The Quarry

24

Per didn’t want to wake up the morning after the party, but it happened anyway. It was quarter to nine. He lay there blinking at the ceiling.

It was Maundy Thursday. It was almost the Easter weekend, or had it already started? And how were they going to celebrate it, with the way things were?

He supposed they would just have to celebrate as best they could, as he had promised Nilla. With eggs — fresh eggs and chocolate eggs.

Then Per remembered that his father was in the house, and what had happened at the party the previous evening.

Jerry’s hoarse laughter. Vendela Larsson, smiling nervously at her guests. And the porn magazine, lying there in the middle of the table.

The cottage was silent, but inside his pounding head he could hear echoing voices and shouts. He had drunk too much red wine yesterday, he wasn’t used to it.

‘Markus Lukas,’ Jerry had said several times.

That name and the memory of Vendela’s smile made Per think of Regina, the girl he had met one warm, sunny spring day many years ago. She too had had a quick, slightly nervous smile and a pair of big blue eyes framed by short brown hair, and high cheekbones dusted with freckles.

Had Regina been the first real love of his life? She had certainly seemed much more exciting than the girls at his school. Older, more worldly-wise. They had sat next to each other for several hours in a car one day when he was thirteen years old.

An outing in the car in springtime with a pretty girl should have been straightforward, but not for Per. Regina had been sitting in the back doing her make-up when Jerry and a friend turned up at Anita’s in the Cadillac to pick him up. For once Jerry was on time. They were going to hang out together for the whole of the Easter weekend, father and son.

And how old had Regina been? Several years older than Per, maybe sixteen or seventeen. She had laughed and patted him on the head when he sat down beside her on the leather seat, as if he were just a little boy.

It was Jerry’s fault; as soon as they got in the car he started referring to Per as ‘my lad’.

‘Regina,’ said Jerry, exhaling cigarette smoke as he turned his big black sunglasses towards the back seat and touched the girl’s cheek, ‘this is my lad... Pelle.’

Per wanted to touch the girl’s cheek as well, in the same confident way as his father.

‘My name is Per,’ he said.

Regina laughed and ruffled his hair with her slender white fingers. ‘So how old are you, Per?’

‘Fifteen,’ he lied.

He felt quite grown up, sitting there in Jerry’s car, and he grew bolder and bolder; he ventured a smile at Regina, and realized she was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. Her quick smile was beautiful, and he became more and more smitten. He kept on stealing glances at her, admiring the sunburnt legs disappearing under her short skirt, the slender hands protruding from her leather jacket. Her fingers fluttered like eager butterflies as she talked to Jerry and the man who was driving. Per could see only the back of the man’s head; he had broad shoulders and thick, black hair, but he was bound to be a friend of Jerry’s. His father had a lot of friends.

They set off, and Per sat next to Regina, feeling his legs and back grow; he didn’t look back to see whether Anita was waving to him, or whether she had gone indoors. He had already forgotten his mother; he was sitting next to Regina, and they were smiling at one another.

The car smelled of cigarettes, as Jerry’s cars always did.

They drove out into the country, and afterwards Per had no idea where they had been — just that they had driven and driven and eventually reached a gravel track surrounded by dense fir trees. A southern Swedish forest.

‘This all right?’ asked the man behind the wheel.

‘Sure,’ said Jerry, coughing. ‘Fantastic, Markus.’

The car pulled up among the trees.

‘Pelle,’ said Jerry when they had all got out, ‘Regina, Markus Lukas and I are going off into the forest for a while.’ He gripped Per firmly by the shoulder, his expression serious. ‘But I have an important job for you here by the car. I want you to keep guard, and I’m going to pay you. That’s the most important thing about jobs — getting paid for them.’

Per nodded — this was his first job. ‘And what if anyone comes?’

Jerry lit a fresh cigarette. He went over and opened the boot. ‘Tell them it’s a military exercise,’ he said with a smile. ‘Tell them we’re shooting here, so nobody is allowed in.’

Per nodded as Jerry and Markus Lukas looped several bags over their shoulders and set off into the trees with Regina. His father waved to him. ‘See you soon. Then it’ll be time for a picnic.’

Per was suddenly alone next to the car. The spring sunshine made the red bodywork gleam, and flies buzzed across the grass.

He took a few steps along the track and looked around. There was no sign of anyone, and not a sound to be heard. When he listened carefully he thought he could hear Regina laughing in the distance, just once. Or was it a scream?

Time passed more and more slowly. The forest surrounding Per felt dark and dense. He thought he heard Regina crying out, several times.

Eventually he left the car. He followed Jerry and the others, without really knowing where they had gone.

A little path wound its way through the trees. He followed it up a steep slope, over a little rise among moss-covered rocks, and down a small hill. He increased his speed, took a few more steps, then suddenly heard male voices, and Regina’s cries. She was screaming deep in the forest — loud, long-drawn-out screams.

Per started to run.

The trees thinned out and he hurtled into a sunlit glade.

The sun was shining down like a spotlight into the middle of the glade. Regina was lying there naked on a blanket on the grass; she was wearing a long blonde wig. She was sunburnt, Per noticed, but her breasts were chalk-white.

Markus Lukas, the man who had been driving the car, was also naked. He was lying on top of her.

