Soon afterwards Marie began the laboratory experiment that was to form the core of her master’s dissertation. She ordered seventy-two rats from the Serum Institute’s animal unit, which arrived at the Department of Immunology on the same day that she also received three disease strains in sealed containers. She injected eighteen rats with the BCG vaccine against TB, also known as the Calmette vaccine. She went on to vaccinate the rats against measles before she tagged their tails so that she could tell them apart. Then she distributed thirty-six rats into three separate Plexiglas cages with six vaccinated and six unvaccinated animals in each. In cage number one, she infected the rats with malaria, in cage number two, with pneumococcal disease, and in cage number three, with E. coli.
Afterwards, she injected eighteen of the remaining thirty-six rats with DTP, the vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough, distributed the animals into three cages, again with six vaccinated and six unvaccinated in each, and infected them with the relevant disease strains.
Then she began observing them. Every day she would tend the rats, remove any dead ones and carefully note the results in her log.
It was a major undertaking and she found it hard going. Jesper was working shifts at the orthopaedic surgical ward at Rigshospitalet and stressed repeatedly that he needed his home life to run smoothly, so Marie grafted night and day to keep on top of everything. Nevertheless Jesper grew increasingly irritated that the house was a mess, at the absence of clean socks for him in the morning, and Anton declared on numerous occasions that he refused to eat pasta with shop-bought pesto ever again.
When Marie eventually finished her experiment, she processed her results statistically and was ready to present them to Storm. They had booked Lecture Hall A for the presentation and Storm sat in the third row, looking expectantly at Marie while she hooked up her laptop to the PowerPoint projector. She had butterflies in her tummy, thinking about her results, and she was utterly exhausted. This was her big break.
She opened her presentation by explaining the TB and measles experiments and carefully described the premise for her experiment, how she had vaccinated and infected the rats and finally how she had analysed the results statistically. Marie’s three graphs showed clearly that, whether or not the animals had been infected with malaria, E. coli or pneumococcal disease, the mortality among vaccinated rats was significantly lower than among the unvaccinated. It was clear that the TB and measles vaccines did more good than ‘merely’ protect against tuberculosis and measles.
‘And now we get to the DTP vaccine,’ Marie said. ‘And take a look at this . . .’
Marie clicked and her results came up.
‘In this experiment, the mortality rate among unvaccinated rats is the same as in the previous one,’ she said, pointing first to one graph, then another. ‘However, where before mortality was significantly lower for vaccinated animals than for unvaccinated ones, here it’s the exact opposite. In fact, mortality has risen with a factor as much as 1.75. So while the DTP vaccine protects against diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough, it has a negative impact on the immune system so that vaccinated animals become less resistant to other infections, such as malaria, E. coli or pneumococcal disease, than unvaccinated animals.’
Marie paused for breath.
‘Sixty thousand children in Guinea-Bissau are given the DTP vaccine every year. Now, let’s pretend for a moment that we can draw an exact parallel between the rat experiment and the effect on humans, and let’s assume that the child mortality rate after the DTP vaccine is between eight and ten per cent. This means that the DTP vaccine is responsible for at least a couple of thousand extra deaths a year and please remember we’re talking only about Guinea-Bissau.’
Marie tried to gauge Storm’s reaction, but his facial expression had not changed since she had started her presentation.
‘In developing countries,’ Marie continued, ‘every year more than one hundred million children are vaccinated with DTP on the recommendation of the WHO. If we are right, it means that the WHO’s vaccination recommendation kills hundreds of thousands of children annually.’
Marie fell silent and Storm put his hands on the desk in front of him. They were different from her father’s, she noticed. They were not soft, but were worn only by paper. Then he got up and walked down to the lectern where Marie was standing. He put his arms around her. He smelt of pipe tobacco, cardigan and board games, and Marie stood very still because she had never imagined he would smell like this. Then Storm held her at arms’ length. ‘Marie,’ he said, much moved. ‘You really are a scientist.’
*
Marie defended her master’s on 24 September 2009 and got top marks for her dissertation. That evening she and Jesper celebrated her new accolade with an expensive dinner at his favourite restaurant in Frederiksberg, but the mood was strained and Marie had no appetite. Besides, she was due at the Department of Immunology at nine o’clock the following morning, so when Jesper made to pour more wine, she put her hand across her glass.
‘I thought we’d finished with you being so busy. That you could start taking some time off. You promised.’
‘I’ll take next week off,’ Marie assured him. ‘Definitely. I’m incredibly tired, but Storm is going to Guinea-Bissau on Monday and he’ll be away for months. We need to finalise my PhD application before he leaves.’
Jesper summoned the waiter irritably and asked for the bill.
*
When Marie entered Storm’s office the next morning, he leaped up from his chair. ‘At last, there you are!’ he exclaimed. ‘I have great news, Miss MSc. Terrence Wilson, editor-in-chief of Science, has emailed me. He’s seen your lab results and he’s seriously impressed. If I finish compiling my data, he promises to print my article!’
Storm’s databank now consisted of two years’ monitoring of 190,000 people in total. More than enough to draw conclusions, except that the Dulombi-Boe area was still giving them trouble. Since Silas’s death, Storm and his team had surveyed the area twice, but this did not improve their figures one jot. On the contrary. At their last survey the child mortality rate had plummeted even further and was now at 0.15 per cent, which made the impassable and impoverished region between the two national parks in Guinea-Bissau one of the places in the world with the lowest child mortality rate. Something had to have gone wrong and it damaged the credibility of the article, especially now when Marie’s impressive lab figures had proved irrefutably that the DTP vaccine was suspect.
‘But,’ Storm said happily, ‘nothing can stop us now.’
Marie smiled feebly. ‘Are you sure surveying that huge area again won’t be too much for you?’ she asked. Storm was sixty-five years old and she did not like the thought of him sleeping in the back of the car for several months, without telephone and Internet access.
‘Pah, I’ll be all right,’ Storm said. ‘And once I’ve got the new medical records, I won’t let them out of my sight, even if it means I have to sleep with them under my pillow. And you,’ Storm added sternly, ‘make sure you rest. The whole of October, nothing less. In November, you can start systemising our data, research all existing material pertaining to critical vaccine research and ideally brainstorm everything you read. Have everything ready for when I, hopefully, come back with the icing on the cake.’
‘When do you think that will be?’
‘After New Year at the earliest. I’ll have to wait and see how it goes. I’ll arrive at Bissau towards the end of the rainy season and, to begin with, I’ll want to spend some weeks sorting out Belem with Tim Salomon. We need to install a new pump at the station and we have also been allocated two rooms at a nearby health clinic where we’re going to set up an office, plus I need to settle in two new Guinean PhD students, now that Tim has almost completed his doctorate. So I reckon it’ll be . . . Actually, I don’t really know. But I promise to send you as many status reports as possible. And you’ll let me know the moment you hear back from the PhD committee, won’t you?’
‘Deal,’ Marie said.
*
When Storm had gone abroad and Marie had submitted her PhD proposal, she fell into a post-master’s slump. She crashed on her sofa with no energy for anything.
Jesper grew more distant and irritable.
For more than eight years they had had regular sex and, right from the start, Jesper had made it clear to Marie that he would never be able to go without. A man had needs. ‘Of course,’ Marie had said. She liked sex but, truth be told, she liked the ten minutes afterwards better, when Jesper would draw on her back with his fingers. The drawing depicted a futuristic car, which had won him first prize in an art competition when he was ten years old and it was incredibly detailed. Several months had gone by since Jesper had drawn a car.
A week after her master’s exam Marie was enjoying a kip on the sofa when she was suddenly woken up by Julie.
‘Marie, you need to pull yourself together, for Jesper’s sake. I hear you’ve been lying on that sofa all week. And what with Jesper being a doctor and all his responsibilities, he has to know he can count on you. Now that you’ve finished your master’s, I don’t think you have an excuse to just lie here the whole time. Have you even had a shower?’
Marie sat up. She felt dazed. ‘Did Jesper tell you to say that to me?’ she asked, still half asleep.
‘No, of course not,’ Julie said. ‘But I’ve got eyes. You used to be the happiest couple in the world. Since you started your . . . Since you have . . . And Jesper says you go on about that professor of yours all the time. As if he were some kind of god. It’s too much.’
‘So Jesper has been talking to you?’
‘No, he hasn’t. I just want the two of you to be OK. For everything to be normal. But of course we talk. We talk every time he helps me with Mum’s medication. Now, why don’t you jump in the shower? I’ll take Anton home with me tonight for a sleepover so Jesper and you can have some couple time, yes?’
When Julie had left with Anton, Marie dutifully put a bottle of wine in the fridge and took a shower.
