A NEW DAY and different but still familiar emotions were governing her. Jeanette felt better, but not well—she never did. But today the booze was like a peaked cap surrounding the brain with cotton, wrapping the body in a sense of well-being that was reminiscent of a soft and warm fleece blanket in front of a roaring fire. Here and now she was safe, surrounded by people who wanted the best for her and whom she cared about in return, screened off from all those people walking past with their vague outlines, their gazes neutral or contemptuous.
On days like this she didn’t care about them, all those people who lived real lives and hurried from work to the bank to home to kindergarten to the shops—from life to death. She couldn’t care less about their welfare, and even though she occasionally recognised some of them from her former life, she never let herself be depressed. Life was here and now, amongst those people who shared her daily existence, her joys and hardships.
She was still getting over the blow to the nose that had floored her the other day, the black eye that had now gone a shade of poisonous green. Her fellow companions in misfortune were treating her gently, showing a tenderness that she had not experienced for a long time, with gentle physical touches and soft words. She responded to the friendliness with heartfelt words and laughter that was infectious.
A day on the bench could be like that—and that was presumably what they all hoped for every day. The noisy but friendly atmosphere prevailed while the merciless reality remained at a safe distance and didn’t make any immediate or heavy demands.
This was the atmosphere Jeanette found herself in when a person—flesh and blood—took shape amongst the passersby on the asphalt path. Out of the fog of alcohol stepped a figure with a more distinct outline and something markedly recognisable about her. A woman of her own age, but not someone she knew from school or her job. Since she was unable to work out who the familiar face belonged to straight away, she tried to shake it all off, but something stopped her.
The woman was tall and slender with her blond hair tied in a long, loose ponytail that rested on one shoulder. She was wearing a skirt and blouse—office wear—but was relaxed, wearing comfortable shoes and not excessively elegant. She looked nice, Jeanette thought, with her old and rarely utilised eye for looks.
But who was she? For some reason, that woman who was now disappearing behind a car by the School Gate in the city wall meant something to Jeanette—she could feel it. But in what way?
She reappeared momentarily, before turning right to go through the gate onto Södra Murgatan, and shortly after that she was gone for good. Jeanette let her gaze rest on the point where the woman had disappeared, while her brain worked to get to the bottom of who she was.
“You’re a long way away, Jen,” said Lubbi, who seemed to have kept her under constant watch since the accident a few days before.
It was in that moment that she realised who the woman was. Of course—how could she have forgotten? Granted, she was more out of it than she had thought, which explained her relatively good mood, and the fact that it didn’t leave her now that she was thinking about things that she had been making an effort to forget.
“Did you see someone you knew?” Nanna asked as she paced back and forth just behind the bench on which Jeanette, Lubbi, and the brawler, Micki, were sitting.
“Not exactly,” Jeanette replied, still unable to draw her gaze away.
“An old lover?” Lubbi suggested.
Jeanette returned to the constricting reality around her and saw Nanna slap him on the shoulder and give him a stern look. But for some reason Lubbi’s question didn’t bother her. The sense of unease didn’t take hold of her conscience, and the blond woman’s appearance didn’t hurt either. Jeanette refused to let go of this exhilaration she felt in her body—she wanted to continue being at the centre of her friends’ attention and being watched by devoted eyes. And hearing her own voice.
Yes, that was exactly how it was. She wanted to talk and be taken seriously, in the same way as she had been when she had collapsed on the path after being hit in the face by a pointy elbow. When she had lost herself in bittersweet memories and felt the combined support of her friends in her new life. This was why she replied honestly to Lubbi’s coarse question:
“My old lover’s wife.”
Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to talk about these things while so inebriated, but there were greater forces within her encouraging her to go the other way.
“The one you gave everything . . . up for?” Lubbi guessed with a degree of sensitivity in his voice that hadn’t been there a moment before.
“You remember?” Jeanette smiled at him.
“Of course.” Lubbi smiled back. “You loved him and I love love. So was that his wife? You don’t really know her?”
“I don’t know her at all, but I recognise her,” Jeanette replied, pulling out a bottle of cheap, sweet wine from the backpack on the ground in front of her.
“Why did it end between you?” asked Micki, who had missed the whole introduction a few days earlier.
“Because it went to hell, Micki,” Lubbi said helpfully. “Like relationships often do.”
And that was as true as could be, but Jeanette was ready to give them some more.
“He disappeared,” she said, twisting the cap and taking a swig from the bottle. “One day he was suddenly gone.”
The others didn’t appear to know whether to interpret the information literally or whether she was paraphrasing the sad end to a relationship, but Kat—one of the more boisterous people in the group—squeezed herself onto the bench between Micki and Lubbi and began asking questions.
“Poof!” she said, snapping her fingers. “Magic!”
