Ball-Bengt?
And the evening is destructively hard and cold and she leaves the grove, walking the length of the cemetery wall and then along Vallavagen and down towards the old water tower and the Infection Clinic.
She walks past her parents’ apartment.
‘You won’t forget…’
There’s something not right. There’s a reddish light up in one of the apartment’s windows. Why is there a light in the apartment?
I never forget to turn off the lights.
20
The stairwell: she leaves the light on.
She takes out her mobile, is about to dial her parents’ number – whoever is up there will get a shock – but then she remembers that her parents had the phone disconnected.
She doesn’t use the lift.
She climbs the three flights of stairs as silently as she can in her Caterpillar boots, feeling sweat break out on her back.
The door hasn’t been broken open, there’s no visible evidence.
Light behind the glass of the door.
Malin puts her ear to the door and listens. Nothing. She looks in through the letterbox; the light seems to be coming from the kitchen.
She tries the door-handle.
Should I draw my pistol?
No.
The hinges creak as she pulls the door open, voices, muffled, from her parents’ room.
Then the voices fall silent, and instead the sound of bodies moving. Have they heard her?
Malin marches firmly across the hall, hurrying down the passageway to her parents’ bedroom.
Pulls the door open.
Tove on the green bedspread.
‘Mum.’
Beside the bed a long-haired, skinny boy trying to pull on a black T-shirt with some hard rock logo on it. His skin is unnaturally white. As if he’s never been out in the sun his whole life.
‘Mum, I-’
‘Not a word, Tove. Not a single word.’
‘I…’ the boy says in a voice that has hardly broken. ‘I…’
‘And you can keep quiet too. Both of you, quiet. Get dressed.’
‘We are dressed, Mum.’
‘Tove. I’m warning you.’
Malin leaves the bedroom, shuts the door behind her, shouts, ‘Come out when you’re dressed.’
Feels like shouting a whole load of things, but what? Can’t shout: Tove, you were a mistake, a condom that broke, and do you want to do the same as me? Do you think it’s fun being a teenage mother, even if you do love your kid?
Whispers and giggling from the bedroom.
Two minutes later they come out. Malin is standing in the hall, and points to the sofas in the sitting room.
‘Tove, sit down there. And you, who are you?’
Handsome, Malin thinks, but pale. But, good God, he can’t be more than fourteen, and Tove, Tove, you’re a little girl.
‘I’m Markus,’ the pale boy says, pushing his hair out of his face.
‘My boyfriend,’ Tove calls from the sofa.
‘Yes, I worked that out,’ Malin replies. ‘I’m not that stupid.’
‘I go to Anestad school,’ Markus says. ‘We met at a party a few weekends ago.’
What party? Has Tove been to a party?
‘Have you got a surname, Markus?’
‘Stenvinkel.’
‘You can go now, Markus. We’ll have to see if we ever meet again.’
‘Can I say goodbye to Tove?’
‘Put on your coat and go.’
‘Mum, I’m actually in love with him.’
The front door closes as Tove says the words.
‘That’s a bit serious.’
Malin sits on the sofa opposite Tove. The sitting room is dark around them. She closes her eyes and sighs.
Then starts to feel angry again.
‘In love? You’re thirteen, Tove. What could you possibly know about love?’
‘As much as you, apparently.’
And the anger vanishes as quickly as it came.
‘Studying with Filippa, Tove? Did you have to lie?’
‘I thought you’d be angry.’
‘What about? About you wanting a boyfriend?’
‘No, because I haven’t said anything. And because we were here. And, well, because I’ve got something you haven’t.’
These last words cut straight to Malin’s core, with no warning, and rather than think about what her daughter had just said, she chose to say, ‘You have to be careful, Tove. This sort of thing can lead to no end of problems.’
‘That’s what I was afraid of, Mum, that you’d only see the problems. Do you think I’m stupid enough not to realise that you and Dad had me by mistake? I mean, who’d be mad enough to have a child at that age otherwise? I’m not that careless.’
‘What are you saying, Tove? You weren’t a mistake. Whatever makes you say that?’
‘I know, Mum. I’m thirteen, and thirteen-year-olds have boyfriends.’
‘The cinema with Sara, studying with Filippa… God, how stupid am I? How long have you been seeing each other?’
‘Almost a month.’
‘A month?’
‘It’s hardly surprising that you haven’t noticed anything.’
‘Why not?’
‘What do you think, Mum?’
‘I don’t know, tell me, Tove.’
But Tove doesn’t answer the question. Instead she says, ‘His name’s Stenvinkel. Markus Stenvinkel.’
Then they sit in silence in the darkness.
‘Markus Stenvinkel.’ Malin laughs, eventually. ‘God, he’s pale. Do you know what his parents do?’
‘They’re doctors.’
Better folk. The thought comes to Malin against her will.
‘Nice.’
‘Don’t worry, Mum. Actually, I’m hungry,’ Tove says.
‘Pizza,’ Malin says, slapping her hands down on her knees. ‘I’ve only eaten a couple of crispbreads tonight.’
