The Quarry

29

Up to the point when Nilla collapsed and started coughing up blood at the table, the Mörner family’s Easter lunch had been going very well.

Per had managed to fool himself, and hadn’t realized how ill she was. But he should have sensed something, because she had seemed tired on Saturday morning. She had helped him prepare the vegetables after breakfast, but progress had been slow, and sometimes she just stood there staring at the chopping board.

‘Are you tired?’ he asked.

‘A bit... I didn’t sleep very well last night.’

‘Would you like to go back to bed?’

‘No, it’s OK.’

‘Well, you could go out for a bit later on,’ he said. ‘You could go for a walk along the coast — try to get Jesper to go with you.’

‘Mm-hmm,’ said Nilla quietly as she carried on chopping tomatoes with slow strokes.

Per kept an eye on her and tried to relax.

He had repaired the lower section of the stone steps on Tuesday, and had got into the habit of going to the edge of the quarry every morning and evening to check if it was still standing. He did the same on the morning of Easter Saturday, and the stones were untouched. He would carry on building soon, until the steps reached all the way to the top of the quarry.

The pools of water were starting to dry up down below. In the summer, when the gravel was completely dry, he and Jesper would be able to have some fun down there, playing football perhaps.

Nilla too, of course.

He turned away from the quarry and walked around the house, stopping outside Ernst’s workshop. It was a square wooden box, two metres high, with traces of Falun red paint still visible on the weathered planks. There were small dusty windows on the shorter sides, and a black, creosoted door.

A heavy chain ran from the door to a ring on the wall, but the only thing holding it in place was a large, rusty nail. Per pulled it out and opened the door.

The air inside was dry because of all the limestone dust covering the floor. He had been in here three years ago, when Ernst’s family had come to collect the things they wanted to keep from the workshop. The finished sculptures standing by the door had disappeared that day: sundials, bird baths and lampstands. All that remained were the unfinished sculptures, or pieces that were such an odd shape nobody could quite work out what they were meant to be.

They were clustered together at the back of the workshop. Blocks of stone formed into swollen, headless bodies or heads with deep eye sockets and gaping mouths. Some of them didn’t even remotely resemble people.

Per didn’t go inside to take a closer look; he simply closed the door and went to fetch the paper.

‘So your father is the famous Jerry Morner?’ said Max. ‘I didn’t know him, but I do remember the name.’

Per hadn’t spoken to Max Larsson since the party, but they had bumped into one another by the mailboxes.

‘Really?’

He took a couple of steps away from the mailboxes with the newspaper in his hand, but Max didn’t take the hint. He just smiled, one neighbour to another. ‘Oh yes. Jerry Morner, he was a bit of a celebrity in the seventies. He sometimes gave interviews and appeared on those noisy debates about porn on TV... and of course when I was doing my military service we all read those magazines of his.’ He winked at Per. ‘Well, I say read, but of course they were mostly pictures.’

‘Yes,’ said Per.

‘One of them was called Babylon,’ said Max. ‘Now, what was the other one called? Sodom?’

‘Gomorrah.’

‘That’s it, Babylon and Gomorrah. They were pretty upmarket... But you had to ask for them in the newsagent’s, they never had them out on display.’ He coughed and added, ‘Of course, I don’t read them these days. Are they still going?’

‘No, they’re not around any more.’

‘I suppose videos took over, and now there’s the internet too,’ said Max. ‘Things move on.’

Per didn’t respond.

‘So how did he find the models?’ Max went on.

Per shook his head. ‘I was never involved.’

‘You have to wonder what kind of girls would be willing to do that sort of thing,’ said Max.

‘Haven’t a clue,’ said Per, but a picture of Regina’s smile came into his mind.

‘I mean, you could see their faces quite clearly, and some of them were really pretty.’

Per shrugged his shoulders and set off towards the quarry. He had been nice for long enough now.

‘I suppose they were well paid,’ Max persisted behind him. ‘And it must have been an experience.’

Per stopped and turned around. He decided to go for the Children Test. He’d done it several times before.

‘Have you got children?’ he asked.

‘Children?’ Max looked bewildered, then replied, ‘Yes, I’ve got three from my first marriage.’

‘Daughters?’

Max nodded. ‘One. Her name is Annika.’

‘Max,’ said Per, lowering his voice, ‘what would you say if you found out Annika had worked with my father?’

‘She hasn’t,’ Max said quickly.

‘How do you know? Do you think she’d tell you?’