At seven o’clock Jesper came home with sushi. Afterwards they had sex, but for once Marie could not ignore the way he kept flicking her left nipple as he lay on top of her. It didn’t feel nice.
‘Turn over and I’ll draw the car,’ Jesper said, when he had come, but instead of turning over, Marie went out into the bathroom. She splashed cold water on her face and watched her own reflection in the mirror.
The happiest couple in the world?
It was touching that Julie wanted Marie and Jesper to be happy.
But what if they weren’t?
*
The next day they were invited to a birthday dinner at Snerlevej. Joan was turning fifty-seven, and when Marie and Anton arrived, Lea was in the kitchen, busy assembling a layer cake. A surprised Marie hugged her younger sister. She could not remember the last time Lea had turned up for a family get-together. Lea told her she had got a job as a nail technician in the spa in Magasin department store.
‘How about you, sis?’
‘I’ve just got my master’s in biology,’ Marie said.
‘Cool,’ Lea said. ‘You always were the Einstein of the family.’
When Lea had set the cake aside to chill and disappeared into the living room, Marie stayed in the kitchen, saddened at the distance between them. As children they had stuck together like glue; Marie still loved her sister very much and secretly admired her for her wild nature, the way she constantly rained on Frank’s parade, the long fringe that flopped over her eyes, even her tattoos, which Jesper found tasteless.
The mood during dinner was downbeat. It did not seem that Joan wanted to be celebrated, but even so Frank kept toasting her and wishing her a happy birthday, as if this was the best birthday party ever, and Julie loyally raised her glass to keep him company. Jesper turned up after a long shift at the hospital, but his kiss on Marie’s cheek felt like rubber. Marie wanted to ask him what had happened to his affection for her, where was that place inside him where cautious, ambitious, diligent and now, unfortunately, exhausted Marie lived. ‘Nowhere, Marie,’ he would probably say and look at her. ‘There’s no place for you until you wash my socks.’
Julie’s elder daughter, Camilla, knocked over her glass and promptly burst into tears, but Julie said it was nothing to cry about. Michael was busy saving the world, especially his own little corner of it. ‘You should help by teaching them Danish self-sufficiency, not give the Pakis everything on a plate,’ he said, but Jesper replied that he couldn’t be bothered to discuss politics at that level.
‘The Danes,’ Frank slurred, ‘think they’re too good to work in an abattoir or a building site or clean hospitals. They think they’re too good for honest work while the immigrants put their backs into it.’ Michael would have no truck with that because immigrants were the biggest expenditure in Danish history, with their insistence on prayer rooms, halal food, interpreters and demand for female doctors when their women needed their working parts checked out. So, bloody right they should take the shitty jobs.
Suddenly Marie noticed that Joan was crying. For once Lea had not argued back during dinner and Marie saw that she was holding their mother’s hand. Julie asked if anyone fancied dessert and Frank knocked over his chair as he tried to get up.
In the car on their way home, Marie asked Jesper what they had just witnessed, but he looked at her with blank incomprehension. He thought things were not much different from what they usually were.
‘But Dad was pissed out of his mind,’ Marie insisted.
Jesper replied, ‘Marie, your dad has been pissed out of his mind for every family dinner I’ve been to since we met eight years ago.’
‘Mum was crying,’ Marie persisted.
‘You forgot to sign Anton up for swimming,’ Jesper said, as he indicated to turn into Ingeborgvej. ‘The form has been on the fridge door for a month.’
‘Mum was in tears,’ Marie repeated.
‘Right. Then again, turning fifty-seven is a big deal. You’re not young any more and you have to come to terms with how you’ve lived your life,’ Jesper said, and parked outside their house. ‘But do think you could sign him up, Marie? Now that you’re not doing anything anyway.’
Anton had fallen asleep in the back and Jesper carried him inside. Marie stayed in the car.
She had seen her family under a sharp white light.
And her breast was still sore where Jesper had pinched it.
*
On Tuesday, 8 October, Marie went to see her doctor. When her name was called out in the waiting room, her heart sank. What could she say? I’m so tired I can’t even tie my own shoelaces. The truth is my husband and I aren’t happy. I’m more ambitious than our marriage can bear. I haven’t heard from Storm since he left. Something is wrong with my family, but I can’t work out what it is. I’ve changed.
The doctor looked kindly at Marie.
‘I think I’ve got something here,’ Marie said, pointing to her heart.
The doctor asked her to take off her top and bra and spent a long time examining her left breast. At length he said, ‘Yes, I can feel something. We need to get it checked out. It’s probably nothing, but I’ll refer you to the breast clinic at Rigshospitalet.’
For a moment Marie was confused. Could he really feel the discord?
*
On 19 October Marie had a mastectomy; the whole of her left breast was removed. The lump was three centimetres, but the cancer had not spread to the lymph nodes in her armpit. The consultant, Mr Guldborg, was a friend of Jesper’s father and he made sure that she was seen immediately. Marie emailed Storm and seeing her news in writing felt simply insane.
Dear Storm,
On 16 October I received a letter from the PhD committee informing me that my PhD funding has been approved. Sadly I have also been operated on for breast cancer.
Love, Marie
He replied five weeks later. He had just returned to Bissau for a brief stay after several weeks in a rural area with no Internet coverage. He was halfway through the survey, he wrote, and so far it had gone really well. He also wrote that Marie’s email was the worst he had ever received. Marie wrote back that she intended to start her research as early as possible in the New Year. She had had her first session of chemo and the only side effect so far had been the loss of her hair. Storm replied that that was good news and he was looking forward to making plans for her future when he came back to Denmark the following spring. Count me in, Marie replied. Of course, Storm wrote back.
But after her third chemo session, the side effects hit her really hard. Two hours after Marie had had the injection at the hospital, she began vomiting. ‘I’m afraid it’s very common for side effects to appear later,’ Mr Guldborg said, when Jesper called Rigshospitalet. ‘She’ll just have to put up with it.’
Marie was as bald as an egg and weighed about as much as a roebuck. When she developed anaemia, she was hospitalised and given blood. During her stay she had the most vivid dreams and two dreams in particular kept repeating in a confusing loop. In the first she was about to meet with the doctors at the Oncology Unit, while Storm waited impatiently for her outside. His hair stuck out and Marie had the strangest feeling that she could reach out and touch him.
‘Are you properly prepared?’ Storm asked.
‘Not really,’ Marie replied.
‘Take notes,’ Storm said. ‘I’ll wait for you here. And when you’re done, we’ll go through your notes together. And, Marie?’
‘Yes?’
‘Stop being so bloody patient or you’ll die. Be a scientist. Question everything. Ask the questions they least expect you to ask. We have the tools to interpret their answers. I’ll help you.’
In her dream Marie kept records as if her life literally depended on it. She made columns so she could compare the doctors’ predictions and prognoses and she put a big red tick next to any obvious discrepancies. If the doctors stated something or drew a conclusion and she noticed that they had failed to back it up with evidence, she put an exclamation mark in the margin. Her notes looked indecipherable, but Storm would help her to understand them. He had promised.
However, when Marie returned to the bench where Storm had been sitting, her arms filled with densely written notes, he had gone. She called out to him, she pleaded, she dropped her notes, but he did not come. When she gathered up her papers, she felt a shiver down her spine. Her notes consisted of only one sentence repeated over and over: You are alone.
The other dream was about her twin brother, Mads, who had died when they were three and a half years old. He called out to her and she called out to him, as if they were pulling at opposite ends of a sound. Mads was the stronger and Marie started stumbling towards him. At this point she always woke up, bathed in sweat. One night she found a nurse bent over her. ‘You cried out for someone called Mads. Do you need anything?’ Dazed, Marie explained that she had been dreaming, and the nurse turned over her duvet and dressed her in a clean hospital gown. When she had left, Marie was unable to go back to sleep.
She would have to pull harder than Mads had or she would die.
Storm was still in Guinea-Bissau and she rarely heard from him.
Several doctors came to see her every day. Consultants, senior house officers, junior doctors and medical students.
She lay in her bed, like a mouth organ in a moulded box.
‘When can I go home?’ she asked.
‘We just need to get your blood-cell count up a bit, Marie,’ one of them said. ‘Then you can go home. Possibly this Friday.’
‘Am I going to die?’ she asked, when Mr Guldborg came by on his rounds.
‘I don’t indulge in that kind of speculation,’ he replied.
‘But am I?’
‘We’re doing everything we can to help you,’ he replied.
*
‘What does that mean?’ Marie asked Jesper, when he visited her. ‘We’re doing everything we can to help you. It means I’m going to die, doesn’t it? Have they said anything to you?’ The tears rolled down her cheeks. Jesper shook his head and massaged Marie’s hands, which were swollen and disgusting.
‘Anton has made a friend. Her name is Ida,’ he told her. ‘She lives at number three. He didn’t want to come here today,’ he added apologetically.
