In the Name of Love (7 page)

‘You didn’t call,’ she said.

‘No.’

‘I waited. I waited all day.’

‘I’m sorry. I thought it best not to.’

Again she was silent. Then she took a breath. ‘In my situation, there’s nothing I can say that would be right, is there?’

She laughed in a brusque unnatural way and closed the window. He saw the blood creep up into her cheeks.

‘Was it because of Anders you didn’t ring?’

He looked at her in surprise. Before he could answer she said, ‘I think it’s the first time in my life I’ve lain awake all night.’

She made a hole in the mist on the side window with the edge of her hand and stared out at the meadow that led down to the sea. He could smell her warm skin. After a while she pressed her fingers against the glass. Her fingertips flattened as though she was trying to press out the window. They sat in a silence loaded with the unspoken.

Madeleine turned towards him. Her eyes moved quickly over his face. Her hands clasped the steering wheel again and he saw that her knuckles were white. He couldn’t hear her heart, but he sensed its insistent beat. He had no idea what to say.

Two gulls had begun to clip around the car, searching for scraps. One of them swerved to chase off another bird, a plump lead-coloured seabird he recognized but couldn’t recall the name of. Madeleine turned away from him again, back towards the side-window, and he knew it was because she didn’t want him to see the tears in her eyes.

‘You and I,’ she said.

When she did not add anything he said, ‘Yes?’

‘I don’t know where we are with each other.’

He understood now what she meant but he had no answer to give, or none that would have satisfied her. The hunted bird’s white rump flashed in front of the windscreen as it sheered away. From the sea came the crunch of broken ice and waves on the stones of the shore. Madeleine took a deep breath, let it out unevenly. He looked at her face with its scarcely discernible violet shadows under the eyes. What was he to say? He wanted to protect her from harm, from hurt of any kind. He was deeply fond of her, already she was a close friend. He knew she had hoped for more.

She started the car. The discussion was closed.

The afternoon Madeleine Roos drove out to the island was his fiftieth birthday. She said she had had to ask twice for directions. She held out a small package. ‘From us both,’ she said. He opened it. A book of Tomas Tranströmer’s poems.
Det vilda torget
. When he had thanked her he asked, ‘Why didn’t you ring? I might not have been at home.’

‘I didn’t want to ring.’

She smiled and rose on her toes and kissed him lightly on the cheek.

‘Happy birthday.’

They walked along the coast. A day of early spring sun­shine, calm, the light still pale. South of Österbåts the wind rose. They heard the ropes smack and drum against the flagless poles in front of the summer houses. Down by Förängen the sea began to roar outside the bay. The waves reared up out of the massive water and the crests came flying in to deposit creamy edges at their feet. They climbed out on the rocks, swaying to keep their balance, pulling quickly back with shouts of laughter when an especially big wave threatened to submerge their winter boots.

Soon their eyes grew so wet from the wind they could no longer see and they decided to cross over to the lee side of the island. The storm wasn’t as relentless there, it came in lashes, then dropped again. Smoke leaked out of local people’s chimneys before it disappeared in jerks. They could talk.

Passing the churchyard she said Anders had mentioned that his wife was buried on the island. ‘Is her grave in there?’

‘Yes. There’s nowhere else one can be buried here.’

He showed her the old wind-dried bench on the church landing stage where the boats used to put in when people came from neighbouring islands to attend Sunday service. The bench had a beautiful patina, a silvery grey surface soft and rough as cigar ash. They sat on it a while. A forgotten flag gave a series of brisk little slaps before the wind caught it again and stretched it full out. She pushed her fists deep into the side pockets of her suede coat. A gesture he had grown fond of. Her stomach pressed clearly against the fabric. He asked her how much time was left. Five months? Six?

‘Are you looking forward to it?’ he asked spontaneously and found his question strange as soon as he said it.

She flinched, then got to her feet. He too stood and saw her dark pupils float in liquid. He touched her arm but she moved away. As they walked home her coat was pulled tight down by her balled fists in the pockets.

Sitting in the kitchen they talked more frankly than they had before, as though his question had forced open something in her. She told him that Anders wanted to know the sex of the child but she didn’t.