Max didn’t speak. Per allowed the silence to continue, and set off again. He had gone several metres by the time Max hissed behind him, ‘You bastard!’

Per just kept on walking. He was used to that reaction when he tried to make people see Jerry’s models as people.

But of course, that meant that good relations between the neighbours by the quarry had been destroyed once more.

You bastard.

The comment was in Per’s mind as he prepared the Easter lunch.

Jerry, Per, Nilla and Jesper — three generations celebrating Easter together. It was too cold to sit out on the patio, so he laid the table in the living room, in front of Ernst’s wooden chest. As he set out the plates he stared at the drawings on the chest; he wondered why the troll running into its cave was smiling, and why the princess was sitting weeping. Had the knight not arrived in time to defend her virtue?

‘Pelle?’ said a voice behind him. His father had come into the room.

‘We’ll be eating soon, Jerry. You can sit down... You like Easter eggs, don’t you?’

Jerry nodded and sat down.

‘You can have as many as you like,’ said Per, and carried on setting the table.

Before he went to fetch the children, he turned back to Jerry and added, ‘But no magazines on the table, thank you.’

Jerry kept quiet during the meal. The twins didn’t say much either. Everybody ate their eggs and sat there in a world of their own.

‘Did you go out today?’ Per asked.

Nilla nodded slowly. She looked pale and tired, and her voice was quiet. ‘We went down to the quarry. And Jesper found a skeleton.’

But Jesper shook his head. ‘It was only a little piece of bone... I think it was part of a finger.’

‘A finger?’ said Per, looking at him. ‘A human finger?’

‘I think so.’

‘Where did you find it?’

‘At the bottom of a pile of stones. It’s in my room.’

‘I’m sure it’ll be part of some animal, we can have a look at it later,’ said Per, peeling an egg. ‘But you shouldn’t really pick up bits of bone you find on the ground, there could be germs and—’

But Jesper didn’t seem to be listening; he was staring past Per, his eyes full of fear. ‘Dad!’ he shouted. ‘Nilla!’

Per looked to his right and saw that Nilla had dropped her egg and was leaning over the table beside him; her head was drooping and she was about to topple sideways.

There were red splashes of blood on the tablecloth. When she coughed, more appeared.

Per moved fast. ‘Nilla!’ He grabbed her just before she fell.

She looked at him, but her eyelids were heavy. ‘What? What is it?’ she said, as if she were talking in her sleep. ‘Shall I...’

Then she fell silent and slumped against him.

Per held her tightly. ‘It’s OK,’ he said quietly. ‘Everything’s OK.’

But it wasn’t fine — his daughter’s face was suddenly bright red. Per could feel the blood pulsing in her arm, and suddenly there was no strength in her thin body, it was completely limp. She had fainted.

The meal had come to a complete standstill. Jerry was sitting on the opposite side of the table with an egg in his hand, staring blankly at the red drops on the table. Jesper was on his feet, gazing wide-eyed at his sister.

Per carried Nilla over to the sofa. When he had laid her down on her side, she coughed and opened her eyes.

‘I’m cold,’ she said.

Per remembered the doctor in Kalmar saying that the new medication could leave her open to infection, and he looked over at Jesper. ‘Nilla will be fine,’ he said. ‘But I need to take her back to hospital. Will you be OK here with Granddad?’

Jesper nodded.

‘And can you ring Mum?’

The hospital was silent and empty on Easter Saturday, but of course the emergency department was open. Nilla was wheeled off down the corridor on a trolley. All Per could do was go up to her old ward and wait.

He sat down on a chair in the corridor; he was used to waiting, after all. He waited and waited.

After almost an hour, the door opened and Marika and her new husband came in. Georg was tanned and was wearing a dark suit, just as he had been on the two previous occasions when Per had met him.

‘We’ve come to see the doctor,’ said Marika.

Per didn’t recognize the doctor who was on duty this evening. His name was Stenhammar and he was younger than Nilla’s previous doctor, but his expression was serious as he took them into his office and sat down at the desk.

‘Well, I have good news and bad news.’

Nobody said anything, so the doctor went on: ‘The good news is that we’ve managed to bring down her temperature; Pernilla will be coming back from intensive care shortly.’

‘Can we take her home this evening?’ said Marika, in spite of the fact that this was Per’s weekend.

Dr Stenhammar shook his head. ‘That’s the bad news,’ he said. ‘Pernilla won’t be coming home... she needs to stay here.’

‘How long for?’ asked Marika.

The doctor didn’t speak for a few seconds. Then he began to elaborate at length on the thorough examination they had done, on Nilla’s test results, and on what they had found. He talked and talked, and he kept using long words.