The last time Anton had visited, Marie had patted her sheet and said, ‘Climb up here, darling,’ but Anton had stayed where he was and wet himself.
‘I miss him so much,’ she whispered.
*
She started feeling better towards the middle of February. Her blood-cell count had been stabilised and her chemo was adjusted so it no longer made her quite so ill. Lea had visited her in hospital and presented her with a bright yellow scarf, which Marie tied around her head, surprised by how well the colour suited her. She took a taxi home to Hellerup and knew perfectly well what the driver must be thinking. When he pulled up outside the house and Anton came to greet her, Marie followed the driver’s gaze, which rested on Jesper, behind Anton in the open front door. Poor guy, his expression said. He looks so worried. Let’s hope for his sake, yes, also for the sake of the little one, that it’ll be quick. Marie didn’t tip him.
*
As promised, Storm called her as soon as he was back in Denmark. He had lots of news for her, he said eagerly, but wanted to start with the most important. Marie was certain that he meant her health, but Storm’s mind was still in Africa.
‘I’m ninety-nine per cent sure that somebody fiddled our figures, Marie. That’s the reason the Dulombi-Boe area looked so good,’ he said. ‘In our records, sixty-five children were listed as living, even though they had been dead for years.’
‘How is that possible?’ Marie said in disbelief.
‘The penny dropped in a tiny village west of Xitole. I visited to survey a five-year-old child, Marylyn, who had been included in the study back in 2004. When I finally found the hut where her parents lived, they were most unhappy to see me. Their child had died, you see. Now, of course it’s not unusual for a child to die between visits, so I asked gently about the state of the child’s health up until her death so that I could finish her medical record. Whereupon the mother started screaming and shouting that she had already explained everything to him, the other branco. To Silas. People came running from the other huts and I was practically lynched. Even the village elder turned up to scold me, and it wasn’t until I had managed to talk him down that I realised what had happened. Marylyn was already dead when Silas visited the year before to check the figures and he had upset her parents by asking about her. “But how long has she been dead?” I asked. Four years. Four years! So can you explain to me, Marie Skov, just how the same child has been registered as living in our study all this time? Once I had spotted the first error, they all stared back at me. I went through every single medical record with a fine-tooth comb and discovered that seventy of them looked as if they had been tampered with. The paper was slightly fuzzy as if someone had rubbed it with an eraser. Of the seventy suspicious-looking medical records, only five belonged to children who were still alive. The rest had died long ago. That was the reason Silas tried calling me that Christmas. That was the urgent matter he wanted to discuss with me. He, too, had spotted it. No wonder those figures looked too good to be true.’
‘But who could have done it?’ Marie asked.
‘Someone who doesn’t want the harmful side effects of the DTP vaccine to see the light of day. There can’t be any other explanation. The question is just who and why. The World Health Organization? I refuse to believe that. They are ultra-conservative and cautious, scared to lose authority, far too chicken to admit that they base their practice on inaccurate data, et cetera, et cetera. But they’re definitely not saboteurs. So who is it? Someone utterly callous, it has to be. Someone who makes so much money by interfering with our research that they don’t care how many people they end up killing. But who? As I’m sure you can imagine, I’ve thought of little else in the last few weeks. It’s a fact that the sabotage must have happened somewhere between Xitole and Bissau. On both occasions. The first time, after the original survey, the medical records arrived at Bissau in four different cars with eight different drivers, of whom four no longer work for us and two are dead. Besides, they were nine days late arriving because of a monsoon and the car got stuck. This is Africa we’re talking about. In 2007 Silas sent the data he had managed to collect before Christmas to Bissau with Tim. I’ve checked with Tim, of course. He says that he put the box with the medical records in the back of the car, as he always did. And I would have done the same. Nobody expects sabotage. But I knew something was up! In fact, I’m almost in a good mood because of it! This time I kept the medical records with me at all times, even when I went to the loo. No one has tampered with them, I’m absolutely sure of it. I still need to run statistics on the new figures, but I’ll eat my old waders if that result doesn’t turn out to be significant. It’s nothing short of perfection that you have been awarded your PhD grant, my girl,’ he interjected. ‘Nothing short of perfection. Oh, I’ve completely forgotten to congratulate you on that. Congratulations! Do excuse me, I’m just rabbiting. Are you ready, do you think? When do you think you can start? How are you, anyway? How is your recovery going?’
‘I’ll need a little longer,’ Marie whispered. ‘A few months possibly. I haven’t been feeling too good. I mean, it’s a bit better now that the doctors have adjusted my chemo after I really hit rock bottom. But it’ll still be a couple of weeks before I even finish my treatment, so . . .’
There was silence at the other end. Marie sat with her eyes closed and the phone pressed to her cheek.
‘Oh,’ Storm said. ‘I’m really sorry to hear that.’
A tear trickled down Marie’s cheek and, for a moment, she was incapable of speech.
‘What was the other news you wanted me to know about?’ she then said.
‘Are you crying?’ Storm asked her gently.
‘No,’ Marie said stubbornly.
‘It would be all right if you were,’ Storm said.
‘I know,’ Marie said.
Storm cleared his throat. ‘The other thing I wanted to tell you is that your master’s dissertation has been referred to the DCSD, the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty. Or, more accurately, I’ve been reported to the DCSD for scientific dishonesty because I supervised and approved your dissertation and am thus partly responsible for you getting your MSc.’
‘Oh, no.’ Marie was horrified. ‘What does that mean?’
‘Sweet FA,’ Storm said harshly. ‘Because we won’t let it. We know that we didn’t cheat. Let’s look on the bright side: it means another four people will read your dissertation.’ Storm laughed. ‘The only irritating thing is it can take up to six months before the DCSD clear us and in the meantime we’ll have to live with the suspicion. When I lost my father, I made a decision, Marie. When you know your conscience is clear, you just have to let idiotic accusations bounce off you. What matters is being able to look at yourself in the mirror every morning. Keeping your side of the street clean.’
‘But who is accusing us?’ Marie said feebly.
‘The accusation has been made anonymously,’ Storm said. ‘But it wouldn’t surprise me if it turns out to be Stig Heller. Years ago we were as thick as thieves. Do you remember me telling you that he went berserk over my little article on Uni-Net? Heller is tragically conservative, even though he’s only in his early forties. Incidentally, it’s just been announced that he’s joined the Nobel Committee. Fancy that. Do you know something? I think I’ll give him a call and ask if he was the one who reported us. Hah, he’d like that, the sourpuss!’
‘But what can we do?’ Marie said miserably.
‘Keep your head cool and your gunpowder dry. I’ll send you some reading material in the next few days so you can get yourself fighting fit.’
Marie found it really rather difficult to share Storm’s enthusiasm. Scientific dishonesty. It sounded sloppy and she did not like it one bit.
‘By the way, do you want me to ask the PhD committee to hold off paying your grant?’ Storm asked cautiously. ‘You might need some extra time at the other end.’
Marie agreed.
‘A month or something? How long do you plan on being ill?’
Now Marie couldn’t help laughing. ‘Well, you see, I don’t have much experience with cancer . . .’ she said ironically.
‘In that case, we’ll make it six weeks,’ Storm said unperturbed. ‘But not a minute more. I need you.’
When Storm had hung up, Marie sat looking out at the garden for a long time.
She admired Storm for wanting to save every child on the planet, but right now she just wanted to concentrate on her own survival.
*
Just two days later a parcel arrived from Storm, stuffed full of journals, copies of various articles, a big feature on Storm from Weekendavisen with the headline ‘The stubborn man’. He had also sent her general information about the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty and an article on the DCSD’s most sensational case so far: the scientific dishonesty accusation against Bjørn Lomborg. Read it, more to follow, Storm had scribbled.
Marie started by skimming the article, which was critical of Lomborg. In 2002 he had been appointed director of the Environmental Assessment Institute and was reported to the DCSD the same year. In 2003 the accusations against him were upheld, but Lomborg was never penalised. The DCSD found that although he was guilty of dishonest research he had not intended to be dishonest, and as intentional dishonesty had to be proved beyond reasonable doubt, Lomborg could not be punished. On the other hand, neither was he ever acquitted or cleared.
Interesting, isn’t it? Storm had noted in the margin in red pen. If you do something without intending to, they can’t punish you!
A week later another parcel arrived from Storm. Three articles from American and German periodicals and the most recent issue of the Journal of Epidemiology, which even Storm had yet to read. The following week more magazines arrived, all with Post-it notes stuck in places where Storm had come across something interesting. Marie’s heart sank as she flicked through the magazines, wondering how she would ever manage to read them all, when a bag of sugared almonds suddenly dropped into her lap. Here’s hoping they’ll help the reading material go down more easily, Storm had written. Four days later another bundle of articles arrived and two days after that yet another. This time Marie just ate the sugared almonds.
