The Living and the Dead in Winsford

by Håkan Nesser

  ‘If I can have one of your books, we can make an exchange – but perhaps you don’t write in English?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘Never mind. You can have a painting even so. Witches don’t need money.’

  I choose a picture with some ponies drinking water out of a beck. It’s not big, maybe twenty by thirty centimetres or thereabouts: I like it very much, and insist on paying her for it.

  ‘Not on your life!’ says Jane Barrett. ‘An agreement is an agreement. Pass on greetings to Grandma, by the way.’

  I promise to do so.

  As if I really were an author, I sit at home writing all evening. The whole of the first act and the first scenes of act two. I’d love to insert a witch into the action, but of course that’s not possible. Madame Megal will have to suffice. Work on the script seems to flow with hardly any problems: I know Bergman will be surprised by the result, but when he has read it all he will presumably understand. I remember that I have had time to prepare him for what’s coming, and I feel pleased that things have worked out in the way they have. Before I write acts three and four I must make sure I read Bessie Hyatt’s two novels: she isn’t really the main character in the drama as yet, but once we’ve moved from Samos to Taza she will undoubtedly be that.

  While I’m sitting writing, the mobile phone rings several times. Only one person has the number, and so I refrain from answering. Mark Britton is a problem I don’t have time to deal with just now. We’re going to meet tomorrow evening after all, so why does he have to ring now?

  On the other hand he probably doesn’t regard a telephone call as a serious event, which I have got round to doing because of the circumstances. Maybe he just wants to know if I like coriander?

  But even so, I don’t answer. That thought about the possibility of my coming back here eventually crops up again, however.

  Once everything has gone according to plan. In six months or so. Coming to live permanently here on the moor? Protected by witches and all the rest of it. Not in Darne Lodge, of course, but there are plenty of houses around here to rent or buy. Every village has adverts put up by estate agents.

  What is the alternative? Ten more years at the Monkeyhouse?

  I start wondering how much the house in Nynäshamn might be worth. A couple of million at least . . . Maybe three? I would be able to get by.

  Yes indeed, I’d be able to get by.

  50

  Sunday, the sixth of January. Cloudy, not much wind, a bit colder.

  Mark Britton really is a complication, and I don’t need any complications just now. Or maybe that’s exactly what I do need?

  For the third time I’ve had dinner and stayed the night in Heathercombe Cottage, and for the third time we’ve made love. When I write ‘complication’ I don’t mean quite the same thing as I did the other day – that I mean too much to him already, and that he isn’t as important as that for me.

  I feel that I have to reconsider matters somewhat. I’m fifty-five years old, I’m pretty well preserved – but where on earth would I find a better man? Always assuming that I decide not to live alone once I’ve outlived my dog.

  Incidentally that dog shows no sign of growing old: perhaps I should try to find a different yardstick? Reconsider matters in that respect as well. I told Mark last night that I would probably be leaving Darne Lodge at the end of the month, and part of the complication is that I have to put together a plausible story. I’ve tried to do so: I said I would have to step in and take the place of a friend who has gone up the wall in connection with the production of a play. She has simply been working too hard, and I’ve more or less agreed to be assistant director and quite a few other things for six weeks from February onwards.

  ‘And then what?’

  I said I didn’t know. That I really didn’t know – at least that is one truth that I haven’t kept from him.

  But it’s not enough, of course. Castor and I are back in Darne Lodge, it’s afternoon and I’m sitting in my usual place at the table and feeling a certain degree of shame. Or shamefacedness, at least.

  It’s as if I’m exploiting him. He invites me to one fantastic meal after another, we drink decent wines, we make love in straightforward fashion without any hang-ups, and Jeremy shakes my hand increasingly as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  Martin used to have a literary hobby horse when it came to love affairs – I thought for ages that he was referring to other people’s love affairs. Either it is a fantastically good short story, or it’s the promising first chapter of a novel which might keep going at the same high standard, or get out of control. The trick is knowing which it is. Or perhaps it’s a matter of making up your mind which it is.

