‘I suppose I ought to say “welcome”,’ I said.
Harriet raised her head. Her face was covered in sweat.
‘I’ll fall if I let go,’ she said. ‘I’d like to lie down on the bed among the ants again.’
We helped her up to the house. I asked Jansson to see if he could start my old tractor. Harriet lay down on the bed. She was breathing heavily and seemed to be in pain. Louise gave her a pill and fetched a glass of water. Harriet swallowed the pill with great difficulty. Then she looked at me.
‘I haven’t got much longer to live,’ she said. ‘Hold my hand.’
I took her warm hand.
‘I want to lie here and listen to the sea and have you two close to me. That’s all. The old lady promises not to give you any unnecessary trouble. I shan’t even scream when the pain becomes too much to bear. When that happens, I shall take my tablets or Louise will give me an injection.’
She closed her eyes. We stood watching her. She soon fell asleep. Louise walked round the table, contemplating the expanding anthill.
‘How many ants are there?’ she whispered.
‘A million, perhaps more.’
‘How long have you had it?’
‘This is the eleventh year.’
We left the room.
‘You could have rung,’ I said.
She stood in front of me and took a firm hold of my shoulders.
‘If I had you’d have said no. I didn’t want that to happen. Now we are here. You owe it to my mum and me, especially to her. If she wants to lie listening to the sea instead of to hooting motor cars when she dies, that’s what she’s going to do. And so you can be grateful that I won’t need to harass you for the rest of your life complaining about what you did.’
She turned on her heel and went outside. Jansson had managed to start the tractor. Just as I had suspected all these years, he was pretty good at starting difficult engines.
We tied a few ropes to the caravan and managed to unload it from the cow ferry. Jansson was in charge of the tractor.
‘Where do you want it to stand?’ he shouted.
‘Here,’ said Louise, pointing to a patch of grass beyond the narrow strip of sand on the other side of the boathouse. ‘I want a beach of my own,’ she went on. ‘I’ve always dreamed of that.’
Jansson displayed great skill with the tractor as he manoeuvred the caravan into position. We placed old fish boxes and driftwood where necessary until it was level and steady.
‘It’ll be OK now,’ said Jansson, sounding satisfied. ‘This is the only island out here with a caravan.’
‘Thank you. You’re invited to coffee,’ said Louise.
Jansson looked at me. I said nothing.
It was the first time he’d been inside the house as long as I’d lived there. He looked inquisitively around the kitchen.
‘It looks just as I remember it,’ he said. ‘You haven’t changed much. Unless I’m much mistaken this is the same tablecloth as the old couple used to have.’
Louise brewed some coffee and asked if I had any buns. I didn’t. So she went to her caravan to fetch something.
‘She’s a very elegant woman,’ said Jansson. ‘How did you manage to find her?’
‘I didn’t find her. She’s the one who found me.’
‘Did you advertise for a woman? I’ve considered doing that.’
Jansson isn’t exactly quick-witted. You couldn’t accuse him of indulging in too much activity behind the eyes. But it was beyond belief that he could imagine that Louise was a lady I had somehow picked up, complete with caravan and a dying old woman.
‘She’s my daughter,’ I said. ‘I told you I had a daughter. I distinctly remember doing so. We were sitting on the bench by the jetty. You had earache. It was last autumn. I told you I had a grown-up daughter. Have you forgotten?’
Jansson had no idea what I was talking about. But he didn’t dare to argue. He didn’t dare to risk losing his personal physician.
Louise came back with an assortment of buns and biscuits. Jansson and my daughter seemed to hit it off from the start. I would have to explain to Louise that she could hold sway over her caravan, but when it came to my island, nobody but me was allowed to lay down the law. And one of the laws that applied was that Jansson must on no account be invited to drink coffee in my kitchen.
Jansson towed away his cow ferry and disappeared round the headland. I didn’t ask Louise how much she’d paid him. We went for a walk round the island as Harriet was still asleep. I showed her where my dog was buried. Then we clambered southwards over the rocks and followed the shore.
Just for a short time, it was like having acquired a little child. Louise asked about everything – plants, seaweed, the neighbouring islands barely visible through the mist, the fish in the depths of the sea that she couldn’t see at all. I suppose I could answer about half her questions. But that didn’t matter to her – the important thing was that I listened to what she said.
