A Bridge to the Stars

  When Samuel sees that, he won't come in and sit on the edge of Joel's bed. He'll simply close the door and go to his own room.

  It's easy to fool grown-ups, he thinks. Just because you've switched the light off, they think you're asleep.

  What he would really like, in fact, is for his father to come and sit on his bed even so. Sit down and tell him about Jenny without Joel having to ask first.

  It's hard to settle down to sleep. The alarm clock is rubbing against his ear. He shudders at the thought of having to get dressed in a few hours' time and go out into the night. He wonders what it is that Ture is going to show him.

  Create fear, he said. What does he mean by that?

  Joel tosses and turns. The alarm clock is irritating him, and he has to check and make sure he hasn't accidentally switched it off.

  He needs to do a lot of thinking about Ture.

  Having met him is both a good thing and a bad thing. Good that he's going to run away in a week's time because Joel has said various things that can be found out as untrue. But at the same time, it's a bad thing that he will no longer be around. It's good having a nobleman as a friend. A nobleman who is older than Joel.

  He thinks about the enormous flat. He pictures himself in all the different rooms. Looking at the paintings and books, walking on the soft carpets.

  But when he comes to the suit of armour, he stops dead.

  Now he's on his own, Ture is no longer in his thoughts, and he can put on the armour with no risk of being found out. Last of all he closes the visor.

  Now he's on a battlefield somewhere.

  Miss Nederström has told them that it was always misty when knights in armour rode into battle.

  Now he's mounting his steed, the magnificent stallion he's seen at Mr Under's, the horse dealer. The black horse with the white patch under his right eye. Somewhere in the distance, invisible in the mist, the enemy is waiting . . .

  He gives a start when Samuel opens the door.

  It takes a long time to build up a good dream, but all it needs is for his dad to take hold of the door handle, and it's all gone.

  He pretends to be asleep.

  Samuel closes the door gently.

  He usually listens for longer than that, Joel thinks. Tonight it happened far too quickly. As if he were hoping that I'd be asleep.

  There ought to be rules for fathers, thinks Joel angrily. They shouldn't be allowed to come bursting into a dream. They should only be allowed to listen so long at the door to see if you're asleep. They shouldn't be allowed to invite certain people home for coffee.

  All fathers ought to be made to sign such rules. And every time they break one, they should be punished.

  The radio falls silent, Samuel has a good gargle, and his bed creaks.

  What actually happened? Joel wonders.

  Why was Jenny so unhappy? What happened?

  When the alarm starts buzzing under his pillow, he's not sure at first what it is. It goes off when he's in the middle of a dream. Joel is surrounded by strangers, but he knows that his mother is among them somewhere. The only person he recognises is The Old Bricklayer. Then the barriers at the level crossing start ringing. It's the alarm clock under his pillow.

  He lies still in the darkness, listening.

  What had he been dreaming about? Was it a nasty dream? Or just an odd one?

  He keeps on listening. Silence always has many sounds.

  A beam creaks. He hears his own breathing. There's a rushing sound in his ears, like the wind.

  Joel is afraid of the dark. Not being able to see the walls and ceiling, not being able to see his own hands. Waking up in the dark is a kind of loneliness he's scared of.

  It's the nearest he can imagine to death.

  A black room where the ceiling could be just above his face, but he can't see it.

  When you wake up in the middle of the night there's no way of knowing if you're the only person left in the whole wide world.

  He switches on the lamp standing on the blue stool. Then he switches it off again. The darkness isn't frightening any more. Not now that he knows nothing has changed while he's been asleep.

  He tiptoes into the kitchen, puts on his boots then creeps silently down the stairs. Old Mrs Westman is having a coughing fit.

  The stars are twinkling in a clear sky when he gets outside, and he starts running so as not to be late. Ture is waiting for him by the goods wagons, in the shadows. Once again he creeps up on Joel from behind and grabs him by the shoulder, making him jump.

