She's Never Coming Back

by Hans Koppel

  Ouch, he was sounding bitter. Jörgen was a better person than that.

  Or was he?

  4

  Removal, social isolation

  The woman is removed from her familiar surroundings and placed in a new and unknown environment for several reasons. The woman then loses contact with her family and friends, becomes disoriented, geographically confused and dependent on the only person she knows, the perpetrator. This confusion of time and place is amplified by locking the woman up for sustained periods. If her isolation is sufficiently prolonged, the victim is eventually grateful for any form of human contact, even if it is invasive.

  ‘Are you sure? Just one. You’ll still be home in time to watch some rubbish on TV.’

  ‘Yes, go on, you don’t need to stay long.’

  Ylva laughed, grateful for their nagging.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m going to be good.’

  ‘You?’ Nour scoffed. ‘Why start now?’

  ‘Why not? Variety is the spice of life, isn’t it?’

  ‘One glass?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You sure?’

  Ylva nodded.

  ‘I’m sure,’ she said.

  ‘Okay, okay, it’s not like you, but okay.’

  ‘See you Monday.’

  ‘Yep. Say hi to the family.’

  Ylva stopped and turned round.

  ‘You make it sound like something bad,’ she said, and put her hand on her heart with mock innocence.

  Nour shook her head.

  ‘No, we’re just jealous.’

  Ylva took out her iPod and wandered off down the hill. The wires had got tangled and she had to stop to unravel them before popping the earpieces in and selecting the playlist. Music in her ears, eyes straight ahead – the only way to avoid talk about the weather. There was always some chatterbox who was dying for attention and gossip. The dilemma of small-town living.

  And Ylva was an outsider. Mike had grown up here and couldn’t take a step without having to give an account of recent events.

  Ylva cut down the deserted, picture-postcard lane and passed by a parked car with a tinted rear window. She didn’t notice the driver. The volume in her ears was so loud that she didn’t hear the car start either.

  She only registered it when the car pulled up beside her and didn’t drive past. She turned. The window rolled down.

  Ylva assumed that it was someone wanting directions. She stopped and wavered between turning the iPod off and taking out the earpieces. She decided on the latter and took a step towards the car, bent down and looked in. A cardboard box and a handbag on the passenger seat. The woman at the wheel smiled at her.

  ‘Ylva?’ she said.

  A brief second, then that horrible feeling in her stomach.

  ‘I thought it was you,’ the driver said, cheerfully.

  Ylva returned her smile.

  ‘After all, it wasn’t yesterday.’

  The driver turned towards a man in the back seat.

  ‘D’you see who it is?’

  He leaned forward.

  ‘Hello, Ylva.’

  Ylva reached in through the window, shook both their hands.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘What are we doing? We’ve just moved here. And you?’

  Ylva didn’t understand.

  ‘I live here,’ she said. ‘I’ve been here for nearly six years now.’

  The driver pulled in her chin, as if she found it hard to believe.

  ‘Whereabouts?’ she asked.

  Ylva looked at her.

  ‘Hittarp,’ she replied.

  The driver turned to the man in the back seat, astonished, then back to Ylva.

  ‘You can’t be serious? Tell me you’re not serious. We’ve just bought a house there. Do you know Sundsliden, the hill that goes down to the water?’

  Ylva nodded. ‘I live right by it.’

  ‘Right by it?’ the woman at the wheel parroted. ‘Really? Did you hear that, darling? She lives right by it.’

  ‘I heard,’ the man said.

  ‘What a small world,’ the woman said. ‘Well, then we’re neighbours again. What a coincidence. Are you on your way home?’

  ‘Um, yes.’

  ‘Jump in, we can give you a lift.’

  ‘But I …’

  ‘Just jump in. The back seat. There’s so much rubbish here.’

  Ylva hesitated, but didn’t have an excuse. She took out the other earpiece, wrapped the wires round the iPod, opened the car door and got in.

  The woman pulled out from the pavement.

