Malin hears Tove calling her from the kitchen, presumes she’s finished with her maths homework. Mathematics, yuk. Mathematics must be the language of things, seeing as it has never been mine.
‘Mum, come here.’
The teenager.
The child.
The almost adult.
The adult.
All four in one person, with a desire to define her place in the world, a world that doesn’t wait for you, and only reluctantly lets you have standing room. Even if you get a good education, Tove, it isn’t certain you’ll get a job. Become a doctor, a teacher, something secure. But is there anything secure? Follow your heart. Become whatever you like, as long as it’s what you really want. Your response so far: I don’t know. Maybe write books. So anachronistic. Write scripts for computer games instead, Tove. Do anything, just don’t be in too much of a rush, see the world, wait a while before having children.
But somehow you already know all that. You’re more sensible than I ever was.
‘What is it, Tove?’
Malin settles on the sofa, turns down the television and the newsreader moves his lips without making a sound.
‘Did you call Grandad?’
Shit. ‘No, didn’t we say you were going to call?’
‘I thought you were going to call?’
‘I don’t know, but either way we have to do it now.’
‘I’ll call him,’ echoes Tove’s voice from the kitchen, and Malin hears her pick up the phone, dial the number and wait before saying, ‘Grandad, it’s Tove . . . yes, that sounds great . . . tickes . . . when? . . . the twenty-sixth? . . . well, there’s something. You see, I’ve got a boyfriend . . . Markus . . . two years older . . . and I . . . thought maybe he could come too . . . yes, to stay with you . . . to Tenerife, his parents are okay about it . . . oh, I see . . . maybe you should talk to Mum . . . MUM, MUM, GRANDAD WANTS TO TALK TO YOU.’
Malin gets up and goes out to the kitchen. The smell of tonight’s dinner is still in the air.
She takes the receiver from Tove’s hand, puts it to her ear.
‘Malin, is that you?’
He sounds upset, his voice almost falsetto.
‘What do you mean by this? That some Markus should come too? Is this your idea? You always have to abuse the slightest little bit of faith anyone shows in you. Don’t you realise that you’ve spoiled everything now, when all we wanted was to give Tove the chance to come to Tenerife . . .’
Malin holds the receiver away from her. Waits. Tove is standing beside her, expectant, but Malin shakes her head, has to prepare her for the inevitable. She sees disappointment settle over Tove’s body, her shoulders drooping.
When she puts the phone to her ear again it has gone quiet.
‘Dad, are you there? Have you finished?’
‘Malin, whatever makes you put this sort of idea in Tove’s head?’
‘Dad. She’s thirteen. Thirteen-year-old girls have boyfriends that they want to spend their free time with.’
Then Malin hears a click.
She hangs up.
Puts an arm round Tove’s shoulders, whispers, ‘Don’t be sad, darling, but Grandad didn’t think it was a very good idea about Markus.’
‘Then I’ll stay at home,’ Tove says, and Malin recognises the defiance, as strong and defined as her own.
Some nights the bed is endlessly wide, some nights it contains all the loneliness in the world. Some nights it is soft and promising, when waiting for sleep is the best part of the day. Some nights, like this one, the bed is hard, the mattress an enemy that wants to force your thoughts into the wrong track, that seems to want to mock you for lying there alone, without another body to rest into and against.
Malin reaches out her hand and the empty space is as cold as the night outside the window, and it gets many times larger because she knows that the empty space is there even as she reaches out her hand to it.
Janne.
She thinks about Janne.
How he is starting to get older, how they are both getting older.
She feels like getting up, calling him, but he’ll be asleep, or at the station, or else . . . Daniel Hogfeldt. No, not that sort of loneliness tonight, a much worse sort. Real loneliness.
Malin kicks off the covers. Gets out of bed.
The bedroom is dark, a meaningless and empty darkness.
She fumbles with her portable CD player on the desk. Knows which disc to insert. Puts in the earplugs.
Then she lies down again and soon Margo Timmins’s gentle voice is streaming through her head.
