by Lynne Truss
‘Buck up, Linda. I can’t believe this attitude. It’s not your fault. You were always a marvellous cleaning lady. Dermot’s got it in for you, that’s all.’
‘I feel terrible.’
‘Hardly surprising, in the circumstances. What did we die of, by the way? Was it an accident? It was very sudden.’
‘How can you be so matter-of-fact about this, Belinda?’
‘I don’t know. You’re right, though. I’ve never felt so matter-of-fact about anything. I’ll pop to the shops later, if you like, seeing as you can’t go out any more. Anything you want me to do on your behalf, just say. I owe you heaps. Fancy a Mars bar?’
Energized by the events of the last twenty-four hours, Belinda was pushing into new frontiers of tactlessness, but couldn’t help herself. ‘This often happens to people in grief trauma,’ she puffed, having just run up and downstairs six times, for the exercise. (Linda was sitting with her head in her hands.) ‘I heard about it on Radio 4. The bereaved generate masses of energy. Divorce does it sometimes too. Divorcees – particularly the victims – become human dynamos.’
Stefan watched her in amazement. ‘You are in the pink, for sure, Belinda, even when we are taken to the cleaners,’ he remarked. (Although it pained Stefan to readopt his Swedish guise for Belinda’s sake, he did so with aplomb.) ‘We will have to get you the enormous hamster wheel, or I’m a Dutchman.’
‘I’ve thought of something you can cremate, anyway,’ Belinda continued, red-faced, standing on her neck on the hearth rug and cycling her legs in the air. ‘For the funeral. You can cremate my book. If you pile in the research notes and the Dostoevskys, it ought to weigh quite enough to fool everybody.’
‘Your book?’ wailed Linda.
‘Well, let’s face it. Thanks to your careless demise, I shan’t be needing it. I always think it’s spooky when books are published posthumously, don’t you?’ And with that she commenced a programme of rigorous Canadian Air Force exercises, with weights strapped fast to her wrists and ankles.
It was while Belinda was Hoovering the hall with a feather duster between her teeth in the early afternoon that the doorbell rang. Stefan was in the attic, reorganizing it for Linda. The Johansson ménage had come to the consensus that the attic would be an ideal place for Linda to hide from her admirers during the funeral and after. Meanwhile, in advance of the dinner, she was clattering pans in the kitchen, and poking bits of dead fish in a desultory fashion.
‘Hello?’ Belinda opened the door to see Noel and two women who looked foreign and odd, like missionaries. ‘Are you collecting?’
‘Mrs Johansson?’ said the smaller of the two women, with an accent.
‘Johnson,’ Belinda corrected. Then she thought about it, and laughed. ‘No, you’re right. Johansson. Sorry, I’ve not been myself lately. We’ve – er, we’ve had a death in the family.’
At this, the women exchanged glances.
‘Do you remember me, Belinda?’ asked Noel, warmly extending a hand to shake.
‘Is it Leon?’
‘You do remember!’ he said, avoiding the outright lie.
‘But you’re coming tonight with Maggie, aren’t you?’
Noel smiled. ‘Mmm,’ he agreed.
‘Well, thank goodness you didn’t bring flowers,’ she said, ushering them into the living room. ‘The place is stiff with them. If you’ll pardon the expression.’
She looked at the two women expectantly, as they sat down on the sofa. She smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring fashion. What on earth were they all doing here? Birgit nudged Ingrid and indicated the moose-hat. Ingrid picked up the CD about going home to Malmö, and nodded meaningfully. They whispered briefly in Swedish.
‘Aren’t you going to introduce your friends?’
‘Ah, yes. Of course.’
Noel took a deep breath. The outright lie could no longer be avoided. ‘Agnetha,’ he said, indicating Ingrid. ‘And Anni-Frid.’
The two women both looked up and said, ‘Hej!’
‘Like the women in Abba?’ Belinda asked, amused.
‘That’s right.’
‘How amazing. “Does your mother know?” Ha ha. Cup of tea?’
It was so long since Belinda had seen strangers that she was almost giddy with the novelty of it. Had strange dumpy Swedish women visited the house like this in the old days in the company of boring sports writers? She couldn’t remember. It all seemed so long ago.
