Inertia, page 13
Fifty-seven likes.
Jeanette has posted a picture in which she is straddling a chair. Her skirt is short and pushed up her muscular thighs. I can glimpse the lace panties under the hem. She smiles and her mouth, shiny with lip gloss, reflects the light from the flash.
Two hundred and eleven likes.
Fucking slut.
Then I realise what I am doing and turn the mobile off – it mustn’t be on under any circumstances.
In my mind’s eye I see Igor’s shaved head and Malte’s thin pockmarked cheeks.
I get up slowly and go into the family room, then into the bathroom, where I take a piss and a long shower. When I am done I wrap the towel around my hips and go back to get dressed, but I end up standing in front of the large windows in the family room.
The view is enrapturing.
I really cannot find a better word. Enrapturing tends to be one of those words they like to use at Mum’s church, and really I don’t like those words, on principle.
Because they are God’s words and he doesn’t want anything to do with you.
But in this case the view happens to be precisely enrapturing.
The sea glimmers in the sun and the lighthouse is stark against the light blue morning sky. A soft haze rises from the water, partially obscuring the horizon.
I’m just about to enter my room when I see her.
Rachel is jogging down the long winding wooden staircase towards the water. She is wearing her long hair down and a blue bathrobe that is far too big.
Her steps are light. It almost looks as if she is dancing towards the edge of the cliff.
When she gets down she goes all the way out onto the jetty, so far that her toes are over the edge. Then she pulls a mobile out of her pocket and holds it up, as if she is taking a picture – first of the sea and then of herself. Then she puts the phone back in her pocket, drops the robe and dives into the water in one movement.
It takes me a couple of seconds to realise that she is naked.
I look around.
I do it reflexively, because I don’t seriously think that there is anyone in here who can see me spying on Rachel.
When I turn to the water again I can’t see anything. Not a ripple on the smooth surface. It is as if she was never there. But the bathrobe lying in a pile on the jetty tells me I wasn’t dreaming.
Where did she go? What if she dived straight into a rock or something? Should I go down and look for her?
Just as I articulate the question to myself, Rachel’s head emerges at least twenty yards from the jetty. With slow, smooth movements she begins a crawl swim to the shore. When she gets to the jetty she heaves herself up and sits on the edge for a while with her legs in the water.
I know that I should leave now, that I should disappear into my room and get dressed rather than stand here by the window looking at her like some kind of perv, but I can’t. Something about her slender body and the way that she splashes her legs in the water has an almost hypnotic effect on me.
She gets up, still with her back to me – leans to the side and twists her long hair so that the water drips onto the jetty and forms a gleaming puddle.
Then she turns around and I see it.
She is beautiful.
She is so fucking beautiful.
Her breasts are full, her thighs are a bit rounder than Alexandra’s, and between her legs there is a big bush of dark hair, the kind I’ve only seen in practically antique porn.
I swallow and feel myself getting hard even as I am overcome with throbbing shame.
For fuck’s sake, she is as old as my mum.
I can’t be standing here getting horny for a forty-year-old, whose freak of a son I am supposed to be taking care of.
For 111 fucking kronor an hour.
It is beyond fucking bizarre.
*
After breakfast Rachel follows me into zombie-Jonas’s room and asks me to sit in the granny chair as she strokes his hair and explains that I’m here.
Just like yesterday Jonas is completely motionless in bed and doesn’t seem to understand a thing. All that confirms that he is alive is the regular rise and fall of his chest and slight spasms in the fingers on one hand.
Rachel goes up to the table and gets the book that is lying next to a speaker, hands it to me and says: ‘Read!’
Then she makes herself comfortable in the chair and reaches for the hand cream that is next to the vase with the rose. She slaps the tube against the palm of her hand several times before she gets anything. But in the end she succeeds and starts to massage Jonas’s right hand.
‘Read!’ she says again.
At first I think I’ve misunderstood her – surely she isn’t going to sit there listening to me as I read?
She looks amused when she meets my gaze.
‘I was joking,’ she says and lets out a quiet laugh. ‘You don’t need to read to me. I am just going to moisturise Jonas’s hands, then I’m going to sit down and work. He had a hard night. I injected him with a sedative at five this morning, so he won’t make any trouble.’
‘OK,’ I say and watch her as she smooths cream into the other hand.
Rachel is wearing a thin white summer singlet and the same worn jeans as yesterday. Her hair, which is still wet, is up in a tight bun at the back of her neck. Her face is smooth and without make-up.
Once again I am struck by how much she looks like my mother.
‘There,’ she says and stands up. ‘You can begin reading by the bookmark, OK?’
‘Sure,’ I say and study the cover.
