The Best Book in the World (16 page)

Astra looks at Eddie, somewhat surprised. What does the plot of the book matter at this point? Eddie looks away.

‘I mean, I wonder how he’s feeling? I wonder what’s happened.’

‘I just don’t get it. I thought he was in good balance. He looked young and fit didn’t he? You saw him at my place earlier today.’

Eddie’s eyebrows rise a centimetre or two. Now he looks genuinely curious.

‘Young and fit? Well, actually I don’t think he did. I thought he looked a bit tipsy. I think he had probably already had a shot or two.’

‘I don’t know about that. No, something must have happened this evening.’

As they approach the harbour, Astra phones and orders a taxi. Eddie asks if she wants him to accompany her. She doesn’t. Or rather, she does, but she knows that Eddie makes Titus nervous. He has nagged her so much not to talk about what he is busy with, and especially not to Eddie X. No, regrettably she must track down Titus on her own.

Something is happening to Eddie. His mouth looks like a line. His eyes are smarting. He grips the tiller so hard that his knuckles turn white.

Titus looks at his watch. It’s well after midnight. He realises that the sailors could be back in the city any time but that he has no idea if his text has actually been received or if Astra has even seen it. It was a bit of a shot in the dark, and now he really has no idea which strategy he should follow.

He sneaks out of Eddie’s house and starts walking home quickly. He must air his brain, think and try to sort out his alternatives.

Option one. He hits the bottle quick as hell and hopes that Astra forgives him for this one and only escapade. He’ll grovel at her feet, petition for mercy and hope she will still have faith in him. At the same time he will warn Astra about Eddie. But why should she believe him? And what should he claim to be the danger from Eddie? No, he can’t hit the bottle to save himself. That would risk everything. Better to be obsessed than dependent. Forget it. Not a good alternative.

Option two. He tells it like it is. That his paranoia drove him to break into Eddie’s house and that he had searched his computer and now considered he could prove that a historic theft of ideas is under way, and that Eddie is intending to carry out a
pretentious
seduction of Astra with the help of horrible sailing
metaphors
. No, that isn’t going to work; he cannot reveal to a single living soul that he, Titus Jensen, has deliberately broken into the home of one of the most popular figures in the country. Christ, no. He drops that idea too.

Option three. He can resort to yet another white lie and concoct a half-truth. He can say that he sent his ‘relapse’ text purely to arouse Astra’s attention. That much is true. And then he can say that he happened to meet Eddie’s mate Lenny in town, and that according to him Eddie has boasted about how easy it would be to get Astra into bed, that she has completely fallen for him and now all Eddie has to do is to bait the hook. Titus can say that he does of course know that Astra is fully capable of looking after herself, but that she nevertheless must be informed as to the rules of Eddie’s dirty game. If Eddie only sees Astra as a trophy, then she must be appraised of the fact. It is his obligation as a friend to tell the bitter truth. He apologises for his abrupt text message but felt that something special was required to gain her attention. Titus realises deep inside that a teenage-like seduction boast doesn’t fit in very well with Eddie’s character, but he also feels that he doesn’t have the time or the ability to find other ways out of his dilemma. He has to give it a try, and it is at any rate not a completely rotten strategy. With a bit of luck it might just hit home. Or rather, it simply must work.

He is soon home again. He turns his phone on and waits for Astra to ring. Because she is going to, isn’t she? Surely?

When Astra climbs into the taxi, she is rather bewildered by all the emotions rushing around inside her. She has had a wonderful evening with Eddie: wild sailing, romantic dinner, intimate
conversation
, night swimming and kissing in the nude – all within the course of a few hours. What a pace! They are probably beginning to fall in love with each other, she thinks, and smiles to herself. She would never have thought that she would fall for a guy with
extra-large
coloured silk shirts. She is usually waylaid by blokes with expensive suits and smart hairstyles. Astra has no idea which women Eddie has had, but she doesn’t think they usually have an electronic calendar and ten-thousand-kronor shoes in their hall. But evidently opposites attract each other; the greater the charge at the ends, the greater the magnetism.

She tries to phone Titus again. Perhaps he has turned his phone on now.

Titus is sitting at the kitchen table staring at his mobile phone, and answers immediately when it rings:

‘Hi Astra. Where are you?’

‘I’m sitting in a taxi. But where are you? What’s happened?’

‘I’m at home. Can you come over?’ he says in a serious but short tone.

‘Sure. Are you all right?’

‘We can talk more when you’re here.’

Titus doesn’t even notice that Astra has no make-up and that her hair has that after-sex look. As soon as she comes in, he takes her hand and leads her to the computer. He bends down and puts the tube into his mouth. The breathalyser-lock approves his breath and the computer welcomes him to a new work session. He spreads his hands.