And Jerry, who was standing next to them holding a big camera, didn’t have any clothes on either. He was snapping away all the time, click click click.

Regina gave a start as Per cried out; she looked at him, then quickly turned her head away.

Jerry lowered the camera and glared at Per. ‘Pelle, what the hell are you doing?’ he shouted. ‘Go back and keep a lookout — stick to the job I gave you!’

Per turned and fled through the forest.

Twenty minutes later his father and the other two came back to the car, with their clothes on. Regina had taken off the wig.

Jerry laughed at his son all the way home.

‘He thought we were going to kill her.’ Jerry had turned to face the back seat. ‘Regina, he thought we were murdering you out there in the forest! He was coming to your rescue!’

Per wasn’t laughing.

He looked at Regina, but she refused to meet his eye.

Regina and Markus Lukas.

Per could still remember those two names. His head was full of old memories, and felt very heavy this morning. He lifted it and looked out of the bedroom window towards the two new houses. Nothing was moving over there, but the Larssons’ veranda looked empty. No trace of the party remained.

It had ended fairly soon after Jerry had thrown the magazine on the table. The Kurdins had gone home with their baby, Gerlof Davidsson and John Hagman had also left, and Vendela Larsson had started gathering up the remains of the food. It might have been his imagination, but Per had the feeling his neighbours wanted to see the back of him and Jerry as soon as possible.

He knew more or less what to expect from now on. The neighbours hadn’t said anything yesterday as he thanked them and took his leave, but he knew the questions would come.

The curiosity, the constant curiosity. And the meaningful smiles each time some new acquaintance found out he was the son of the notorious Jerry Morner.

‘So have you ever been in a porn film then, Per?’

‘No.’

‘Not even one?’

‘I’ve never had anything to do with Jerry’s activities.’

‘Never?’

‘No. Never.’

He had become adept at it as an adult, distancing himself and swearing that he was nothing like his father. But why had he kept in touch with Jerry? And why had he been stupid enough to bring him to Öland?

Per would have preferred to stay in bed, but he got up anyway. He wished the sun wasn’t shining quite so brightly this morning. He didn’t want to think about Regina any more.

He didn’t want to think about the neighbours either.

Nobody else in the cottage seemed to be awake. The doors to the twins’ rooms were closed, and when he went into the kitchen he could hear his father’s long-drawn-out breathing from the spare room. It was a mixture of snoring and wheezing.

Per had heard the same sound each time he visited his father in the small apartment Jerry had rented in Malmö in the mid-sixties, before the really big money started pouring in.

The sound was particularly noticeable when he brought women home. Per would lie on his mattress in front of the TV listening to Jerry wheezing in the room next door, interspersed with regular groans and irregular cries or bouts of weeping from the women. He could never sleep on those nights when Jerry was taking photographs or filming, but he didn’t dare get up and knock on the door. If he disturbed his father, Jerry would shout at him, just like that day in the forest.

The bedroom had been Jerry’s workplace during the autumn and winter months when it was too cold to work outside. That was where he took photographs and did his filming, and it also served as his office. He had bought a water bed that filled half the room, and kept the company’s money in a fat envelope underneath it. The bed was both his office and his playroom; he had two telephones next to it, plus a Facit calculator, a drinks cabinet and a projector that he could use to show films on the white walls.

The Swinging Sixties, thought Per. But that’s all over now.

He knocked on the door of the spare room. ‘Jerry?’

The snoring stopped, only to be replaced by coughing.

‘Time to get up, Jerry — breakfast.’

Per turned and saw a black mobile phone lying on the table in the hallway. It was Jerry’s. He noticed that it was switched on, and that someone had called at around seven o’clock that morning. Everybody had been asleep, of course.

He picked up the phone to see if he recognized the name of the caller, but the display showed only NUMBER WITHHELD.

Jerry shuffled out on to the patio quarter of an hour later wearing a white dressing gown he had borrowed from Per. The twins were still asleep, but that was fine — Nilla in particular needed her rest. Besides, Per wanted to talk to his father without the children eavesdropping.

They nodded at one another in the sunshine.

‘Pelle?’ said Jerry, looking at the glass in front of him.

‘No alcohol today,’ said Per. ‘Orange juice.’

As his father sat down, Per caught a glimpse of the white dressing on his stomach. He helped him to butter a slice of toast, and Jerry took a big bite.

Per looked at him. ‘You should have played things a bit cooler yesterday, Jerry.’

His father blinked.

‘You shouldn’t have told the neighbours what you used to do. You shouldn’t have shown them the magazine.’

Jerry shrugged his shoulders.

Per knew that his father had never been ashamed of anything. Not Jerry, he just did whatever he wanted. He had loved his job and had fun all his life.

Per leaned across the table. ‘Jerry, do you remember a girl called Regina?’

‘Regina?’

‘Regina, who worked with you back in the sixties... She used to wear a blonde wig.’

Jerry pointed to his own thinning hair, and shook his head.

‘Yes, I know you turned all your girls into blondes... But do you remember Regina?’

Jerry glanced sideways, as if he were thinking.

‘What happened to her? Do you remember?’

Jerry said nothing.

‘Got old, I suppose,’ he said eventually, and started coughing.

Per let him finish, then picked up his father’s mobile to show him the missed call.

‘Somebody’s trying to get hold of you, Jerry.’