by several days of beautiful hot weather. Perfect conditions for ceps in the forest. Lennart set off to forage, and for once he went on his bike.
Laila made a jokey comment about how it would be interesting to see what he came home with this time. Lennart was very confused when she leaned forward as he got on his bike, kissed him on the cheek and said goodbye.
Before he turned the corner he glanced back over his shoulder. She was waving. Then she went inside and fetched the vacuum cleaner hose.
She felt perfectly calm as she disconnected the hose from the cleaner and found a roll of packing tape. A tingle of expectation in her chest, that was all.
She didn’t bother saying goodbye to the girl. If there was anyone who couldn’t care less whether she lived or died, it was the girl. They had spent a lot of time together but there had never been any real contact. The girl lived in her own world, and there was no room for anyone else.
What about Jerry? Well yes, Jerry would definitely be upset, and she couldn’t imagine how it would affect his relationship with Lennart. Nor did she care. It had taken quite some time, but she had managed to reach the level of ruthlessness necessary to take her own life.
She closed the garage door and locked it from the inside, then switched on the fluorescent light. She wouldn’t have minded a more flattering light, but there was nothing she could do about that.
The vacuum cleaner hose fitted so perfectly over the exhaust that there was no need for any tape. She pulled the hose around the car and clamped it firmly in the partly-open back window. Then she got into the driver’s seat and closed the door.
The car key was attached to a keyring with a plastic Snoopy on it. In the absence of an alternative, she kissed the little dog on the nose, said goodbye, put the key in the ignition and turned it. The car started.
And the stereo. She had forgotten that some quirk made it impossible to turn off the radio when the ignition was on, so as the exhaust fumes poured in through the window, filling the interior of the car with a fug, she was forced to listen to some stand-up comic telling a story about some hysterically funny incident at a pub in Vasteras. Laila closed her eyes and tried to do the same with her ears.
It only took a minute or so before a drowsiness and a slight feeling of nausea overcame her. Her eyelids were a hundred times heavier than usual and located somewhere beyond her body where she was unable to open them. Everything was going exactly as she’d hoped, and oblivion was creeping closer. Far away she heard the comic finishing his story in that way that tells you it’s time to laugh, then he put a record on. Laila was going to die to the sound of some contemporary pop hit, and it didn’t matter. She heard the measured beat of a trumpet, the sound of a triumphant marching drum, and then a voice she recognised:
Hello, Soderboys, here’s your good old Annie…
Julia Caesar. Belting out ‘Annie from Amerrrica’, which had been a hit for her at the age of eighty-two.
I left my love, I left my ma, I went away
I set sail for the land of the YOO-ESS-AY!
Laila knew what was coming; her body tensed, her eyelids flickered and she clenched her jaw as Julia Caesar went for it: a scream that came from the toes up and made the speakers rattle. ‘YOONIGHTED STATES OF AMERRRICA!’
Laila forced her eyes open. The car was full of poisonous fog, and her muscles had been replaced with lead. From the radio Julia Caesar was still working her improbably powerful old lady’s voice.
Laila coughed. She managed to free her arms, and rubbed her eyes. A lump in her stomach was trying to force its way up into her throat.
Julia Caesar. Eighty-two years old. Standing at the microphone singing this absolute nonsense with such enthusiasm, for fuck’s sake. She’d seen her on TV. The grey, wavy hair, the old, heavy body, the arms flung wide and the glint in her eye as she roared out her ridiculous song.
No more. Laila managed to move her numb left arm so that it landed on the door handle. She pulled and the door opened. She hurled herself sideways and slithered out onto the garage floor. As she crawled towards the door the floor was swaying, side to side, and she might well have collapsed if the regular beat of the music hadn’t driven her on.
YOONIGHTED STATES OF AMERRRICA!
She’d forgotten how many verses the song had. She had to get out before it finished. This might be the last verse. But as her fingers went into spasm fumbling with the key, Julia Caesar took pity on her and set off again.
There’s plenty of things in Sweden
Both in the good old days and today
That come from the YOO-ESS-AY!
Laila managed to turn the key, pressed down the handle and fell out into the summer. She lay on her back on the concrete in front of the garage, glowering up at the sky. While waves of nausea flooded her body, she saw the green leaves on the lime tree fluttering against the clear blue as white cotton clouds drifted by.
She heard an eager scrabbling and rustling, then a squirrel came scampering down the trunk; he stopped and listened to the music coming from the garage, then disappeared around the other side of the tree as the song faded out.
Yes, there’s something about old Sweden
That’s certainly more than all right…
Laila had managed to recoup just enough strength to push the garage door with her foot, so that it closed on the further adventures of the comedian. Then she just lay there breathing, breathing.
After ten minutes she was able to sit up. After another ten minutes she managed to go back into the garage and turn off the engine. She pulled the hose off the exhaust pipe and left all the doors open. As she walked over to the house with the hose dangling behind her like a tame snake, something occurred to her.
She had misinterpreted the signs. It wasn’t the last thing she should have gone for. It was the first. The first place she had searched was the wardrobe containing their record collection. Something had told her to look there first. She remembered very clearly that she had actually seen ‘Annie from Amerrrica’ among all the singles and 78s.
She hadn’t given it a thought. But she did now.
In spite of everything, there was a consolation to be found, something that never let her down. Something that was so close to her she hadn’t been able to see it. The music. The songs. The records. Julia Caesar’s song didn’t have a message, but her performance did, and it was very simple:
Laila threw the hose into the cleaning cupboard and went to the wardrobe to look for ‘You Are a Spring Breeze in April’ by Svante Thuresson. She would listen to that. Then she would listen to something else.
Towards the end of October Lennart began to feel that it was becoming unendurable. He had nothing against classic hits from the Swedish charts but for God’s sake-within reason! From morning to night it was Siw Malmkvist, Lasse Lonndahl and Mona Wessman.
Laila might at least have shown some kind of discrimination and worked her way, for example, through Peter Himmelstrand’s many superior compositions, but no. She played whatever she fancied, whatever she happened to find in their extensive record collection. You might get an hour’s relief with Thorstein Bergman, but immediately afterwards Tova Carson would be chirruping away at some clumsily translated German pop. Lennart would sit in the kitchen being lulled into a state of restfulness by ‘Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream’, only to be driven to flight by ‘Skip to My Lou’.
Only one thing stopped him snapping off the arm and hurling the damned record player through the window:
