The Quarry

‘How’s it going, Jerry?’ he said eventually.

His father hesitated, and Per could hear him inhaling cigarette smoke. Then he coughed again and lowered his voice still further.

‘Bremer,’ was all he said.

Per recognized the name. Hans Bremer was Jerry’s colleague and right-hand man. Per had never met him, but it was obvious that Bremer had a better relationship with his father than he had ever done.

‘I can’t talk to you today,’ said Per. ‘Jesper’s here.’

His father said nothing. He was searching for words, but Per didn’t wait. ‘So I’ll speak to you soon,’ he said. ‘Bye now.’

He hung up calmly without waiting for a response, and went back to his bedroom.

Two minutes later, the sound of the telephone reverberated through the cottage once more.

He wasn’t surprised. Why had he redirected it?

When he picked up the receiver he heard the same hoarse voice: ‘Pelle? Pelle?’

Per closed his eyes wearily. ‘What’s the matter, Jerry? Can you tell me why you’re ringing?’

‘Markus Lukas.’

‘Who?’

Jerry cleared his throat and said something that sounded like ‘that bastard’, but Per wasn’t sure. It sounded as if Jerry had a cigarette in his mouth.

‘What are you talking about, Jerry?’

No reply. Per turned towards the kitchen window and looked out over the quarry. It was completely deserted.

‘Have to help Bremer,’ his father said suddenly.

‘Why?’

‘Help him with Markus Lukas.’

Then there was complete silence at the other end of the line. Per looked out of the window, towards the water and the narrow strip of black that was the mainland. Markus Lukas? He thought he’d heard the name before, a long time ago.

‘Where are you, Jerry?’

‘Kristianstad.’

Jerry had been living in Kristianstad for the last fifteen years, in a stuffy three-room apartment by the railway station.

‘Good,’ said Per. ‘Stay there.’

‘No,’ said Jerry.

‘Why not?’

No reply.

‘So where are you going, then?’ asked Per.

‘Ryd.’

Per knew that Ryd was a small village in the coniferous forests of Smaland where Jerry had a house; Per had given him a lift out there once a few years earlier.

‘How are you going to get there without a car?’

‘Bus.’

Jerry had relied on Hans Bremer for more than fifteen years. Before his stroke, when he spoke in full sentences, his father had made his relationship with his colleague very clear to Per: Bremer takes care of everything, he loves his job. Bremer fixes everything.

‘Good,’ said Per. ‘Go and spend a few days there. Give me a ring when you get back.’

‘Yes.’

Jerry started coughing again, and broke off the conversation. Per put the phone down, but remained standing by the window.

Parents shouldn’t make their children feel lonely, but that was exactly what Jerry did. Per felt totally alone, without family or friends. His father had frightened them all away. Jerry had even ruined Per’s first experience of falling in love, with a smiling girl called Regina.

Per exhaled slowly and stayed where he was. He ought to go for a jog on the track along the shore, but it was too dark now.

Jerry’s persecution mania had simmered inside his head like a bubbling soup for as long as Per could remember. There had been a joyous lust for life too, but after the stroke that had completely disappeared. In the past Per had got the impression that Jerry needed these real or imagined conflicts to spice up his life, that they gave him fresh energy in his role as an entrepreneur, but the voice he had heard on the phone today was confused and weak.

For as long as Per could remember, his father had imagined that people were after him: usually the Swedish government and its tax inspectors, but sometimes the bank or a rival or a former employee from Jerry’s company.

Per couldn’t do much about his father right now. He probably needed some kind of supervision, but for Per it was more important to be a father to Nilla than a son to Jerry.

And Jesper, too. He mustn’t forget Jesper.

His son’s door was closed, but Per was a good father, he cared. He knocked and popped his head around the door. ‘Hi there.’

‘Hi Dad,’ Jesper said quietly.

He was sitting up in bed with his Gameboy, even though it was really too late to play.

Per chose to ignore it. Instead he told Jesper about a plan that had occurred to him as he was looking out of the window: why not build a shortcut down to the shore?

‘Shall we do some work tomorrow?’ he asked. ‘Build up our muscles and make something worthwhile?’

Jesper thought about it. Then he nodded.

They slept in until nine the next morning, and made a start on the flight of steps after breakfast.

Ernst had left only a rickety ladder leading from the cottage down to the quarry, and Per wanted something more stable. A flight of steps he and the children could use when they went down to the shore on sunny summer days.

At the southern end of the Morners’ stony plot the edge of the quarry was several metres lower, and that was where Per had chosen to construct the steps. One by one he and Jesper threw some of Ernst’s tools down on to the gravel at the bottom of the quarry: crowbars, spades and pickaxes. Then they lowered the old wheelbarrow down, pulled on their thick gloves and climbed down after it.

It was cold at the bottom of the rock face, and there wasn’t a soul in sight. Nor were there many plants, just grass and the odd little bush determinedly clinging to the gravel or growing in crevices. Gulls were standing on top of some of the piles of stone, screaming at each other, their beaks stiff and wide open.

At about knee height in the rock face a strange layer of dark-red clumps ran through the pale limestone. Per remembered it from his childhood. The place of blood, Ernst had called it, but he had never explained why. It was hardly likely to be real blood.

‘What are we going to do, Dad?’ asked Jesper, looking around.

‘Right … first we’re going to collect some gravel.’ Per pointed over at the piles.

‘But is it OK just to pinch it?’

‘We’re not pinching it,’ said Per, realizing that he hadn’t a clue who owned the quarry. ‘We’re using it. I mean, it’s just lying here, isn’t it?’

Time to start work. Not too hard and not too fast – he had to think about his back – but hard enough to build a flight of steps up from the quarry.

For over an hour they pushed the wheelbarrow back and forth between the piles of gravel in the middle of the quarry and the rock face below their garden, and slowly they constructed a steep ramp leading upwards.

It was already half past ten, but Per had warmed up now, and besides, he had spotted a big stack of long, narrow blocks of stone about fifty metres away.

‘Shall we start with those?’ he said.

They went over to begin loading the limestone blocks into the wheelbarrow. Per avoided the biggest ones,