  I ought to have known, thinks Joel. Ture will keep on doing that for as long as he sees it makes me jump.

  First they go looking for the dog. Joel shows Ture the streetlight where he last saw the dog. He'd like to tell the story of the night when he carried The Flying Horse out of the bicycle shop – but would Ture believe him? Joel has no idea what Ture thinks. And when he runs away next week it will be too late. After that he'll never get to know anything.

  It strikes Joel that this is the first time he's met anybody who he knows he's soon going to be separated from, and will never see again. Never ever, as long as he lives . . .

  'A dog,' says Ture without warning. 'Why are we looking for a dog?'

  Joel doesn't know what to say. All he knows is that the dog is important. The dog heading for a star.

  He can't explain it, he just knows . . .

  Ture suddenly pokes him in the back.

  'There's somebody coming,' he whispers.

  He points down the street, and Joel sees a figure in dark clothes approaching along the opposite pavement. Somebody lit up by a streetlamp before being swallowed up by the darkness again.

  They stand next to the wall where they are sure of not being seen. The darkly clad figure has its head bowed, looking like a body that stops at the shoulders. But Joel sees who it is.

  It's No-Nose. The woman with a handkerchief instead of a nose in her face.

  'It's Gertrud,' he whispers into Ture's ear. 'I know who she is.'

  'Why is she out in the middle of the night, walking with her head bowed?' wonders Ture.

  Ture indicates that they should follow her. They sneak along in the shadow of the house walls, keeping the hunched figure in front of them.

  It's not hard to follow her because she never stops and turns round to look.

  Joel has always believed that people who are being followed can sense it. But evidently not Gertrud. No-Nose. People either feel sorry for Gertrud, or dislike her. But nearly everybody is frightened of her.

  You can feel sorry for her because she lost her nose during an operation at the hospital. You can also dislike her because she doesn't stay indoors but wanders around in the street and doesn't cover up her deformed face.

  She must be brave, and everybody's frightened of brave people.

  When Joel sees her in the street he thinks it's both disgusting and exciting to see her face without a nose.

  She usually has a white handkerchief stuffed into the hole where her nose should be.

  Every time he sees her he tells himself he's not going to look, but he can't resist it.

  She goes to the Pentecostal chapel next to the Community Centre. She patrols the streets every day, selling religious magazines. Hardly anybody dares not to stop and buy one off her.

  He knows she tried to drown herself in the river when they'd cut off her nose at the hospital. But somebody saw her jump in, and rowed out in the horse dealer's boat and rescued her. She'd had a heavy iron in her pocket and a thick chain wrapped round her neck. Then Happy Harry, the Pentecostal minister, took her under his wing, and now she sells magazines for him.

  She lives all alone, in a little house at Ulvkälla, on the far side of the bridge. That seems to be where she's heading for.

  They follow her as far as the bridge. Then it gets hard, because there are so many lights on the bridge. They watch her disappear into the shadows.

  Joel tells Ture what he knows about her. When he's finished, Ture a
sks a peculiar question.

  'Do you know where there's an ants' nest?' he asks.

  An ants' nest?

  Joel knows where there are lots of ants' nests, but they are all still covered in snow. The ants don't usually emerge until May.

  'We'll pay her a visit tomorrow,' says Ture. 'I want to go home now.'

  'You said you were going to show me something,' says Joel.

  'I have done,' says Ture. 'How to trail a person.'

  Joel goes with Ture as far as his gate. He hopes Ture will invite him to call round after school, but Ture says nothing. He simply jumps over the gate and vanishes into his vast house.

  Joel has the feeling that Ture is already beginning to take over The Secret Society.

  That's a good thing but also a bad thing.

  What is good is that Joel no longer has sole responsibility for it all. But what is bad is that everything has happened so quickly.

  He hurries home. It's freezing, and he feels cold. He can hear The Old Bricklayer's lorry somewhere in the distance. When he enters the kitchen he has the same feeling as the night before. There's something amiss. This time it's even stronger.

