Stalker

35

Erik and Jackie are sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table. She’s got out wine, glasses and bread.

‘Do you always wear dark glasses?’ he asks.

‘My eyes are light-sensitive – I can’t see anything, but they can hurt a lot,’ she says.

‘It’s almost completely dark in here,’ he says. ‘Only the little lamp behind the curtain is switched on.’

‘Do you want to see my eyes?’

‘Yes,’ he confesses.

She takes a small bite of bread and chews slowly, as if she were thinking about it.

‘Have you always been blind?’ he asks.

‘I had retinitis pigmentosa when I was born. I could see fairly well for the first few years, but I was completely blind by the time I was five.’

‘You didn’t get any treatment?’

‘Just Vitamin A, but…’

She falls silent, then takes off her dark glasses. Her eyes are the same sad, bright blue as her daughter’s.

‘You have beautiful eyes,’ he says quietly.

It feels strange that they aren’t staring at each other, even though he’s looking into her eyes. She smiles and almost closes her eyes.

‘Can you get scared of the dark if you’re blind?’ he asks.

‘In the dark the blind man is king,’ she says, as if she were reciting a quotation. ‘But you get scared of hurting yourself, of getting lost…’

‘I can understand that.’

‘And earlier today I got it into my head that someone was looking at me through my bedroom window,’ she says with a short laugh.

‘Really?’

‘You know, windows are strange things for blind people… a window is just like a wall, a cool, smooth wall… I mean, I know you can see straight through a window like it wasn’t there… So I’ve learned to close the curtains, but at the same time you don’t always know…’

‘I’m looking at you now, obviously, but I mean, does it feel uncomfortable to have someone watching you?’

‘It’s… it’s not without its challenges,’ she says, with a brief smile.

‘You don’t live with Madeleine’s father?’

‘Maddy’s father was… It wasn’t good.’

‘In what way?’ Erik asks.

‘He was damaged… I found out later that he’d tried to get psychiatric help, but was turned down.’

‘That’s a shame,’ Erik says.

‘It was for us…’

She shakes her head and takes a sip of wine, wipes a drop from her lip and puts the glass back on the table.

‘There are different ways of being blind,’ she goes on. ‘He was my professor at music college, and I didn’t realise how unwell he was until I got pregnant. He started saying it wasn’t his child, called me all sorts of horrible things, wanted to force me to have an abortion, said he fantasised about pushing me in front of an underground train…’

‘You should have reported him.’

‘Yes, but I didn’t dare to.’

‘What happened?’

‘One day I put Maddy in her pushchair and walked to my sister’s in Uppsala.’

‘You walked there?’

‘I was just glad it was over,’ Jackie says. ‘But for Maddy… Obviously, it’s impossible for anyone to know how much longing a child can live with. How much fantasising and magical thinking a child can manage, to explain why her dad never gets in touch…’

‘All these absent fathers…’

‘When Maddy was almost four and was able to answer the phone, she picked up once when he called… She was delighted, said he’d promised to come on her birthday, and bring a puppy, and…’

Her lips begin to tremble and she falls silent. Erik pours them both some more wine and puts her hand to the glass, feeling her warmth.

‘But you’re not an absent father?’ she says.

‘No, I’m not… but when Benjamin was small I had a problem with prescription drugs, things got pretty bad,’ he replies honestly.

‘And his mother?’

‘Simone and I were married for almost twenty years…’

‘Why did you split up?’

‘She met a Danish architect. I don’t blame her, I actually like John… And I’m genuinely happy for her.’

‘I don’t believe that.’ She smiles.

He laughs.

‘Sometimes you just have to pretend you’re grown up, and do what you’re supposed to, say the things that grown-ups say…’

He thinks about Simone, and their backwards ceremony where they gave their rings back to each other, retracted their vows, and then at the party afterwards had a divorce cake and a last dance.

‘Have you met anyone else?’ Jackie asks quietly.

‘I’ve had a few relationships since the divorce,’ he admits. ‘I met a woman at the gym, and…’

‘You go to the gym?’

‘You should see my muscles,’ he jokes.

‘Who was she?’

‘Maria… nothing came of it, she was probably a bit too advanced for me.’

‘But you’ve never slept with your professor?’

‘No,’ Erik laughs. ‘Almost, though. I did end up in bed with a colleague of mine.’

‘Oops.’

‘No, it was OK, actually… We were drunk, I was divorced and abandoned… she and her husband were taking a break, it wasn’t a big deal… Nelly’s wonderful, but I wouldn’t want to live with her.’

‘What about patients?’

‘Occasionally you find them attractive,’ Erik says honestly. ‘That’s unavoidable, it’s an extremely intimate situation… but attraction and seduction are merely a way for the patient to avoid thinking about anything painful.’

He thinks of how Sandra used to stop in the middle of a sentence and feel her beautiful, intelligent face with her fingertips as tears welled up in her forest-green eyes. She wanted him to hold her, and when he did she dissolved in his arms, as though they were making love.

He doesn’t know if it was premeditated, but he still asked Nelly to take her on instead. Sandra had already met her, and it seemed like the natural solution.

‘So who are you seeing at the moment?’ Jackie says.

Erik looks at her smile, the shape of her face in the soft light, her dark, short hair and white neck. Rocky Kyrklund suddenly feels a very long way away, and he can’t understand how he managed to get so worried.

‘I don’t know how serious it is, but… Well, we’ve only met a few times,’ he says. ‘But I feel happy whenever I’m with her…’

‘That’s good,’ Jackie mumbles, and blushes.

She picks up another piece of bread.

‘When I’m with her I never want to go home… And I already like her daughter, and I’m also learning to play the piano like a robot,’ he says, and puts his hand on hers.

‘You’ve got soft hands,’ she says, with a big smile.

He strokes her hands, wrists and lower arms, slides his fingers up to her face, following her skin. He leans forward and kisses her gently on the mouth, several times. He looks at her, her heavy eyelids, her chin, her long neck.

She smiles as she waits to be kissed again, and they kiss, open their mouths and feel each other’s tongues, tentatively, breathing tremulously, when the doorbell suddenly rings.

They both start, and sit perfectly still, trying to breathe quietly.

The bell rings again.

Jackie hurries to stand up and Erik does the same, but when she opens the door there’s no one there. The stairwell is completely dark.

‘Mummy!’ Madeleine calls from her room. ‘Mummy!’

Jackie reaches out her hand and touches Erik’s face.

‘You should probably go now,’ she whispers.