Shadow

15

One more and then he would go home. He ought to have gone a long time ago, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to leave. Nor had he called home to let them know he’d be late, and he’d ignored the mobile ringing in his pocket. In his other pocket was Annika’s death certificate, and several times he had taken it out to read. Trying to convince himself that he hadn’t missed something, a word or innuendo that might give him an explanation.

Why did you do it? How the hell could you leave me here alone?

You’d already left. We had no idea where you were. You were the one who left me.

The woman behind the bar served him what he ordered. Maybe he was just imagining the contempt in her eyes; maybe his own opinion simply mirrored in her gaze. He’d already had too much to drink. There was a roaring in his ears, and the contours of everything around him kept blurring and then slowly returning to their original state. He asked for a glass of water and heard himself slurring.

They had never fought the way he understood other siblings did. There had never been enough space for that. They had been forced to form a united front against everything that was unpredictable – Axel when he turned his back on them and Alice who would sometimes get angry and other times beg for more love than they were capable of giving. He couldn’t comprehend how his mother had managed for all those years to keep the suicide a secret. Why she had never said a word about it. Not even when he finally returned from the States, more than six months after it happened. Back when he found himself a run-down bedsit and wanted to manage on his own and she kept popping up at his place of refuge, always unwelcome. Sometimes drunk, sometimes sober. Always begging for his affection. The bitterness about Axel that she dumped on him in an attempt to turn him into her ally. He had hated her tears. He wanted to be left alone, to cut all ties and have a chance to start his own life. To be honest, he probably hadn’t made the proper sort of effort. Nor had he turned down the money she would foist on him, since his visits to the in-crowd hangouts cost a good deal. But he had mixed in the right circles, and there was always somebody willing to pay the bill. His surname had an astonishing way of making new contacts. Doors were opened, queues vanished. The letters of his name were a guarantee of Jan-Erik’s splendid qualities. Not everyone had a father who had won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

‘We’re closing now.’

He couldn’t raise his head but saw a hand and a light-blue cloth wiping the bar in circles. He grabbed his glass and raised it to his lips, downed the whisky and immediately felt like throwing up. He stumbled off the bar-stool and tried to get control of the nausea but couldn’t. Something had to come out. Without looking round he rushed towards the door and made it about ten metres outside before the contents of his stomach spewed out on the pavement. He stood there leaning over with his hands on his knees and saw through his tears the vomit on his shoes. He couldn’t go home like this. He’d have to walk for a while to sober up a bit. Most of all he wanted to go home to bed and sleep as long as necessary, so he could wake up and no longer feel the way he felt.

The streets were deserted and the city seemed different. What had been concealed in the bustle of the day became visible at night. He wandered aimlessly along the streets of Östermalm. Occasionally he would meet a bunch of youths on their way downtown, those who were in the process of finding a life for themselves. Now and then he saw a middle-aged night roamer who at the midpoint of his life had dis covered that what he’d found was no good and set out to search again. And occasionally he saw one of those who’d got lost and was stumbling about with paper bags hoping only for a miracle, or death.

He grew increasingly cold and thirsty. Not until the ground stopped pitching up and down and a mild headache set in did he dare head home. In the stairwell he went into the utility room and threw away his shoes. In his stockinged feet he walked up the stairs; the risk of meeting someone at this time of night was slim. As quietly as he could he put the key in the door and turned it. He stopped and listened. It was almost three in the morning, and if he was in luck she would already be asleep. Gingerly he pressed down the handle and opened the door a crack. Only the little lamp on the hall table was on; the rest of the flat was dark. He hung up his coat and went straight to the bathroom and put his mouth under the tap to quench his thirst. Then he tossed all his clothes in the laundry basked and got into the shower. The nausea had retreated, to be replaced by disgust. He should have come straight home instead of sitting in a bar. She would ask him where he’d been and why he hadn’t called, and he had no intention of telling her. Confess to her that his sister had hanged herself and his parents had lied about it for all these years? He knew what she thought about his family and didn’t plan to give her more grist for the mill.

He stepped out of the shower and dried himself, rubbing the towel harder than was comfortable. Then he drank more water in the hope of easing his headache. After brushing his teeth thoroughly and wiping off all the white spots on the bathroom mirror even more thoroughly, he stood and looked at himself. He had a hard time meeting his own gaze. He had to cut down on the drinking, he really did; he hated hangovers. It was already creeping over him. It would force him to suffer through the anxiety his boozing had postponed.

He unlocked the door and peered out cautiously. Everything was quiet. Only the unpleasant sound of his own heartbeat pulsated like the bass on a dance floor. He padded down the hall past Ellen’s door and went into his office. Reached behind the books but changed his mind before his hand found the bottle. He wanted it, and yet he didn’t. He went out to the living room. The door to the bedroom was closed and no light seeped through the little crack at the bottom.

On the table in the kitchen stood a candelabra with candles that had never been lit, and in front of the chair where he usually sat were a wine glass, a plate and half a bottle of wine. Two saucepans on the stove. He closed his eyes. It was just a matter of accepting that everything was untenable in the long run. It was only a question of time before it all began to crumble. Couldn’t anyone tell him what to do? This morning’s conversation came back to him, but suddenly all the rage had drained out of him. All he was appealing for was calm, all he wanted was to be forgiven. He would do better, see to it that there was a change, he really would! Imagine if what he had done tonight was the last straw, the final thing that made her decide. He suddenly found it hard to breathe. He pressed his hand against his chest. He would stop drinking, he would, and now he really meant it, because this wasn’t worth it, not by a long shot. He went back out to the living room and looked at the closed bedroom door. So many times he had wished that she wouldn’t lie in there waiting, but now, faced with the possibility of having his wish granted, he imagined for the first time in earnest that the room really was empty. That instead she lay in another bed next to some other man. That Ellen’s room was empty and quiet and that another pappa who was better suited would take his place. All at once he wanted to cry, but no tears came and instead he got a cramp in his chest. Something broke loose inside and came bubbling up to the surface, from all the way down in the depths, where it had lain submerged in the blackest ooze.

An overwhelming fear that Louise would abandon him, leaving him all alone.