  ‘Imagine,’ the man said, ‘that you should live here too. Do you like it?’

  ‘Yes, I’m happy here,’ Ylva said. ‘The town is smaller, obviously, but the water and the beaches are fantastic. And there’s so much sky. Feels like everything is possible. But it’s very windy. And the winters are not great.’

  ‘Really? In what way?’

  ‘Wet and bitter. Just sleet and slush, never white.’

  ‘Did you hear that?’ the man said to the woman. ‘No real winter. Just slush.’

  ‘I heard,’ the woman said, and looked at Ylva in the rear-view mirror. ‘But then it’s lovely right now. Nothing to complain about at this time of year.’

  Ylva gave an ingratiating smile and nod.

  ‘It’s nice now.’

  She tried to sound positive and look natural, but her mind was working overtime. What would the fact that they’d moved here mean to her? How would it affect her life? How much did they know?

  The feeling of unease could not be washed away.

  ‘Sounds marvellous, doesn’t it, darling,’ the man in the back seat said. ‘Marvellous.’

  ‘Certainly does,’ said the woman at the wheel.

  Ylva looked at them. Their responses were repetitive and rehearsed. They sounded false. It could just be the accidental meeting, the uncomfortable situation. She convinced herself that the fear she felt was all in her mind.

  ‘Fancy bumping into you, after all these years,’ the man said.

  ‘Yes,’ Ylva replied.

  He looked at her, studied her without even trying to hide his grin. Ylva was forced to look away.

  ‘Which house is it that you’ve bought?’ she asked, and registered that her right hand touched her face in a nervous gesture. ‘Is it the house at the top of the hill, the white one?’

  ‘Yes, that’s the one,’ the man said, and turned to look ahead.

  He looked normal enough. Ylva let her nerves be calmed.

  ‘We were wondering who’d moved in. My husband and I were talking about it just yesterday. We guessed a family with children …’

  Ylva stopped herself.

  ‘It’s mainly people with kids who move here,’ she explained. ‘You’ve had builders in. Have you completely redone the house?’

  ‘Only the cellar,’ the man said.

  ‘Your husband,’ the woman looked at Ylva in the rear-view mirror again. ‘So you’re married?’

  It sounded as though she already knew the answer to her question.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Children?’

  ‘We’ve got a daughter. She’s seven. Nearly eight.’

  ‘A daughter,’ the woman repeated. ‘What’s she called?’

  Ylva hesitated.

  ‘Sanna.’

  ‘Sanna, that’s a lovely name,’ the woman said.

  ‘Thank you,’ Ylva responded.

  She looked at the man, he was sitting quietly. She looked at the woman. No one said anything. The situation didn’t allow for pauses and Ylva felt forced to fill the silence with words.

  ‘So, what made you move here?’

  She wanted it to sound natural. It was an obvious question, but her throat felt dry and her intonation sounded wrong.

  ‘Yes, why did we move here,’ the man said. ‘Darling, do you remember why we moved here?’

  ‘You got a job at the hospital,’ the woman reminded him.

>   ‘So I did,’ the man said. ‘I got a job at the hospital.’

  ‘We thought it would be good to make a fresh start,’ the woman explained, and braked for a red light on Tågagatan.

  People were waiting at a bus stop about thirty metres away.

  ‘Listen,’ Ylva started. ‘It’s kind of you to offer me a lift, but I think I’ll take the bus all the same.’

  She undid the seat belt and tried to open the door without success.

  ‘Child lock,’ the man told her.

  Ylva leaned forward between the seats and put a hand on the woman’s shoulder.

  ‘Could you open the door, please? I want to get out. I don’t feel very well.’

  The man put his hand into the inside pocket of his coat and took out something square, just slightly bigger than his palm.

  ‘Do you know what this is?’

  Ylva took her hand off the woman’s shoulder and looked.

  ‘Well, come on then,’ the man said, ‘what does it look like?’