  He feels scared. What has changed?

  He unlaces his boots and hangs up his jacket. Everything is the same as usual, but at the same time, it's different.

  Without really knowing why, he opens the door to his father's room. He knows exactly how far he can open it before it starts creaking.

  He listens for his dad's breathing. But he hears nothing.

  Just for a moment he's so scared that he almost bursts into tears. Has Samuel died?

  He gropes his way forward. It's pitch black, but even so he closes his eyes.

  Breathe, he thinks. Breathe, breathe, breathe . . .

  He knocks against the side of the bed with his knee.

  He has to open his eyes now. He must face up to the most difficult task he's ever been landed with.

  Face up to something he doesn't really dare face up to.

  His eyes fail to respond.

  His eyelids are secured by heavy padlocks.

  Big dogs are running back and forth, preventing him from opening his eyes.

  But in the end he forces his eyes open, as if he'd used dynamite to set himself free.

  Despite the darkness he can see that the bed is empty.

  His father has abandoned him.

  6

  What actually happened that night when Joel discovered that his father was not in his bed?

  He wasn't at all sure. All his memories were blurred, as if he'd been looking at unfocused photos, when he tried to remember later. What he would really like to do was to forget that night altogether; but his memory was stronger than the urge to forget, and his fear was so great that he couldn't shake it off.

  What happened?

  What did he do?

  He sat quite still on the edge of his father's bed and cried his eyes out. That deadened his fear. Then he ran round and round the empty flat, as if he were suffering severe pains that he was trying to shake off.

  All the time he kept thinking he could hear Samuel's footsteps on the stairs, but when he flung open the door there was nobody there. He looked out of the window but the street was deserted, and the night glared disdainfully back at him.

  And he thought lots of awful thoughts.

  First he'd been abandoned by his mother. Now his father had done the same thing to him.

  The good humour, humming the sea shanties, promising to buy him a bike – it had all been false.

  His fear was so great, he could hear it bellowing deep down in his subconscious. As if there were a dog chained up inside him, howling non-stop.

  It was a long time before he calmed down sufficiently to think straight again.

  There were no trains running at night. They didn't have a car. And Samuel could hardly have set out for the far side of the vast forest on foot.

  There was only one explanation and Joel felt he needed to have immediate confirmation of what he knew was true.

  As he runs down the stairs again, the door to old Mrs Westman's flat opens and she stands there framed by the light coming from her hall, wearing a brown dressing gown and a white nightcap.

  'It's shocking, all this running up and down stairs,' she says. 'Has something happened?'

  'No,' says Joel. 'Nothing at all.'

  It occurs to him that it might be a good idea to hide in Mrs Westman's flat. Hide behind all her embroidered pictures of Christ in the flat smelling of apples, and pretend that he doesn't exist. But he runs out into the street and keeps on running.

  He doesn't stop until he gets to the entrance door of the block of flats where Sara lives. He's been running so fast that he has a stitch, and the cold air is biting into his throat.

  He opens the door carefully and sneaks into the dark rear courtyard. There is a faint light behind the curtains in one of Sara's windows.

  He looks round the courtyard but can't see a ladder. He knows there is one behind the ironmonger's on the other side of the street, so he runs back through the entrance door, over the street, and sees the ladder half-buried under the snow. It's heavy. He can hardly lift it. He has to use all his strength to lug it over the street.

  Jesus with the cross, he thinks. Jesus with the cross and Joel with the ladder . . .

  By the time he's carried the ladder into Sara's rear courtyard, he's soaked in sweat. His bladder is bursting, and he pees all over the bicycle he thinks belongs to Sara. There is still a faint light behind one of the curtains. He's shivering with cold, and tries to work out how best to raise the ladder and lean it against the wall without making a noise.

  But he can't think of any way. The ladder is too heavy. He'll just have to try to slide it up the wall and hope nobody hears anything.