‘I don’t want to know if it’s a girl or a boy. I just don’t.’

She was close to crying again, and he took her hand. Her nails dug into his palm.

‘You want it to be a surprise?’

‘A surprise? No! Oh, I don’t want to go on about it,’ she said. Once more the tears began to slide down her cheeks. She brushed them off with the fingers of her free hand, first one cheek, then the other, and looked away a moment to steady her voice.

She asked him about Carlos, about his plans and his ambitions. Dan said Carlos now wanted to be a criminal defence lawyer in New York. ‘He claims there are so many crooks around it’s an assured living.’ Madeleine smiled. At that moment it seemed as if her smile would be enough. Without any need for anything more. Ever.

They were still holding hands when she took hers away, gently, and looked out the window as though something was happening out there. But nothing was. There was just the darkening sky and the black-veined skeletons of the fruit trees and the two snow-capped rhododendron bushes, the same as before. She looked back at him. ‘You wouldn’t be betraying her,’ she said. ‘It’s surely what she’d have wanted for you.’

He felt his shoulders stiffen, a reaction he at once disliked.

‘It’s not like that,’ he told her.

‘No? What is it like?’ she asked softly.

‘I know she’s dead. I know she’s gone for good. I’m sick of thinking about it but I’m sick of trying to think about the future too, as though there were any future worth having.’

‘We all need to tell ourselves a few white lies now and then. Is that so bad? It’s part of being able to live, isn’t it?’

She stared at him briefly. She brushed her hair back, exposing her face.

‘I don’t know if I’ll have the baby,’ she said calmly.

Her saying it shocked him. ‘What?’ he said.

‘I’ve thought of having an abortion. There are clinics in St Petersburg. It’s just an overnight boat trip away. Places where they do nothing else but late-term abortions. I’ll have to decide soon though.’

‘Does Anders want that?’

‘He doesn’t know. I’m going to go there on my own.’

‘On your own?’

‘Yes.’

‘You can’t do that! It would be awful!’

She didn’t answer.

Instead she looked out the window again. She didn’t know, she said calmly, when her marriage started to dissolve. Maybe six months ago, a year ago, she wasn’t sure. A shift in her way of looking at it. That was all. She knew of course that Anders was unfaithful from time to time but they were passing affairs, hardly more than flirts. Flirting had always been part of his charm: the boyish smile, the sudden earnestness, the flash of genuine warmth. She never felt they threatened her marriage. But now something had changed.

‘What?’

‘I don’t know. He’s seeing someone of course, I don’t know who. Someone new. But he’s always been seeing other women, not necessarily having affairs with them. Is it my pregnancy that makes me this way, do you think? He wanted children, I was the one who wasn’t sure. Then I thought maybe it would make things better. That was a foolish idea if ever there was one.’

‘Has he said anything about it?’

‘He says he’s thrilled. But I know that won’t stop him seducing other women.’

She sat for a long time, looking away from Dan. ‘It’s awful that I feel like this!’ she said suddenly and she put her fists to her eyes with her elbows on the table. ‘Awful!’

Later, as though talking of a mutual acquaintance, she said, ‘Do you think Anders might be more serious about this one? Whoever she is? I have the feeling she’s a lot in his thoughts just now.’ She looked at Dan and smiled. He said he didn’t know.

‘Doesn’t he tell you things like that?’ she asked.

‘No. Men seldom do.’

‘But you’re a close friend of his?’

‘We used to be close, yes. He’s always been good company.’

‘That’s true. He’s easy to get on with. We’ve never had a row, you know. Not once.’

After a moment she said that maybe that was part of the problem. They listened to each other without taking each other in. She had thought her becoming pregnant would change that. But it didn’t.

She looked down at her empty teacup and touched its rim with the edge of her spoon, playing with it, which was unlike her.

‘You know, I sometimes wonder if he’s ever loved me,’ she said.

‘He married you.’

‘The idea of me.’

‘What does that mean?’

Instead of answering she said that the happiest time was when they’d taken over the house from her parents, doing it up. And opening the antique showroom. Then she discovered he was already having an affair. Or continuing an old one. She wasn’t sure which.