There were a few boulders on Norrudden, a headland on the north side of the island, that centuries ago the ice had shaped into throne-like constructions. We sat down.
‘Whose idea was it?’ I asked.
‘I think we both hit on it at about the same time. It was time to visit you, and for the family to get together before it was too late.’
‘What do your friends in the forest up north have to say about this?’
‘They know that I’ll come back one of these days.’
‘Why did you have to lug the caravan with you?’
‘It’s my shell. I never leave it behind.’
She told me about Harriet. Harriet had been driven to Stockholm by one of Louise’s boxer friends called Sture who made a living by drilling wells.
Then Harriet suddenly took a turn for the worse. Louise travelled down to Stockholm to look after her mother, as she had refused to go into a hospice. Louise had insisted on being authorised to administer the painkilling drugs Harriet needed. All that was possible now was palliative care. Every effort to prevent the cancer from spreading had been abandoned. The final countdown had begun. Louise was in constant touch with the home-nursing authorities in Stockholm.
We sat on our thrones, gazing out over the sea.
‘I can’t see her lasting more than another month at most,’ said Louise. ‘I’m already giving her enormous doses of painkillers. She’s going to die here. You’d better prepare yourself for that. You’re a doctor – or, at least, were one. You’re more familiar with death than I am. But I’ve realised that death is always a lonely business. Nevertheless, we can be here and help her.’
‘Is she in a lot of pain?’
‘She sometimes screams.’
We continued our walk along the shore. When we came to the headland reaching out towards the open sea, we paused again. My grandfather had placed a bench there: he’d made it himself from an old threshing machine and some rough oak planks. When he and Grandma had quarrelled, as they sometimes did, he used to go and sit there until she came to fetch him and tell him that dinner was ready. Their anger had always subsided by then. I had carved my name on the bench when I was seven years old. My grandfather was no doubt less than pleased, but he never said anything.
Eider and scoter and a few mergansers were bobbing up and down on the waves.
‘There’s a deep underwater ravine just offshore here, where the birds are,’ I said. ‘The average depth is fifteen to twenty metres, but there is this sudden abyss fifty-six metres deep. When I was a lad I used to lower a grappling iron from the rowing boat, and always imagined that it was bottomless. We’ve had visits by geologists trying to work out why it exists. As far as I can understand, nobody has been able to give a satisfactory answer. I rather like that. I have no faith in a world in which all riddles are solved.’
‘I believe in a world where people fight back,’ said Louise.
‘I assume you’re thinking about your French caves?’
‘Yes, and much more besides.’
br />
‘Are you writing protest letters?’
‘The latest ones were to Tony Blair and President Chirac.’
‘Have they replied?’
‘Of course not. But I’m working on other courses of action.’
‘What?’
She shook her head. She didn’t want to go into that.
We continued our walk and came to a stop at the boathouse. The sun was shining on the lee wall.
‘You fulfilled one of the promises you made to Harriet,’ said Louise. ‘She has another request now.’
‘I’m not going back to that forest pool.’
‘No, she wants something to take place here. A midsummer party.’
‘Meaning what?’
Louise was annoyed.
‘What can you mean by a midsummer party apart from what the words say? A party that takes place at midsummer?’
‘I’m not accustomed to throwing parties here on my island. No matter whether it’s summer or winter.’
‘Then it’s about time you did. Harriet wants to sit out on a sunny summer evening with some other guests, to eat some good food, drink some good wine, and then go back to bed and die soon after.’
‘That’s something we can arrange, of course. You, me and her. We can set up a long table on the grass in front of the currant bushes.’
‘Harriet wants guests. She wants to meet people.’
‘Who, for instance?’
‘You’re the one who lives here. Invite some of your friends. There don’t need to be all that many.’
Louise set off for the house, without waiting for a reply. I could invite Jansson, Hans Lundman and his wife Romana, who works as an assistant at the meat counter in the big indoor food market in our nearest town.
Harriet would be able to partake of her last supper out here on my island. That was the least I could do for her.