‘You’ll have to forgive me, but I feel a bit funny about Abba.’ She smiled. ‘My husband Mr Johansson used to be such a fan, you see. It means that Abba have rather painful associations for me now. I never stopped singing “Angeleyes” at one time. Is your friend all right?’
Ingrid was noticeably squirming in her seat. Evidently her identification with Agnetha in Abba did not extend far. She hadn’t even bothered to wear electric blue satin or a crocheted hat. In fact, it was clear her potent Ingridness could not be suppressed for long.
‘I’m so unhappy,’ she blurted, as Noel shot her a warning glance. She was holding Stefan’s moose-hat and caressing it.
‘Me too,’ said Belinda, brightly. ‘Cup of tea, then?’
‘My Stefan was here! My Stefan! With this fat Belinda! I’m so unhappy! I want to kill her!’
‘Ingrid!’ hissed Birgit.
Belinda froze, with the smile still fixed to her face. Alarm bells were finally tinkling; Neville had finally grasped his trapeze and started to swing. ‘Could you wait a minute? I’ll just put the kettle on.’
But as she raced upstairs to find Stefan, she was aware of rapid, scuttling movement behind her; and by the time she reached the loft-ladder, the front door had opened and closed. Thus, before Stefan could be alerted to the presence of all three of his wives in the house at the same time, the maddest one had thankfully departed. It was a big day for Stefan, the day of the wake. Up in the attic, alone with Belinda for the first time in months, terrified by the knowledge that Ingrid had come to his home, he broke down and told his one true wife all about his three ghastly visits to Malmö. Without breaks or sustenance, this enterprise took him well over an hour and a half.
‘Stefan, I’m so sorry!’ she cried, when it was over. ‘I mean, George, I’m so sorry!’
‘Don’t call me that,’ he said, turning from her. ‘You said you could never love anyone called George.’
‘Did I?’
‘After The Importance of Being Earnest. You must remember. You said the name George had no music. And then you went upstairs.’
‘I never stopped loving you, Stefan. I can’t bear to think what you’ve been through. On the other hand, I can’t bear to think what I’ve been through either. And, Jesus, look what Mother’s been through! Linda sorted her out rather too well, didn’t she?’
‘Linda is not to blame. She’s a good, good person.’
‘I know.’
‘She just loves unconditionally. She never draws a line. She has no judgementalism.’
‘I know. It stems from adolescent trauma. Do you want to hear something amazing? She offered to help me kill myself. I nearly took her up on it.’
‘What a woman.’
They clung to each other, both their minds racing. Linda had caused so much appalling havoc in their lives, by being such a jolly nice person who never drew the line.
‘And now Ingrid is here,’ Belinda reminded him.
Stefan groaned. ‘Was Ingrid’s companion stocky and miserable, a bit like a Smurf?’
Belinda nodded.
‘Birgit,’ he concluded. ‘She persists in thinking Ingrid is normal.’
Suddenly, a lucid memory of the Möllevången basement overwhelmed him. In his mind’s eye, Ingrid twitched his blanket once more, while Stefan drew her attention fatally away, yelling, ‘It’s all true! I made little Stefans in London!’ This was what finally drove Ingrid to kill her husband, he remembered. It was the notion of the ‘little Stefans’ that Stefan taunted her with, that drove her to murderous frenzy.
<
br /> ‘We must tell Linda none of this,’ he said. ‘We’ll deal with Ingrid together, you and me.’
Belinda was so struck by the phrase ‘you and me’ that she grasped her husband’s hand and led him to the mirror.
‘Oh Belinda, don’t,’ he said, and tried to pull away. He couldn’t bear to look at himself. He’d been so selfish, so cruel.
‘No, please,’ she said. ‘Please look.’
And so they stood before it, their eyes glancing right and left compulsively, as if in the dreaming state of sleep – looking first at each other, then at the couple they made, sometimes at themselves. It was something they hadn’t done since they were first in love, gazing at each other with such seriousness in a mirror’s reflection without catching the other’s eye, without smiling.
‘You and me,’ pronounced Belinda at last, with a sigh.
‘You and me,’ Stefan repeated.
‘What a bloody shame,’ said Belinda, ‘that I’m not writing a book about all this any more.’
