In the Name of Love Read online

New Year’s Day the first ferry was empty. The unloaded deck rattled when the engines started up. Snowflakes swirled past the gunnel. By the time Dan had driven across the neighbouring island, Yxlan, and was getting off the second ferry the snow had thickened so much that it poured into the headlights and came racing up the bonnet to burst against the windscreen.

  Leaning forward to see, he thought of how now it could only get darker, as of course it did, particularly when the ferry lights in his rear-view mirror vanished, leaving him alone in the dense black of the afternoon countryside until, finally, he caught sight of a car flashing its warning lamps ahead.

  It turned out to be an old Volvo, a model he recognized from the sixties. He pulled over in front of it. Steam was seeping around the edges of the bonnet. A young woman opened the door to lean out and, as he approached, he pulled the parka hood off his head so he wouldn’t scare her. She made a forlorn sight in the dark while the snow silently buried her car. He told her how Anders had telephoned him and, although he knew little about engines of any kind, added, ‘Looks like your cylinder head gasket’s blown.’

  The young woman asked him what that meant. He put the hood of his parka back up against the snow and said it meant she’d have to ring for a breakdown truck and have the car towed to a workshop.

  ‘Can’t you tow me?’

  ‘Not in this weather. There’s a fairly big petrol station about ten kilometres down the road, just before the ferry. I’ll give you a lift there.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ she said.

  By now the snow was sliding off his parka, coating his trousers which were already stiff with the cold. He waited.

  ‘I suppose I better go with you,’ she said.

  She got out of the car and locked the door.

  In his car she took off the tam o’shanter she was wearing and shook out her blonde hair as she asked him how he knew Anders Roos. When he told her she said, ‘Yes, of course, you’re the Irishman who lives on Blidö.’

  He had the heating on and after a few minutes she opened her overcoat. Beneath it she wore a pirate outfit. The pants were made of some satiny material. The red blouse was sever­al buttons undone at the top. At the bottom it was tied in a knot above her waist, showing a hand’s width of flat stomach. ‘This is nothing,’ she said a little drily. ‘You should see me on Sundays.’ Her accent was marked west-coast. Gothenburg area. A moment later, relenting, she told him she’d stayed over unexpectedly after a New Year’s Eve party last night so had nothing to change into.

  ‘We’re there,’ he said. ‘Let’s see what they can do.’

  The young man on duty at the petrol station said the repair workshop in Furusund would be closed, she’d have to ring the owner at home if she wanted to get hold of them. She rang the owner and said a man had told her the cylinder head gasket was blown. When Dan indicated his uncertainty, lifting his shoulders and shaking his head, she put the phone on the counter between them and said, ‘All right, you tell him,’ loudly enough for the man on the other end to hear. Dan said he didn’t know, he was only guessing, it could be something else. He listened to the man tell her she could have the car collected tomorrow but if it was the cylinder head gasket it’d take two or three days to strip down the engine, reface the cylinder head, put it back. By now she was scowling. She asked him if he could give her a free replacement car while he was doing it. His answer was no. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it’s not my decision. Somebody lent me this thing.’ The man, without a hint of rebuke for being disturbed on New Year’s Day, said, ‘Yes, I understand.’

  In the end they agreed that she’d leave the key and her particulars at the petrol station and the garage owner would ring her with an estimate tomorrow. She gave him her phone number and a c/o address in Herräng. Herräng was in the opposite direction to the direction the car had been facing in when Dan arrived. The boy behind the counter told her there was no bus to Herräng from here. She asked him what she should do.

  ‘The cars’ll be coming off the ferry in ten minutes,’ he said, eyeing her bare midriff. ‘What there is of them. Maybe you’ll get one going up towards Östhammar. They could drop you on the way. You’d still have a fair bit to walk though.’

  ‘Like about ten kilometres,’ she said.

  The boy said she could ring for a taxi.

  ‘How much would that cost?’

  ‘A taxi to Herräng?’ The question seemed to unsettle him and he decided to dismiss it. ‘No telling.’