  If I hadn’t kept hearing that ad nauseam I might have agreed with it. And there is something sad about the short story format, is there not? The primitive tale that doesn’t have the strength to grow up.

  I put all such questions to one side in order to make progress with my play. Act two: I have decided to let Maurice Megal play a slightly different role from the one he seems to play in Martin’s notes – something of an observer and storyteller, even in the scenes that are set in Greece – and I notice that I am enjoying this work. I really hadn’t thought that I would do. My fictitious role as an author is beginning to get a foothold in the real world.

  I really do put act two together in three hours – obviously I shall have to look at it again and rewrite parts, add bits here and there and cut a few things, but that goes with the territory. The important thing is that I can envisage the whole thing inside my head – the whole thing and how to get there – and as it’s now time for Bessie Hyatt to take on the role of tragic heroine, I must start reading Before I Collapse. It’s not long before I’m totally absorbed in it, and I don’t understand why I didn’t read the book during the years when the rest of the world did.

  Mark Britton rings shortly before eleven to wish me goodnight.

  ‘I’m missing you already,’ he says, and I say that in fact I’m missing him as well.

  ‘We must put our relationship on a solid footing,’ he says.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I suppose we must.’

  When I’ve closed down the call I remember that I also ought to read that short story by Anna Słupka – ‘Change of Wind’ – although I don’t fancy the prospect.

  The very fact that it’s only a short story goes against the grain – isn’t that what I had decided not long ago? A bit like Bessie Hyatt’s life. And my sister’s. I promise myself to turn my attention to fröken Słupka tomorrow. I mustn’t cut corners when it comes to contact with Soblewski.

  An e-mail from Eugen Bergman to Martin, dated the seventh of January:

  My dear friend, I’m very sorry to hear that you are having problems. But writer’s block is a phenomenon that affects lots of authors, not just you; remember that. Bear in mind also that there are antidotes: which is best depends on the individual of course, but the most important thing is that you mustn’t go around worrying about it. Nobody benefits from sitting and staring at a blank sheet of paper or at a computer screen when the words are hiding away or tying themselves in knots. My dear Martin, give it a rest for a while and try to enjoy something else instead. Go to Casablanca and Marrakesh – simply writing the names of those places gives me goose pimples. Stockholm is sheer hell at this time of year, thank your lucky stars you’re not stuck here.

  Say if there’s something you’d like to read and I’ll send you it.

  I really hope you can recover your usual good humour eventually, but there’s no rush. Taking things slowly is not to be scoffed at. My best wishes to Maria, and write to me whenever you feel the need. I know that I’m your publisher, but I’m also your friend: don’t forget that.

  Eugen

  From Gunvald to Martin:

  Hello! I’m sitting at the airport outside Sydney, waiting for a delayed flight. I’ve had an absolutely marvellous time down here: both the conference and
my free days have been extremely rewarding. I’ve even tried surfing, but that was just a one-off. The Opera House. Manly Beach. Oysters and chardonnay at The Rocks, Blue Mountains . . . You name it. I hope you two are having at least a fraction as much fun in Morocco as I’ve been having here. How long will you be staying there? My very best wishes to Mum. Gunvald

  From Synn to me:

  Huh. I have to say I find it hard to feel sorry for him. You’ll have to take care of him – after all, you’re the one who’s married to him, not me. I can’t help it if you think I sound cold and indifferent, you know I hate conventions and false outpourings. Anyway, we have had a very successful season over here, and we gather there’s lots of work lined up for the spring so it looks as if it will be some time before I fly over the Atlantic again. In any case, I hope he doesn’t spark off any new scandals: the last one was quite enough to be going on with. Pass on some kind of friendly greeting from me that you can invent. Greetings from a freezing cold Manhattan, small nails are pelting down over the Hudson. Synn