‘There have been others,’ she said. ‘I know they don’t matter. They really don’t.’ She stopped to look up at him. ‘Of course they’re hurtful just the same. Isn’t that stupid?’

She was crying again. She clutched his fingers, held them tight until the crying stopped.

‘There’s someone more serious now. I can sense that,’ she said matter-of-factly. She took out a handkerchief and dried her eyes. ‘But what a thing to do at a time like this!’

‘It’ll pass,’ he said.

She didn’t answer.

‘What I mean,’ he said, ‘is maybe you shouldn’t go to St Petersburg.’

It was something he felt rather than thought and the strength of the feeling surprised him.

‘You think I shouldn’t?’ she asked calmly. ‘Why?’

What he wanted to say was because you’ll regret it.

‘When can I see you again?’ he asked her instead.

‘Do you want to?’

‘Yes, of course.’

She said her mother would be coming to spend Easter with them. ‘She’s been alone since the divorce. And she’s not well. But the moment she’s gone I’ll come to see you again. If that’s all right.’

In the little hall, putting on her coat, she said that she loved it out here, the cosiness of the little house, the island lying so still in the sea.

‘Next time I’ll ring first to make sure you’re home.’

‘I’m not going anywhere.’

‘I’ll probably go to St Petersburg. Once Mummy’s gone after Easter.’

‘What will Anders say?’

‘Why should I tell him? Let it be a fait accompli.’

‘Madeleine!’

‘What?’

‘You can’t do it alone. It would be horrible.’

‘What do you suggest? That I ask my mother to come with me?’

‘I’ll go with you. If you insist on doing it, I’ll go with you.’

‘Would you? Seriously?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re an extraordinary man. You really are.’

In the days that followed he stuck to his routine, working, cooking, sleeping, going for long walks late in the afternoon. His breath pushed small clouds into the dark-blue air each time he set out. Sune Isaksson dropped by to see him.

‘What are you doing for Easter?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Me neither,’ Sune said. He was looking fitter than he had. ‘I’m feeling better – ever since I stopped that damned therapy. I’d rather live again for a few months than drag things out like I’ve been doing.’

‘How long?’

‘I won’t see the leaves fall this year, that’s for sure. But right now I’m as well as I’ve ever been. Better! All that’s lacking is a good woman to get me going now and then.’

‘Will you find one out here?’

‘Maybe not. But I’m damned if I’m going back into town. Talking of women,’ he growled, ‘I hear you’ve met Lena Sundman.’

‘Do you have some sort of military intelligence out here?’

‘You were seen on the ferry.’

‘There wasn’t anyone on the ferry.’

‘There’s always someone. A minimum of two. According to the regulations. She tell you the story when you drove her to see the farm at Bromskär?’

‘She told me nothing.’

‘Her father grew up there after his parents died. They were his aunt and uncle and they had no children of their own so they treated him like a son. Lena spent a lot of time with the old couple herself, especially after her parents split up. There’s another family living there at the moment though – and that’s what I want to talk to you about. Maybe I’ve found someone to do your painting for you.’

‘What makes you think I want any painting done?’

‘You can’t leave it like this! And what about upstairs? They’re already getting the roofing on. The rooms must be finished and dried out by now. And the insurance company’ll pay so why not.’

‘Who are you trying to foist on me, Sune?’

‘A young man called Gabriel Rabban. He’s one of the family over at the farm. They’re good people, they could do with a little money.’

‘Gabriel Rabban.’

‘Iraqi refugees. They’ve been living there for a couple of years, off and on, helping the widow until she died. Gabriel’s at a loose end now.’

‘How do you know he wants to do it?’

‘I’ve talked to them. He wants to.’

Dan considered the idea. It would be nice to have the place in order when Madeleine next came out. And if she did decide to leave Anders she could always stay here. There’d be no need for an abortion. She and her baby could live here as long as she wanted.

‘At least let me send him over,’ Sune said. ‘That way you can talk to him and see.’

Halfway through the following morning Gabriel Rabban presented himself. A slender young man with a full-lipped face. His eyes were big and dark. It was easy to sense a brooding presence beneath them. He spoke Swedish with no trace of a foreign accent.