  The snow had stopped. She looked at her watch and said they were almost on Blidö now which was where she had been going. Just the ferry and crossing Yxlan and the other ferry and they were there. That was, in fact, she said, the whole point of her leaving the motorway, the whole point of her driving down an unploughed road at two o’clock in the afternoon. To get to Blidö on her way home. It seemed a pity to give up now.

  ‘Do they still have a taxi on Blidö?’

  Dan told her yes, two. Both owned by the same family. The petrol station office was overheated. She took off her raincoat and draped it across the counter. The boy looked at the swell of her breasts, the good ten centimetres or so of white stomach showing above her pants.

  ‘Don’t let it obsess you,’ she told him. ‘It’ll stunt your growth.’

  The ferry to Yxlan was almost empty. She asked Dan how long he’d been living on Blidö and who he knew. He said over two years and no one. ‘Oh,’ she said. She was silent. Then she said, ‘An hour and a quarter I sat waiting on that fucking road. Can you imagine? An hour and a quarter.’

  He told her he was sorry, that he’d left as soon as Anders rang but the heavy snow made driving difficult. ‘Oh, it’s not your fault,’ she said. She said she could have waited in the house where she went to ring only Anders said he was on his way. Three other cars drove past and didn’t even stop.

  ‘Christ. What’s gone wrong with this fucking country? People used to be helpful.’

  Twenty minutes later, when they’d crossed Yxlan and driven off the Blidö ferry onto the dark deserted road, she asked him where on the island he lived. He said, Fridsdal.

  ‘That’s west of Bromskär headland, isn’t it?’

  ‘You know Blidö well.’

  ‘Used to. Do you think you could drive me past Bromskär? Before I get the taxi?’

  It was out of his way by about six kilometres there and six back but of course she knew that. He asked her what part of Bromskär. She said she’d tell him when they got there.

  When they reached Bromskär she directed him north along the coast towards the headland. The road here was narrow. To the left, a little into the forest, farmhouse lights shone. She said to stop.

  ‘Is this what you wanted to see?’

  She grunted by way of reply. She was wholly concentrated on the farmhouse now. He waited.

  ‘They’re in there all right.’

  Dan didn’t say anything. He had no idea who ‘they’ were.

  ‘They’re still there.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Selavas. You know them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Lucky you.’

  She didn’t take her eyes from the lit-up windows. He moved in the seat. With the engine off the heat was going. Ahead he could just make out the difference in darkness between the coastline and the sea. She turned towards him and saw that he was staring into nothing.

  ‘There’s a small island out there,’ she said. She knew his patience was giving way. ‘Svartholm. Do you know it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Almost totally untouched. And lovely woods. It’s worth a visit. My Uncle Fritjof used to take me with him when he lay the nets. There are a few old fishermen’s huts and he had a key to one of them. We’d put in there with a thermos of coffee for him and a bottle of Pommac for me and cinnamon buns Aunt Solveig’d baked. Those were some of the happiest days of my life.’

  He nodded.

  The decent thing, certainly, would have been to drive her to Herräng, which was a good
hour away. Not including whatever time they’d spend waiting for the ferries. She was look­ing at the farmhouse windows again, as though watching for some sign or someone to become visible against the win­dow lights.

  ‘Do you want to go and see the people living there?’ he suggested.

  She shook her head.

  ‘You came all the way out here just to look at a farmhouse?’

  ‘I used to live there. All my meaningful life.’

  ‘How long have you known Anders Roos?’

  ‘How long… What did you say your name was?’

  ‘Dan Byrne.’

  ‘Let’s not make cocktail party chatter, Dan Byrne. It’s not the moment.’

  He started the car, put the engine in gear.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Driving you back to the ferry and getting myself home.’

  ‘You’re going to dump me just like that?’

  He turned the car in an opening in the forest and drove back.

  ‘Do you think it might be possible,’ she said slowly, ‘to borrow your telephone? For maybe half a minute? Naturally I’ll pay the cost.’

  He drove on to Fridsdal. The house stood dark and alone.

  ‘This where you live?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘On your own?’

