by Will Dean
‘Great idea,’ I say, taking a bite of over-sweet Danish pastry. ‘Which part of London?’
‘Don’t know exactly, but real close to Heathrow airport so that’s pretty convenient for getting back home.’
Suddenly I’m not so jealous. The yellow slime of the Danish pastry glues my tongue to the roof of my mouth and I take a swig of coffee to wash the whole lot down. ‘Heathrow. Nice.’
I look at her and brush flaky crumbs from the fine blonde hairs on my upper lip.
‘You’re not telling Hannes, are you?’ I ask.
She clenches her teeth, turns her head to face forward, to face the motorway, and takes a tiny sip of coffee.
‘I’m already packed,’ she says, still facing forward, staring at the E16 and the lorries streaming from left to right. She takes a deep breath and looks at me. ‘I got to be careful cos he’s said before if I leave he’ll come after me, he has some fantasy we can make a life someplace new, him playing cards seriously and me dancing. So, I already talked to the police on the phone and they totally ignored me. They don’t take the word of a stripper real seriously. Their ears just close over. To them, I’m not really worth listening to. But, you . . . That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I think you need to look into Hannes and what he’s . . .’ she pauses. ‘What he’s been doing.’
‘Been doing?’
‘I don’t know nothing for sure.’
‘But what do you suspect?’
‘Well, he’s mad as hell these days, he’s boiling. He thinks his life in Värmland is over, nothing left here for him if he can’t shoot on his own land. You have no idea how serious he takes his hunting, how serious all the men round here take it. It’s like their freedom and their manhood and their childhood all rolled into a ball. It’s what their daddies did. I’m worried he’s doing something real bad or maybe he’s just about to.’
‘Do you know what?’
She opens the door on her side of the truck and starts to step down.
‘Daisy, wait one second, please.’
‘That’s all I know really, I gotta go. Just . . .’ She pauses again, her hair splayed across her face in the wind, and lifts the collar of her raincoat. ‘Just get them to check his stuff. The police will listen to you.’
She disappears into the warm petrol station shop. I sit thinking for a while, rehearsing how I’ll present all this to Thord, tapping the fob of my key as it dangles from the ignition. I watch a Renault pull in and stop right outside the pumps. I see Savanah in the front seat. She looks different, she’s wearing glasses. Daisy gets in and they drive off. I have an urge to follow them but I let them go. Then I pull out onto the E16 and head south.
Utgard forest looms on the other side of the road. But it’s not night-time and it’s not raining and I get excited for a second. I make the decision. I will drive to the woods and I will step inside and then I will step out again. Well, a little more than that, I’ll go in for a while and I’ll face it. I’m not scared by this. It’ll be okay. I’m a woman and I’m not a hunter and I don’t have a rifle. I am not the target. I’ll be fine. I think through what Daisy said. I don’t like Hannes one bit but now part of me feels almost sorry for him and the other part wonders what he’s capable of if he’s so desperate. And how safe is Daisy? And Frida?
I head into Gavrik first and park right outside the haberdashery store. I’d go to the cop shop but Thord’s not there and I don’t trust Chief Björn with this new information, he’s too friendly with Hannes. There are a few shoppers milling around on Storgatan, people heading into Benny Björnmossen’s shop with its wild boar metal sign squeaking in the breeze. I step inside the haberdashery and the bell tinkles above the door.
Coloured yarn. I need something sturdy and bright. Mrs Björkén comes in from the back room and her face drops when she sees me like she’s just spotted dogshit on the till.
‘Hej,’ I say.
She just nods and then stands there and crosses her arms across her huge strapped-down bosom.
This fucking town.
I pick out a ball of red wool with a little angora in it, furry and thick. I place it by the till on the counter.
Her nose is twitching. ‘Think it’s easy doing business in Gavrik?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You got no real roots in this old town, eh?’
I pass her a hundred-kronor note.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Always thought you were okay. Well, more fool me.’
‘Sorry?’