*
Being the perfect big sister that she was, Julie helped care for Marie after her chemo sessions. Thankfully, Marie had stopped vomiting, but she still felt wiped out. From the sofa she would watch Anton and Julie do jigsaw puzzles and bake muffins, and when Anton wanted to watch a movie, Julie would softly close the door to the TV room, then perch on the edge of the sofa like Marie’s confidante. They spoke about Anton starting school after the summer holidays and about Marie and Jesper’s garden, which would probably be left to grow wild this year, but so what? It was during a moment of such intimacy that Marie told Julie she suspected Jesper had met someone.
‘Of course he hasn’t!’ Julie sounded outraged. ‘He would never dream of doing that to you.’ She got up and put on the kettle to make more tea.
‘But he has stopped punishing me,’ Marie said. ‘He’s kind.’
‘How can you say a thing like that?’ Julie was angry.
‘He couldn’t care less that we no longer have sex, Julie. I don’t mind that very much because I can’t say I feel terribly attractive, bald as I am and all dried up inside. But I wonder how Jesper manages. We no longer sleep in the same bed. I’ve been in the guest bedroom ever since my operation because I lie awake half the night and that disturbs Jesper. We’ve never had any intimacy other than sex, Julie. Now we have . . . nothing.’
‘But it would be madness to expect sex from your wife when she’s as ill as you are,’ Julie said indignantly.
‘Has Michael ever been unfaithful to you?’ Marie asked spontaneously.
‘No, of course not!’ Julie got red spots on her cheeks.
‘How do you know? Have you ever asked him?’
‘I know that he hasn’t, Marie.’
‘Do you think Dad has ever been unfaithful to Mum?’
‘Marie! What’s wrong with you?’
‘My thoughts won’t stop churning. I’ve nothing better to do,’ Marie said.
‘Then stop it right now,’ Julie said, stroking Marie’s cheek. ‘Nothing good ever comes from worrying.’
Anton came in from the TV room and said he was thirsty. Marie watched while Julie poured water into a glass and buttered him a bread roll. She imagined that it was now Julie’s head that was whirling. She felt hot so she took off her yellow headscarf and put it on the dining table, and when Anton had finished his bread roll, he rushed over, wanting to examine Marie’s bald head.
‘Do you think it’s a good idea for him to see you bald?’ Julie whispered, when Anton had gone back to watch the rest of the film.
‘But bald is what I am,’ Marie stated.
*
A few days later, Frank made an unannounced visit. He brought her a bunch of flowers and said that Joan sent her love. Marie hugged him, and before she could stop herself, she blurted out, ‘Tell me, have you been drinking?’
‘What the hell are you saying?’ Frank said. ‘It’s two o’clock in the afternoon.’
‘Oh, OK,’ Marie quickly back-pedalled. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. I just thought . . .’
Frank lost his rag. ‘You have some nerve accusing us of all sorts of things we haven’t done. One moment you’re saying Jesper’s having an affair, the next it’s Michael. I hear you’ve even insinuated that I cheated on your mother. And now I’m a drunk, is that it? You’re seriously ill, Marie, but you need to . . . think about Anton. It’s bad enough if that boy is going to lose his mother, but if he has to live in a house full of mad accusations, no wonder he wets himself. And put your scarf on,’ he said irritably.
Dumbstruck, Marie poured boiling water into the cafetière and went upstairs to fetch her headscarf from the bathroom. No one in the family liked the sight of Marie’s naked scalp, except Anton, who thought it was softer than a horse’s muzzle. Marie gasped for air and could not decide whether it was the stairs or the unfairness that had knocked the wind out of her. Anton had only wet himself that one time at the hospital and Marie had not told anyone. That could mean only one thing. Jesper had told tales. Again.
When Marie came downstairs, Frank had already pushed down the plunger and poured himself a cup of weak coffee. When he had drunk half of it, he said, ‘Anyway, I’d better be going.’
‘But I’ll see you on Sunday, won’t I?’ Marie said.
‘Listen, sweetheart. Your mum and I have talked about it, and we’re going to put our Sunday lunches on hold. Is that all right? Only until you’re feeling a bit better.’ Frank gave Marie a quick peck on the cheek and again she caught a whiff of the simultaneously sharp and fermented smell that lingered on his skin.
‘Sure, but I’m actually doing quite well. In fact, I’d like to get out a bit . . .’ Marie objected.
‘Your mum has also been a bit under the weather . . .’
‘If you say so,’ Marie acquiesced. ‘But would it be all right for me and Anton to visit one afternoon?’
‘You’re always welcome,’ Frank said, with such emphasis that Marie knew he was lying. ‘Anyway, I’d best be off.’
*
The next time Julie visited, Marie asked her what was going on.
‘Marie, you really are hopeless,’ Julie said. ‘Why can’t you just concentrate on getting better for the cutest boy in the world and the most wonderful husband and father on the planet? Mum isn’t doing too well at the moment, but she’ll be all right. Your illness has opened old wounds . . . She’s thinking a lot about Mads, these days, and you know what she’s like when—’
‘No,’ Marie said, ‘I don’t know what she’s like.’
‘I don’t want you to worry about Mum, promise me? It’s scientifically proven that cancer patients who worry about all sorts of things don’t recover as quickly as cancer patients who “only” have their cancer to worry about. There’s no point in making things worse. I’m sure everything will be better in a couple of weeks, and then we can get together. Until then, all you have to do is rest – and, besides, Jesper’s helping me, so you don’t have to worry.’
‘What does Jesper help you with?’ Marie looked at her sister in surprise.
‘He renewed Mum’s prescriptions. He’s done it before, but always argued that she really ought to see her own doctor for a check-up, but last week he could see how poorly Mum was. I don’t know how I would have got her out of the house and taken her to the doctor’s, but fortunately Jesper understood. And, anyway, she’s been taking those pills for years so, frankly, I can’t see—’
‘When did Dad become a heavy drinker, Julie?’ Marie interrupted her. ‘He came round the other day and he stank like a brewery.’
‘Marie, sometimes I find it hard to believe that you have benefited from higher education. Mum isn’t the only one who finds it hard to cope with your illness. It’s no picnic for Dad, either. You know perfectly well you were always his favourite.’ Julie held up a hand when Marie was about to object. ‘No, it’s all right. It is what it is. I don’t blame him. I happen to be closer to Emma than Camilla because Emma and I are so alike. It happens in families. And Dad is really worried about you, so, yes, perhaps he drinks a bit more than he normally would, but he’s entitled to. Don’t you worry about it now. You just concentrate on getting better, all right? Stop fretting.’
*
That evening Marie could no longer control herself and asked Jesper outright if he was having an affair. He went as white as a sheet and wanted to know how she could think something like that of him. Marie apologised, but it did not seem to appease him. He just spun around furiously and stared out of the window at the twilit garden.
Eventually Marie went to bed. Having left the door to the guest bedroom ajar, she read for a long time in the hope that Jesper had stopped being annoyed and would come in to talk to her. Around ten o’clock she finally heard his footsteps on the stairs, the door to the study open, then typing on the keyboard for a long time. Eventually the tap was turned on in the bathroom and finally she heard the door to the master bedroom close.
Most evenings Anton would tiptoe to Marie’s room. Jesper had always been against children in adult beds and Marie had made a point of walking Anton back to his own bed until she became ill. These days she let him slip under her duvet. If the end was near, if Marie was dying, she wanted to have as much time with her son as possible.
That night Anton didn’t come and Marie couldn’t sleep. She opened her laptop and started composing a letter to Anton. She managed to write four sentences, but when she was about to save it, the tears started rolling down her cheeks. To Antonsen from Mum. It sounded so innocent, but the truth was, it was the saddest document in the world.
Little Anton, he would see on the screen. When you read this, I will have been dead for far too many years. I wonder if you can remember me.
Marie slammed the laptop shut.
When she finally fell asleep, she dreamed a new and disturbing dream about Storm. He was standing in Lecture Hall A at the Department of Immunology, banging his pointer against the board to emphasise the words he had written on it. He was angry that his audience did not understand what he meant and whacked the board harder and harder. Marie could not see what it said on the board either, until large flakes of slate started loosening under Storm’s blows and fell to the floor. Then, suddenly, she saw it. It said, Look under every stone.
‘You’re slacking, all of you,’ Storm thundered, looking straight at Marie. ‘Especially you, Marie. You’re asking the wrong questions, and you accept far too many easy answers.’
‘I have more important things to think about,’ Marie protested.
‘More important than my research? I don’t think so,’ Storm said, and turned his back on her. At this point Marie was woken up by Anton, who had decided he did want to sleep under Marie’s duvet after all. He fell asleep immediately and Marie snuggled up to him.
