Dead of Winter

10

Laura waves to Håkansson as he drives away. She lingers for a moment in the gathering darkness. The best thing would be to jump in her car, turn up the heat and head for the hotel in Helsingborg. Come back first thing in the morning, rested and in daylight, as planned.

But something is niggling away at her, something she can’t shake off. She gazes at the pontoon.

‘The water will hold you up,’ she murmurs to herself. ‘As long as you have the courage to trust it.’

Nonsense, of course. Words to reassure a child.

Back then, all those years ago, they had worked. As soon as Hedda capsized the boat and they found themselves in the water, Laura had felt something down there lift her up towards the surface. She’d believed that Hedda had a special relationship with the lake. She’d even heard her talking to it sometimes, singing little songs to it.

The conclusion that the cold, dark water had made Hedda’s damaged old heart stop beating is entirely logical.

And yet it seems unthinkable, in a way she can’t explain. Maybe it’s the child in her, refusing to accept that everyone grows old and dies.

Even those we once thought were immortal.

She weighs the bunch of keys in her hand. They are smooth from years of use.

The door is only a few metres away. There’s a cat flap near the bottom, and a couple of empty cat food tins beside it. Laura knows what that means. She climbs the steps, finds the right key at the second attempt.

The door opens, letting out a stale, unpleasant smell that makes her step back. She remains in the doorway, peering into the darkness. Glimpses the wooden screen separating the front door from the generous living room beyond.

‘Puss puss,’ she whispers.

A grey shape materialises.

‘Hello, George,’ she says as the tabby cat rubs herself against Laura’s legs, miaowing loudly.

This George is almost identical to the cat Laura remembers, but of course she knows it’s not the same animal. From a purely mathematical point of view, there must have been two or three Georges since 1987, and yet she’s behaving as if Laura were an old friend, not a stranger. Probably because she’s hungry. The poor little thing must be starving.

‘Let’s see if we can find you something to eat.’

She feels for the light switch. Takes a deep breath and steels herself. The sight that meets her eyes is worse than she could possibly have imagined. The living room is crammed from floor to ceiling. Chairs, bathroom equipment, boxes, a couple of beds piled on top of each other, and behind them yet more objects so tightly packed together that she can’t even make out what they are in the faint light from the bare bulb on the ceiling. And then there’s the smell. A mixture of rotting food, damp, dust, drains, rubbish – and someone who hasn’t washed for a long time. The smell of human decay.

A narrow passageway leads through the piles and into the rest of the house. The cat follows as Laura reluctantly makes her way to the kitchen, where she finds heaps of papers: yellowing catalogues, junk mail, official-looking brown envelopes. The draining board is crowded with plastic containers and empty spirit and soft drink bottles. Her flesh creeps; she breathes through her mouth, tries to touch as few surfaces as possible in spite of the gloves. Sweat is pouring down her back.

‘Calm down,’ she tells herself.

George’s bowls are on the floor, licked perfectly clean. Fortunately, she’s been able to use the cat flap to get in and out and to find snow or rainwater to stop her dying of thirst. The empty cans on the porch looked pretty new; someone must have taken pity on her. But who? The kindly postman, perhaps.

Laura checks out the fridge. A selection of ready meals, bottles of grape tonic, a carton of milk, long since out of date. She finds the cat food in one of the cupboards and has to remove her gloves in order to open the tin. She tries to fork the pinky-brown fishy contents into a bowl without throwing up.

George hurls herself at the food, gobbling down half by the time Laura has filled her water bowl from the tap. She stands in the middle of the room, watching the cat eat, comparing her once again with the George she remembers. Hedda always chose her new cat with great care. George is a female, named after Georgina the tomboy in the Famous Five books, which Hedda used to read to Laura when she was little.

The feeling of revulsion begins to diminish. It is replaced by something else, something more complicated. She looks out of the kitchen window. The glass is thick with dirt. On the sill are four china figurines, a broken candlestick, a plastic thermometer and a pair of military binoculars covered in green rubber. The moon has emerged from behind the clouds, making the water sparkle. The lamp at Miller’s boathouse glows far away on the northern shore. She wonders whether Johnny Miller still lives in the big, gloomy house, and if so whether he still cultivates the myth of the reclusive former rock star, hiding behind high walls with his long hair and his beard.

