Thursday was pretty much like Wednesday. Admittedly when she went out to pee at half past seven it wasn’t raining, but the grass was soaking wet and a little while later the rain started again.
And it went on all day, more or less. Valdemar arrived at his usual time, she helped him unload the bags from the car and they dashed into the kitchen with them. He had really stocked up on provisions: as well as three ICA carrier bags of food he’d also bought a saw, an axe, a sack of peat litter for the compost toilet, a pair of wellies, some thick socks and various other bits and pieces.
A big tin of white paint, for example. Brushes and a roller and tray.
‘I thought we could paint the inside walls,’ he said. ‘Make it look a bit less drab.’
‘Let me do it,’ came her instant suggestion. ‘As a . . . well, as a thank-you gesture for letting me stay here.’
‘But I wouldn’t expect you to—’ he began, but she interrupted him.
‘Why not? I’m good at painting walls. I’ve done it before, at home at my mum’s, and then in the flat I lived in.’
‘Hm,’ he said, looking at her over the top of his glasses.
‘And I think you’re right, by the way,’ she said. ‘It’ll really brighten things up in here if it’s painted white.’
‘Humph,’ he said. ‘I don’t know that I should—’
‘Oh yes you should. I want to do something for you. Please?’
He gave a shrug. ‘Well I’m not so goddamn keen on painting that I’ll beg to be allowed to do it. In fact, you might be able to get it done over the weekend, I suppose.’
‘You won’t be coming at the weekend?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’ve got a few other things to do.’
‘I see.’
‘This and that. Like I said.’
‘Oh? Well, I can paint on Saturday and Sunday. If you’ll let me stay that long, that is?’
‘Suppose I’ll have to, then,’ he said.
One corner of his mouth gave a humorous twitch as he said it, and she found herself thinking it was a shame he wasn’t her dad. It was a notion that came into her mind without warning, and she was obliged to chuckle herself.
Then they stowed away the shopping in the fridge and cupboards, and had their morning coffee.
‘Mind if I ask you a question?’
‘No, ask away.’
‘It’s something I started wondering about yesterday evening after you’d gone. You needn’t answer if you don’t want to.’
‘That’s a right a person always has.’
‘Eh?’
‘Only to answer if they want to.’
She thought about this. ‘Yes, you’re right of course. Well, what I’m wondering is whether you drive out here to Lograna every day?’
‘Yes I do. In the week, that is.’
‘And your wife doesn’t know about it?’
‘No.’
‘What’s her name, by the way?’
‘Alice, her name’s Alice.’
‘But where does Alice think you go every morning, then?’
He clasped his hands, propped his elbows on the table and rested his chin on his knuckles. He seemed to be searching for the right words. A few seconds went by and then he sighed, as if he just couldn’t be bothered to search any more.
‘To work, of course.’
‘To work?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you’ve stopped work.’
‘I haven’t told her that.’
She looked at him in bewilderment. ‘You’ve lost me now.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I can understand that. But of course it wasn’t part of the plan for me to meet you and have to explain all sorts of things.’
‘No, I get that.’
He took off his glasses and sighed again. ‘Life isn’t always a bundle of bloody laughs, you should know that.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Of course I know.’
‘Sometimes it feels pretty unbearable.’
‘Mhmm?’
‘Yes, that was the long and short of it. I couldn’t bear it any longer, so I stopped work and bought myself this place.’
‘Why couldn’t you bear it?’
He pondered this. Clasped his hands behind the back of his neck for variety and looked up at the ceiling.
‘I don’t know. It just happened that way.’
‘Happened that way?’
‘Yes. I haven’t really got to the bottom of why.’
‘Mhmm.’
‘And I couldn’t care less, actually,’ he went on. ‘When you get as old as I am, you have to accept some things without digging around in them. The fact that you are who you are, for example.’
She raised her eyebrows in surprise. Then she laughed.
‘You know what, Valdemar, I’m glad I met you. Awfully glad, because you’re so . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘Refreshing, I suppose.’
‘Refreshing?’
‘Yes.’
‘You must be out of your mind, Anna.’ But he was finding it hard not to laugh, too. ‘If you think I’m refreshing, I feel sorry for you. I’m about as refreshing as a rubbish tip. Now I’m going to lie down and do crosswords for a while. It’s too wet for a walk in the forest today, don’t you think?’
She looked out of the window. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You’re right. But there was one more thing I wanted to ask . . . if it won’t make you cross?’
‘Cross? Why should I be cross? Well?’
‘You’ve got a mobile phone, haven’t you?’
Valdemar patted the outside of his breast pocket. ‘Yes, it’s sleeping here today as well.’
‘I wonder if I could borrow it and call my mum? I’ll just ring quickly and then she’ll ring me back. It’ll cost you hardly anything.’
Valdemar nodded and handed her his phone. ‘You can sit here in the kitchen and ring. The signal can be a bit patchy, mind. I’m going to have a little lie-down in there, like I said.’
He went into the living room and shut the door after him.
‘Ania, is anything the matter?’
‘Can you call me on this number?’