The book is called The Sun Also Rises, written by someone named Hemingway.
I have never heard of the book or the author, but dutifully open it at the page Rachel showed me and begin to read, slowly and very quietly.
At first it feels awkward and I stumble, but then it flows pretty well. I pause, leaf forward and back to understand the context.
The book is about an American in Paris, who mostly seems to hang out at nightclubs and bars with other rich expats who don’t have jobs.
Reading about them makes me think a bit about Liam and me. We actually have some things in common with the characters in the novel, except that we have to steal stuff to afford not to work.
The American is in love with a divorced girl, but they can never have one another, since a battle wound has made the guy impotent. And that is about where I get tired of the book. Yeah, I get that it sucks to lose the use of your dick, but I don’t want to read a whole book about it.
Besides the chick he is in love with seems pretty messed up.
I would have dumped her right away.
I put the book aside and look at Jonas.
He doesn’t move a muscle.
I get up and stand closer, lean towards his ear.
‘Hallo!’
No movement.
‘Hallooo, anybody home?’ I try, a bit louder this time.
But zombie-Jonas just lies there looking as dead as a plastic-wrapped fish in the refrigerated counter at a supermarket.
Unease comes creeping like a furry spider.
I don’t like this room. I don’t like the drawings hanging on the walls, they remind me far too much of my own drawings that my mum has saved in a folder back in Fruängen. And the Hammarby team flag and the boots make me think of when I used to play in Älvsjö AIK in primary school.
I look at Jonas.
Once he was just like me, I think. If I’d been unlucky and fallen in front of a bus I could have been the one lying there in bed, forced to listen to some idiot reading aloud and having hand cream rubbed all over my goddamn body.
I look at the clock: almost eleven.
I get up and sneak into the bathroom that connects Rachel’s and Jonas’s rooms. It is big and white and has a hand-held shower with a very long hose. Maybe it’s for washing Jonas when he is hanging in that weird blue harness.
Rachel must be working because I can clearly hear the tapping from her computer keyboard from her bedroom.
Tap, tap, tap. Tap-tap.
Sometimes it is quiet for a while, as if she is thinking about something, but then she begins to type again.
I think.
If I am quiet I can have a look around the house. Perhaps I can even find something of value, something I can sell.
I go back into Jonas’s room and carefully close the door to the bathroom behind me.
‘I’ll be right there,’ I mumble, without even glancing at the figure in the bed.
I don’t even know why I say that; he doesn’t understand anyway. But it feels decent somehow.
After all he is a human being, not a fish.
The kitchen is neat and has been cleaned up after breakfast; the crumbs have been wiped away and the dishes put into the dishwasher.
Next to the bread bin there is a stack of paper.
I leaf through it.
At the top there is a form from the Swedish Social Insurance Agency, headed ‘Application for reimbursement for caregiver’. Somebody has attached a small pamphlet to the sheet with a paper clip: ‘The law about support and service for certain disabled people, LSS – a digest for next of kin.’
I put the pages back and begin to go through the cabinets and drawers without really finding anything of interest. All I come across is worn china and old, mismatched cutlery.
‘Can I help you find something?’
I turn around.
Rachel is standing in the doorway. Her smile is warm and her eyes are shining. She has a wallet in her hand.
‘I . . . some water.’
‘There is sparkling water in the fridge if you want it,’ she says, then turns around and puts on a pair of clogs. ‘I’m going to do some shopping, OK?’
I nod without answering.
I remain standing in the kitchen for a long time after Rachel leaves. Then I go to her bedroom.
The double bed is neatly made and on one bedside table there is a stack of books. Across from the bed there is a wardrobe made out of dark wood with two doors.
I open one of them.
Blouses, dresses and trousers hang on hangers. Below them shoes vie for space. Behind the other door hang men’s shirts, a few pairs of chinos and some knitted sweaters.
Those must be her partner’s clothes.
I go into the bathroom.
Above the sink there is a white medicine cabinet. The door slides open with a squeak when I push the gold-coloured knob.
There are two shelves in the cabinet. On the top shelf there are girly creams, a few bottles of perfume, a deodorant and a box of tampons. On the lower is an electric razor and a jar of hair wax.
I carefully close the door and look around.
There is a large metal cabinet next to one wall. It looks almost like a filing cabinet, of the kind one would find in an office.
I feel the handle.
Locked.
Carefully I feel around with my hand along the top edge of the cabinet, and bingo, there’s a small key.
The key slides easily into the lock and I know it fits even before I’ve turned it.
My pulse quickens.
You don’t lock a cabinet unless there is something important inside. You don’t lock a cabinet full of toilet paper and toothpaste.
