To the Top of the Mountain

26

PAUL HJELM WAS sitting on the sofa. It had been a long time since he had last done so. It had been a long time since he had been home at all. He could hardly remember what it was like. A strange calm settled around him, as though a glass bubble had closed in over him.

Not that his surroundings were especially calm. His family was dashing all over the house in Norsborg. He could hear the familiar melody of the evening news drifting over from the neighbours’ house. It was nine in the evening, and they were all going out. For the first time in a long while, he felt a moment of surprise at how big his children had grown. No more hugs. No more intimate family moments. No more reading aloud. Just their long, drawn-out departure.

Danne was seventeen and heading out to play football. ‘At ten in the evening?’ Paul the father had asked. Training times were limited, Danne had replied pedagogically. Nowadays, their conversations went no further than that. Would they have time to make amends later, or was it already too late? Was it all too late? Would he suddenly, one day – like those nice Lindberg parents over in Trollhättan – be informed that his previously well-behaved son had become a violent criminal with Nazi tendencies? How would he react? Would he survive that? He could see unpleasant parallels – the well-behaved Niklas Lindberg had become an officer, his own well-behaved son wanted to be a policeman.

But at that moment, he was running around like a madman, accusing everyone – the family’s new parrot included – of deliberately and spitefully hiding his shin guards. Eventually, he found them, wrapped up in his own putrid old towel. Slightly embarrassed, he left the house.

Tova was still there. Fifteen years old and crazy. Beyond all reason. Paul had no siblings of his own, and teenage girls were brand-new territory for him. He was amazed by the role that hormones played. Right now, she wanted to go to a club. For the third time that week. He didn’t know how worried he should be. A club sounded better than a rave, in any case, and her mother, Cilla, reassured him that they were organised by teetotal youth groups. As though that would be worth any bonus points with a daughter who seemed to hate her mother more than anything else in the world. It had only recently occurred to him that it might be a matter of love, rather than hate; certain glances exchanged between the two of them suggested that. Like they were playing a game just for him. He didn’t understand it.

‘Twelve!’ Tova shrieked in her most piercing voice. Wasn’t it meant to be sons whose voices broke?

‘Twelve,’ the parrot cawed, its voice definitely breaking. Normally, that would have caused Paul to reach for a slipper to throw at the disgusting creature, but today he was immune. He was sitting in his little glass bubble, watching their performance from another planet. It was splendid.

‘Eleven!’ Cilla shouted, sounding precisely like both daughter and parrot. ‘You know, you could tell her too, Paul, rather than just sitting there like a dolt!’

A dolt? Did those still exist? Paul wondered to himself from inside the bubble. He didn’t lift so much as a finger.

The door opened and Tova slipped out, Cilla running after her, shouting from the doorway: ‘If you come back later than eleven, I’ll kill you!’

Hmm, Paul thought to himself from inside his bubble. Was that good parenting? Was that a model of tolerance and understanding?

‘Dolt!’ Cilla repeated in the direction of the lump of jelly on the sofa, as she pulled on her coat.

‘Dolt,’ croaked the parrot.

‘Aren’t you head of ward?’ asked the dolt. ‘Don’t they have normal working hours?’

‘Do you think I’m cheating on you?’ shrieked Cilla, ‘Is that what you think? Do you think I’m running off to fuck some doctor?’

That was something that hadn’t even crossed his mind. But it would be lodged in there now, that much he knew. There was just one way to get rid of it. Temporarily. He glanced in the direction of the piano, which had been shoved into a corner, detested by all except him. As compensation, he had been forced to accept the parrot, something they had been desperately asking for without success for years.

The worst thing was when it mimicked his mediocre piano playing. A real nightmare.

‘No,’ he said, holding back the rest.

Cilla sighed deeply and made a slight conciliatory gesture.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Tova’s driving me crazy. And work. I have to go in and do the night shift sometimes, you know. Otherwise everything’ll fall apart. We’re on our knees, you know that.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘Go on. Have as good a time you can.’

A quick kiss on the cheek. Nothing more.

He sat in the glass bubble for a while longer. Waited until it was safe. Then he smashed it. One hit, and it broke into pieces. He went over to the piano and lifted the lid. Sat down. Let his fingertips touch the keys. Enjoyed it for a moment.

He started playing. A little tune he had learned. ‘Misterioso’. Monk. Strange, beautiful notes. He fell into dangerous improvisation. Eventually, he started to hum along. He didn’t sing, though. He hadn’t come that far yet.

He wondered why. But not now. Now, he was just playing.

Instead, the parrot sang. With an awful breaking voice.

Paul Hjelm laughed and continued to play.

He didn’t sing.