Forty-Eight

When Allanson walked into Diamond House with the shopping trolley, his mother, Dolores, was in her room sleeping. He waited a while out in the lounge but got tired of that and went in to wake her. His mother’s thin white hair lay unbrushed on the pillow and she seemed confused, but when she saw who had entered the room her face lit up.

‘Ah, my little boy, how nice to see you!’

‘Happy birthday! Congratulations on being one year older!’ Allanson gave her a hug.

‘Nonsense. To congratulate somebody for getting older, my word, it should be the opposite. Every time I have a birthday you should put the flag at half mast and say you are sorry.’

Allanson held out the bag with the cakes in it. ‘We’ve got something here to go with the coffee, and I brought along a surprise for you too. What do you think of this shopping trolley?’

‘To put the cakes in?’

‘No, your knitting wool and your blankets; you can keep all that in it.’

‘Yes, it’ll do nicely for that. Put it in the corner over there and we’ll go and have some coffee.’

‘I’ll just take out the newspaper first.’

‘Don’t worry about that. I’ll ask Nurse Barbara to do it later. I’ve got some coffee cups here, but can you please go and fetch the coffee?’

Allanson did as his mother asked. He always did so, and it was probably for the best. His mother sat on the sofa and indicated that he should sit in the armchair.

‘Do you remember when you were a young lad and had picked lingonberries?’

Allanson nodded. Today his mother seemed to want to talk about the time they had been in the forest and seen bear tracks. It was a long and complicated story and his mother would take a long time telling it. He put the cakes on a plate. Eating sweet cakes made his mother tired, and after a while she would fall asleep. However much he liked her, it was trying to hear the same story over and over again. He leaned back in the armchair. After an hour or so she would be sleeping happily and then he could go off and join Janson.

The construction workers had gone home and the annex was empty. Petra went up to the noticeboard to see who had used the cleaning trolley after her the day she had taken down the paintings. But a new cleaning list had already been put up. She started to walk around in the annex in the vague hope of finding the two missing paintings. She searched everywhere but it was no good. She started to despair and accused herself of being careless for leaving the paintings on the cleaning trolley. From now on she would look at every painting with respect—with the utmost attention. She continued to search in the cellar and the storerooms, and then returned, exhausted, to the annex. Her hands shook as she got out her lighter. What had she done?

She pulled out a cigarette but then remembered that smoking was forbidden inside the hotel. She didn’t want to go to the bar. She could simply do what she used to at school and have a cigarette in the bathroom. So she went into the bathroom and while she was smoking she admired the stucco work on the ceiling and the beautiful washbasins. The fittings here were all blue and silver and the artistically designed taps looked as if they came from a country mansion. It was a pity that the construction workers had left it all so messy. They had left behind tins of paint, brushes, protective paper and lots of other rubbish. Even though the annex wasn’t being used, they could at least have kept the bathroom decent, couldn’t they? She finished her cigarette and flushed the butt down the toilet. Then she gathered several garbage bags and some painting gear that was in the way. She could never leave anything untidy, even when she was not working. Behind some ladders there was a box marked ‘Salvation Army’ with things for the charity shop. She stopped. Right at the bottom she caught a glimpse of two paintings.