‘In times of struggle we pull together round here, we’re Christian family people round here. I buy from them and they buy from me and we try to keep it all local, to keep each other going. But, oh no, not for Miss Stockholm City, you write your clever stories, telling the whole world Gavrik’s business and then what? It’s a betrayal is what it is. Everyone’s been talking about what you’re doing, what you’re writing. Everyone. You shouldn’t write bad of this town. We’ve got to live here. You’ll write bad of this town and then you’ll leave us in tatters.’
I take out my purse. Maybe Lena was right. Maybe my principles and my writing make people anxious. I should have listened. ‘Patriotic to the community’ is how she put it. Maybe, no matter if I like it or if I don’t, the rules are different in a small marginal town, a cut-off place fighting just to stay alive.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I don’t know what––’
‘You ain’t got no roots around here so you ain’t got no reasons to stay once you’ve gone and ruined things,’ she says, her nostrils flaring. ‘There are jobs on the line.’
I watch her put my wool in a cheap white plastic bag, and then I watch her open her till and place my change on the countertop.
‘I think you misunderstand. I write the––’
‘Of course you do, you don’t think we got two brain cells to rub together. And then you go and slanderise my nephew and my cousins, well you can find somewhere else to buy your wool for all I care.’
She’s red now. I can see hives, some kind of rash spreading from her chest up her neck.
I collect the change, each coin scratching across the counter as I pick it up, and I take the wool.
‘Sorry you feel that way. I just write the news.’
She’s shaking her head. The rash is spreading up her jowls now and up to her cheeks. She’s crossed her arms again and she’s as red as the yarn.
I step outside, a dozen barbed unused insults queuing up in my head, and the bell tinkles. I look back through the window, my mouth slightly open at what just happened. She’s staring at me and I look at her face and read her lips.
‘Leave us be.’
40
I’m approaching Utgard forest from town. I’ve already passed under the motorway and I know I can do it. I feel high like I’ve just downed six espressos. I scroll down the contacts in my phone.
‘Hi Frida, it’s me, Tuva.’
‘Hi sweetie, how are you?’
‘Not bad,’ I say, the flavour of a green wine gum lingering on my tongue. ‘I don’t need to work tonight so do you fancy catching a film at the cinema?’ I need to ask her about what Mrs Björkén said and maybe, somehow, about what Daisy said. I need to find out what is going on. ‘You said you liked movies and that new George Clooney film is on.’
‘Well, now, that is tempting, but you see,’ Frida’s voice quietens slightly, ‘Hannes is home tonight so I can’t get out. But, would you like to come here, maybe? It’ll just be the three of us, but I’ve made enough wild mushroom and walnut soup to feed an army. Rye dumplings, too. No Clooneys, just Carlssons. What do you say?’
My fingers are tapping my steering wheel and I think it sounds like the best chance I’ll get to work out what’s going on around here.
‘I’ll be there. If you’re sure it’s not an imposition.’
‘Don’t be silly, it’s always lovely to see you. About seven okay?’
‘See you then.’
I end the ca
ll and dial Tammy. Her phone’s not switched on, or else she’s using it because it goes straight to voicemail. I ring again. Voicemail. Where is she, and who the fuck still leaves voicemails? I ring again, my hearing aid battery beeping in my ear and I make a mental note to change it this afternoon. Her phone must be off. I’ll try her later.
The forest edge is a dark cliff. I see birds flying above it and out of it, black birds like crows but they look bigger. Ravens, maybe. I pull off the road and head up along a farmer’s lane I’ve seen on Google Maps. It’s bumpy. Piles of horse shit. I drive further and pull onto a dirt track and thank myself for renting this truck with its brake horsepower and its all-wheel drive. I park up just outside the tree line. Backpack and half a bag of wine gums and wool and my phone. I stand by my bonnet, still warm at my back, still humming, and face the woods. Tammy said I need to confront this and she was right.
I’ll give it two hours and leave well before the storm comes in. That should do it. I’ll head up the foresters’ track: the avenue they keep clear for quad bikes and hunting trucks. I’ll go into the trees a bit. I’ll go deeper in than I’ve ever been before, and then I’ll make peace or something.