*
The dream echoed in Marie’s head in the days that followed and she glanced furtively at Storm’s parcels of reading material of which the last three remained unopened. Storm’s research was important and she wished she wasn’t suffering from such a lack of interest. Jesper was away on a course on South Sjælland and Julie called five times to ask if she was all right. Marie assured her that she was looking forward to a weekend alone with Anton and would manage fine on her own. Even so, Julie turned up with a casserole on Friday afternoon. She put the pot in the fridge and left some bread in the bread bin. ‘And there’s no need for you to wash the pot. I can do that.’
‘Julie, I’m capable of washing up.’
‘Do you and Anton have any plans?’ Julie wanted to know. ‘You really ought to get a second car. How are you going to get around now that Jesper has the car?’
‘Julie, relax,’ Marie said. ‘We’re not going anywhere, and if we decide to do something, we’ll take the bus. Or we’ll cycle.’
Julie looked horrified. ‘Cycle? You can’t be serious! You’ve just finished chemo. You can’t go cycling around. It’s far too cold.’
‘It was a joke, Julie,’ Marie said, and put her arms around her sister. ‘Thank you for all your help. We might go and see Mum and Dad,’ she added. ‘I haven’t seen them for weeks.’
‘That’s not a good idea,’ Julie said firmly. ‘Mum is in bed with the flu and your immune system is compromised. I don’t want you to catch it. Promise you’ll stay at home. I’ve put a lot of ginger in the casserole to make you feel better. I hope it’s not too hot for Anton.’
‘Julie, you fuss like a mother hen,’ Marie said.
‘That’s what being a big sister is all about,’ Julie said lightly.
*
On Sunday, 21 February, Marie almost felt well. She and Anton had pottered about all weekend, slept in, drawn mandalas, played Monopoly and made eight different smoothies to find out which tasted the best. It turned out to be blueberry and honey. The weather was cool but bright and clear, and Anton jumped for joy when Marie asked if he fancied making a surprise visit to Granny and Grandad’s. If Joan was still poorly, Marie thought, she would keep her distance. It would be fine.
Frank looked surprised when Marie and Anton rang the doorbell. The day was starting to darken and he squinted as if he had trouble seeing them. He looked very tired and again Marie detected a smell about him: this time it was something fermented mixed with the odour of something unwashed.
‘Oh. It’s you, is it?’ He pulled away with a jolt before Marie had a chance to hug him.
‘Yes, we wanted to surprise you,’ Marie said.
‘Oh,’ Frank said, but continued to block the doorway.
‘Are you going to let us in?’
‘Of course,’ he said apologetically, and stepped aside. ‘Are you hungry? I think we’ve got something in the freezer.’
Anton ran ahead into the living room and Marie heard Joan exclaim with delight: ‘Well, hello, little one.’
‘How are you, Mum?’ Marie asked, when she joined them. Joan sat in her armchair with a rug over her legs. The living room was stuffy and dark, and Marie could hear the ticking of the grandfather clock. ‘Were you asleep?’
‘I must have dozed off,’ Joan replied.
‘How is the flu?’
Joan blinked. ‘The flu?’
‘Julie said you had the flu.’
‘Oh . . .’ Joan shifted slightly and a pill organiser, which had been hidden in the folds of the rug, slid onto the floor.
Marie picked it up. ‘So it’s safe for me to give you a kiss, then,’ she said, and kissed her mother’s cheek.
‘But how are you, my love?’ Joan asked, and her chin quivered. ‘Any . . . news?’
Marie shook her head. ‘I’ve had my last chemo and I’ll start my post-chemo treatment soon. I’m tired, but I’m fine.’
The tears started rolling down Joan’s cheeks and she squeezed Marie’s hand hard and drew it up to her face. ‘It’s hard for me,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know what to think. Julie says— Where are my pills?’ Joan interrupted herself and looked about the rug.
Marie handed her the pill organiser. ‘Here,’ she said.
At that moment Anton slunk into the living room with a bowl of Twist chocolates. He looked guiltily at his mother. Marie stroked her mother’s hair and told Anton he could have three chocolates before dinner.
‘Oh, go on, let him,’ Frank said from the doorway.
‘Three chocolates,’ Marie said, giving Anton a stern look. She went out into the kitchen to Frank, who had his head in the freezer.
‘Dad, we can just ring for a pizza, can’t we?’
‘No, no, we’ll find something.’ Frank was standing a little too close to the freezer and Marie soon concluded that he was not entirely sober. ‘What do we have here? . . . Curried meatballs . . . Goulash . . . Hearts in a cream sauce. Oh, there was no need for her to make that.’
Marie looked into the freezer over Frank’s shoulder and recognised Julie’s neat handwriting on the many freezer bags. On the bottom shelf there were meat dishes and at the top there were bags of bread rolls and parboiled rice. ‘Did Julie make all this?’
‘Yes. At first it pissed me off. You know how I hate being beholden to anyone, least of all Michael. I know it’s only a matter of time before he wants to borrow my Orvis fishing rod and he thinks he’s got a right to it because Julie’s cooked all this food. But now that your mum isn’t feeling too good, it’s quite handy that I can just grab something from the freezer. Julie even bought me a microwave oven. Though I did give her five hundred kroner for that. That’s what they cost, isn’t it?’
‘Sounds about right.’
Frank had got hold of a bag with a casserole of some kind and fumbled with the knot for ages before he started looking for a pair of scissors with irritated movements. He found them under a pile of cutlery, but when he tried to cut the knot, he dropped the freezer bag and it skidded across the floor, like a curling stone. He swore. Marie watched him. All her life Frank had been hard and outspoken in his opinions, in his rhetoric, in his verdicts. For better or worse. Now he was old and confused. With considerable effort he managed to pick up the bag from the floor.
‘Please would you set the table?’ he asked Marie. ‘I’m just going outside to lock the shed. The neighbours had a break-in and I don’t want the lawnmower . . .’ He flapped his hand as if to say it was too complicated to explain.
Marie saw him walk past the kitchen window and went into the dining room to set the table. On the TV in the living room Poul Reichhardt was crooning in a barn doorway. Joan was sound asleep and a trickle of saliva stretched towards her jumper.
‘I’m just going upstairs, Anton,’ Marie said. ‘Grandad has gone outside to lock the shed, but he’ll be back soon and then we’ll eat.’
*
The first floor of the house had not been decorated for twenty years at least and was in dire need of a makeover. Julie’s old room still had the same wallpaper, with the tiny floral pattern, and sloping windows whose varnished frames were brown. Joan’s sewing machine was still there, but it was covered with dust. Marie had always admired Julie’s room. She’d kept it immaculate – even the desk drawers were organised, erasers lined up, paperclips and drawing pins in their respective boxes.
Lea and Marie’s old room was now Frank’s home office. At first they had shared the room, but later Frank had put up a partition wall and Marie remembered her relief when Lea picked the side with the loft hatch. They had been told never to climb up into the loft and Marie had always been scared of the hatch. Lea didn’t care. Even as a little girl she had had the ability to bounce back like a rubber ball and it took more than a dark loft to scare her. Now the partition wall had gone and Frank had created a makeshift office for himself with an untidy desk and two cheap metal bookcases so laden with ring binders, books and trays stacked high with papers that he had had to screw them to the wall to stop them falling over.
Where had all the mess come from? As far as Marie knew, Frank was still working as a handyman, but the state of his office did not suggest that business was booming.
At the back of the room, Marie spotted the loft ladder. She climbed it and opened the hatch. She had never been up in the loft before and she quickly turned on the light. The space was crammed with junk. Lamps, chairs, boxes and black bin liners stuffed with old clothes and duvets. Tools, horseshoes, a pot. She spotted the old camp bed, which the girls had taken turns to use and which had been crudely repaired with big stitches. Leaning against the wall were several framed photographs of men and women whom Marie did not recognise. They must be distant relatives. They had had an uncle, Joan’s brother, whom Marie vaguely remembered, but otherwise they had never had much contact with Joan’s or Frank’s family. Their maternal grandparents had died even before Julie was born and had left the house on Snerlevej to Joan and Frank. Frank’s parents had also passed away long ago and his two brothers, who lived in Jutland, ‘aren’t worth knowing’, he had always said.
At the far end of the loft Marie found four large photographs mounted on cardboard. One of Julie, one of Lea and, how funny, two of me, Marie had time to think before she realised that one of the portraits was of her twin brother. She picked it up and studied it under the loft light. Marie and Mads had resembled each other like two drops of water, though Mads was slightly darker and looked like a boy. Suddenly Marie could see the close resemblance between Mads and Anton. She had always wondered why Anton was darker than Jesper and herself, but now she knew where it had come from. What a little sweetheart, Marie thought, and looked at Mads’s happy, chubby cheeks.