  ‘An electric shaver?’ Ylva suggested.

  ‘Yes, it does,’ the man replied. ‘It looks like an electric shaver, but it’s not an electric shaver.’

  Ylva tried the door again.

  ‘Open the door, I want—’

  The shock made Ylva’s body arch. The pain was paralysing and she couldn’t even scream. A moment later her body relaxed and she crumpled, her head against the man’s thigh. She was surprised that she was still breathing, as nothing else seemed to work.

  The man reached over for Ylva’s handbag, opened it and poked around for her mobile. He took the battery out and put it in his inner pocket.

  Ylva registered the car accelerating past the bus stop. The man kept the stun gun at the ready.

  ‘The paralysis is temporary,’ he explained. ‘You’ll soon be able to move and talk as normal again.’

  He gave her a comforting pat.

  ‘Everything will be all right, you’ll see. Everything will be all right.’

  5

  Worth quarter of a billion and what was he doing? Standing in his briefs in the cellar, rummaging through until now unopened boxes, looking for his old school yearbooks. One way of passing the time.

  Jörgen Petersson managed to open and go through about half of the boxes before he found what he was looking for. Considering that the treasure was normally hidden in the last chest, he reckoned he’d been lucky.

  He flicked through the book, glancing at the class photos, looking for names. Of course, yes. Him. And him. Wasn’t she the sister of …? The teacher’s daughter who looked like she wanted the ground to swallow her up in her picture. The boy who set fire to the playground. The girl who committed suicide. And that poor sod who had to look after his siblings and always slept through the classes.

  Madeleine moment after madeleine moment, à la Proust.

  Finally, the whole class. Jörgen got a shock. They were just kids, their hairstyles and clothes bore witness to the passing of time. Yet the black-and-white photograph still made him uncomfortable.

  He looked at the picture, scanned row after row.

  His classmates stared back at him. Jörgen could almost hear the clamour from the corridor: the comments, the shouts, the jostling and laughter. The power struggle, that’s all it was. Maintaining your position on the ladder. The girls were self-regulatory, the boys more forceful.

  The four loudest at the back. Arms folded and staring confidently straight at the camera, radiating world domination. Judging by their smug faces, they couldn’t possibly imagine a reality other than their own.

  One of them, Morgan, had died of cancer a year ago. Jörgen wondered whether anyone missed him. He certainly didn’t.

  He carried on through the rows of names. He’d forgotten some of them and was forced to look up at the photograph to pull any information from his mental archives. Of course, yes.

  But he still didn’t recognise two or three of his classmates. The faces and names were not enough. They were erased from his brain, just like the blank faces on Lasse Åberg’s picture.

  Jörgen looked at himself, squashed into the front row, barely visible and with an expression that was just begging to get out of there.

  Calle Collin looked happy. A bit detached, not worried about being an outsider, strong enough in himself.

  The teacher, jeez, the old bird was younger in the photo than Jörgen was now.

  He put all the removal boxes back and took the yearbook with him up into the house. He was going to look at the photos until they no longer frightened him.

  Jörgen went into the kitchen and rang his friend.

  ‘D’you want to go for a beer?’

  ‘Just the one?’ Calle Collin asked.

  ‘Two, three. As many as you like,’ Jörgen said. ‘I’ve dug out some of our old yearbooks, I’ll bring them with me.’

  ‘What the hell for?’

  6

  Mike Zetterberg picked his daughter up from the after-school club at half past four. She was sitting at a table at the back of the room, engrossed in an old magic box. When she caught sight of her father, her face lit up as it hadn’t done since he picked her up when she first started nursery.

  ‘Daddy, come.’

  Sanna was sitting with an egg cup in front of her. A three-piece egg cup with a plastic top. Mike realised that her pleasure at seeing him had something to do with him playing captive audience.

  ‘Hey, sweetie.’

  He kissed her on the forehead.

  ‘Look,’ she said, and lifted the top off the egg cup. ‘There’s an egg here.’