When she and Iben were small, they used to pretend that Johnny Miller was a troll, guarding his treasure. Sometimes they fantasised about rowing across the lake to steal the treasure. They would buy Vintersjöholm Castle and live happily ever after. Everything was so simple when you were a child. Treasure, a castle and a best friend were all you needed to be happy forever more.

She returns to the living room, switches on another inadequate light and picks her way among the chaos. The sofa by the back wall looks familiar, but much dirtier and worn down. There is a pillow and a blanket at one end. The coffee table is full of magazines, empty bottles and glasses, cigarette packets and overflowing ashtrays. A stack of dusty canvases are propped up against the wall behind the television.

The uncomfortable feeling grows stronger. For many years she tried to imagine what Hedda was doing that was so important that she never had the time to contact Laura. She came up with a multitude of excuses for her aunt, each more fanciful than the last, so that the situation was less painful. Now she knows better. Hedda spent her days wallowing in booze, cigarettes, crap food and self-pity until her body couldn’t cope anymore. The will is not a gesture of reconciliation, it’s just a way of dumping the whole lot on Laura.

Look what I’ve done, Princess. You’ll have to clear it all up – because clearing up after other people is what you’re best at, isn’t it? Your mother, your father, your little brother. So why not me?

Her mother had been right. She should have settled for her childhood memories, all those lovely times with Hedda that were now tarnished by this misery. And for what reason?

A fucking teenage crush.

George rubs up against her legs again. Maybe she wants more food. Laura heads back to the kitchen, but the cat scurries off towards the bedrooms. Stops and looks at her, as if she’s expecting Laura to follow.

However, Laura has had enough. All she wants to do is get in the car, sanitise her hands until they sting, then drive to the hotel. Shower off the wretchedness and the stench and have her clothes, including her jacket and gloves, collected by the dry-cleaning service. Tomorrow morning she will call Håkansson and ask him to sell Gärdsnäset to the highest bidder as quickly as possible, and once the funeral is over she will never set foot in this place again.

She empties the rest of the cat food into the bowl and waits for George to come racing in, but there is no sign of her. Laura washes her hands and wipes them on her trousers before she goes looking for the cat. George is sitting in the hallway. She looks at Laura and miaows loudly.

‘Bye, puss,’ Laura says, heading for the front door.

But the calculator in her brain has kicked in. How long does a tin of cat food last? How many days can a cat survive in the middle of winter?

Gärdsnäset belongs to her now. The land, the house, all the rubbish, and the cat. Besides which, it’s not fair to take out her anger on poor George. Maybe she could ask Håkansson to find a new owner?

She sighs and turns back.

‘OK, George, you’re going for a ride in my car,’ she says, trying not to think about all the cat hair that will end up on the white leather upholstery.

However, just as she’s about to grab the cat, George shoots off through a door that is standing ajar.

Laura swears. Maybe it would be easier to leave George here, get Håkansson to collect her. But then she hears the miaowing again, louder this time, as if George is calling to her. Hesitantly she follows the sound, ducking to avoid the cobwebs hanging from the ceiling. She nudges the door with her toe to avoid touching the handle. The hall is so full of crap that she doesn’t realise which room it is until the door swings open.

She inhales sharply.

The fitted carpet, the ladybird wallpaper that has begun to come away just below the ceiling. Her old drawings, the shelf of childish pottery, the little oil painting that she was once so proud of. Everything is exactly as she remembers it. The moonlight shining in through the window reinforces the sense of unreality.

She takes a couple of steps into the room.

The floor is clean, the bed neatly made. There is a toothbrush on the bedside table. Waiting for someone. For a guest who never came.

Laura perches on the edge of the bed. The duvet cover is faded from frequent washing, she can’t make out the motif, but she knows that it was once a unicorn. She runs her hand over the soft fabric.

George jumps up onto the bed, rubs her face against Laura’s arm, then settles down.

Laura unbuttons her jacket, lies down and curls her body around the cat. The bedclothes smell of soap powder, as if they were washed not long ago. George begins to purr.

The nymph is reflected in the picture above them. In the moonlight it is just possible to make out the dark patch on her shoulder.

She did the painting two years before the fire, and yet it is impossible not to see the young woman with the burned back as a kind of horrible omen.

She closes her eyes, draws George closer. The cat continues to purr. The smell of the room and the warm body beside her is so very familiar. For a few brief moments it is as if time has stood still. She is fifteen, almost sixteen, and 13 December 1987 is still to come.

There is still a chance to put everything right.

To avert the disaster.