  From Violetta di Parma to me:

  Dear Maria. Very many thanks for your sympathetic response. I’ve booked a flight for 31 January. I’ll make sure the house is clean and tidy. I’ll be happy to pay a bit more than just the January rent, but perhaps we can reach an agreement on that in due course. It’s cold here around Stockholm, very cold – I assume your weather will be a bit warmer in Morocco. When I get back home to Argentina it will be the middle of summer of course. Many greetings to Martin, please tell him I’ve really enjoyed living in your house and that I’m very sorry to have to leave it like this. Hugs and kisses, Violetta

  Nothing from Soblewski. I assume he’s waiting for my (Martin’s) views on Anna Słupka, but even so I hope I hear from him before he gets them. I can’t very well take up that unidentified dead body again, but if he forgets about my (Martin’s) question I suppose that suggests I don’t need to worry about it. That’s how I decide to interpret the situation in any case, and I also decide not to respond to a single message from today’s crop: they can just as well wait for a few days, and by then I reckon it could be time for me to contact Eugen Bergman personally. With a message in my own name, that is.

  I leave the centre and turn into Ash Lane. When I’m standing in front of Mr Tawking’s front door with its flaking blue paint, it occurs to me that I haven’t heard a single squeak from him all the time I’ve been here. I’ve been living in his house for over two months: surely that’s a bit odd?

  I wonder if he might be dead and nobody has thought to inform me, but I knock on the door even so.

  He opens after a while and looks more dead than alive, but he did last time as well. I have the impression that he doesn’t recognize me, so I begin to explain that I’m the person who has been renting his house up on Winsford Hill since November.

  ‘I know,’ he says, interrupting me. ‘It’s just that my eyesight isn’t very good. Come in.’

  I don’t get any tea this time, and it takes quite a while to reach an agreement. An agreed contract is an agreed contract, Mr Tawking insists, and if I’m daft enough to pay half a year’s rent in advance, that’s my problem.

  I point out that it was he who insisted on that arrangement if I were to move in at all, and we sit there negotiating for a while in his gloomy living room. I don’t really care how the negotiations go, I’m not all that hard up in fact; but in the end he agrees to pay back two hundred pounds if I’ve moved out by the beginning of February. I’m welcome to call in and collect the money in a few days’ time, and we can sign a new document then. It strikes me that he is the only genuinely unpleasant person I’ve come across since coming to live on the moor.

  That’s that, then, I think when I’ve left him and am walking back down to the monument with Castor at my heels. That means I have three weeks in which to see to everything. That should be long enough.

  51

  ‘That stalker of yours,’ says Mark Britton. ‘What’s happened to him? You haven’t mentioned him for a while.’

  We are out walking in Barle Valley. The astonishing thing is that Jeremy is here as well: he’s walking about ten metres behind us with enormous earphones on his head and his hands dug deep down into his pockets. Mark says he can hardly ever persuade him to leave the house. Castor is walking just behind Jeremy, but when we turn back shortly afterwards and head for home, they change places.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I haven’t seen him for several weeks. Not since I told you about him, I think.’

  It’s the fifteenth of January, and that’s about right. It must be nearly a month since I last saw that silver-coloured Renault.

  ‘Hm,’ says Mark, kicking at a stone. I can see that he has more to say on that subject.

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  He hesitates. Turns round to check that Jeremy is keeping up with us. Adjusts his scarf.

  ‘I think I might have seen him,’ he says in the end.

  I stop dead. ‘What do you mean? Did you see him? Where?’

  ‘It was a few days ago,’ says Mark, trying to look apologetic for some reason. ‘In Dulverton. His car was parked outside the butcher’s, and he came out of there while I was watching. Got into the car and drove away.’

  ‘He?’

  ‘Yes, a man. In his sixties I’d say, or thereabouts. I didn’t get much of an idea of what he looked like, I was on the other side of the road. And he was wearing a hat. But it was a hire car from Sixt, and I noted down the registration number.’

