The Caller

Chapter 12

People had begun to give him nicknames.

Both among the editorial staff and among the general public he was called all sorts of audacious things, each name more inventive than the next. The beloved child has many names, Johnny Beskow thought, as he heard other people talking about him. He had finally made something of himself, and people were forced to acknowledge him. He was delighted at what he’d set in motion. I’ll play this game for a long time, he thought.

Just wait and see.

He rode around on his red Suzuki moped, and he studied people with the fascination of a researcher, as if they were exotic animals. They were strange. It was late summer, and people were out in their gardens. He saw small children on trampolines, women weeding flower beds, men in driveways washing cars. A man squatted down to paint his fence, a woman yanked clean clothes from the washing line. Johnny liked all that he saw. He liked this teeming life, the chalk-white clothes snapping in the wind, the smell of paint. He liked it, and he wanted to destroy it. Everyone lives on an edge, he thought, and I will push them over.

After he’d driven around the residential streets for a while, he set course for the shopping centre in Kirkeby. He parked and took the lift to the second floor, found his way to the toy shop. He wandered between the rows, picking up this and that toy and inspecting it. Then the boy in him came out for real: the simple pleasure in a fine toy, a neat material, a quirky function. He admired a red sports car. A set of plastic African animals, boxes of Lego and Playmobil. After he’d walked around for several minutes, he found what he’d been looking for — various types of masks. He picked them up one at a time and inspected them closely. A gorilla mask, a Donald Duck mask and a pig mask. The latex masks were soft and well made. He held the gorilla mask up to his face, peered through the narrow eye slits. A gorilla, he thought. That would make an impression on anyone. On another rack he found a selection of stuffed animals. Most were teddy bears, but he also found a pig and a bunny. He pulled the bunny down. It was made of white plush, and had a pink snout with long, fine whiskers — the kind of thing little girls would fall in love with and cuddle at night. He knew it would come in handy in some way or other. It’s important to think long-term, Johnny, he said to himself, just follow your instincts and buy the cute bunny. He headed to the till and paid out a considerable chunk of his savings. After he’d put the gorilla mask and the bunny under the seat of his moped, he rode towards Bjørnstad and his grandfather’s house. Just as he swung into Rolandsgata, the girl with the red plait turned up. She wasn’t sitting on the knoll this time, but on a blue bicycle, a Nakamura. She wore a Hauger School Band pullover. Well, he thought, that’s useful to know.

‘Codface,’ she yelled.

Though it cost him considerable exertion to keep his anger in check, he chose to ignore her. Don’t add fuel to this fire, he thought. Not yet. I’m special. I’m patient. Obviously I’ll get that snotty brat when the time’s right; so help me God, she’ll get what she deserves. He rode to his grandfather’s house and parked the Suzuki. Stopped at the mailbox before going in. The old man sat with his legs on the footstool. The small room was as hot as an oven.

‘Hi, Grandpa,’ he shouted. ‘Here’s your post!’

Henry raised his hand in greeting. His forehead was covered with pearls of sweat. He had tried, in his clumsy way, to shrug out of his knitted cardigan, but without any luck.

‘We’ve got to air this place,’ Johnny said. ‘It’s too hot in here.’

Henry shook his head. ‘The wasps will get in. They’re really poisonous this time of year.’

‘Then we need to find a solution,’ Johnny said. ‘Because you can’t sit in this heat, it’ll make you sluggish. Look, here’s your bank statement. Do you want to go through it?’

He tore the envelope open with his index finger and held out the statement.

There were very few transactions in Henry’s account. His monthly savings had grown over the years into a substantial sum.

‘Nine hundred and seventy-three thousand, Grandpa. Wow, how you’ve saved.’

With squinting eyes, Henry stared at the numbers. Suddenly he looked concerned. ‘It’s all well and good that I can leave some money behind,’ he said, ‘but I’m afraid your mother will spend it all on vodka, and that the money wouldn’t benefit you. You can drink an awful lot of vodka for nine hundred thousand kroner.’ He held the statement. A deep furrow ran across his brow. ‘How can we make sure she’s disinherited, Johnny? Have you got any ideas?’

