The Caller

Chapter 25

Sometimes Johnny Beskow dreamed that everyone was out to get him.

That the police had sent a throng of people that now chased him through the forest with German shepherds snapping at his heels. The night was black as pitch and they searched for him with torches. He saw cones of light dance between the trunks of trees, heard threats and shouts and dogs panting, but he was faster than they were, and craftier.

Like a weasel he slipped away.

He found a cave and hid inside, balled up against the wall listening. Lightning quick he clambered up a tree and looked down through the leaves at the crowd. Wading over a brook, he put them off the scent.

He still had this dream. Each time he woke with a feeling of satisfaction, because it wasn’t a nightmare — more like play, a game he always won.

They can’t even catch me in dreams.

Because I’m faster, he thought.

I’m Johnny Beskow, and I’m invincible.

The moped wouldn’t start. It just coughed a few times, and spluttered out. The tank was just about empty of petrol, and he had no money. So he walked. He had good legs and good trainers, and he didn’t want to be at home. As he walked, he remembered the gloves he’d lost, and it occurred to him that they might be at the shop in Lake Skarve. Perhaps he had taken them off and put them on the conveyor belt when he was paying, and then left them behind. It could’ve happened that way, and maybe they’d kept them. He decided he would go to the shop and ask, so he took the path down to the water. He walked fast. The heat filled his body from his feet upwards; it rose to his head, and he felt light and good. Before going in he strolled around by the lake for a while, watching the ducks and the neat rings they created in the water. When he crossed the car park and walked to the entrance, he hesitated a moment. Something rang in his head, a warning bell. He felt as though he was being watched. At the same time he caught sight through the window of a notice that said a pair of black-and-red gloves had been found.

Ask Britt, it said.

He opened the door and went in, continued cautiously to the till, to two girls sitting idle and staring at him with large, round eyes.

Afterwards, when he considered it, he thought the two girls had acted strangely. The simple question, Could you get the gloves? had led to an incomprehensible commotion. They opened their eyes wide. They exchanged glances. One disappeared immediately into the back room, and she took her time. The other went outside, walked aimlessly around the car park as though searching for something. Now and then she stopped and glanced about, puzzled, as though something was missing. She’s looking for the moped, he realised. I’ll be damned. Perhaps there was a reason for the empty petrol tank. The other one finally came back, and gave him the gloves. He slipped out the door and bolted as fast as he could, heading towards Bjerkås.

Again he thought about the dream he’d had. The fun might soon be over, he thought, they’re on my trail. Maybe I have to do something spectacular while there’s time.

One way or another.

Then he walked all the way to Rolandsgata. In the sunshine and the mild late-summer breeze, surrounded by ditches with wild flowers and green meadows. It took an hour. As he went, he hummed a song, ‘Hermann is a Cheery Fellow’. When he arrived, he called through the house.

‘Didn’t you ride your moped?’ Henry Beskow asked. ‘I didn’t hear it.’

He explained that the tank was empty. He said it in a light, indifferent way, because he wasn’t the kind of person to beg, and he had good legs to walk on.

‘I’m pretty fit,’ he said. ‘And it’s good to walk sometimes.’

‘Out in the shed there’s an old plastic canister, Johnny. You can fill it with petrol. Then take some money from the glass jar in the kitchen. You’ve got to have your moped, it’s important that you can get around.’

Johnny took care of food and drink. He buttered slices of bread and mixed squash in a jug, carried them into the lounge and set them on the table with the two-handled mug. Then he had a thought. As usual, it was boiling hot in the room. He went to the windows; both were closed. He examined them carefully, traced the sill with a finger. Squinting out at the road, he was blinded by the low sun.

‘You need fresh air,’ he said.

‘Can’t,’ the old man protested. ‘The wasps.’

Johnny turned and looked at him. He wanted to be the boss, so he stood tall and crossed his arms. ‘I’ll call a carpenter. We’ll get him to put in one of those insect screens. One for each window. Then they can stay open all summer. You’ll be fresh and clear-headed, not heavy and sluggish like you are now.’

‘So that’s what you think now, eh?’ grumbled Henry.

‘Have you got one of those folding rulers? I’ll take measurements.’