Marie noticed yet another, a framed black-and-white picture of a young Frank and a man whom Marie did not recognise. Marie and Mads were standing between them; they must have been a couple of years old then, dark-haired and grinning. In the background, Joan was wearing a patterned dress with a fabric tie and a large, full skirt. Marie barely recognised her mother: she looked so carefree. Going out of the picture were two teenage boys, one with a football under his arm. Frank was beaming, and he and the unknown man had their arms around each other’s shoulders. As if Frank had had a good friend and had put his arm around him. As if it was summer, the steaks were sizzling and the corn on the cob crackling. As if they were planning on dancing the whole night through.
Julie had often told her how much Frank and Joan had loved parties back in the old days. Joan especially would dance until dawn with Frank or with some of the other men from their street when they held garden parties. Julie loved one story in particular and she had told it over and over. Joan had danced with a police officer, who also lived on Snerlevej, someone high up in the ranks, apparently, and he had been tripping the light fantastic with her when the police turned up to tell them to turn down the music. ‘Sorry for interrupting your evening, boss,’ the embarrassed officer had said, when he recognised his superior. Julie remembered it very clearly, she had told Marie, because she always slept in a tent in the garden when the adults had their parties. When the patrol car had driven off and the music had been turned down, the adults had at first looked guiltily at each other before breaking into howls of laughter.
Marie spotted a woven tapestry wall-hanging sticking out of a large box and dragged the box over to the light where she managed with considerable effort to unroll it. It was very dusty and a spider darted to safety. The subject was dramatic. A severed woman’s head with a crazy, suffering expression and snakes in her hair. Other than the rug Joan had made for Anton, Marie had never seen evidence of her mother’s craftsmanship or at least not her major works, which Julie had told her about. The subject was frightening, but Marie was fascinated. This was art, not just needlework, and although it was sinister, it was a shame that it was kept in a box in the loft.
Marie hauled the box with the wall-hanging, the portrait of Mads and the picture of her festive parents to the hatch and managed to lower everything to the floor in Frank’s study. She intended to ask Jesper if she could put up the wall-hanging. She wanted to show Anton the portrait of Mads and suddenly began to wonder if she had ever told her son about him. She hung up the photograph of Frank and Joan and their friends on a vacant nail above Frank’s desk. She wanted Frank to see it. She wanted to say, ‘Look, Dad, once you had a friend and life was good. Once you made Mum happy.’
Something made Marie jump. ‘You startled me, sweetheart!’
Anton was standing in the shadows of the passage outside Frank’s office, opposite the stairs. ‘I’ve been calling you lots and lots,’ he said, and started to cry. ‘Why didn’t you come?’
‘But, sweetheart,’ Marie hugged him, ‘I was only in the loft. Why didn’t you just call Grandad?’
‘I did.’ Anton sniffed. ‘But he didn’t come. And Granny’s asleep and the movie has finished and I didn’t know where you were.’
‘Never mind,’ Marie said, and decided to distract him with the portrait of Mads. ‘Hey, Anton, guess who this is?’
Anton turned to the photograph. ‘It’s me,’ he said, and sniffed again.
Marie smiled and told him it was not. It was his uncle Mads. Marie knelt down and told Anton about her twin brother, who got so ill when he was three years old that the doctors could not save him. Anton listened with rapt attention.
‘Doesn’t he look nice?’ Marie asked, and Anton nodded. The portrait of Mads was so light that she decided to carry it home. She could take the wall-hanging the next time, when Jesper was with her and they had the car.
‘Come on, let’s go down and have some dinner,’ Marie said, and went down the stairs with the photograph. When she was three steps down, she noticed that Anton had not moved.
‘If Uncle Mads and I look so much like each other,’ Anton said, gazing down at his mother, ‘will I get ill and die too?’
Marie thought about it. ‘You might get ill one day,’ she said, ‘not because you look like Uncle Mads but because people sometimes get ill for no particular reason. But because you also look like me, you have a very special ability to get well again, just like I will. And do you know something?’ Anton shook his dark hair. ‘Anyone who cheats death once will live to be a hundred.’
‘Is that true?’
Marie nodded. ‘A hundred and four, in fact. Come on, sweetheart, let’s go downstairs. I bet you’re starving.’ Anton nodded and followed his mother.
*
Marie put the portrait of Mads on the chest of drawers in the hall so that they could take it with them when they left. In the kitchen the casserole was still in the microwave. It had been defrosted, but it was merely tepid so Marie turned on the microwave again. ‘Please would you put some of these beetroots into a bowl?’ she asked Anton, and put them out with a bowl for him. Marie found some glasses and filled the water jug. Then she went into the living room. Anton scurried after her, insisting on holding her hand. Joan was fast asleep. Marie called out to her softly, but she did not react. Her pill organiser had got lost in the folds of her rug again so Marie picked it up and put it on the coffee table next to her mother. Then she covered her carefully with the rug.
‘Hmm, I think Granny’s very tired,’ she said to Anton.
‘Dad?’ Marie called down the passage to her parents’ bedroom. She wondered if he had gone to the loo or was getting changed. There was no reply. Then she noticed that the garden door was open. ‘Please would you find the Tiddlywinks? Then we can have a game after dinner,’ she said casually, but Anton said no and refused to let go of her hand. Together they went out into the garden.
‘You could always have a go on the swing?’ Marie suggested. Anton shook his head.
It was eerily silent and dark in the twilight, except the shed, from which a rectangle of light fell on the ground through the open door.
‘Right, sweetheart, I want you to stay over there,’ Marie said, pointing firmly to one of the garden chairs. Anton sat down reluctantly.
Marie walked towards the shed. Had Frank had a fall?
But it was only a matter of time.
He was blind drunk. Half a dozen miniature bottles lay scattered across the floor inside the shed and he was in the process of knocking back yet another while he leaned heavily against the shelving unit, which was crammed perilously full of heavy tools and tins of paint.
‘Hiiiii, Marizzen,’ he slurred, when he noticed her. His eyes rolled. ‘I’m . . . I’m just coming. Is it time for din-dins?’
‘Have you drunk all of those?’ Marie asked in disbelief. There was Jack Daniel’s and several small bottles of schnapps.
‘No, no.’ Frank wobbled dangerously and Marie grabbed his arm, guided him out of the shed and supported him to the terrace where Anton was waiting.
‘What’s wrong with Grandad?’ Anton said. He sounded scared.
‘Nothing,’ Frank assured him, as he slumped across the garden table. Marie had to let go so that she wasn’t dragged down with him.
‘Grandad has got drunk,’ she said calmly. ‘It’s not dangerous, but it is very stupid.’ She spoke the last word in a loud voice as she turned to Frank, who was trying in vain to get to his feet. Marie managed to steer him back inside the house with considerable effort.
‘Anton,’ Marie groaned, under the weight of her father, ‘please would you wait in the living room while I put Grandad to bed?’
Anton started to cry. ‘I don’t want to sit with Granny,’ he said. ‘I don’t like it when she sleeps in her chair like that.’
Marie thought about it. ‘OK, then. I want you to walk ahead of me to Granny and Grandad’s bedroom, and pull back the duvet on Grandad’s side.’ Anton raced down the passage.
‘I can’t lift you, Dad,’ Marie said to Frank. ‘I’m still weak and I’m worried about the scar from my surgery. You need to walk on your own or at least try to.’
Anton had already pulled back the duvet when Marie and Frank finally reached the bedroom, and Marie let her father collapse on the bed. She took off his shoes and rolled him onto his side as best as she could. Then she covered him with the duvet and fetched a bucket, which she put on the floor within his reach.
They returned to the living room. Joan was still fast asleep in her armchair, but had turned her head to the other side. For a moment Marie had no idea what to do.
‘We’ll buy something for dinner on our way home,’ she said, switched off the television and tucked the rug around Joan again. They put on their coats, took the portrait of Mads and walked down the street. On the bus, Anton insisted on sitting on Marie’s lap the whole way, and she let him, even though he was rather too heavy. She could have done without Anton seeing his grandparents in that state. Why hadn’t Julie just told her the plain truth? That Frank and Joan were in crisis and that it was best for Anton not to visit for a while. Why had she lied that their mother had flu?
*
On 12 March, less than a fortnight after Marie’s last chemo, she was asked to attend a meeting with Mr Guldborg to review her future treatment options. Guldborg spoke as rapidly as if he was packing inflight meals on a conveyor belt. He said Marie should have her ovaries removed, which would bring on the menopause so she could be treated with Aromasin. Marie’s cancer was oestrogen sensitive, Guldborg explained, and by removing her ovaries and thus stopping her oestrogen production, he could treat her with Aromasin, an oestrogen inhibitor, and her oestrogen level would then be so low that her cancer would have poor growth conditions. It sounded like the right thing to do.