CHAPTER 4
IT RAINED MORE or less non-stop until midsummer. We established simple routines based on Harriet’s deteriorating condition. To start with, Louise slept in her caravan; but when Harriet screamed out two nights in succession, she moved into my kitchen. I offered to help by giving Harriet her medication but Louise wanted to keep that responsibility. She used a mattress on the kitchen floor, and stored it in the vestibule every morning. She told me the cat would sleep at her feet.
Harriet slept most of the time, lost in a trance induced by the drugs. She had no appetite, but with boundless patience, Louise forced down her a sufficient amount of nutrition. I was touched by the extra ordinary tenderness she displayed towards her mother. It was a side of her I’d not seen before. I kept my distance, and would never have dreamt of intervening.
In the evenings, we would sit in Louise’s caravan or in my kitchen, talking. She had taken over the cooking. I would phone in her shopping lists and Jansson would deliver the goods. The week before midsummer, it was clear that Harriet didn’t have long to go. Every time she woke up, she asked about the weather, I realised that she was thinking about her party. The next time Jansson came, when it had been raining constantly with winds blowing in from the Arctic, I invited him to a party the following Friday.
‘Is it your birthday?’
‘Every Christmas, you complain that I haven’t put up any lights. Every midsummer you moan because I decline to drink a toast with you on the jetty. Now I’m inviting you to a party. Is it that hard to understand? Seven o’clock, weather permitting.’
‘I can feel in my bones that warm weather is on its way.’
Jansson claims that he can divine water using a dowsing rod and that he can feel the weather in his bones.
I didn’t comment on his bones. Later that same day I phoned Hans Lundman and invited him and his wife.
‘I’m working then, but I should be able to swap shifts with Edvin. Is it your birthday?’
‘It’s always my birthday,’ I said. ‘Seven o’clock, weather permitting.’
Louise and I made preparations. I dug out some of my grand parents’ summer furniture that had been stored away for years. I painted it and repaired a rotten table leg.
The day before Midsummer Eve, it was pouring with rain. A gale was blowing from the north-west, and the temperature sank to twelve degrees. Louise and I struggled up the hill and saw boats riding out the storm in a sheltered bay on the other side of Korsholmen, the island nearest to mine.
‘Will the weather be like this tomorrow as well?’ Louise asked.
‘According to Jansson’s bones, it will be fine and sunny,’ I said.
The next day, the wind dropped. The rain ceased, the clouds dispersed and the temperature rose. Harriet had had two bad nights when the painkillers didn’t seem to work. Then things appeared to improve. We prepared for the party. Louise knew exactly what Harriet wanted.
‘Simple extravagance,’ she said. ‘It’s a hopeless task, of course, trying to mix simplicity and extravagance, but sometimes you have to attempt the impossible.’
It was a strange midsummer party that I don’t think any of those present will ever forget, even if our memories of it differ somewhat. Hans Lundman rang in the morning and asked if they could bring with them their granddaughter, who was paying them a visit and couldn’t be left on her own. Her name was Andrea, and she was sixteen years old. I knew that she had a mental handicap, and that she found it difficult to understand some things, or to learn. But she also had boundless confidence in people she’d never met before. She would shake anybody at all by the hand, and as a child was more than happy to sit on the knee of total strangers.
Of course she was welcome. We set the table for seven people rather than six. Harriet, who by now was practically bedbound, was sitting in her chair in the garden by five in the afternoon. She was wearing a light-coloured summery dress chosen by Louise, who had also combed her grey hair into a pretty bun. Louise had made her up as well. Harriet’s haggard face had regained some of the poise it had possessed earlier in her life. I sat down beside her with a glass of wine in my hand. She took it from me and half emptied it.
‘Serve me some more,’ she said. ‘To make sure I don’t fall asleep, I’ve reduced my intake of all the stuff that keeps my pains at bay. But I do still have pain, and it’s going to get worse. However, what I want now is white wine instead of white tablets. Wine!’
I went to the kitchen, where a row of bottles were uncorked and ready to serve. Louise was busy with something about to go into the oven.
‘Harriet wants some wine,’ I said.
‘Give her some, then! This party is for her. It’s the last time she’ll be able to drink herself tipsy. If she gets drunk, we can all be happy.’
