‘Still as clumsy as ever!’ Mum says, and Malin feels like getting up and leaving, but she doesn’t move.
Malin can hear her mother chattering away to one of her friends on the phone in the living room.
Dad with his calm face opposite her, he almost seems to think it’s a relief that Mum’s left the table.
The paella is all gone.
It was good, Malin thinks, in spite of everything.
Mum’s been talking about golf, about hairdressers, about the rising price of food, about the fact that the flat may not be that big but its value has gone up, about some yoga class she’s just started going to, all this and much more, and then the phone rang and she went to answer it. Now Dad asks: ‘How are things with Tove?’
The wine has gone to Malin’s head.
‘She’s starting to get grown-up.’
‘Like you’ve been for a long time.’
You’re smiling at me, Dad.
‘And with Janne?’
He must know that we’ve separated.
‘It’s OK. We couldn’t make it work. No point trying, really,’ and just as Dad is about to respond to what she’s said, Mum appears in the doorway, saying: ‘That was Harry and Evy. They’re coming over. They’re keen to meet our clever detective inspector daughter.’
No, Malin thinks. No.
And Dad looks at her, says: ‘You know what, Malin? Why don’t you help me clear the table, then we can take a stroll down to the shop and get some ice cream before they get here?’
‘Yes, you do that,’ Mum says. ‘My feet ache. We must have walked at least twenty kilometres today. How many sixty-seven-year-olds can do that?’
Malin drains her wine glass.
Makes sure she gets the last drops, but Mum doesn’t seem to notice how thirsty she is.
39
The chiller cabinet and air conditioning of the little supermarket are groaning.
The shopkeeper greeted Malin’s dad like an old friend, and Dad had a long conversation with him in almost fluent Spanish. Malin didn’t understand a word of what they were saying.
‘Ramon,’ Dad says. ‘Nice bloke.’
And now he says: ‘What do you think? Vanilla or chocolate? You’d rather have chocolate, wouldn’t you?’
‘I’d rather have a beer in the bar next door.’
He gets a tub of chocolate ice cream from the freezer before turning to face her, the front of his pale blue shirt speckled with yellow from the paella, and Malin sees now that his hair is much thinner than when they last met.
‘We can do that if you like, Malin,’ and the next minute they’re sitting in the bar, in lingering thirty-degree heat under a whirling fan in the ceiling, and Malin wipes the condensation from her glass and thinks that the feeling is the same here as back home in the Hamlet or the Pull amp; Bear. The walls of the bar are covered with blue tiles, decorated with white fish caught in nets.
Dad takes a deep gulp of his beer and says: ‘Mum doesn’t change.’
‘So I see.’
‘But somehow it’s easier down here.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘There’s less pretending.’
Malin takes a mouthful of beer and nods to show that she knows what he means, then she takes a deep breath.
‘You’ve been having a tough time,’ he says.
‘Yes.’
‘Anything you want to talk about, love?’
Do I want to?
What would we say to each other, Dad? And the fish on the tiles, half of them have their eyes closed, as if they’re in a dark moat, and she feels like telling him about her dreams, about the boy in them, tell him and find out who he is, find out what’s hidden in the darkness in those dreams.
‘I’ve been dreaming about a boy,’ she says finally.
‘A boy?’
‘Yes.’
‘A little boy?’
Dad is quiet, drinks some more.
‘Did Mum ever go away when I was little?’ Malin goes on.
‘The ice cream’s melting. Shall we go back?’ he says.
‘Dad.’
‘Some things are best not spoken about, Malin. Some things are just the way they are and you have to accept it. You’re pretty good at not letting anyone get too close. You always have been.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘Nothing.’
Malin empties her glass in four large gulps before she gets up and leaves a five-euro note on the bar.
She and Dad stand beside each other on the pavement. Cars go past and the noise of people’s voices merges with unfamiliar music.
‘You’ve got a secret, you and Mum, haven’t you?’ Malin says. ‘Something you’re not telling me, even though you should.’
Dad looks at her and he opens his mouth, moves his mouth and tongue, but no words come out.
‘Tell me, Dad. I know there’s something I need to know.’
And he looks as if he’s about to say something, then he looks up at the balcony of the flat and Malin can just make out the figure of her mother up there.
‘The secret. There is a secret, isn’t there?’
And Dad says: ‘We’d better get back up with the ice cream before it melts. Our friends will soon be here.’ Then he turns and walks away.
Malin doesn’t move.
‘I’m tired, Dad,’ she says, and he stops, turns back towards her again.
‘I’m not coming back up. I’m going to go back to the hotel.’
‘You have to say goodbye to Mum.’
‘Explain to her, will you?’
And they stand there facing each other, five metres apart. They look at each other for almost a minute, and Malin is waiting for him to come over to her and give her a hug, and force everything that stings and burns away from reality.
He holds the ice cream up.
‘I’ll explain to Mum.’
Then Malin sees the back of his shirt. Pale blue and sweaty in the dim light from the bar, the shop, the street lamps, the stars and the half-moon.
What are you doing here?
Jochen, do you usually come here? Is that you, sitting over at the bar, showing off your bronze skin?
What’s she doing here?
They seem to be wondering, the men sitting by the counter around the podium where the naked girls are dancing in blue fluorescent light. She’s in one of the bars opposite the hotel. She can crawl home from here.
Lesbian?
I don’t give a damn what you think, Malin thinks. I don’t give a damn that each shot of tequila costs thirty