Tanner knew he ought to be excited by the new job Uncle Jack had given him, but as he sat at his new desk, he still wondered whether he should be wasting his time in this ridiculous profession. From the absurd fuss Jago Ripley had made on his dismissal, anyone would think making newspapers was a remotely important occupation.
‘You? In my job? You’re the worst journalist in the world!’ Jago had yelled, while Tanner examined his nails in silence, waiting for Jago to collect his things and vacate the room.
‘Jericho Jones has promised us a lifestyle column,’ he’d told Jago. ‘You’ve got to admit it’s an improvement. We’re replacing your terrible dead pregnant woman with an exotic superstar facing a new lease of life in sport. “Still Dunking”, I call it. The editor loves the idea. Are you going to the Telegraph?’
Jago snarled, picked up his boxes and left the office.
‘We’ll always have Sweden, Mr Ripley,’ Tanner called after him. ‘I owe you for that, don’t forget!’ At which he settled himself in his new chair and prepared for his first editorial conference as one of the most important people on the Effort.
In the three months since Malmö, Tanner had mostly put the hazy events of that ghastly night behind him. So when Stefan Johansson called on his direct line, after Jago’s departure, he was quite annoyed.
‘Jago? Is that you?’ hissed Stefan. ‘Ingrid’s turned up in London! I have to speak to Leon! He’s harbouring her!’
‘Mr Johansson? Tanner here.’
Stefan gasped and said nothing.
‘Met in Malmö,’ Tanner continued. ‘Saw you throw a blanket over that murderess. You may remember my sarong.’
Stefan remained silent.
‘Hello?’ said Tanner. ‘Mr Johansson?’
But just the muffled word ‘Shit’ could be heard, before Stefan hung up.
Tanner peered at the receiver, and reluctantly made some notes. Tiresome though this whole Malmö story was, he could see it had potential. ‘Ingrid here,’ he wrote, and circled it.
‘Leon harbouring,’ he wrote alongside. He underlined ‘Shit’ three times, then set off for conference.
‘This is going to be like a wake,’ said Jago, as he rang the Johansson doorbell at eight twenty-five that evening.
Viv rolled her eyes. ‘I think technically it is a wake.’
‘Are we fashionably late enough?’
‘Weren’t we due at seven?’
‘Yes.’
Viv consulted her watch. ‘An hour and twenty-five minutes ago. Then we’re just right.’
It was a fine evening in South London, warm and mellow. Had the occasion not been so solemn, a barbecue in the Johansson back garden might have been considered. But given that the hostess had recently popped her clogs, and that the invitations said, ‘Armband optional’, a more formal style of dinner had seemed appropriate.
‘I’m dreading this,’ said Viv under her breath, as Stefan opened the door. ‘Belinda was bad enough when she was alive. Oh hi, Stefan!’
‘Hello,’ said Stefan. ‘Come in. Jago, hej!’
‘Hej!’ said Jago. ‘Did you hear I’d lost my job?’
As these first guests went inside, the door shutting behind them, a large bush in the front garden quivered in telltale fashion, betraying the fact that two Swedish women and a psychotherapist were hiding inadequately behind it. Midsummer was a terrible time for hiding outdoors, the threesome were discovering. Their only consolation was that at least this wasn’t Sweden, where in the month of June it never gets dark at all.
‘Lucky George! That was Lucky George! I want to kill him, too!’ exclaimed the bush now, in excited tones. ‘Shh, Ingrid,’ it also reminded itself, in a male voice. ‘Look, your friend isn’t mad, is she?’ it whispered, a bit worried. ‘Certainly not,’ it replied.
‘Did you see anything odd out there?’ asked Stefan quietly, as he accepted Jago’s bottle of wine.
‘No. Why?’
Viv had gone to find Linda.
‘Ingrid’s been here,’ Stefan whispered. He crouched to peer through the letter-box, then straightened up. ‘Linda doesn’t know.’
‘Jesus!’ said Jago. ‘She escaped?’
‘I’ve got a terrible feeling about tonight, Jago.’
‘I’m not surprised. Let’s go out. In fact, let’s run away to Tashkent.’
‘Did you see that bush move?’ asked Maggie. Half-way up the garden path, she had stopped and shuddered.
Leon looked around the garden. ‘No.’
‘I’m sure it did.’