His grandfather told him to look in a kitchen drawer. The folding ruler was old and sturdy. He measured both windows twice, noting the figures on a sheet of paper.

‘Ninety-eight by one hundred and ten,’ he said cheerily. ‘I’ll find a carpenter in the phone book.’

‘Ask what it costs,’ Henry said. ‘Can you bargain?’

‘I’ll tell them you’re retired.’

Johnny riffled through the Yellow Pages and found a carpenter who lived in the area. He explained the situation and they agreed on a price and a time for him to come and install the screens.

‘If everyone were like you, Johnny,’ Henry said contentedly, ‘this world would be a better place.’

Johnny patted him on his nearly bald head. ‘I know. I’m a man of action.’

They talked about this and that, as was their routine, and a few afternoon hours passed quickly. Because he had so much care, Henry felt spoiled, and Johnny felt indispensable. ‘It’s us against all the rest of them,’ he told Henry.

Johnny carried the mugs and plates to the kitchen and put them on the worktop. He found the plastic canister in the shed, walked down to Bjørnstad Centre and filled it up. As he walked back across Askeland with the heavy can in his hand, he fantasised. His mother would look up when he entered, perhaps from her knitting, smile and say, There you are, how lovely. I’ve waited so long. Are you hungry? Can I make you something to eat? What do you feel like eating, Johnnyboy?

He liked this fantasy, so he continued to let his thoughts wander.

I’ve baked you a kringle, she might say. It’s cooling on a rack on the worktop.

With almonds and sugar on top.

Let’s have a nice, quiet evening at home together.

When he was finally home after his long walk — the ten-litre canister had made his right arm numb — he filled the moped tank. Draining the can properly was difficult.

He heard it splash at the bottom, probably only a drop left. Thoughts of the sweet kringle were swept away and replaced with bitter ones. If she’s lying on the sofa pissed, he thought, I’ll pour the rest of the petrol on her head and light it.

My mother in flames, he thought.

The smell of grilled hyena spreading over Askeland.

He went inside the house.

There was nothing on the stove, and no hot, sweet kringle cooling on a rack.

He headed into the lounge and stood stock-still in the door frame, staring. His mother sat on the sofa, the tension between them palpable as humidity in the air.

‘What do you want?’ she said. ‘Been with the old man, I imagine. What did you get out of him today?’

He lowered his head. She was right: his grandfather had given him money. But he hadn’t begged for it. He had only mentioned the empty tank, had said it without complaint, as an explanation.

‘Don’t stand there gawking, it makes me nervous. Do you know you have a piercing stare? Go to your room.’

Johnny did as his mother told him. In his room he took Butch from his cage, lay down on his bed and closed his eyes, letting the hamster crawl across the duvet on its tiny, fast feet. Low sounds reached him from the kitchen. Maybe she had started dinner. He heard drawers and cupboards opening, and footsteps shuffling back and forth. The clatter of cutlery. Well, he thought, the hyena is scraping a meal together. Another thought slithered through the silence into his room, an evil and shrewd one. The police were right behind him now, so it was important to exploit the time he had left. He listened to all the noises in the kitchen, noticing how she paced from the kitchen to the lounge and back. She kept busy, turning on the taps, slamming cupboard doors. Finally, after twenty minutes, he heard her go into the bathroom. He leapt quickly from the bed and opened a drawer in his chest of drawers. The box of rat poison was hidden behind an old T-shirt. He removed the lid and studied the pink grains. You would think the grains looked tasty, if you didn’t know any better — that is, if you didn’t know they were deadly. Keeping his ear trained on the bathroom, his listened for his mother. I’ll have to act fast, he thought, while I’m at my most vicious. While I don’t care what’s happening, either about the night ahead or tomorrow — to hell with the consequences. He tiptoed into the kitchen. A saucepan simmered on the hob. On the worktop next to it was a wooden spoon. The meat and vegetables in the pan were mixed in a dark sauce. He drained the entire box of rat poison into the pan and stirred it around, until it was absolutely impossible to see the minuscule grains. This will be interesting, he thought. He stuck the empty box under his pullover and ran back to his room. The entire operation had taken only a few seconds. When he heard his mother leave the bathroom, he slipped into the hallway and opened the front door, his cheeks flushed.