‘There, you see? I’m sober.’

‘Yes, I see that. I’m very pleased, I must say. What the hell are you playing at, really?’

Titus looks seriously at Astra and says that he’ll tell her everything.

And he does.

He tells her why he was forced to send her a false text message. How and why he came across Lenny. That Lenny was sloshed and blurted out everything Eddie had said about how he was going to mount Astra. How Lenny laughed and was twitching and jerking at the same time as he was obviously deeply impressed by Eddie’s ability to seduce women. How he imitated Eddie’s obscene gestures with which described that the final conquest would take place on all fours. That Titus hadn’t really believed Lenny, but that Lenny could even quote from a poem Eddie had written about Astra. Some rubbish about something that ‘shines all shiny’ and how he would shag her on his boat
Come aboard amour.
And that Eddie had said to Lenny that as soon as he had Astra on the hook then he would start pumping her for information about Titus’ new book.

That last bit wasn’t really planned. It just sort of slipped out.

Titus becomes silent and realises he can’t just keep on gabbling non-stop. He must give Astra a chance to digest it all.

The strategy has worked. He can see that from her long face. He isn’t proud of himself, but he does feel that what he has saved is of considerable value.

‘I didn’t know what to do! All I knew was that you were on a sailing date with Eddie. And I know Eddie, he can twist anybody round his little finger. I just had to do something. Do you understand?’

Astra stares at Titus. The words from Titus’ outburst whirl around inside her head, but don’t form any proper meaning. Shines all shiny… shines all shiny… shines all shiny… the words create a little whirlpool in her brain like water draining from a bathtub. At first you hardly notice anything, there is just a little trace of movement on the surface. But soon the laws of gravity and the forces of nature get the upper hand. The whirlpool makes demands, and it takes with it everything it can see on its increasingly wild clockwise journey. It can even suck a big toe into the drain.

In Astra’s head, the shines-all-shiny whirlpool whizzes around faster and faster. It soon sucks down common sense, which until now has managed to swim calmly and sensibly on the surface. Perspective and discernment join the roundabout too. ‘Shines all shiny’ grows into a maelstrom. She recognises that expression all too well: they are Eddie’s words, no doubt about it. She feels disgusted, partly by the idea that Eddie had planned his romantic attack upon her. Can it really be true? She is also disgusted to have been a subject of discussion between two cultural misfits at a pub as if she were just some damned plaything. She has no wish whatsoever to be the focus of their conversation. Why is she sitting here in the middle of the night in the flat of a nutty has-been who not only interferes in her life but also thinks he is capable of writing a book that can top the bestseller lists in several different categories? How did she get sucked into this swamp? This is crazy, why couldn’t she have an ordinary job instead? Lawyer, accountant, bank director, any bloody job at all?

But no way is she ever going to descend to Titus’ Neanderthal level and start crying or talking it out with him. Never ever. Coolness and professionalism, these are the only things that work with these decrepit old men.

‘I don’t know what to say, Titus. This is just too much. You make me so tired.’

‘I know, Astra. I’m sorry that it turned out like this. At first I didn’t know what I should do. But I was forced to tell you the truth.’

Astra inhales a slow breath through her nose and exhales it the same way. Then she gets up and leaves Titus.

She feels like she has gone down the plughole herself.

A
few days pass. August comes to an end and September takes over.

After his visit to study Eddie’s home, Titus feels a great sense of calm. Eddie has obviously had the idea of starting on
The Best
Book in the World
since he has a folder in his computer with that name. But everything he touches is lacking in substance. It is useless. He is never going to succeed by himself. That is most satisfactory, in Titus’ opinion.

Titus, however, is churning out chapter after chapter for his concise manuscript. It is brief, powerful and without a load of boring digressions into detail and recourse to cliché. He is going to keep his readers on tenterhooks and treat them to one cracker after the other.

He finds several wonderful recipes that will allow Håkan Rink to stick to his ABC Method. Soon he’ll have a fully fledged cookery book. The parallel track around fulfilling yourself and finding your self-respect is also becoming much clearer as Håkan Rink and his team achieve major breakthroughs in their personal lives and in their police work. Titus writes checklists and provides examples of concrete plans of action so that the readers can build up speed with their own successful lives as soon as they have finished reading. No end of doctrines, tips and good advice. Meanwhile, the thriller itself is most captivating; the
run-through
of Serial Salvador’s driving forces is not only an exposé of the dark side of mankind, but also an excellent guide to the history of the twentieth century seen from the perspective of the most important ‘isms’ of the whole period. Titus writes several short essay-like sections which he indicates with an indentation of the text so that the readers will understand that they can just skim
through if they are feeling impatient. It is vital keep the readers on-side.

