Bad Intentions

She gave Axel a warm smile and picked up her handbag. She rummaged in it for a moment. He could hear clattering from its depths.

‘Sorry, I’m afraid not. Try Margaret.’

Axel plodded down the corridor. His normally broad shoulders drooped. He knocked on Margaret’s door before entering. She was standing by the photocopier. Steam was coming from a mug of coffee on her desk.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

‘I’ve got toothache,’ Axel explained. ‘Do you have some paracetamol? Or something stronger?’

‘Hang on, I’ll check,’ she said and sashayed over to her desk. She had no chance with Axel, but she had never stopped hoping, and her bottom was undeniably her best asset. She pulled out a drawer and searched among pens and paper. She dumped a pile of stationery on the table, a pair of scissors, a glue stick, sticky tape and a box of paperclips.

‘I usually have some,’ she said, ‘but I’ve run out. Ask Jorgen. Jorgen suffers from migraines. He’s bound to have an emergency supply.’

Axel Frimann knocked on Jorgen’s door.

‘Jesus Christ, what’s wrong with you?’

Axel slumped in a chair. He pressed his hand to his cheek and gave him a suffering look.

‘Something’s wrong with my jaw,’ he said. ‘I’ve got this stabbing pain. I think it’s an infected root, I can feel it all the way down my jaw. Do you have some paracetamol?’

But he left Jorgen’s office empty-handed too. Axel had to go back. He shuffled down the corridors, opening one door after another pleading his case like a beggar. There was the guy in the basement office, he remembered, who delivered the post. Didn’t he have rheumatism? And then there was Randi in the canteen, she was over sixty and must be afflicted by a range of ailments, wear and tear, he thought, pain in her neck and shoulders. The reception desk on the ground floor was staffed by a thin girl who always looked very pale. Her face was a mesh of green veins and her hands always trembled. Anaemic, he thought, and anorexic. Stress and possibly headaches. He wandered down the corridors, knocking on door after door, but everyone shook their head regretfully.

No one could put Axel out of his misery.

CHAPTER 15

Dear diary,

I’ve started looking at people as if seeing them for the first time. When I go out for a walk in the hospital park, I notice that they are lit differently. It’s something to do with the way the sun hits them, it makes their faces glow. That guy on the bicycle, for example, who passed me this morning, he would never have acted as carelessly as I did. He would have taken responsibility and done the right thing. I could see it in his eyes and in the way he held his head. Because he knows he is worth something, he knows that he is a good person. In his life there are clear rules which he always follows. The old lady holding the granny trolley who came out of the shop, she is bound to be the sort who helps insects to their freedom. And the shop assistant in the baker’s where I bought rolls yesterday, the girl with the round cheeks, she is goodness itself. I used to be one of them. Once I belonged to this exclusive group of people with a clear conscience. It’s hard to look people in the eye. My voice has lost its power. I’m waiting for the axe to fall, and I know it will. How quickly it can change, the life we think has been marked out for us. We start the journey with good intentions, the gift our parents bequeathed us. And then, someone snaps their fingers and we find ourselves sidetracked; we end up in a foreign country. Suddenly we think differently about everything, we are in alien territory and other rules apply there. I no longer recognise my own life. I have lost my way, and the thing that happened is not fading away, either. I’m almost too scared to open a newspaper or switch on the radio because of what they might say and how much they will have found out. It’s a miracle that I still walk around a free man.

CHAPTER 16

The dentist diagnosed that Axel had an infected wisdom tooth. The tooth was on the left side of his mouth.

‘From the outside everything looks fine,’ the dentist said, ‘but it’s rotten to the core. It’s often the way,’ he joked.

He held up the X-ray up to the light and pointed.

‘I’ve never seen the like, though,’ he said. ‘It’s aggressive. I’ll need to open it up and clean it out. And I’m afraid you’ll have to brace yourself for a certain amount of discomfort.’

Axel’s cheeks were flushed. He was furious because he had been forced to submit to another man, another man’s breath and another man’s hands. He was anaesthetised and the whole of his lower jaw felt numb, and he could not feel his tongue. I’ll be drooling like an idiot all day, he thought. After the treatment he was given some painkillers, but they only dulled the ache slightly. He drove home, opened a bottle of Gran Feudo, collapsed on his sofa and poured himself a glass of wine, which he gulped down. The roots of his teeth were throbbing, sending waves of pain to his head; violent, burning spasms which took his breath away. He had heard that such infections could spread and attack the whole jaw, and for a moment he panicked. He imagined that his chin would crumble, that it could never be repaired, and that he, Axel Frimann of the fine profile, would end up a chinless freak. He massaged his jaw and felt very sorry for himself. The pain, which originated in the roots of his teeth, found its way to the top of his head, where it threatened his pride. Axel Frimann was a wronged man. Something he could not control had disregarded his excellence and decided to act as it pleased. And this something cared nothing for his exalted position but tormented him as though he was just anyone.

The doorbell rang. He knew it would be Reilly.

‘What are you on this time?’ Axel asked when he saw his swimmy eyes.

‘Georgia Home Boy,’ Reilly said.

‘And what is that?’

‘GHB. Or Salty Water,’ Reilly said. ‘Or Jib. Known and loved by all. What’s up?’

He stepped inside.

Axel wanted to say that he had toothache. However, he started telling Reilly a different story, and he did not understand why. He was not in the habit of confiding in anyone. People who opened up were like babies spewing milk. But it was as if the pain unlocked something he would normally have kept quiet about. There was an ache inside him which he had ignored for a long time.

‘I went to the hospital yesterday,’ he said. ‘To see my dad.’

Reilly gave him a look of surprise. Axel never spoke about his father. Perhaps he was ashamed of him or perhaps his illness was too hard for him to deal with. In just a few seconds he had been robbed of his father, a handsome man, who had suddenly collapsed in a ditch. He had lain in a hospital bed ever since, pale and shapeless like sausage meat.

‘I’ll tell you what happened,’ Axel said, ‘so that you know. We were walking down the road, my dad and I. Four years ago. It was summer. I had come to visit them at their holiday cottage. We had gone to buy some eggs from a nearby farm. My mum needed them for baking. Idyllic, don’t you think? Father and son on a country road on a warm, sunny day. He was fifty-three years old. Fifty-three, Reilly. He was a good-looking man, he was still in great shape and everything. You remember that, don’t you, that he was a good-looking man?’

Reilly nodded. He had splayed his feet to keep his balance. His head was spinning and he would have preferred to sit down, but he didn’t dare move.

‘It was a warm afternoon,’ Axel said. ‘I remember a few details. Insects. Stinging nettles by the roadside. An awful lot of stinging nettles. They have their own special smell, by the way, did you know that? You can make soup from them, but I can’t imagine it tastes very good.’

Reilly was unsure where this was going. Not that the business with Axel’s father was a secret; everyone knew