“You’re joking, Kat,” said Jeanette, who wasn’t in the mood to bandy words about. “But he really disappeared. It was in the papers with big headlines. His family appealed for help.”
“But you didn’t, because you knew where he was,” Kat laughed.
Kat didn’t know how right she was, but Jeanette wasn’t willing to go that far with her story.
“You finished the bloke off and dumped him in the sea,” Kat said. “And I’m sure he deserved it!”
“Stop it, girl,” Lubbi warned. “Let Jen tell those of us who are interested what happened next.”
Jeanette passed her the bottle. Kat wasn’t hard to please.
“There is no what happened next,” Jeanette observed. “There’s still no trace of him.”
She lit a cigarette and took a long first drag on it.
“So the chick who passed by here a while ago,” said Lubbi, “is she still married to the guy even though no one has heard from him in—what did you say? Five years?”
“Four years. And four months.”
“And the kids must be getting big because you did say there were kids in the mix, didn’t you?”
“Yes, two.”
“That he won’t see grow up. Or is choosing not to. What do the police think? Is he alive or is he dead?”
“They obviously think he’s dead,” said Jeanette, blowing smoke from the corner of her mouth. “He hasn’t left a trace. He went to work as usual one day and disappeared at lunchtime. No one has seen him since then.”
“And what do you think?” Micki asked.
“I don’t think anything,” Jeanette lied. “Life goes on. For me and for her, who just passed by.”
“But you seem to have taken it harder,” croaked Kat, handing back the bottle. “What with you sitting here on the bench with a bottle of fucking Rosita!”
Then she laughed hoarsely, making her stomach bob and shaking the whole bench. But Jeanette wasn’t prepared to let this moment of togetherness slip through her fingers. That loudmouth wasn’t going to ruin a day that had begun so well.
“She has the children to live for,” she said seriously. “I have nothing.”
“Then you’ll just have to have kids,” Kat clucked cluelessly. “It’s not too late.”
At this, Lubbi heaved himself up from the bench to drag away an unsympathetic Kat, snarling under his breath.
“Is that how you feel?” Micki asked, taking a step closer to Jeanette. “That your life was over when that slouch headed for the hills? Or snuffed it—whatever it was he did.”
“Jen lost her daughter before that,” Nanna clarified in a soft voice behind Jeanette’s head.
“Oh bloody hell,” said Micki. “Now I understand what just happened. Sorry, Jen. Really.”
“Thanks,” said Jeanette, taking a final drag and stubbing the cigarette out under her shoe. “Sometimes I feel like that, but not today. It partly depends how it settles in your brain—the booze, I mean.”
She took another swig from the wine bottle and put it back in her bag. Lubbi returned, pushing Kat in front of him.
“Sorry Jen,” she said dismally, gently touching Jeanette’s shoulder. “I didn’t know . . . You know I didn’t mean anything by it?”
Jeanette nodded.
“It’s fine,” she reassured her, whereupon Kat dejectedly slunk away and Lubbi sat back down on the bench.
“Your old man,” he said, leaning forward with his hands clasped between his knees so that he could look her in the eyes. “Your ex-husband, I mean. Are you still in touch?”
“No, we’re not. We text each other on Charlotte’s birthday, that’s all. And on her death day too,” she added more quietly, although she didn’t really want to think about it.
“You were married,” Lubbi argued. “You went through a tough time together. I don’t understand how he could let you go so completely. Why didn’t he try to help you get back on the right track, if you see what I mean. Does it upset you—me saying that? Should I shut up?”
Jeanette smiled at him. No, she wasn’t upset, and she didn’t want Lubbi to shut up. But his questions weren’t the easiest to answer.
“It was a mutual decision to go our separate ways,” she said in defence of her husband. “He couldn’t put up with me—seeing me in the state I was in—nor could I. It was me who was lying and deceitful and betraying and couldn’t look myself in the mirror. Or him in the eyes. He didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You can’t be sure of that,” said Lubbi without a hint of irony. “Perhaps it was your old man who got rid of him. Your lover, I mean.”
At first, Jeanette thought he was joking, but she saw from his serious expression that this wasn’t the case. Laughter bubbled up inside her, but she didn’t want to hurt Lubbi. Instead she looked down at her tightly clenched hands and took a couple of deep breaths.
“He’s a good person—my ex-husband,” she clarified. “I want nothing except for him to be happy. I set him free because he deserved that, because he deserved a new chance.”
Lubbi reached across Micki and put his hand on her knee. The warmth spread through the denim and into her tepid body.
“You do too, sweetheart,” he said. “Give yourself a second chance. Leave this life. Stop boozing. See a counsellor. Do something.”
And of course she could have done all that, but the rot within her had reached the point of no return. The putrid and tainted thing that was her soul could not be saved either by self-help or therapy.