The sun’s low, like a torch sitting on the floor. I can’t see it but light’s piercing through the trees in beams. It’s quite picturesque just here, with my truck still in view and a blue sky above. It’s okay, just here. I walk up the track for half an hour or so and I notice piles of dung, but have no idea what kind of wild animal left it. Badger? Elk? Lynx?
There’s somebody else here. Someone’s ahead of me in the trees close to the track and they’re carrying something. This is a thousand-hectare forest and someone’s here when I need to face the loneliness of nature and I resent them so much I want to scream. This was supposed to be my slot. I have two hours to do this before I need to get home and shower and dress for dinner with Frida. The person comes out of the woods and hops over a ditch. It’s a woman of fifty or so with black hair and a red coat. It’s the woman I saw in town, the woman on the bike. I think. She’s wearing black tracksuit bottoms and she’s carrying one of those huge blue Ikea bags. She looks like an older version of Tammy. As we pass, she looks down at the floor. I glance inside her bag and its half-full of mushrooms, hundreds of gold nuggets sprinkled with dry moss and soil.
‘Congratulations,’ I say. ‘They look delicious.’
She just walks on straight past me. I think she mutters something as she walks away but she says nothing to my face.
I stand there staring at her broad back as she trots off in the direction of my truck. I’ve heard that locals are protective of their best picking spots but this dismissal takes me aback. Or did she recognise me? Is this Mrs Bitchface Björkén of the haberdashery store all over again?
I’m sweating a little and my boots are suddenly tight around my toes. I pause, staring into the trees. They’re not so dark now in the daylight. It’s probably three degrees above zero and I hop a ditch and stumble into the shadow of the pines. I walk three trees deep and then turn back. I can see the track so I could just turn left and there would be my truck, no problem. My escape route. I reach back awkwardly and pull the red yarn out of my backpack. It feels soft in my hands. It feels like Mum before Dad died; like Mum before she gave up all her hobbies: her bridge and knitting and baking and birdwatching; before she quit her job as an optician, before she gave up on life, before she gave up on me. The soft wool, springy in my fingers, feels like the good years before everything changed. It feels safe.
I slip off the cardboard ring and pull out the frayed end of the yarn and loop it around a rough spruce trunk at about waist height. I loop it three times and tie a strong knot and pull on it to make sure it’s secure. And then I turn and walk into the woods, my lifeline unravelling in my hands as I go in deeper like a potholer down a cave. It gets darker and cooler and more uneven but I have my wool. I have to slap my own cheeks every now and then to kill mosquitoes, and the buzzing of their tiny wings near my hearing aids drives me crazy at times but I’m not scared just annoyed like any normal person would be, like you would be.
Sweat’s beading on my neck. I turn and the thread is there strung over granite rocks and mossy fallen branches like a fine trail of blood back through the wilderness. It looks fluffy where the sun catches the angora strands. I’m okay. I’m in the woods and it’s actually fine. There’s a slight incline ahead, more birches than before, their fine branches all high in the sky and more delicate than the pines. It’s wet underfoot. I look down to check where my boots are and see something under my right boot just as I start to put my weight down on it. I lift my foot and stand back and see the bird.
I crouch. It’s a normal-looking bird, maybe a blackbird, I don’t know all their names. Its wings are flailed like a feathered angel and its head is pointing in the direction I’m walking, its shiny beak like a triangular marker on a compass. Its eyes stare up at me, black as gemstones. There are flies buzzing above it, and a few ants crawling around. I don’t think it’s been here long. It’s a recent victim of something or other and it’s quite fresh.
I step over it and walk on. The mosquitoes are worse now and they’re fucking huge. One lingers in front of my face like it’s looking for a fight. The thing that hangs down from its body, its stinger thing, is long. It’s like a refuelling airplane, with a hose dangling down mid-air to refuel a fighter jet. I swat it away but it is persistent. I hear something behind me and look back, but there’s nothing there. I’m a woman and I’m not a hunter and I haven’t got a rifle. I am not the target. The wool unravels behind me and I keep walking up and over the shallow hill. At the top, I face a valley. It’s quite pretty with a clearing in the middle and some kind of chimney standing all on its own. I walk down, red angora spilling out from my hands, the ball shrinking smaller and smaller.