Leon had another look, and obligingly, the bush shivered, bounced and rocked. Since Noel was physically wrestling with a highly agitated Ingrid at the time, however, the movement in the bush was relatively modest.
‘You’re right,’ said Leon. ‘Sorry.’
He approached the bush, which shook violently and commenced shouting words like ‘Bitch!’ and ‘Why, you—!’, then abruptly became still. He returned to Maggie. ‘Do you want the good news or the bad news?’ he asked.
‘The good news.’
‘The good news is, there’s a perfectly rational explanation. The bad news is that my brother has just punched Ingrid Johansson on the jaw, and knocked her cold. It was a right upper cut, if you’re interested.’
Looking back on it later, Stefan always regretted carrying the unconscious (and armed) Ingrid into the house and leaving her in the Johansson master bedroom with just Birgit and the assiduous Leon for company. It was such an obvious mistake if you didn’t want blood everywhere. However, persuaded by Leon, that’s exactly what he did. Leon had a soft spot for Ingrid, and wanted to protect her. Meanwhile Stefan wasn’t thinking straight, exactly. Because at the time he made that fateful decision, his primary concern was for Linda’s worrying state of mind. ‘She’s in the attic with a syringe,’ reported Viv, breathlessly. ‘She’s got a syringe, and she’s threatening to use it.’
So Stefan climbed to the attic, and sat down with Linda. Obviously he was neglecting other, noisier matters. But while downstairs Maggie shrieked, ‘You!’ at Noel in the dining room, and Jago physically slugged the despicable Tanner (‘You!’) on his arrival at the house, and Belinda and Viv hugged each other in forgiveness (‘You!’ ‘You!’) in the kitchen, and Ingrid stirred with an animal groan on the comfy double bed (‘Du?’), Stefan begged Linda not to hurt herself; not to abandon him; not to abandon Belinda.
‘You’re too close to this,’ she said, determinedly swabbing her arm. ‘You don’t understand. I’ve got to go. You’ve got to let me go. To other people it will always look as though I’ve exploited you and entrapped you, stolen your lives from you. Look how ecstatic Belinda is now I’ve stopped making her successful and popular and well paid. It’s as though I’ve released her from a hundred years’ sleep. I gave her exactly what I thought she wanted, did everything for her, and she turned out like Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?’
‘There’s got to be a way forward for all of us. Belinda appreciates ever
ything you did. We both do. You’re such a good person.’
‘But now it’s over, isn’t it?’
‘It can’t be. What about the baby?’
‘I know.’ Linda sighed. Tears came to her eyes as she put down the syringe.
‘This isn’t what should have happened,’ she said. ‘This isn’t how it should have turned out. I’ll get my things from our room and go.’ And those were her last words before she ran to the loft-ladder, and disappeared from view.
Stefan was stunned with sadness as he heard her make her way downstairs. ‘Linda, please. I love you,’ he said to himself. ‘I love Belinda too.’ And then he remembered something rather important, concerning the master bedroom. ‘Linda! Oh, my God. Don’t go down there! Ingrid—’ he yelled.
At which point, as Stefan always remembered it, a bloodcurdling cry interrupted him from the floor below.
‘AAAAAAghhhh!’ came the female shriek.
‘AAAAArrgh!’ it shrieked again, and then came a loud thump as a person (or persons) hit the floor.
‘My God,’ said Stefan, sinking to his knees. ‘My God. Ingrid’s got her!’
As Stefan descended the ladder at speed, the other men raced upstairs, so that all converged on the landing. It was easy to spot the cinéastes among them, incidentally: those who remembered details from Psycho took care not to place themselves at the top of the stairs.
‘Ingrid?’ said Stefan, to the closed bedroom door. ‘What have you done?’ He tried to push open the door with his foot. Either Belinda or Linda could be hurt or dead in there! Possibly both! His wives! His darling wives!
But Leon stepped out, and solemnly closed the door behind him. He looked shaken. ‘Don’t go in there,’ he said, running a hand through his hair.
‘I must!’
‘Don’t go in, Stefan. Your wife—’
Everyone drew a sharp breath and looked at Leon expectantly, rather keen for more details. Come on, Leon. Come on. Nearly all the women in the house were Stefan’s wife, in one way or another.
