“Didn’t you hear what I said?” roars Lars-Gunnar. “Outside!”
He lets go of Rebecka’s feet and waves his hands at Nalle. In the end he goes down the stairs and pushes him out into the yard. He locks the door.
Nalle stands outside. He can hear him out there. “What? What?” Fear and confusion in his voice. Can see him in his mind’s eye, walking round and round on the porch, completely at a loss.
He feels an overwhelming rage toward the woman upstairs. It’s her fault. She should have left them in peace.
He takes the stairs in three bounds. It’s like Mildred Nilsson. She should have left them in peace. Him and Nalle and this village.
Lars-Gunnar is standing out in the yard, pegging out washing. It’s late May. No leaves yet, but one or two things are starting to appear in the flower beds. It’s a sunny, windy day. Nalle will be thirteen in the autumn. It’s six years since Eva died.
Nalle is running around in the yard. He’s good at amusing himself. It’s just that you can never be alone. Lars- Gunnar misses that. Being left in peace sometimes.
The spring breeze tugs and pulls at the washing. Soon the sheets and underclothes will be hanging between the birch trees like a row of dancing flags.
Behind Lars-Gunnar stands the new priest Mildred Nilsson. How she can talk. It seems as if she’ll never stop. Lars-Gunnar hesitates as he reaches for the underpants that are a bit tatty. They don’t come up very white either, although they are clean.
But then he thinks, what the hell. Why should he be embarrassed in front of her?
She wants Nalle to be confirmed in the church.
“Listen,” he says. “A couple of years ago some of those hallelujah types turned up here wanting to pray for him to be healed. I threw them out on their ear. I’m not that keen on the church.”
“I’d never do that!” she says firmly. “I mean, of course I’ll pray for him, but I promise to do it quietly at home, in my own room. But I’d never want him to be any different. You really have been blessed with a fine boy. He couldn’t be any better.”
Rebecka draws up her knees. Pushes them down. Draws them up. Pushes them down. Shuts herself in the bathroom again. Can’t manage to get up. Crawls as far away as she can, into a corner. He’s coming back up the stairs.
It was so bloody simple for Mildred to say that Nalle was a blessing, Lars-Gunnar thinks. She didn’t have to look after him day and night. And she wasn’t the one with a broken marriage behind her because of the child they’d had. She didn’t need to worry. About the future. How Nalle would manage. About Nalle’s puberty and sexuality. Standing there with the soiled sheets, wondering what the hell to do. No girl would want him. A mass of strange fears in his head, that he could become dangerous.
After the priest’s visit the village women came running. Let the boy be confirmed, they said. And they offered to organize everything. Said Nalle would be bound to enjoy it, and if he didn’t, they could just stop. Even Lars-Gunnar’s cousin Lisa came to say her bit. Said she could sort out a suit, so he wouldn’t be standing there in something that was too small.
Then Lars-Gunnar lost his temper. As if it was about the suit or the present.
“It’s not about the money!” he roared. “I’ve always paid for him, haven’t I? If I’d wanted to save money I’d have shoved him in an institution long ago! All right then, he can be confirmed!”
And he’d paid for a suit and a watch. If you had to pick two things Nalle had no use whatsoever for, it would be a suit and a watch. But Lars-Gunnar didn’t say a word about it. Nobody was going to say he was mean behind his back.
Afterward it was as if something had changed. As if Mildred’s friendship with the boy took something away from Lars-Gunnar. People forgot about the price he’d had to pay. Not that he had any big ideas about himself. But he hadn’t had an easy life. His father’s brutality toward the family. Eva’s betrayal. The burden of being the single parent of a disturbed child. He could have made other choices. Simpler choices. But he educated himself and returned to the village. Became someone.
He hit rock bottom when Eva left. He stayed at home with Nalle, feeling as if nobody wanted him. The shame of being surplus to requirements.
And yet he still looked after Eva when she was dying. He kept Nalle at home. Looked after him. If you listened to Mildred Nilsson, he was bloody lucky to have such a fine boy. “Of course,” Lars-Gunnar had said to one of the women, “but it’s a heavy responsibility as well. A lot to worry about.” And he’d got his answer: parents always worry about their children. He wouldn’t have to be separated from Nalle, as other parents were when their children grew up and left home. They talked a load of crap. People who hadn’t a clue what it was really like. But after that he kept quiet. How could anybody understand.
It was the same with Eva. Since Mildred had arrived, whenever Eva came up in the conversation, people said: “Poor soul.” About her! Sometimes he wanted to ask what they meant by that. If they thought he was such a bastard to live with that she’d even left her own son?
He got the feeling they were talking about him behind his back.
Even then he regretted agreeing to Nalle’s confirmation. But it was already too late. He couldn’t forbid him to spend time with Mildred in the church, because that would just look like sour grapes. Nalle was enjoying himself. He hadn’t the wit to see through Mildred.
So Lars-Gunnar let it carry on. Nalle had a life away from him. But who washed his clothes, who carried the responsibility and the worry?
And Mildred Nilsson. Lars-Gunnar now thinks he was her target all the time. Nalle was just a means to an end.
She moved into the priest’s house and organized her female Mafia. Made them feel important. And they let themselves be led along like cackling geese.
It’s obvious she had a grudge against him from the start. She envied him. He had a certain standing in the village, after all. Leader of the hunting team. He’d been a policeman. He listened to people too. Put others’ needs before his own. And that gave him a certain level of respect and authority. She couldn’t stand that. It was as if she set herself the task of taking everything away from him.
It turned into a kind of war between them, but only they could see it. She tried to discredit him. He defended himself as best he could. But he’d never had any aptitude for that kind of game.
The woman has crawled back into the bathroom. She’s curled up on the floor between the toilet and the hand basin, holding her arms up over her face to protect herself. He grabs her feet and drags her down the stairs. Her head thumps rhythmically on every step. Thud, thud, thud. And Nalle’s cry from outside: “What? What?” It’s hard to close his ears to that. There has to be an end to it. There has to be an end to it now, at long last.
He remembers the trip to Majorca. It was one of Mildred’s bright ideas. All of a sudden the young people in the church were going to a camp abroad. And Mildred wanted Nalle to go too. Lars-Gunnar had said no, definitely not. And Mildred had said the church would send an extra member of staff along, just for Nalle. The church would pay. “And just think,” she said, “how much kids of this age normally cost. Slalom gear, trips, computer games, expensive
