warm. And good. A light found its way inside
him and a terrified little pocket of joy leapt in the air.
'Do you remember that song they sang at Dad's funeral?' he asked. 'As long as the little boat can sail, as long as the heart can beat, as long as the sun sparkles on the blue billows?'
'Yes, but…'
'That's how it is. That's exactly how it is. It doesn't end. Everything is still here.'
Cecilia sighed again, and he could picture her slowly shaking her head.
'What are you saying, sweet-'
Cecilia swallowed the last word. Out of habit she had been about to end the sentence with 'sweetheart'. Just the way they used to talk to each other. She cleared her throat and said in a controlled voice, 'I don't think we should talk anymore now.'
'No,' said Anders. 'You're probably right. But I wish you well. I might not ring you again.'
'Why do you say that?'
'Do you want me to ring you again, then?'
'No. Well…but why did you say that?'
'Just in case.' Anders swallowed a lump that had started to grow in his throat and said quickly, 'I love you,' then hung up. He sat for a long time with his hand resting on the receiver, as if to prevent it from jumping up in the air or ringing.
He hadn't known before he said it out loud. Perhaps it wasn't even true. But after hearing her voice, her more-friendly voice in his ear for several minutes, it had suddenly come over him. Perhaps it was just the longing for another person, or nostalgia evoked by happier memories, perhaps he idealised her now that he no longer saw her, perhaps it wasn't true.
But love? Who can say what is just a mire of dark needs and desires, and what is true love? Does such a thing exist? Can't it be that if we say, 'I love you' to another person and know that we mean it, then that is love, regardless of the motive?
Maja or no Maja, he loved the person sitting at the other end of the line far away from him. What the reason might be, what had changed, he had no idea. That was just the way it was.
It was almost dark over the bay now, and when Anders rested his elbows on the windowsill he could see the beam of the lighthouse on Gavasten flickering like a golden street across the water, disappearing for five seconds and then reappearing, disappearing.
He blinked a couple of times then shook his head at his own stupidity. Why should the moped necessarily be on Domaro just because that was where they used to ride around? It could be anywhere, on any island, he of all people ought to know that. The sea was their highway.
But they couldn't just go riding around whenever they felt like it; if that were the case, then somebody would have spotted them. It must be somewhere that wasn't too far away, a place where there weren't too many people…
Anders went into the kitchen and fetched the big torch, checking that the batteries were working. Then he pulled Simon's jacket on over his Helly Hansen top and zipped it up with Maja's snowsuit tucked inside, with the result that he looked pregnant. He moved Spiritus to the jacket pocket.
When he got outside it wasn't quite as dark as it looked from inside, but in about half an hour it would be evening. He quickened his steps down to the jetty, keeping his fingers crossed that Goran would have brought back Simon's boat, as he had promised.
He had. The scruffy boat that had been involved in so much over the past few days lay scraping gently against the jetty and Anders climbed aboard, untied the ropes and started the engine.
It seemed perfect, almost too perfect, and he didn't know whether Henrik and Bjorn had a feeling for such coincidences, but he suspected that they did. You can't idolise Morrissey and The Smiths without nursing a longing to go back to the beginning, to the times and places where everything started, for good or evil.
Anders swung the boat around half a turn, opened the throttle and set off, heading straight for Kattholmen.
Back to the old place
The trees felled by the storm lay here like long-necked, thirsty dinosaurs, stretching out all the way to the water's edge. A general amnesty had been declared. If the sea froze in the winter, anyone who was interested could make their way over to Kattholmen and chop up as much wood as he or she wanted; the main thing was to get it cleared.
But there were only these enormous fir trees, which were very hard to handle. Difficult to saw up, tough to chop, and the wood wasn't much good either. There was very little interest. If it had been birch, which is fairly easy to work with, there would have been no need to wait for the ice; people would have come over in boats to grab what they could, and Kattholmen would have been cleared in no time.
But the fallen fir trees were still here, dark, gloomy tree trunks lying across the rocks, with the odd branch sticking up out of the water here and there like the arms of skeletons pleading for help, ignored and rejected by one and all.
The moon had begun to tire and shrink, balancing helplessly on the branches of the few firs still standing. Veils of cloud drifted past, and as Anders drew closer Kattholmen was bathed in a light with no luminosity, like aged aluminium. He rounded the northern point where a concrete buoy marked a shipping lane that was no longer used, and continued along the rocky shore on the eastern side of the island.
The boathouse was still there. It would be hundreds of years before wear and tear took its toll on its walls, built with horizontally placed logs, and none of the trees had fallen on it. Anders slowed down and drifted the last few metres, turning off the engine and folding it inboard to avoid damaging the propeller. When the keel scraped along the seabed he clambered into the water, which immediately seeped into his boots. He pulled the boat ashore and switched on the torch, directing the beam towards the boathouse.
Nothing had changed. It looked exactly the same as the last time he had been here. The place where the fire had been was still there, the fire from which glowing coals had been kicked at Henrik's naked back. But the grass flattened by Henrik and Bjorn's bodies had long since grown tall again. It glittered wetly in the beam of the torch.
Anders looked over at the door and could almost hear the fanfare behind it, the voice singing, 'It's the final countdown…' but the only sound was the whispering of the wind in the dry pine needles.
He took a few steps to the left, shone his torch along the side of the house, and there it was. The wooden platform had been damaged by the fire but was still in one piece, the petrol cap gleamed as Anders swept the torch over Henrik and Bjorn's moped. There were tyre tracks in the grass leading down to the water.
Anders sat down on the bottom step and looked out across the water. Simon's boat rocked gently as a wave hit the stern. The aluminium light of the moon made the world frozen and metallic. A dry tree trunk creaked behind his back and he found himself at the beginning of everything and the end of everything. The fixed point. The final countdown.
He counted backwards slowly from ten to zero perhaps thirty times while nothing happened, still staring out across the water as he waited for those who had the key. The ones who knew, and were going to help him whether they wanted to or not.
He pushed his hand inside his jacket and rubbed the smooth fabric of the snowsuit with his fingers. The moon hauled itself laboriously away from the tops of the fir trees, looking down at him as he sat there on the step. Ill at ease, he stood up, pulled the peg out of the door and pushed it open, shone his torch inside.
It was obvious that people had been here since his last visit. A different generation had taken over where theirs had ended, a more careless generation. A wooden chair had been smashed and a pack of cards lay