She heard him and immediately stepped into the hallway. ‘So,’ she said, ‘just when I make dinner for us, you leave.’

‘I’ll eat later. Don’t wait for me, go ahead and eat.’

She returned to the stove, stirring the food in the poisoned pan. The last he saw of her were her blue-veined legs.

Johnny Beskow stayed away from the house for several hours.

Hot, out of breath and excited about what he’d done. Now there was no way back. His fantasies ran wild, imagining dramatic scenes of his mother and the poisonous stew: of her eating from the spoon so that it ran down her chin, of her emptying the pot and scraping the bottom. He had visions of his mother convulsing. He saw her teeth clattering in her mouth, saw her suddenly collapse on to the table, then leap up and stumble around in the throes of death, eyes bloodshot and foam spilling from her mouth. She sounded her death rattle, drooling and falling, then scrambled to her feet and stumbled through each room. When she reached the telephone to call for help, her eyesight was weak, and she couldn’t see clearly. She tried to open a window, to call out to someone walking past, but her fingers disobeyed her and she failed to pop the latch. And anyway, she had lost her voice. Now she was poisoned. Her arms and legs were poisoned; her heart and brain were poisoned. Poison pumped through her bloodstream, made its deadly way to every last cell of her body. Finally she went down for good. Maybe she dragged something with her when she fell, made a violent commotion. Because she shouldn’t be allowed to die in a peaceful manner. She should leave this world in pain and suffering.

Or so Johnny Beskow thought.

He rode to the Sparbo Dam. Parked the moped against a spruce, put his gloves inside his helmet. He walked ten steps along the dam wall, and sat down. The water roared and foamed on its way through the pipes and down into the valley. He sat there a long time waiting for the poison to take effect. Restlessly he roamed the forest trails, rode here and there and watched the time. After four hours he figured it was over. He set his course for home, rolled into the driveway and parked.

He stood there a while, listening.

The house had never been so quiet.

He imagined her lying in the bathroom.

On the floor, her face flat against the old yellow tiles. Maybe she had fallen next to the sofa, having attempted to reach it. Or maybe she had dragged herself into the bedroom and lain on her bed. Standing still in the hall, he could not hear a sound. From there he went into the bathroom, and from the bathroom he went into the lounge. Where she stood rummaging in a drawer of her writing desk. She looked up.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ she shouted. ‘Why are you sneaking about like that? You look like a thief in your own house. For God’s sake, you scared me. Why do you stand there gawping like that? Have you seen a ghost or what?’

Alive and kicking, she gesticulated wildly with her hands. She had a pulse, she made sounds. She could think, cobble sentences together into bad thoughts — just as he had done. She could go on pouring her vodka. In his confusion Johnny was mute. She didn’t look sick at all. There was even a trace of colour in her cheeks.

He went into the kitchen, puzzled. The pan was on the stove, but it was empty. His mother had poured the stew into a large, blue Tupperware container with a lid. She came in.

‘Take what you want,’ she said. ‘I’ll put the rest in the freezer. We’ll eat it another time.’

Escaping to his room, he felt gloomy and disappointed, because he hadn’t been able to create a spectacle and hadn’t got rid of her once and for all, as he’d thought. He spent the entire evening on his bed pondering while Butch scampered around on the duvet. Apparently she hadn’t eaten enough of the poisonous stew, or hadn’t eaten any of it.

Night came, and he went to bed.

He heard his mother bustling about in her room. A logical thought struck him: maybe she had eaten, maybe even a good portion, but the rat poison worked very slowly. That’s what he’d read on the package — that the rats need several doses before they breathed their last. So maybe it would take the hyena a while to die. The thought of her pain lasting several days excited him. Poisoning was like a war, and there was a kind of logic to the way the small grains attacked. First they destroyed the liver and kidneys, then the lungs and the heart.

He wrapped the duvet snugly around him, a warm lair of down and cloth.

He tried to make plans for the following day. I’ll have to do something creative, he thought, while I wait for the poison to do its work. While I wait for the hyena to fall to her knees.