‘Epithelioid... what was it again?’ said Per.

‘The usual abbreviation is EHE,’ said Dr Stenhammar, ‘and it’s very rare, an extremely uncommon type of cancer that usually affects the soft tissues. I know it’s no consolation to you, but as a doctor I—’

‘What does this mean for Nilla?’ Marika interrupted.

The doctor started to speak again. Afterwards Per could remember only two words: malignant tumour.

‘... so it’s best if she stays here until the surgery,’ said Stenhammar, linking his hands on the desk.

Surgery. Per could feel the floor swaying beneath his feet.

‘So you’re going to operate?’

The doctor nodded. ‘We have to, radiotherapy alone won’t be enough, unfortunately... We’re on the way to a vital indication.’

Per didn’t ask what the final words meant, but they didn’t sound good.

‘When?’ Marika asked quietly.

‘Soon, very soon.’ The doctor paused. ‘And I’m afraid it’s not a straightforward operation.’

‘What are the odds on her recovery?’ asked Per. A terrible question — he wanted to take it back. But Dr Stenhammar merely shook his head.

‘We don’t bet in here.’

They walked out into the corridor in silence. Georg went to get some coffee. Per had nothing to say to his ex-wife, but Marika suddenly looked around.

‘Where’s Jesper?’

‘Back at the cottage.’

‘Alone?’

‘No, my father’s with him.’

‘Jerry?’

Marika had raised her voice in the empty corridor. Per lowered his: ‘Gerhard, yes. He came to us a few days ago...’

‘Why?’

‘He’s sick,’ said Per. ‘He’s had a—’

‘He always has been, hasn’t he?’

‘... and he needed some help,’ Per went on. ‘But I’ll be taking him home soon.’

‘Well, don’t bring him here,’ Marika snapped. ‘I don’t want to risk meeting that dirty old sod ever again.’

‘Dirty old sod? Well, he might be,’ Per said quietly, ‘but as far as I recall you were very curious about Jerry and his activities when we met. You thought it was exciting, or so you said.’

‘I thought you were exciting at the time,’ said Marika. ‘I soon got over that as well.’

‘Good,’ said Per. ‘That’s one problem less.’

‘It’s not me who has a problem with you, Per. It’s you who has a problem with me.’

He took a deep breath. ‘I’m just going to say goodbye to Nilla.’

Marika stayed in the corridor while Per went in to see Nilla before setting off for home. The room was quiet. She was lying in bed beneath a white sheet, and of course the drip was back in her arm. He bent down and pressed his cheek against hers. ‘Hello, you.’

‘Hi.’

She was pale now, her chest trembling with shallow breaths.

‘How are you doing? How do your lungs feel?’

‘Not too bad...’

‘You’re looking good.’

She shook her head. ‘I can’t find my black stone, Dad.’

‘What black stone?’

‘My piece of lava from Iceland... Mum bought it, it’s my lucky stone. It was in my room. I thought I put it in my pocket, but it’s not there now.’

Per remembered; it was a smooth, coal-black stone, and Nilla had let him hold it; it fitted perfectly into his palm.

‘I’m sure it’s in the house somewhere,’ he said. ‘I’ll find it.’

When he got back to the cottage half an hour later, Jerry and Jesper had cleared away the food and removed the stained cloth. But the dishes were piled up in the kitchen, and Per had to deal with them.

His father and son were sitting on the sofa in the living room watching some American sitcom. Jerry seemed captivated, but Jesper turned his head as his father walked in.

‘How did it go, Dad?’

Per rubbed his eyes. ‘Well, Nilla has to stay in Kalmar tonight, but she’s feeling better now.’

Jesper nodded, and turned his attention back to the TV.

Later, thought Per. I’ll tell him about the tumour later.

He turned away.

‘What are you going to do now?’ asked Jesper.

‘I’m going to look for a stone, a lucky stone.’

Then he remembered something, and turned back. ‘By the way, what was it you found, Jesper? A piece of bone?’

‘Mmm. It’s in my room, on the bookshelf.’

Per went into his son’s room. He tried to ignore the mess, but opened the window to let a bit of air in. Then he looked at the bookshelf.

The piece of bone lying there amongst Jesper’s books and games was very small, just four or five centimetres long. It was greyish-white and felt rough to the touch, as if it had been lying out in the open for many years and had become dry and fragile.

And Per could see that Jesper and Nilla were right; the piece of bone did actually resemble a broken-off human finger.