something smaller. Somewhere in town. This is Olof’s.’
‘And you’ve got the keys?’
‘They had some beers down at the clubhouse, so I drove back.’
‘You don’t drink at all?’
‘Rarely. I work out quite a lot.’
‘You can tell.’
‘I guess the right response is thank you.’
Anna nodded to herself.
‘Small car, big…’ she said, surprised at herself.
‘What kind of car do you have?’ Erik asked.
‘Volvo.’
They drove past the unmanned ranger’s hut towards the cliffs. Erik put the headlamps on full beam and started up the steep, narrow road. He stopped at the viewpoint and they looked out over the town. The damp air smudged the glare of the streetlights and made everything look like a dark bluey-grey watercolour painted on wet paper.