  Not that it matters. Nothing matters any more.

  So he braces himself, heaves with all his strength and manages to raise the ladder against the wall.

  No sign of movement behind the curtain.

  He's out of breath and sweaty, and his throat feels raw.

  But the worst is yet to come.

  He climbs tentatively up the ladder until his head is almost up to the windowsill.

  He closes his eyes; once again his eyelids are padlocked. He's prepared to give up everything – The Flying Horse, Celestine, his rock – as long as Samuel isn't behind the curtain.

  Then he looks.

  Sara is lying under a sheet in a brown bed.

  Her mouth is moving, but Joel can't hear what she's saying.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed is Samuel.

  He's naked, and is listening to what Sara has to say.

  Through the curtain Joel can see the long, red scar on his father's thigh. The scar he got when a hatch burst open in a severe storm off the Hebrides, and he almost lost a leg.

  He's giving that scar to Sara . . .

  Joel is overcome by a deep sense of pain and sorrow as he perches there on the ladder. It's as if he no longer exists, as if he were condemned to perch on that ladder, frozen stiff, for a thousand years.

  Why has he been abandoned? He's never abandoned anybody. After all, he's his own mum.

  He doesn't know how long he stands there on the ladder. But he doesn't climb down until his sorrow has slowly given way to contempt and fury.

  He doesn't climb down until he feels strong enough to avenge himself.

  He digs out a stone from under the snow next to the wall. It's not very big, only half the size of his fist, but it's big enough.

  Now he has to make sure he doesn't miss.

  He'll only have one throw, no more. If he misses and then tries again, he'll be discovered.

  It doesn't matter if he is discovered, of course, but he hopes to avoid that even so. He has to hit his target with the first stone. He's not bothered about the ladder. Explaining to the ironmonger how the ladder turned up underneath her window will be even more revenge on Sara.

  He takes aim. He's t
aken his glove off, and holds the cold stone in his frozen hand.

  Then he hurls the stone, and feels a pang of regret as he lets go. The stone hits the window right in the middle, and the glass is shattered with a crack that echoes all round the courtyard.

  He runs off as fast as he can. He doesn't stop until he's back at home, and the cold air feels like sandpaper in his throat.

  When he's got his breath back, he tiptoes cautiously past old Mrs Westman's door.

  He wonders if she'll tell his father that he's been out in the middle of the night.

  Samuel will understand what has happened if she does.

  But the thought only worries Joel a little bit.

  He turns on all the lights in the flat before untying his boots with his freezing cold fingers. One of the laces has got a knot that he can't unravel. He fetches the bread knife and cuts it off. He undresses and snuggles down into bed in order to warm up.

  He's not going to think about his father as such any more. From now on he will call him Samuel.

  It strikes him it was silly to leave the lights on. He switches them all off then creeps back into bed. Then he waits, waits for Samuel to come back home. But he's so tired, he can't keep his eyes open and he nods off to sleep.

  His dreams are restless, nasty, long-drawn-out. Dreams he won't remember anything about . . .

  When he wakes up next morning Samuel has already left for the forest. Joel stands in the kitchen doorway and sees that he has been there and made coffee. The stove is still hot.

  The bootlace Joel had cut off is lying on the floor like a strip of a shed snakeskin.

  Joel is tired. He must hurry up if he's going to get to school on time.

  But when he emerges into the cold dawn he decides that he's not going to go to school. He can't face it, he has to do some thinking. Mind you, it's not sure that he'll have the strength to think either. It would be good if he had a tap inside his head that he could open, and let all his thoughts run out . . .

  For no obvious reason he finds himself heading north out of the little town. First the long hill up to the railway station. Beyond that is the hospital, and then the endless forest.

  In a little hollow by the road, almost completely hemmed in by dense fir trees, is The Old Bricklayer's house. It's a dilapidated smithy that has been converted into a private home. The garden is full of junk and overgrown currant bushes.