  ‘I can see that,’ Mike said.

  ‘And now I’m going to magic it away.’

  ‘Surely you can’t do that?’ Mike exclaimed.

  ‘Yes, watch.’

  Sanna put the top back on and moved her hand in circles above the egg cup.

  ‘Abracadabra.’

  She lifted the top off and the egg had vanished.

  ‘What? How did you do that?’

  ‘Daddy! You know.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Mike said.

  ‘Yes, you do, I’ve shown you.’

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘It’s not a real egg.’

  Sanna showed him the middle section that was hollow and hidden inside the top of the egg cup.

  ‘You knew that,’ Sanna said.

  Mike shook his head.

  ‘If I did, then I’ve forgotten,’ he assured her.

  ‘No, you haven’t.’

  ‘Really, it’s true. It must be because you’re so good at it.’

  Sanna had already started to put things back on the plastic tray in the box.

  ‘Do you like magic?’ Mike asked.

  Sanna shrugged. ‘Sometimes.’

  She put the colourful lid, which was worn in one corner from frequent use, back on the box.

  ‘Maybe you’d like to get a magic box for your birthday?’

  ‘How far away is that?’

  Mike looked at his watch.

  ‘Not in hours,’ Sanna said.

  ‘Fifteen days,’ Mike told her. ‘It says on the clock what day it is.’

  ‘Does it?’

  Mike showed her.

  ‘The numbers in the little square tell you what day it is. It’s the fifth of May today, and your birthday is on the twentieth. In fifteen days’ time.’

  Sanna took on board this information without being overly impressed. Watches weren’t the status symbol they used to be, Mike thought to himself.

  He hadn’t been much older than his daughter when he and his parents had moved back to Sweden. They said they were moving home, even though the only home that Mike had ever known was in Fresno, a baking hot town in central California, caught between the Coast Range and the Sierra Nevada. The temperature remained around thirty to forty-five degrees for the greater part of the year. It was too hot to live in, and most people went from air-conditioned houses to air-conditioned cars and drove to air-conditioned schools
and workplaces.

  Practically no one had a suntan in The Big Sauna, as his parents used to call the place, and Mike got a shock when he came to Helsingborg in summer 1976 and saw all the brown people splashing around in the water, despite the fact that the air was freezing, barely twenty-five degrees.

  Mike’s parents had spoken Swedish to him since he was little, so he had no problem with the language, except that people often said he spoke like an American. They thought he sounded sweet. Mike had been horrified at having to move back to Sweden and then having the way he talked corrected the whole time.

  The children of his own age that he met on the beach the first evening were of a different opinion. They thought he sounded like Columbo and McCloud. And Mike knew instantly that that was no bad thing.

  Having noticed the strangely overdressed boy wandering about, the other children had finally approached him and asked if he wanted to play football. Half an hour later, when he’d played up a sweat and peeled off his thick sweater, his new friends discovered his watch, which had no hands, but showed the time in square numbers instead.

  Their awe was boundless. The most incredible part about it was that one button had several functions. If you pressed it once, it did one thing, if you pressed it twice, it did something else. Even though it was the same button. No one understood how it worked.

  ‘What do you reckon?’ he said to his daughter, thirty years later. ‘Are you ready?’

  Sanna nodded.

  Ylva Zetterberg was conscious.

  She lay on the back seat and saw the world pass in the shape of familiar treetops and roofs. She recognised the geography from the movements of the car, knew the whole time where they were.

  She was nearly home when the car slowed down to let another car pass and then swung into a gravel drive in front of the newly renovated house. The woman opened the garage door with a remote control, then drove in. She waited until the door had closed behind them before getting out of the car and opening the door to the back seat. Together with her husband, the woman steered Ylva down into the cellar without so much as a word.

  The man and woman lay Ylva down on a bed and handcuffed her to the frame.

  The man then produced a remote control and pointed it at a TV that was mounted just below the ceiling.