‘Speak to Jesper about it,’ Guldborg added.
Why did I get cancer? Marie wanted to ask. Why do some people get cancer while others don’t? Why?
When you died, she thought, you didn’t just leave the room for a pee or go abroad on a sabbatical. When you died, you ceased to exist. She tasted the word. There in her lap lay her hand. Across the desk, Guldborg’s fleshy lips opened and closed, like the stoma on a leaf. In a little while, in a matter of weeks or months or possibly not for as many years as she had promised Anton, she would be gone.
Marie did not manage to ask Guldborg any questions. When she left the hospital, she sat down on a bench. She caught herself looking for Storm and watched the swallows that had just returned from their winter quarters in Africa. They soared vertically into the sky, turned sharply and dived with such speed that their screams chased after them, like serpentines of delayed sound.
Anton liked asking her, ‘If you were an animal, Mum, which one would you be?’ before he quickly added, ‘I want to be a dog,’ so that Marie couldn’t be a dog as well. Marie had never known which animal to pick. Sometimes she would say a rabbit, other times a seahorse. Anton’s rules meant that she was allowed only one animal. At that moment, Marie knew that she would say a swallow the next time Anton asked her. Swallows could fly all the way to South Africa and back again. They were tough. If Marie were ever to have a tattoo, and that was a big if, it would be a swallow.
*
On Thursday morning, 18 March, Marie received two packages. One was from Storm. With a pang of conscience she added it, unopened, to the pile of other unopened parcels of magazines and sugared almonds, reminding herself she should have told him that, sadly, he should not expect to hear from her for a while.
The other item was an eye-wateringly expensive wig she had ordered from Sweden. When she opened the bag, she had to laugh. She had specified a shoulder length, nut-brown bob, but the supplier had made a mistake. The wig she had been sent was every man’s textbook fantasy. Long blonde hooker hair. Marie put on the wig in front of a mirror and laughed even louder. Then she found an eyeliner pencil and made up her eyes. She could not remember the last time she had worn makeup. When she applied lipstick, she smeared it on purpose. Then she took off all her clothes and studied herself in the mirror. Christ, she was skinny now. She looked like a one-breasted heroin addict. While she ran herself a bath, she examined first her one firm breast, and then the thick, pink scar that looked like the closed eye of a newborn baby. Guldborg had said that he would put her forward for breast reconstruction as soon as her treatment had finished and her test results were clear. Marie was sure that Jesper would start to fancy her again once she was put right.
She took off the wig and let herself sink into the bath water. The telephone rang and she let it ring: the water was wonderful. She closed her eyes and amused herself by imagining what type of woman Jesper was attracted to. The emaciated-junkie look was definitely not to his taste. But when they had watched season one of Mad Men, Marie had noticed that he really liked the character Joan Holloway. She was submissive, had a brilliant mind and she was sensual, and although her curvaceous figure and Marie’s boyish shape had absolutely nothing in common, Marie had not minded. In the distance the landline started ringing again.
At the ward where Jesper worked, the nurses were bound to fancy him, she thought, and felt a sudden tingling of unease. Was that why Jesper had lost interest in her? Because there was a woman at work, a younger, undamaged woman? She added more hot water to the bath and was about to scrub her face when she heard the front door open, then a set of keys land in the bowl on the side table in the hallway. Jesper was home.
‘Marie,’ he called. ‘Hello? Where are you?’ Marie nearly slipped as she stood up in the bath. She had not expected him back for another five hours and she was terrified that something had happened to Anton.
When Jesper entered the bathroom, a dripping wet Marie had one arm in her dressing gown and her face was smeared with makeup. He flung his arms around her.
‘Marie,’ he said, and his thick voice made Marie gasp for air. ‘Something terrible has happened. Your mother is dead, Marie. Joan is dead.’
‘No!’ Marie started to cry. ‘What happened?’
‘Julie called me at work. She was beside herself and I could barely understand a word she said. She’d tried calling you as well. When will you learn to answer your mobile? Julie couldn’t get hold of your mother this morning so at ten o’clock she went over there because she was worried.’ Jesper glanced at his watch. ‘She found Joan dead in her bed. Marie, I’m really sorry to have to tell you, but Julie says your mother took an overdose.’
‘She committed suicide?’
‘I don’t know. The police won’t say anything until your mother has been examined. They haven’t found a note, which makes it hard to know whether she did it on purpose or whether she accidentally took more pills than her body could cope with. Julie is distraught because it appears she counts out your mother’s pills every Monday, but this Monday she couldn’t come over because Camilla was doing something at school. Julie found Joan’s pill organiser and it was empty. There were also some half-empty jars of pills on the bedside table, but we don’t know how many she took. We have to wait until the police have had her examined.’
‘Where is Dad?’ Marie asked, and could immediately tell from Jesper’s expression that there was more bad news to come.
‘We can’t get hold of him. His mobile is switched off. Julie says that the police are very keen to talk to him. He wasn’t at home when Julie came over. His van is gone and Julie discovered an almost empty bottle of whisky next to his armchair before she went to the bedroom and found Joan. She rang one one two. Then she tried calling Frank, then you and finally me, because neither of you was picking up.’
‘Do you think that Dad had anything to do with—’
‘No, of course not, but the police . . . They really do want to talk to him. I’ve tried ringing Frank several times in the last hour, but my calls go straight to voicemail. What is it about you and mobiles in your family?’
‘We have to go to Snerlevej,’ was all Marie said.
*
When Marie and Jesper arrived, a police car was still parked outside. They entered the house and found a deathly pale Julie sitting at the dining table with two police officers. When Julie spotted Marie, she leaped up and threw her arms around her.
‘They’ve just taken Mum away,’ Julie cried. ‘Oh, I can’t bear it.’
While the police talked to Jesper, Julie and Marie sat on the sofa in the living room and hugged each other.
‘Suicide is the coward’s way out,’ Julie wept.
‘But we don’t know yet that she did commit suicide,’ Marie pointed out.
‘Oh, don’t be so naïve, Marie!’ Julie said. ‘Nobody takes so many pills that it kills them unless that’s what they want. What do we tell the children?’ she added, horrified. ‘Do you think we should just tell them she’s died? They won’t understand what suicide is!’
‘We certainly shouldn’t say anything to the children about it being suicide before we know whether it was or not,’ Marie said. ‘We have to wait until we know the facts. Did Mum take five pills too many and accidentally overload her system or did she deliberately take a hundred and twenty pills to end her life? Whichever it is, lying to the children is a bad idea.’
‘But it’s not lying,’ Julie said, shocked. ‘It’s protecting them. They’ll never be able to understand how Granny could be such a coward.’ Julie blew her nose.
‘Please can we ring your mother and ask her if she can pick up Anton?’ Marie asked Jesper, when he entered the living room. ‘And could Michael’s mother pick up your girls, Julie? Perhaps it’s better that somebody else looks after the children until we know more about what’s happened.’
Julie and Jesper agreed.
‘And how about Lea? Has anyone called Lea?’
‘Michael went to see Lea,’ Julie said.
Marie frowned. ‘Are you sure that was a good idea?’
‘What choice did I have?’ Julie asked. ‘He called earlier and . . .’ Julie glanced furtively at the door to the dining room, which was ajar. Officers were still milling about in there and they could hear the crackle of a distant police radio. Julie leaned towards Marie.
‘Dad’s there,’ she whispered.
‘With Lea?’
‘Sssh,’ Julie said. ‘He turned up late last night. He was drunk and passed out on her bed. Michael has told Lea about Mum, but they don’t yet know if Dad knows anything . . . Perhaps he found her during the night and started drinking. But don’t you think he would have called if he knew she was dead?’ Her eyes widened. ‘We won’t know until he wakes up.’
‘Are you whispering because you haven’t told the police?’ Marie could not believe her own ears.
‘Marie, darling, please could we find out what’s happened before we say anything to them? Please?’ Julie looked beseechingly at Marie.
‘Christ, Julie.’
Marie looked to Jesper for support, but he simply shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘If Julie prefers finding out what happened first, where’s the harm in that? All we need is to have a word with Frank.’
At that moment Superintendent Henrik Tejsner came into the living room. ‘We’ve just had a call from the traffic police. It looks like Frank Skov crashed his VW Transporter into a sign outside a corner shop on Vesterbro some time last night. He appears to have abandoned the van, which was towed away by Falck this morning.’
Tejsner looked briefly at Julie, then at Marie. ‘The key was still in the ignition and I’m sorry to have to tell you that we found quite a lot of blood on the steering wheel. CCTV recordings from the shop suggest he was bleeding heavily from his nose. Now, it may not be serious, but we’ll issue a description in case he’s out there somewhere and needs medical attention. Like I said, we very much want to talk to him so we expect to hear from you as soon as he comes home or calls.’