It’s a torp ruin. A stone foundation and a chimney stack and little else. There’s a sign the size of a newspaper with a laminated sheet stapled to it. Apparently this place belonged to a Mr Ahlberg, a smallholder who lived here from the 1850s to the 1880s. That’s all it says. I walk up into what would have been the house. The chimney stack is as tall as a double-decker bus and it looks absurd all on its own, but I suppose everything else was timber and rotted away over time. The stack has a fireplace at its base, and the upper section’s held up with planks and branches and it looks like it could collapse at any moment. The torp foundations are covered in soil and leaves and saplings and moss but there’s one thing left here. So I touch it. A rusty skeleton of a narrow single bed. It has some of the frame left and some of the springs. It looks smaller than a modern single bed, almost child-sized. I hear a bird noise above my head and look up. Two birds of prey, eagles or buzzards maybe, are circling around high above the treetops. A cloud moves overhead and everything darkens and the birds fly away squawking as they go.
I climb off the torp and out of the clearing and up the next hill. The air’s ripe with rot. I look back and see the torp’s chimney stack, alone and kinked halfway up like an old man’s finger. On the other side of the slope, my wool’s running out now, it gets steeper, not quite a cliff, but a boulder as high as a house. I perch on top of it and pull out a handful of wine gums. I put them all in my mouth at once for a fruit cocktail effect. The sugar hits me. Tutti-frutti deluxe. I look down into the trees and see nothing. It’s me sitting on this rock with my feet dangling over the edge, and a thousand spruce trees in front of me and each side of me. The wind picks up. The treetops are rustling but it’s perfectly still down here. I stash the rest of the wool, a loose little ball, into my backpack, and bring out my bottle of Coke. I open it carefully because it fizzes and hisses and I drink half the bottle. It’s warm, but it is good.
This is it then. I turn my hearing aids down. I want to hear things if they come, but I also want it to be quiet. I sit cross-legged and stare into the trees. I’m the same height as the dead lower branches, but I’m above where the trunks sink into the wet ground. I think of
Dad and look up, and my chest tightens. I stare up at heavy rainclouds the colour of dolphins as they scroll through the sky. I force myself to remember. I think back to the feel of his rough cheek on mine and the sound of his voice just before I used to fall asleep and his way of bending down and opening his arms wide for me to run to him. I blink and my eyes begin to prickle.
I can hear almost nothing now. My head is all Dad. The smell of Vosene shampoo and boot polish and cigarettes. I can hold on to his scent for a tiny fragment of a moment if I focus hard enough, if I really try. He had rough hands, not big, but rough, with sore nails and jagged cuticles. He used to stick plasters on my knees the way I liked, blowing on the cut, then separating the plastic strips and placing it down softly. Then a hug. My eyes are changing now. I stare up and scan the clouds, then reach back for that loose remainder of soft red wool, and then Mum joins Dad in my eyes and tears fall down the sides of my face and stream over my temples. They’re together and I’m safe and she’s happy. But she’s not happy and I’ll see her tomorrow and she’s as far away from happy as she could ever be.
The tears come faster, but I know deep inside that I have a thousand crisp layers to break through here on this mossy rock before it’s all out. I’m getting through but I’m still close to the surface. I look up. The birds have gone and the grey clouds are rolling by faster now, cold air bristling through the trees in front of me.
There’s one memory I have of them kissing and it’s stupid, really. They were kissing in the kitchen, a grown-up sort of kiss, lingering and full, and then I walked in for a glass of milk and I saw them. They looked at me and I ran off. I was annoyed with them both, and annoyed with myself. But now I treasure this hazy image. They were happy before Dad died, before that elk came along and broke his neck.