These days, with summer nearing its end, have turned into
yet another intensive working period for Titus. He follows his routines of gym training and regular meals. He skips the sunbed because he risks at any moment ending up looking like a cultural drunk who has gone to seed, not least when he does that reading at the Poetry Slam Festival that Eddie persuaded him to agree to. Muscles and senses on full alert, that is the order of the day until the book is finished. Better to be obsessed than dependent.

He doesn’t have any more contact with Astra. She doesn’t answer when he phones, and he doesn’t leave any messages on her answering service. He knows very well that everybody at the publishing house has lots to do in the run-up to the annual book fair in Gothenburg at the end of September, and as regards the advance presentation of the project
The Best Book in the World
he is fully confident that Astra and Evita will produce a smart brochure which will have a knock-out effect on the buyers from foreign publishers. Evita thinks with her wallet and normally succeeds in everything she touches. Titus Jensen is not going to be an exception, he thinks, hopefully.

Astra is also slaving away. After the evening sail she has turned off everything which isn’t connected to work. She has allowed a bomb to explode in her calendar which is now full of meetings with authors, book-cover designers, marketing people and literary agents.

Eddie tries to phone her many times. He sends flowers and poems. On one occasion, he even sends her an old cuddly hamster soft toy that plays David Bowie’s
The Prettiest Star
when you squeeze its tummy. Astra can’t help smiling a little when she thinks how many vintage shops he must have trawled through to find that.

She refuses to see herself as a victim. What does it matter if Eddie has talked with Lenny about how he is going to seduce her? Isn’t it rather charming for a guy to know what he wants? And how many times hasn’t she herself objectified Eddie and appraised his bottom instead of his poetry? No, this isn’t about Eddie’s intentions – it’s the double-dealing in his behaviour that she can’t
accept. You can’t act as if you are an androgynous poet and the next second transmogrify into a babbling male chauvinist pig. Is he a man or a teenage boy? She wants a decent mix of oestrogen and testosterone, not to feel like she has been picked up after a boozy evening at a bar by somebody who tastes of caveman. Her feelings for Eddie are mixed, and she decides to take a break from everything to do with emotions. Leave it for a few weeks and see which feelings survive and which go up in smoke. The next time she meets Eddie, she wants to be certain that her brain and her loins will cooperate.

And as for Titus, at the moment she is simply hopelessly fed up with him. She knows that he has tried to get in touch but as long as he doesn’t have anything important to deal with, they can just as well each work on their own. He has a one-track mind and probably isn’t thinking about anything besides himself and his book project. And she has done so much to make it easy for him: arranged his computer to force him to take breaks, got him a gym pass and fixed all sorts of things so that he can get a life again. But does he show the slightest bit of gratitude? No, he doesn’t. Everything, simply everything, revolves around
The Best Book in the World,
and even if he doesn’t say it straight out, she can feel that Titus’ world is becoming increasingly full of weird threatening situations and shady conspiracy theories. He seems to be high on speed, and the whole thing is extremely irritating. But she isn’t surprised in the slightest. It must be harmful to throw yourself from one extreme to the other like Titus has done. One moment he is a hard-drinking cultural has-been, the next he is a hard-working artist who delivers superb texts. She is a little worried that it will soon be like pouring ice-cold water onto a rock that has been many hours in the full sun – when he cracks open, the explosion will be powerful.

‘He has been inside my home. He has stopped my love. He has stolen it!’

Eddie X slams his hand down on the desk so that the computer jumps up. He can’t concentrate on work. He can’t write, not a single word. Something is churning away inside him, an unpleasant
sensation which is increasing all the time. Sometimes it feels as if he had swapped something valuable. Sometimes it feels as if he had lost it forever. And he can’t get hold of Astra either.

He is tired and feels apathetic. The blood is draining out of his veins. Words disappear from his mouth. Ideas evaporate from his brain. What is left is a vacuum, an empty space. He will soon implode.

It doesn’t help to go into vintage shops and buy colourful clothes. It doesn’t make it better to smile at people he meets in town and who expect a friendly reception.

He wants to be able to kick an empty beer can without people wrinkling their nose at him.

He wants to be able to disappear like a chameleon against a wall.

He wants to sleep.

But he can’t.

He has been reading. And, sure, it is an obvious theft. They are going to discover that. Now he must work, regain the initiative. That is the right path.

He knows what must be done, and he is concocting his plans.