She ended the call and waited. It took almost five minutes for the phone to ring.
Why? thought Anna. Why can’t she ever call me straight away? There’s always something more important.
‘Ania, is anything the matter?’
The same opening gambit, word for word.
‘Yes,’ said Anna. ‘You could say that.’
‘I’m still at Mum’s in Warsaw, you know. It costs a lot to ring you.’
‘I know. I just wanted to tell you I’m not at the Elvafors centre any more.’
‘You’re not? Oh God, Anna, why not?’
‘So they didn’t call and tell you?’
‘No. But why are you—?
‘I ran away. It was such a shithole, but you needn’t worry about me. I’m fine.’
‘So where are you now?’
It took her a few moments to bring the name to mind. ‘I’m at a place called Lograna.’
‘Lograna? What’s that.’
‘It’s a house in the middle of the forest. I’m staying here for a while, then we’ll have to see. How long will you be in Poland?’
Anna’s mother sighed and Anna heard someone switch on a TV set in the background. Her mother told someone called Mariusz to turn the volume down.
‘I don’t know how long I shall have to stay, Anna. Mum’s not at all well. She’s in hospital, and I don’t know if she’ll pull through this time.’
Anna felt a hot prickling in her throat and at the backs of her eyes. ‘And Marek?’
‘He’s at Majka and Tomek’s. He’s fine. But he might be coming down here too, I’m not sure.’
‘Right,’ said Anna.
‘But this . . . Lograna?’ said her mother. ‘Where is it? And who are you staying with?’
‘I’m just fine,’ said Anna. ‘You don’t need to worry. I only rang to let you know I’d left Elvafors.’
‘Anna, you haven’t . . . please tell me you haven’t started . . .?’
‘No,’ said Anna. ‘I haven’t started again. Bye then, Mum.’
‘Bye,’ said her mother. ‘Look after yourself, Anna.’
She quickly rang off before tears got the better of her.
Fuck, she thought. Why does it always have to be like this?
He set off for home at five o’clock as usual, promising to bring sandpaper and a roll of masking tape the next day.
They hadn’t talked a great deal that afternoon. It had rained almost non-stop and they’d kept the fire well fed with wood. Spent the time reading and doing crosswords, and she’d sung him another song. Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
‘You sing so beautifully it makes me feel as though I’m in Heaven, Anna,’ he’d said.
‘Maybe this is what Heaven looks like,’ she’d quipped with a laugh.
‘Why not?’ he’d agreed. He’d looked around the modest room and given a laugh of his own. ‘Anna and Valdemar in the heavenly kingdom of Lograna.’
She’d felt a bit bereft after he had gone. Heaven? she thought. Well, maybe they were right. Maybe it was as simple as that.
‘Never better than this,’ he had said as well. It was just before he got into the car and drove away. ‘But you’re too young to know it.’
She hadn’t understood what he meant – or perhaps she had. In any case, it was such a melancholy piece of knowledge that she hadn’t really wanted to accept it.
Just as he had said. She was too young. She thought that she ought to be feeling happy. She would be allowed to stay here for at least three more days. Paint walls and make herself a bit useful; she liked painting and if she happened to want to stay on, he presumably wouldn’t deny her that, either. For a few more days, anyway. A week, give or take. So what was wrong? Where had this sudden gloom come from?
She hadn’t tired of the heavenly kingdom of Lograna, that wasn’t what was putting her in low spirits – though she knew the euphoria of the first few days couldn’t last for ever. Euphoria, she liked that word. Because if the word existed, so must the feeling. She remembered that poem by Gunnar Ekelöf they’d read in upper secondary; it was a shame that Swedish lessons hadn’t been devoted just to poetry, then she wouldn’t have disliked them as much as she had.
But this was a different feeling. A sort of mournfulness, yes, and she realized it was her conversation with her mother that was lingering inside her and making her sad. And this above all: when life got fragile, her mother had always been the most important lifeline, and if she noticed that the line was stretched too thin, that it couldn’t really take her weight, well, that was when the darkness and the abyss suddenly loomed dangerously close.
Young girl, dumb girl, try to be a brave girl, she tried telling herself. She sat with her pen and pad for a while, writing and crossing out one stupid line after another. It just wasn’t working, the words on the paper looked banal and meaningless as soon as she looked back at them, and she gave up after twenty minutes. She went out and stood under the little overhanging roof of the front door; she smoked a full pipe, making herself feel dizzy and slightly queasy. The rain was persistent and surrounded her with a thin but hostile wall, and she was very aware that if she had had access to a drug stronger than tobacco, she would have taken it without a moment’s hesitation.
That’s the thing, she thought once she had lit a fresh fire and curled up under the blanket. It’s not enough to be strong ninety-nine times, you have to hang on through the hundredth, too.
Although it was only seven o’clock, she fell asleep, and when she woke up two hours later the room was dark and the fire had gone out. She was really cold; without putting the light on, she grabbed her thicker top off the back of the chair and put it on, and it was then, glancing out of the window, that she saw a man standing out on the road, looking at the house.