The Quarry

but the medium-sized ones were heavy enough. He grabbed hold of the nearest block and got Jesper to take the other end. The surface of the stone was dry and smooth.

‘Always lift with your legs, Jesper, never with your back.’

They lifted together, and placed three blocks at a time in the wheelbarrow.

By the time they had unloaded the blocks by the rock face and placed them in position as steps, Per was panting – this was hard, heavy work. How had Ernst managed to work here day after day, year after year?

By about twelve o’clock they had finished the lower section of the steps, and Per’s back, neck and arms were aching. Despite the protective gloves, the skin on his fingers was badly chafed, and he had blisters. And the steps still reached less than halfway up to the top.

He smiled wearily. ‘Only the rest to go, then.’

‘We could do with a crane,’ said Jesper.

Per shook his head. ‘That’s cheating.’

They hauled themselves over the edge of the quarry and went back into Ernst’s house.

Their house, thought Per, and wondered about a name. Casa Grande?

No. Casa Morner: that would do nicely.

That same evening, the wind started to blow ferociously across the island, and by the time darkness came, a gale was howling across the rooftops.

The telephone on Nilla’s hospital ward had been engaged all evening, but at eight o’clock Per had done what Nilla wanted and sent her a thought.

Love, he thought, and sent it away with a mental picture of the sunset over the sound.

No thoughts from his daughter popped into his head in return; it felt completely empty. He didn’t really believe telepathy worked, but they had nothing to lose.

Per went to bed and fell asleep to the sound of the howling wind; he dreamed that he had found a pale little wooden doll in the quarry. He put it in a cloth bag and brought it into the cottage, for some reason. The doll was angry, and because the bag was torn, he got some tape and tried to repair it so that the fingers wouldn’t stick out. The doll struggled inside the bag and Per kept on trying to tape the bag up; he could hear his father laughing at him.

No, it wasn’t Jerry’s hoarse laughter that was reverberating through his dream, it was a dull roar that was making the ground shake.

Per stopped fighting with the bag. He looked out of the window towards the quarry and discovered something unbelievable: a volcano had begun to form out in the sound between the island and the mainland. The water was boiling, the air was full of grey smoke, and a crater a hundred metres wide was rising towards the sky, higher and higher.

Lava poured down the sides, starting to fill the quarry.

Then he woke up, disorientated and confused, fumbling in vain for the doll in his bed.

The gale was still blowing over the house, but the dull roar had stopped. It didn’t come back, and eventually he fell asleep again.

Sunday morning was sunny, with a strange rushing noise in the wind. Per got up at about half past seven, and noticed something different as soon as he looked out of the window to the west: the sound was no longer greyish white, it was dark blue.

He realized what had happened. The roaring din that had woken him during the night was the noise of the ice being broken up by the strong wind. Now there were just odd ice floes drifting around out on the water, and a grey patch of slushy ice bobbing up and down among the rocks by the shore. The rushing noise was coming from the newly liberated waves.

The ice had left the sound – hundreds of tons of frozen water had been released, and Per had heard their thundering roar.

Terrific.

But last night’s dream had been strange and unpleasant. He didn’t want to think about it.

9

As Max sat pondering his cookery book, Vendela wandered around the new house thinking about not eating. She had decided to do two things here on the island: jog more and eat less. Not to lose weight – she weighed fifty- two kilos on the bathroom scales at home – but as a way of cleansing her body and getting closer to nature. So on the first morning in the new house she drank only a glass of water for breakfast, alone with Aloysius in her big new kitchen.

The idea of throwing a party for the neighbours was still in the back of her mind. She had decided to invite everyone she could find in the village. On Ash Wednesday – people didn’t normally give dinner parties on that day, did they? To be on the safe side, she had tapped on the door and run the idea past her husband.

Max was in his study – one of them.

He had driven a furniture van to the new house the previous week. Max needed three desks when he was writing his books: a work desk where he sat and thought, a desk where he wrote, and a desk where he did his editing, and in order to have space for everything, he had to have two rooms all to himself, side by side.

He had a rowing machine, some weights and a skipping rope in one of the rooms as well. No treadmill.

When Vendela knocked on the door he was sitting at the thinking desk, which was completely empty. She told him about her idea of inviting the neighbours to a party. He listened, then nodded in the direction of the cottage to the north.

‘Including them?’

She knew who he meant – the father with the son Max had almost run over.

‘We could leave them out,’ said Vendela, but he shook his head.

‘No, invite them too. Do you need any help?’

‘It’s fine, I’ll sort out the food, but you could welcome the guests.’

Max sighed. ‘I can play the host, but I’ve no intention of handing out advice.’

‘No, of course not.’

‘People are always asking me for help with all kinds of problems … but I have to be free while I’m here.’

Max closed his eyes and Vendela left the room.

She would go for a walk soon, but first she went into the bathroom. She hadn’t unpacked her toilet bag yet. She placed it on the cistern and started taking out her tablets and arranging them in the medicine cabinet. Her allergy tablets with the Latin names went on the bottom shelf. She had several boxes, but this morning her nose and eyes felt quite good. Then she put away the box of tranquillizers, plus the small packs of Vistaril, which she had started to take at night a few years ago; sometimes she took them first thing in the morning as well.

But that was in Stockholm. Here on the island she would be more careful, and today she was going to take only two tablets. Something new. It was called Folangir, and had arrived by post from Denmark last week. It was a kind of diet pill that was supposed to suppress hunger and anxiety – but it also contained nutrients. Extract of calendula and several important vitamins, according to the label.

She washed them down with a glass of water.

There. Time for that walk.

The new tablets were unusually strong, and she felt slightly dizzy as she stepped outside. The sun was shining, and a chilly spring breeze swirled around the house, but neither warmth nor cold affected her now. She had found her balance. Everything was lovely.

The sky was immense here; there wasn’t a single mountain to stop the light flooding the island. That was why the elves were happy here.

The countryside was so silent as Vendela crossed the narrow track. No cars, no voices. Just birdsong all around her, and the tranquil lapping of the waves from the open sound.

On the other side of the gravel track was an even narrower path. Two wheel ruts with a line of grass running up the middle; it could lead anywhere. She set off, jogging along with her eyes closed for a few seconds.