  She shivered as they got out. He told himself to ignore it but of course he couldn’t. He put his parka on her shoulders and pulled the hood up over her head. She gave him one of her smiles, quick and bright as a magnesium flash. ‘A gentleman,’ she said. ‘That’s nice.’ It didn’t do anything to endear her to him. He put on the hall light.

  ‘You been living here long?’

  ‘I thought we were skipping the cocktail party chatter. The phone’s over there.’

  ‘Wow! You catch on fast, don’t you? Jesus fuck, it’s almost seven. I’ll have to ring my aunt as well. Tell her not to wait with dinner. That okay?’

  ‘Maybe you better get on to the taxi people first. The number’s on the list beside the phone.’

  ‘Don’t go hostile on me, Dan Byrne. I’m not thinking of staying the night.’

  ‘Do you want me to ring them for you?’

  ‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘Seriously. Anders wonders about this too. Doesn’t it ever make you afraid? Sitting alone here every night?’

  ‘I’ll ring for the taxi.’

  ‘Afraid you’ll go nuts, I mean?’

  He was dialling the number and didn’t answer.

  ‘Well,’ she said. Her eyes, seen full under the hall light as he turned to her, startled him. They were pale blue and seemed almost feral, like a Greenland dog’s. For some reason he saw her now as dangerous. The taxi driver’s wife told him her son was out with a client and her husband was at his dinner.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s an emergency.’ He didn’t even hesitate. ‘We need a taxi now.’

  Alone after the taxi had gone he dismissed all thought of her and her predicament. There was too much attitude, too much brazenness about her to arouse much sympathy. Whatever she’d wanted to see in Bromskär was none of his business. She was a survivor, he told himself, he’d been right to send her off into the snow. She’d manage.

  When he had eaten, washed the dishes, put them away, he rang Carlos in Massachusetts. Carlos didn’t ask him what he’d done for Christmas because they never had done anything. Carlos’s Spanish grandfather, abuelito, a strong presence in their Stockholm home, refused to celebrate any of it, not even 6 January, the traditional Spanish gift-giving day. They weren’t a religious family and, although abuelito and Dan had both been baptized, Connie wasn’t and neither was Carlos. The God-man’s spell had been broken, abuelito said. El hechizo del hombre-dios.

  They talked about a trip Carlos had made to New York early in December to see a young woman he’d met at a party in Cambridge. She still lived with her parents. They weren’t strictly religious but they kept up the traditions and they’d all celebrated Chanukah together. Carlos said he’d really enjoyed it, the ritual of lighting one more candle each evening, the traditional foods. It was a New York thing, a matter of keeping up the customs.

  ‘We never did that,’ he said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Lack of interest, I suppose.’

  ‘Didn’t mamma show any interest in Judaism?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about my grandmother?’

  ‘Well, I can’t say.’ Dan wasn’t sure why the questions troubled him but they did. Carlos had never asked anything like this before. He said his new friend’s name was Zoë. She worked as a fabric designer, had her own firm in uptown New York, with two employees. And she was only twenty-three. That was what was great about America. ‘What bank would back an unknown twenty-three-year-old in Europe?’ He’d enjoyed the Chanukah food, the latkes and the slow-cooked brisket beef, the doughnuts filled with jelly, all sorts of side dishes. ‘The whole caboodle,’ he said in American-accented English and he laughed again. In Swedish he added soberly, ‘It’s probably in my blood.’

  ‘Your mother’s blood was Moroccan Sephardic. I don’t know if they do latkes and doughnuts down there.’

  Carlos was silent for a moment.

  ‘Does talking about this disturb you?’ he asked.

  ‘No, no, of course not. It’s just that I don’t think your mother’s family was particularly religious. If anything the opposite.’ He stopped a little abruptly. What did he know of Connie’s family? Her mother, Carlos’s grandmother, had died in Barcelona in 1937, a victim of Mussolini’s bombs. Her father had escaped and finally made it to Sweden in 1948, still a militant atheist and anarchist.

