Suddenly and without warning, Teresa’s head caught fire. The next moment a thick fire blanket was thrown over her. Darkness enveloped her, and she could hardly breathe. Her lungs contracted and lost all strength. Searing pain sliced through her still-burning head and she was pressed down in the armchair, incapable of moving.
That was how Goran found her fifteen minutes later. He walked into reception, looked around and spotted Teresa, slumped in the armchair. ‘There you are. Where did you get to?’ Teresa opened her mouth to reply, but her tongue refused to co-operate. Goran leaned over her, tugged at her hand. ‘Come on. We’re all going to have a game of Yahtzee.’
Teresa had felt bad many times, been unhappy and spat out the word
Teresa hardly slept that night; she lay staring into the darkness until the grey light of dawn brought the frost patterns on the window into focus. She didn’t want any breakfast, and Maria forced her to take two painkillers before the family set off on their respective adventures.
Only when they returned in time for dinner did Goran and Maria start to worry. They found Teresa in exactly the same position as they had left her, lying on her side in bed, her eyes fixed on the sign that said waxing skis inside the chalet was not permitted.
Maria placed a hand on her forehead and established that she didn’t have a temperature. ‘What’s the matter, sweetheart?’
Maria’s voice sounded strange to Teresa’s ears. The volume was normal, but it didn’t sound as if it was coming from somewhere nearby. This was probably because the person who was speaking was far away, and the voice was electronically enhanced. So there was no point in responding, and in any case the question didn’t make any sense.
‘Has something happened?’ asked Maria.
Same again. The question had nothing to do with her. It was being directed out into empty space, and the room Teresa took up in that space was insignificant and shrinking. She was slowly being crumpled up like a sheet of paper covered in writing, weighed down by words of no value. Soon she would be a white ball, and would roll away out of sight.
During the night, as Teresa once again lay staring out into the darkness, ‘Fly’ passed one million hits on MySpace.
Christmas didn’t turn out the way Jerry had hoped. He and Theres celebrated Christmas Eve at home with Paris and her nine-year-old son Malcolm. He was a lively boy who found it difficult to accept Theres’ cool, distant attitude. He wanted to show her all his toys, and was furious when Theres didn’t react as he expected. In the end he went into a major sulk and refused to be anywhere near her, let alone speak to her.
Paris did her best to keep things cheerful, and Jerry played and joked with Malcolm while Theres sat and stared at the Christmas tree as if it was a riveting movie. Things were bearable, but it was painfully clear they were never going to be one big happy family.
The success of ‘Fly’ had not yet reached its climax. Jerry had seen the video, thought it was nicely done, and hadn’t given it another thought. He was just grateful that Theres hadn’t used her real name.
On Boxing Day a feeling of gloom overcame him. He had probably been nurturing a stupid hope that he would be able to bring the two half families together into one unit, that the spirit of Christmas would wave its magic wand over them. But it didn’t happen. His real fear was that Paris would decide to end their relationship because it had no future. She said she loved him and wanted to be with him, but the doubt was gnawing away.
So he wasn’t exactly in a buoyant mood as he sat watching an old John Wayne western when the doorbell rang on Boxing Day. He’d had a couple of beers, and he could almost feel the liquid swilling around inside him as he hauled himself out of the armchair and went to answer the door
His first thought was that it was a salesman of some kind. The carefully arranged hair, the salon suntan, the suit, the practised smile. Some bloody mobile subscription or…vacuum cleaners. Yes. Jerry’s first impression was that the man had come to sell him a vacuum cleaner. Then he introduced himself as Max Hansen.
‘Right, yes,’ said Jerry. ‘So that’s who you are. Right.’
As Jerry took his outstretched hand, Max Hansen said, ‘Now I don’t know how much Theres has told you…’ There was an element of anxiety in the way he asked the question that Jerry didn’t understand. When he shrugged his shoulders and said he knew fuck all, Max Hansen seemed relieved.
‘I have tried to ring,’ he said. ‘But perhaps there’s something wrong with your phone.’
‘It’s not plugged in,’ said Jerry. ‘I think it’s meant to be like that.’
Max Hansen asked if he might possibly come in, and Jerry asked what it was about. Max Hansen asked once again if he might possibly come in, and Jerry repeated his question. If you bang your head against a wall, who screams first, you or the wall? Answer: you. So Max Hansen gave up and quietly explained why he was there.
As Jerry no doubt knew, Tora had recorded a song which had become an enormous hit on the internet. But she had also made another, professional recording, and Max Hansen now wanted to release this version as a single.
‘OK,’ said Jerry, beginning to close the door. ‘Best of luck.’
Max Hansen inserted his foot in the door and Jerry had an unpleasant flashback which didn’t improve his mood.
‘You don’t understand,’ said Max Hansen. ‘We could be talking about big money here. The problem is that no record company is prepared to release the single until I have the documentation to prove that I have the right to act for Tora. Are you her guardian?’
Max Hansen’s voice had taken on an aggressive tone. It would of course have been no problem to slam the door on his foot and force him to remove it, but talk of big money couldn’t be completely ignored. Jerry had enough to manage for another year or so, but that was it.
‘No,’ said Jerry. ‘I’m not her guardian. She hasn’t got a guardian. There can’t be any documentation. What do you suggest?’
Jerry had opened the door just enough for Max Hansen to lean forward and whisper close to his face, ‘That I fake all the paperwork. That you don’t make a fuss. And then you’ll get the money on the quiet.’
Jerry thought it over. He had realised that Theres’ non-existence in the system caused insurmountable problems. What the vacuum cleaner salesman was offering was a solution that circumvented all that: money floating down out of the blue without him needing to get dragged into anything.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘You do that. But I’ll be keeping an eye on you.’
Max Hansen removed his foot. ‘You do that. I’ll be in touch.’
Jerry closed the door with an unpleasant feeling in his body. Someone was walking over his grave. Yes. At some point in the future something was happening that he couldn’t foresee. Max Hansen had been a bit quick with his idea of faking the documentation. But what could Jerry have done? Max Hansen could fake away to his heart’s content, there wasn’t a chance in hell that Jerry would go to the police. His only little trump card was that Max Hansen didn’t know that. At least, he didn’t think so.
But it didn’t feel good, and when Theres asked him who had been at the door, and he told her it was a vacuum cleaner salesman, he felt a clinking in his breast like thirty pieces of silver.
Theres spent most of her time at the computer, and when Jerry asked her what she was doing she said that girls liked the song and wrote to her, and she wrote back. Jerry wondered what had happened to Teresa, and was told that she had disappeared. That she didn’t answer messages. Theres didn’t appear to be upset or concerned about this, but as always it was hard to know.
The day before New Year’s Eve the doorbell rang, and Jerry opened it briskly. He was expecting more