Jesper and Julie nodded quickly.
‘Otherwise that’s it for today,’ Tejsner continued. ‘If you require trauma counselling, please contact your doctor. I’ll be in touch again when your mother’s body can be released for burial, but you should prepare yourselves that it might be at least a week. And here is my card. I work in the Violent Crimes Unit, but please believe me when I say that there is currently nothing suspicious about your mother’s death. We just need to get a couple of tests back from the Institute of Forensic Medicine, then have a chat to your father. But that’s standard procedure. I’m sorry for your loss.’
Shortly afterwards the front door closed behind him.
*
Marie, Jesper and Julie drove to Vesterbro in Julie’s car. Julie sat in the passenger seat next to Jesper, who was driving, and cried all the way into the city. Marie sat in the back and stared emptily out of the window. She had a strange feeling that Joan was better now. Much better. Julie kept asking questions and Jesper did his best to answer them.
‘Should I have locked away her pills? I counted them out every Monday for the whole week when I brought them their meals and it never even crossed my mind that . . .’
‘Julie,’ Jesper said firmly. ‘You can’t stop someone killing themselves, if that’s what they want. Joan would have got hold of the pills some other way. You can’t control everything.’
‘Why was she taking so many in the first place?’ Marie asked, but no one was listening to her.
‘I just don’t understand why she would rather die than ask for help. All Mum had to do was call. I would have dropped everything and gone there immediately. You know I would.’
‘Joan was a very private person,’ Jesper said, and cleared his throat. ‘I’ve known you all for quite a few years now and I’ve never got very close to Joan. Who knows how she was really feeling?’
‘But she wasn’t well,’ Julie cried. ‘Especially not since Marie got ill. The same goes for all of us. Obviously! The worst thing that can happen is losing someone you love and knowing there is nothing you can do about it, nothing!’ Her voice was shrill. ‘And, remember, we’ve been through it all before, Jesper, when I was ten years old. The night Mads died. I remember waiting in the hospital corridor and the look in the doctor’s eyes when he came to tell Mum and Dad. Mum screamed. I couldn’t bear to listen! She screamed and screamed. Eventually they had to give her a sedative and put her to bed. She’s had to relive it because Marie is going to— is so ill. I do understand, but I still think it’s cowardly towards the children. And to me. I could have done something!’
Marie sat in the back, speechless. This was absurd. It was as if she didn’t exist.
‘I’m not going to die,’ she said out loud.
‘No, of course not, my darling!’ Julie exclaimed, as she reached out a hand to Marie. ‘How can you say a thing like that? Of course you’re not going to die. Is she, Jesper?’
‘Of course not,’ Jesper said.
‘But you almost said I was going to die,’ Marie said, but no one was listening.
*
Jesper parked outside the entrance to Lea’s flat and they made their way up to the fourth floor. A tearful Lea opened the door. She wore no makeup and her hair was a mess – it was usually styled with great care. Marie threw her arms around her and they hugged for a long time. Michael was sitting in an armchair in Lea’s living room, next to a desk with piles of books and a pad with densely written notes.
‘It’s a mess, that’s what it is,’ Michael mumbled, and patted Julie’s leg awkwardly without getting up. ‘A right bloody mess.’ ‘We haven’t spoken to Frank yet,’ Lea said in a low voice. ‘But I don’t think he knows anything . . . He staggered to the loo just now and he said—’
‘Yeah, that was freaky,’ Michael interrupted. ‘He said, “Not a word to Mum. Or she’ll kill me.”’
‘Shut up, Michael,’ Lea hissed.
‘Hey, relax,’ Michael said.
‘Yes, really, Lea,’ Julie said, and started crying again.
Lea exploded. ‘This is my home so I’ll say whatever the fuck I like. What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ She glared furiously at Marie. ‘I would never have thought this of you, Marie. The others, definitely. But you, never!’
‘What?’ Marie said.
‘How could you even think of sending that dickhead to tell me my mother is dead? Eh? Of all people, you send him?’ Lea pointed angrily at Michael and tears spouted from her eyes.
‘Lea,’ Marie said calmly, ‘Michael had already gone to see you when Jesper and I arrived at Snerlevej. And you’re right, it wasn’t a very good idea.’
‘That’s it. I’ve had enough,’ Michael said, getting up and grabbing his jacket. ‘Here I was, thinking I was doing Julie a favour. What the hell have I done wrong this time?’ He stormed out into the small hallway.
‘Just go, will you?’ Lea said.
The front door slammed and Julie wept. ‘Honestly, Lea. Is this really the time and place?’
‘Explain to me again what Dad said,’ Marie said calmly.
‘Something along these lines. Something about him wanting me not to tell Mum because she would be angry with him. He’s still drunk.’ Lea sounded deflated now.
‘I’ll talk to him,’ Marie said. ‘Julie, you go and make some coffee. A lot of coffee, strong coffee. And call the police, Jesper. Tell them they can come over in an hour and pick Dad up.’
‘But—’ Julie began.
‘No buts; that’s what’s going to happen,’ Marie said rather loudly.
Everyone looked at her in a stunned silence.
*
Marie sat on the edge of Lea’s bed, where Frank lay like a beached whale across the duvet. She could smell vomit. Her father had dried blood down his clothes and his nose looked broken.
‘Dad?’ Marie whispered. ‘Dad? Are you awake?’
‘Mmm,’ Frank grunted. ‘Eh?’
‘Dad,’ Marie said, louder now. ‘You have to wake up. Now. It’s important.’
With infinite slowness Frank opened his eyes and gingerly touched his nose. Then he looked at Marie with swimming eyes before a smile spread across his face. ‘Marizzen,’ he slurred. ‘Wouldn’t you know it? It’s my Marizzen.’ He tried to sit up and succeeded after a few attempts.
‘Dad,’ Marie said. ‘Why did you get so drunk? The police are looking for you.’
‘Argh, bloody hell,’ Frank mumbled. ‘I didn’t think I’d had that much until I tried to park. Bollocks. That’s going to cost me a few points. Your mum will kill me when she finds out.’
‘Dad,’ Marie said. ‘Mum is dead.’
For one moment Frank’s eyes became completely lucid, then something crumbled around his mouth and a deep, unhappy sound escaped from it. ‘No,’ he wailed. ‘No.’
Marie held out a hand to him. ‘Yes,’ she said. The tears rolled down her cheeks and she kept stroking Frank’s hand. ‘Julie thinks she killed herself. What happened yesterday? Where were you? The police are looking for you.’
But Frank just cried.
*
The police took Frank to Bellahøj Police Station; Julie and Michael followed. They would drive him back afterwards, and Julie promised to stay at Snerlevej that night. Marie and Jesper were free to drive home. Marie worried about Lea, but Julie said that Lea had called a friend who would stay over with her. Marie talked non-stop all the way home, while Jesper said nothing. When they were halfway to Hellerup, Julie called to say that the forensic examiner had established that Joan had not been dead for very long when Julie had found her, and as Lea had now confirmed that Frank had arrived at her flat at two o’clock in the morning and not left at any point, Frank was not under suspicion. The police would still like to have a proper chat to him about the earlier events that evening and he would inevitably be charged with driving under the influence.
‘What do you get for drink-driving?’ Marie asked, when she had finished talking to Julie. ‘Months? Or are we talking years? How could it get this bad, Jesper? How can we live like this? I can’t live like this!’ she cried. Jesper sat stony-faced and still said nothing.
The house was freezing because Marie had not shut the windows before they had rushed off to Snerlevej. Jesper closed them and turned up the heating. Marie sat on the sofa wrapped in a blanket while he pottered about in the kitchen, where he opened a bottle of wine. Marie had not drunk alcohol for several months, but now a glass of wine was exactly what she needed. In fact, she wanted to knock back the whole bottle, summon up the courage to kiss Jesper passionately, suck his dick so hard that he almost came, then straddle and ride him until he did. She wanted to be close to him again and live as if each day was their first.
‘Jesper,’ she said, taking his hand. ‘Why don’t we try to . . .? I really want to . . . I miss you.’
‘Marie, please let me say something first,’ he said.
She looked at him and he glanced away.
‘It’s dreadful, but I have to say this. I can’t wait any longer, because . . . there never will be a right time – and I can’t do this any more.’
Marie gave him a puzzled look.
‘I want a divorce,’ he said.
*
The next morning the doorbell rang and Marie stared numbly at Merethe Hermansen, chief secretary at the Department of Immunology, who seemed subdued. It was raining and water was dripping from the edge of her hood.
‘Marie,’ she said, ‘I’m afraid I have some terrible news. Storm is dead. He hanged himself. I didn’t want to call because I know how much—’
Marie closed the door.