I took the bottle out into the garden. The table was laid very attractively. Louise had decorated it with flowers and leafy twigs. She’d covered the cold dishes already on the table with some of Grandma’s worn-out towels.
We toasted each other. Harriet took hold of my hand.
‘Are you angry because I want to die in your house?’
‘Why ever should I be?’
‘You didn’t want to live with me. Perhaps you don’t want me to die in your house either.’
‘It wouldn’t surprise me if you were to outlive the lot of us.’
‘I’ll be dead before long. I can feel death tugging at me. The earth is pulling me down. Sometimes, when I wake up during the night, just before the agony gets so bad that I need to scream, I have time to ask myself if I’m scared of what lies in store. I am. But I’m scared without being scared. It’s more of a vague worry, being on the way to open a door without being at all sure what’s behind it. Then the pains strike home, and that’s what I’m scared of. Nothing else.’
Louise came and sat down next to me, glass in hand.
‘The family,’ she said. ‘I don’t know now if I want to use the surname Welin or Hörnfeldt. Maybe I’ll be Louise Hörnfeldt-Welin. Occupation: letter writer.’
She had a camera with her, and took a picture of Harriet and me sitting there, w
ith glasses in our hands. Then she took a picture with herself in it as well.
‘I have an old-fashioned camera,’ she said. ‘I have to send the films away to be developed. But now I’ve got that snap I’ve always dreamt about.’
We drank a toast to the summer evening. I thought about the fact that Harriet was forced to wear a pad under her flimsy summery dress, and that the beautiful Louise really was my daughter.
Louise went to her caravan to change her clothes. The cat suddenly jumped up on to the table. I shooed her down. She looked offended, and slunk away. We sat there in silence, listening to the muted murmuring of the sea.
‘You and I,’ said Harriet. ‘You and I. And then, suddenly, it’s all over.’
By seven o’clock it was dead calm and plus seventeen degrees.
Jansson and the Lundmans arrived together. The boats formed a friendly little convoy of two, both with flags fluttering from the stern. Louise stood waiting for them on the jetty, looking radiant. Her dress was almost provocatively short, but she had pretty legs and I recognised the red shoes she had on – she’d been wearing them when she stepped out of the caravan and I saw her for the first time. Jansson had squeezed himself into an old suit that was on the tight side, Romana was glittering in red and black and Hans was dressed all in white and sported a yachtsman’s cap. Andrea was wearing a blue dress with a yellow hairband. We moored the boats, spent a few minutes on the little jetty chatting about the summer that had arrived at last, then proceeded up to the house. Jansson’s eyes looked slightly glazed and he stumbled a couple of times, but nobody minded – least of all Harriet who heaved herself up off her chair without assistance and shook hands with everybody.
We had decided to tell the truth: Harriet was Louise’s mother, I was her father, and once upon a time Harriet and I were almost married. Now Harriet was ill, but not so bad that we couldn’t all sit out under the oak trees this evening and have dinner.
On reflection, it seemed to me that, at the beginning, our party was reminiscent of a little orchestra, with all the individual members tuning their instruments. We talked and talked, and gradually achieved the right sound. At the same time we ate, drank toasts, carried dishes back and forth, and sent our laughter echoing across the skerries. Harriet seemed in perfectly good health while this was all happening. She spoke to Hans about emergency flares, about the price of groceries to Romana, and she asked Jansson to tell us about the strangest delivery he’d made during all his years as a postman. It was her party, she was the one who dominated, conducted and blended all the sounds to form a melodious chord. Andrea said nothing. Soon after the start she had clung tightly to Louise, who allowed herself to be held. We all got drunk, of course, Jansson first – but he never lost control. He helped Louise to carry plates and didn’t drop a single one. As dusk fell, he was the one who lit the candles and the citronella spirals Louise had bought to keep the mosquitoes away. Andrea was giving the adults searching looks. Harriet, who was sitting opposite her, occasionally stretched out her hand and touched Andrea’s fingertips. I felt very sad as I sat there, watching those fingers touching. One of them would soon die, the other would never really understand what it meant to live. Harriet noticed me watching them and raised her glass. We touched glasses and drank.