  Carlos asked him if he was getting out more, seeing people. Dan told him he’d met Anders Roos in Norrtälje.

  ‘We ran into each other one day in the street. He’s living there now.’

  ‘Farbror Anders?’ Carlos said. ‘That’s good. He can introduce you to people, help you get back into social life.’

  ‘I don’t drive into Norrtälje very often.’

  Carlos was silent again. Then he said he’d decided to sit the New York bar exam in the autumn. The news came as a shock to Dan. The plan had been for Carlos to come back to Sweden after his doctorate, maybe work for an NGO like the ones he’d worked for as a law student in Uppsala. Now he said it was time to move on. It was time to earn a proper living. ‘Who can tell?’ he said. ‘I might get married one day, have a family. I need to be better prepared.’

  Dan did not know why he felt so troubled. We send our children out into the world and hope that angels watch over them, whether we believe in angels or not. It was the New York part of it, probably. Otherwise marriage, a family, that was all good news, including this young woman who was, he now realized, much more than a friend.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Carlos asked him.

  Dan said yes. He said he was glad Carlos was doing so well. ‘Will you still be back in the summer?’ he asked.

  The hesitancy in his own voice troubled him.

  ‘Of course I will!’ Carlos said. ‘Or early autumn, after my bar exam. Zoë too. She hasn’t been to Europe yet.’

  ‘Maybe I can meet her then?’

  ‘For sure,’ Carlos said. ‘She wants to meet you too. Sometime in late September. I’ll get back to you about the exact date.’

  ‘Who knows, she may take a liking to Stockholm. It’s a beautiful city. And everyone speaks English there now.’

  Carlos laughed. ‘Not a chance. Zoë loves New York. She says everywhere else seems anaemic in comparison.’

  Dan was furious with himself when he put the phone down. He didn’t used to be like this: insecure, grasping, clutching at his son as though he were a lifeline. It was, of course, the worst form of egotism parading as concern. Carlos had a lot of his mother in him – he was naturally cheerful, open, life-loving. He would make a wonderful father. As for himself, Dan wondered, not for the first time, if Carlos saw him as dull. There must have been moments when
he’d wished for another kind of father – more outgoing, more like his mother.

  Still wondering if he had somehow been a disappointment to his son, Dan went to bed.

  A few hours later he was startled out of sleep by a roar from above. The ceiling was cracking. The ridge beam broke through it. He jumped from the bed and heard the splintering sound when the beam hit the floor. The house shuddered as though in an earthquake. By the time the rest of the roof collapsed the wall had cracked and he could no longer get the bedroom door open. A slab of masonry from the attic hung a few centimetres above his shoulder. Part of it broke off. Dumbly he saw a furrow open from his elbow to his thumb and, though he felt nothing, blood also began to drip down the back of his head and around his throat. He watched it run along his chest. The air became too thick with dust to breathe. Holding his nose and mouth he stared at the crack as it widened in the wall beside him and when it had widened enough he climbed through it.

  In the basement he pulled on a shirt, a sweater and a pair of old gardening trousers that had been lying since autumn on a shelf behind the washing machine. Even down there the air was full of dust. He tied a wet dishcloth around his mouth and nose and went back up. In the ruined bedroom he began to clear what he could of the debris that had fallen through from the attic, dumping it on the snow outside the smashed window so that the bedroom floor wouldn’t collapse beneath the extra weight. The electricity in the bathroom still worked and the water ran hot when he tried the tap.

  After first light people started arriving. Some thought the noise was an explosion. Others a fighter plane breaking the sound barrier. A solidly built man of about his own age, wearing a fisherman’s sock-cap, hung on after the others left.

  ‘The snow load,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you see it?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘It’d been there for days.’

  Dan didn’t answer.

  ‘You’re going to need a few stitches in that head of yours.’

  ‘What are you? A doctor as well as an engineer?’

  The man gave a deep belly laugh. ‘What I am is your nearest neighbour. I live in the little house on the spit beyond the church. Where you go walking. Alone. In the dark. You’ve been here over two years and you don’t even know who your nearest neighbour is?’