her a cup of coffee.
Laila followed his movements with a watchful expression as he poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down opposite her. ‘I’m not angry,’ he said. ‘Quite the reverse.’
Laila nodded and raised the cup to her lips. Her teeth were discoloured with gooey chocolate but Lennart didn’t point this out. Her cheeks wobbled unpleasantly as she swallowed the hot drink. He didn’t say anything about that either. What he said was, ‘Darling.’
Laila’s eyes narrowed. ‘Yes?’
‘I didn’t finish telling you the story. What happened in the forest. When I found her.’
Laila placed her hands on the kitchen table, resting one on another. ‘Go on then.
Lennart ignored her sarcastic tone. ‘She sang. When I’d dug her out of the hole. She sang.’
‘But she hasn’t made a sound.’
‘Listen to me. I don’t expect you to understand this, because you haven’t got an ear for it, but…’ Lennart raised a hand to forestall the objections he knew would come, because if there was one thing Laila was still proud of, it was her singing voice and her ability to hit a note cleanly. But that wasn’t what it was about in this case.
‘You haven’t got the
Laila was listening again. Despite his delivery, the praise was enough. Her talent had been acknowledged and Lennart was able to go on. ‘You know I have a perfect ear for a note. When I opened the plastic bag and got her out…she sang. First an E. Then a C. And then an A. And I don’t mean cries that sounded like notes, but…
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t mean anything. That’s just the way it was. She sang. And I’ve never heard anything like it. Not the hint of a slide or a grating sound. It was like hearing…an angel. I can still hear it.’
‘What are you trying to say, Lennart?’
‘That I can’t give her away. It’s impossible.’
The coffee was finished. The child was asleep. Laila was limping around the kitchen with a wooden ladle in her hand, waving it in the air as if she were trying to scoop up fresh arguments. Lennart was sitting with his head resting in his hands; he had stopped listening.
‘There’s no way we can look after a child,’ said Laila. ‘How would that work, the way our life is? I for one have no desire to start that business all over again, sleepless nights and being tied down all the time. When we’ve finally managed…’ The ladle stopped weaving about and made a hesitant sideways movement. Laila didn’t want to say it, but as she thought it was an argument that might hit home with Lennart, she said it anyway, ‘…when we’ve finally managed to get Jerry out of the house. Are we going to go through all that again? And besides Lennart, forgive me for saying this, but I don’t think there’s a cat in hell’s chance they’d let us adopt. For a start, we’re too old…’
‘Laila.’
‘And you can bet your life they’ve got information about Jerry, which means they’re bound to ask…’
Lennart slammed the palm of his hand down on the table, hard. The ladle stopped dead and the words dried up.
‘There’s no question of adoption,’ said Lennart. ‘I have no intention of giving her up. Nobody will know we’ve got her. For those very reasons you’ve so eloquently expressed.’
Laila dropped the ladle. It bounced once, then lay there between them. Laila looked at Lennart, then at the ladle. When he made no move to pick it up, she squatted clumsily and took it in her arms as if it were the child they were discussing.
‘You’ve lost your mind, Lennart,’ she whispered. ‘You’ve completely lost your mind.’
Lennart shrugged. ‘Well, that’s the way it is. You’re just going to have to get used to the idea.’
Laila’s mouth opened and closed. The ladle whisked around as if to disperse a horde of invisible demons. Just as she was on the point of uttering one of the sentences that were sticking in her throat, there was a knock on the door.
Lennart shot up from the table, shoved Laila out of the way and went into the living room, where he picked up the basket that held the sleeping child. The knock on the door was instantly recognisable. Jerry
With the basket in his hand Lennart went up to Laila and held up a rigid forefinger right in front of her nose. ‘Not one word, do you hear me? Not a word.’
Laila’s wide open eyes squinted a fraction as she shook her head. Lennart grabbed the baby things and threw them in the cupboard where they kept the cleaning stuff, then hurried over to the cellar steps. As he closed the door behind him he could hear Laila’s limping footsteps in the hallway.
He crept down the stairs and tried to stop the basket tipping too much; he didn’t want the child to wake up. He went past the boiler room and the utility room and opened the door of the guest room, Jerry’s old room.
A wave of chilly dampness hit him. The guest room had not accommodated a single guest since Jerry moved out, and the only visitor to the room was Lennart himself, when he came down here once every six months to air it. There was a faint smell of mould from the bedding.
He put the basket down on the bed and switched on the radiator. The pipes gurgled as the hot water came gushing in. He sat for a moment with his hand on the radiator until he could feel it warming up; there was no need to bleed it. Then he tucked another blanket around the child.
The little face was still sunk in what he hoped was a deep sleep, and he refrained from stroking its cheek.
He didn’t dare leave Laila alone with Jerry; he hadn’t the slightest faith in her ability to hold her tongue if Jerry asked some tricky question, so with fear in his heart he closed the door of the guest room, hoping that the child wouldn’t wake up and start yelling or…singing. The notes he had heard would slice through anything.
Jerry was sitting at the kitchen table, shovelling down sandwiches. Laila sat opposite him, twisting her fingers around each other. When Jerry caught sight of Lennart he saluted and said, ‘Hello there, Captain.’
Lennart walked over and closed the fridge door. A considerable proportion of the contents had been laid out on the table so that Jerry had a choice of fillings for his sandwich. He took a bite of one containing liver pate, cheese and gherkins, nodded in Laila’s direction and said, ‘What the fuck’s wrong with Mother? She looks completely out of it.’
Lennart couldn’t bring himself to answer. Jerry licked gherkin juice off his stiff, chubby fingers. Once upon a time they had been slender and flexible, moving over the strings of a guitar like a bird’s wings. Without looking at Jerry, Lennart said, ‘We’re a bit busy.’
Jerry grinned and started making a fresh sandwich. ‘Busy with what? You two are never busy.’
A tube of fish paste was lying on the table in front of Lennart. Jerry had squeezed it in the middle, and Lennart began pointedly rolling up the bottom of the tube, pushing the paste towards the top. A slight headache had begun to burn around his temples.
Jerry polished off his sandwich in four bites, leaned back in his chair, locked his hands behind his head and gazed around the kitchen. ‘So. You’re a bit busy.’
Lennart took out his wallet. ‘Do you need money?’
Jerry adopted an expression that indicated this was a completely new idea, and looked over at Laila. He noticed something and tilted his head. ‘What’s happened to your cheek, Mother? Did he hit you?’
Laila shook her head, but in such an unconvincing way that she might as well have said yes. Jerry nodded and scratched his stubble. Lennart stood there holding out his open wallet. The glowing points on either side of his head made contact and sent a thread of pain burning through his skull.
With a sudden jolt Jerry half-rose from the chair, heading towards Lennart, who instinctively recoiled. Jerry