Johnny Beskow thought long and hard. ‘She won’t be disinherited before she croaks,’ he said dejectedly. He folded the statement and put it back in the envelope, pondering. ‘By the way, the little twit shouted at me again today, that Else Meiner. She called me a codface.’

Henry smiled broadly, so that his yellow teeth were visible. ‘Well, have you seen yourself in the mirror lately?’

‘In the mirror? Why?’

‘The question is, do you look like a cod?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Right. So why do you get so upset? If you know it’s not true?’

‘She plays in the Hauger School Band,’ Johnny said.

‘I know. I can hear her trumpet from here. Sometimes she practises at night. I’ve heard both “Bravura” and the “Entry March of the Boyars”. She’s quite good, I’ll have you know.’

‘Do they practise at the school? At Hauger School?’

‘I would imagine so. On Thursdays, I think. I’ve seen her on her bicycle with the trumpet case on her rack, and she’s gone for a few hours. She’s like you. She goes everywhere on that blue bike. There’s something buzzing in here,’ he said. ‘Can you see if it’s a wasp? I know that sound.’

Johnny got up and walked around the steamy living room, examining every nook and cranny, looking under the curtains, lifting the cushions of the sofa. ‘It’s a bluebottle,’ he reported, ‘and it’s as big as a house. I’ll kill it for you. They’re full of disease. I wouldn’t give five kroner for your immune system.’

‘I wouldn’t either,’ Henry said.

Johnny found an old issue of the church bulletin, rolled it into a tube and smacked the bluebottle. When he had taken care of it, he returned to the footstool to read the newspaper. But he skipped the story about the fake obituary, which was well covered across the whole back page. Afterwards, he went to the kitchen and buttered some bread for them. He put sausage and cucumbers on the slices of bread, filled a jug with squash and added ice cubes. Then he sneaked over to open the kitchen window so a little fresh air could find its way inside. They ate in silence.

Henry’s dentures clacked while he chewed. ‘I’ll give you some pocket money,’ he said. ‘So you’ll have petrol.’

‘Thanks, Grandpa.’

‘When you’re older you can move. And live your own life.’

‘Have to get a job first,’ Johnny said.

After a while the old man fell asleep, his mouth agape and his chest littered with breadcrumbs. Johnny rose from the footstool, wandered round the room and looked at the photos on the wall. There were many of himself as a little boy, with short trousers and blond hair, and tiny trainers with red laces. I guess I was an all right kid, he thought, I can’t remember being difficult. Or maybe I was without knowing it. He dug around for good memories, but all that came to him was the sound of doors being slammed. And some images of his mother. She always stood with her back to him, bent over the worktop, always in despair over something. Her steps were hard and decisive, and she banged cupboards and drawers: an eternal storm raging from room to room. Then he examined the picture of his grandmother. She had died young, and he had never known her. But she seemed nice in the picture. Where did all the malice come from? When did it begin to grow? At length he saw a picture of himself sitting on the red moped, his helmet under his arm. In a small cabinet with glass doors his grandfather had several trophies he had won playing bridge. On top of the bookshelf was a mounted grouse that gazed at him with black glass eyes. As a boy he’d often been scared it would swoop down and get him, peck at him with its sharp beak. He returned to the footstool, reached out and took Henry’s hand, squeezing it gently. The old man opened his eyes.

‘Well, what do you know,’ he said. ‘I’m still here. That’s not too bad.’

‘Did you dream?’ Johnny wanted to know.

Henry considered. ‘No, not a thing.’

‘Tell me what it’s like to be old,’ Johnny said.

Henry Beskow gave a dismissive wave with one hand, made a discontented miserable grunt. ‘It’s difficult. It’s like swimming in salt water.’

‘Why are you so allergic to wasps, Grandpa?’

‘I don’t know. It’s just a weakness I have.’

‘How allergic are you? Are we talking about fatally allergic?’

‘Yes. Ha ha. We’re talking about deathly allergic.’

‘But why would you die from it? What happens?’

‘My throat swells up, no matter where the wasps sting me. I can’t breathe. Close the kitchen window before you go,’ he added. ‘I know you opened it. And take a couple of hundred kroner from the jar on the fridge, so you can buy petrol and whatever things you boys need.’

Johnny patted him on his dry, wrinkled cheeks.

He didn’t see Else Meiner when he rode up the street.