  ‘Really?’ I suddenly feel all of a tremble. As if I couldn’t possibly take another step forward. He can see there’s something wrong.

  ‘Are you feeling all right?’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine. It’s just that I suddenly felt dizzy.’

  ‘Dizzy? You don’t usually have attacks of dizziness, do you?’

  ‘It’s over and done with now. What did you do with the registration number?’

  I can hear that he didn’t leave it at that.

  He clears his throat. ‘I chased it up,’ he says.

  ‘Really?’ I say. ‘How?’

  ‘I phoned the rental firm and spun them a yarn. I said I thought the driver of that car had reversed into mine, and I wanted to contact him. They were a bit hesitant at first, but when I told them I was a police officer in Taunton and that they should come to the point they backed down. They checked the documentation, and it transpired that the car had been rented on a long-term contract by a person of Polish origins.’

  ‘By a person of Polish . . . ?’

  My field of vision shrinks to a tunnel. I clench my fists and take a deep breath.

  ‘Yes. But surely your stalker doesn’t have any Polish connections, does he? Didn’t you say his name was Simmel? The fact was . . .’

  ‘What was it?’

  He laughs. ‘The fact was that they couldn’t read his name. It was long and Polish and awkward. But if I wanted to seek compensation I should just send them a notification of damage form. Then they would chase him up via his passport number – that appears to be the routine. I thanked them and said I would think it over. What do you think?’

  ‘What do I think?’

  ‘Yes. Surely this must suggest that it isn’t him.’

  I look at him and try to take a grip of myself. ‘You’re right, of course. It’s just that I was so surprised . . . I haven’t thought about him for so long.’

  But just now there’s no room for anything else in my mind. That’s what happens, I tell myself: once the lid is lifted far too much comes rushing out. What would Gudrun Ewerts say about this?

  I put the lid back on and we start walking again. We continue walking along the river bank, but stop when we realize that Jeremy is no longer following behind us. We retrace our steps and soon find him. He’s stopped in the middle of the path for no obvious reason. He’s standing there with his hands in his jeans pockets, staring into space. Castor is sitting beside him, just a metre away.

  ‘Good Lord!’ says Mar
k. ‘I must get myself a dog, I really must.’

  I’m spending too much time with Mark Britton. It’s not for my sake I say that, but for his. I have lost count of how many times I’ve woken up at Heathercombe Cottage, but soon I’ll be leaving here. I know he hopes that our relationship will continue, even if we don’t talk about it. And a continuation must involve my returning to Exmoor. It’s naturally out of the question for him to consider moving anywhere else with Jeremy. He has made that decision some time ago, once and for all.

  But I don’t want to encourage him to think I shall return. Not yet. My feeling for magic thoughts forbids it: you mustn’t be over-hasty, mustn’t jump into square seven when you are in square three. It’s possible that Mark understands this – not in detail, of course, and not expressed in that way; but he seems to have an instinct that tells him he mustn’t rush things. Not to make agreements and force me to make commitments, there would be no point. I’m grateful for that: if I had to cobble together any more detailed lies it would be difficult. What isn’t spelled out is more vital: I only have two more weeks in Darne Lodge, and after having had all the time in the world this past late autumn and winter, the days have suddenly started to become crammed full of all kinds of tasks that need seeing to.

  I must finish the play. I must send off a series of carefully worded e-mails to a series of people: Bergman, Gunvald, Synn, Christa and last but not least – Soblewski. I haven’t heard from him for ages, but the day after tomorrow I shall send my (Martin’s) comments on Anna Słupka’s short story (which I’m going to read this evening at long last) together with a quite gloomy report on my (Martin’s) writing, and masses of depressing thoughts. I obviously can’t bring up that unidentified body again, but I hope that he remembers my question and doesn’t leave me in the dark.