‘Okay,’ he said, and smiled because he couldn’t think of anything else. ‘Thanks anyway.’
He hoped that it didn’t sound ironic.
‘It’s not that he means any harm,’ Marianne said.
‘No, no, I understand. Tell him I was asking for him.’
‘I will do.’
Mike turned around as if to go, then changed his mind at the last moment.
‘Your daughter,’ he said.
The reaction was immediate. Mike could see it in her eyes. But it was so unthinkable that he carried on talking, even though in that instant he had understood.
‘She went to school with Ylva,’ he said, and felt all the pieces falling into place.
Everything the nutter had ranted about was right, every single word was true.
Marianne said nothing. The woman’s face was cold and guarded, revealing no emotion.
There was a noise from the cellar.
‘I’m going down into the cellar,’ Mike said, and stepped past Marianne.
At that moment Sanna screamed when she saw a bloody, deathly white and nearly naked person appear at the top of the stairs.
Mike stopped in his tracks. The woman’s skin looked plastic, almost see-through. The only thing that looked real was the blood that was running from her mouth down her body. She raised her arm, stretched it out. Mike knew the whole time who she was, but it was only in the way that she lifted her arm that he recognised his wife.
59
Mike rushed to Ylva, put her arm round his shoulder and supported her out of the house. They stopped at the gate. She couldn’t go any further. Mike sat down on the gravel, rested Ylva’s head in his lap, rocked her. Sanna stood at a distance, not daring to go forward.
‘I’m sorry,’ Ylva said.
Mike shook his head.
‘Forgive me,’ he said.
Ylva looked around for her daughter.
‘Sanna,’ Mike called. ‘It’s Mummy.’
He held out his hand, urged her to come over. She hesitated. The bloody woman frightened her. The red teeth, the grey hair, the porcelain-white skin. She wanted to run away, not to see.
Ylva lifted her hand slightly.
Sanna went over, hunkered down.
‘I can play,’ she said. ‘Do you want to hear?’
There was blood everywhere and, to begin with, the ambulance crew couldn’t work out who was actually injured. When Mike told them that the blood on his clothes was from Ylva, they quickly examined her, lifted her on to a stretcher and carried her towards the ambulance. A group of hypnotised, staring neighbours moved out of the way so they could pass.
Mike took Sanna by the hand and followed them to the ambulance. The paramedic put an oxygen mask on Ylva’s face and the driver got in behind the wheel.
Ylva had lost consciousness to the sound of ‘Three Blind Mice’. Mike thought he had seen something like a smile on her lips.
Loud voices could be heard from outside. Through the ambulance window, Mike saw flames in Gosta and Marianne’s kitchen. The curtain caught fire, flames licked the ceiling.
‘Is there anyone in the house?’ the ambulance driver asked.
Mike didn’t answer. He watched the paramedic pressing a rubber pump that was attached to the mask on Ylva’s face, and he knew that they were helping her breathe. He knew that they were in an ambulance that was now accelerating up the hill, he was aware that he was holding his daughter’s hand. And yet it all washed over him.
The paramedic repeated the driver’s question: ‘Is there anyone in the house?’
‘Yes,’ Sanna replied.
The ambulance driver radioed the emergency switchboard. The paramedic was working frenetically. Administering oxygen, injecting fluid, saying things. Everything was happening like it was all a film.
Mike thought it was a strange job, working so close to death. Unnecessarily dramatic, he thought. The paramedic talked constantly, informing the driver of the patient’s condition. Eventually he looked at his watch. He said the time clearly and loudly. Mike couldn’t understand what difference it made.
Ylva was going to be dead for a long time.
60
Someone took Mike’s bloody clothes and gave him a short-sleeved white cotton shirt with the county council logo printed on the front. They were shown to a waiting room. Sanna sat on her father’s knee, Nour in the chair beside them. All three holding hands, saying nothing.
The waiting room had a lino floor and blond-wood furniture with green covers.
Sanna leaned forward and picked up a comic from the table. She gave it to Mike. He read for her.
About Bamse and Lille Skutt and some idiot who gets into a fight but is forgiven in the end and allowed back into the fold. Mike carried on reading the next story, even though he wasn’t sure whether Sanna was actually listening or just wanted to hear his voice. She bounced her foot up and down in the air, nervously.
The door opened and they all looked up at the nurse.
‘She’s ready now,’ she said.
They walked down the corridor. The nurse stopped in front of a door and turned to make sure they were prepared.
Nour looked at Mike.
‘I don’t know if …’
‘Yes,’ Mike said, and pressed her hand. ‘Please.’
The nurse opened the door and let them through.
Ylva was lying on the bed with a blanket pulled up to her shoulders. Her head was resting peacefully on the pillow. Her eyes were closed and the blood had been washed away. The pale, almost porcelain skin was less alarming in the dimmed light. It was so obvious that it was a body, not a person.
Nour stayed back, let Mike and Sanna go and sit on the chairs by the bed.
After a few minutes, Mike’s back started to heave and he fell forward over his dead wife. Sanna reached out her hand and comforted him.
When they finally got up, their eyes were red and swollen.
Nour held out her arms and embraced them both.