The door slides open and reveals shelves full of medicine. Pills, injection vials, needles and syringes.
My first reaction is disappointment, but then I look closer at the packaging. I vaguely recognise some of the names: Dexmedetomidine, Klonodine, Midazolam, Xanax, Klonopin, Stesolid and Fentanyl, 50 microgram/ml. injection fluid.
Wait a minute.
Fentanyl.
Even though Igor and Malte are strictly old school, I do know a thing or two about prescription drugs. They are hard currency on the street, after all, and are increasingly giving street drugs a run for their money. And Fentanyl is worth its weight in gold. Malte has told me how junkies cut up Fentanyl patches into tiny pieces and eat them.
I run my finger across the packages.
There are fourteen vials of Fentanyl on each shelf and there are three shelves – a total of forty-two vials. That’s enough dope to knock out an entire fucking school class for weeks.
I think about it for a while, then I take three vials of Fentanyl and pocket them. They give off a dull clink as they slide into my pocket.
Will she notice that they’re gone?
The neat rows of little glass vials filled with translucent fluid makes me suspect that she knows exactly how many she has. I sense that Rachel is a bit like me, that she can count.
On the shelf below, some empty vials lie randomly and I have an idea. I take a syringe out of its plastic cover and fill it with water from the tap. Then I put the needle through the thin rubber membrane on one of the empty vials and shoot the water into it.
When I pull the needle out the membrane closes up again. I lean forward and take a look at the thin rubber cover.
You can’t see that I punctured it.
I put the bottle back, next to the other, full vials.
It looks exactly like the others.
After that I repeat the procedure with another two vials, so that I have replaced those that are in my pocket.
Surely this won’t hurt zombie-Jonas? It’s just water, and our bodies are seventy per cent water after all.
I take a deep breath, close the cabinet, lock it and put the key back where I found it.
As I do that I hear a dull thud.
I turn around and see Rachel in Jonas’s room.
She is holding a shopping bag in her hand and her mouth is half open, as if she is trying to understand what she is looking at but can’t quite. Her eyes look almost scared and the knuckles on the hand squeezing the bag are white.
‘We ran out of hand cream,’ I manage. ‘I was just checking to see if there was more.’
Pernilla
W
hen I have counted the money in the till and filled in the daily report I go into the office and knock on Stina’s door.
‘Come in,’ she shouts.
I open the book and put the report on her desk.
Stina looks up over her reading glasses and smiles so that her blotchy skin folds like a dry old hide over her cheek bones.
‘Thank you, dear,’ she says. ‘See you tomorrow.’
‘Yes, see you,’ I say and smile, turning around to leave.
‘Wait,’ Stina says, ‘how did things go with your son?’
I freeze mid-step and consider my options.
How honest can I be?
Stina is nice and means well, I am sure of that. But she is also curious, like most people working here.
I decide to compromise. A halfway that doesn’t make me seem too buttoned-up, but also won’t supply her with juicy gossip for the staff room.
‘He’s gone,’ I say. ‘We had a disagreement and I threw him out. Well, that was Monday and now I can’t get hold of him.’
‘What are you saying?’ Stina says and her eyes widen. ‘That must be so hard for you. But I am sure he will be home soon. Björn disappears sometimes too. I guess it’s part of being young.’
Even though Stina is past sixty she has a son Samuel’s age.
I got started early, Stina started late.
She pauses. Takes her glasses off and lays them on the table next to the cash ledger. Then she continues: ‘Was that why the cops were here?’
I hesitate.
‘Yes,’ I say. And manage to keep myself from elaborating even though the words are impatiently waiting at the tip of my tongue.
I feel my cheeks flush.
It is crazy that, at age thirty-six, I can’t lie without feeling deeply ashamed. I can’t manage even a little white lie without thinking of Jesus and the Final Judgement.
I can tell that Stina would like to know more, but instead of asking further questions she smiles again and says: ‘It will all work out, you’ll see. Now go home and get some rest.’
‘I will,’ I say, but end up standing on the floor in front of her unable to move.
I feel tears run down my cheeks and blink in surprise.
‘Oh, sweetie.’
Stina gets up and comes over to me. Puts a hand on my back and assertively leads me over to the chair in front of her little desk.
‘How are you?’ she asks and resolutely pushes me into the broken wicker seat.
I look at the piles of paper on her desk. Catch the smell of cigarette butts in the ashtray.
Then it all comes out. All the words that have been waiting to be said rush out of me, unfiltered. I tell her about Samuel’s disappearance, the bald man who scared me half to death in the stairwell, and what I have found out about Mother. I even tell her about the pastor: how he took advantage of my body in the congregation hall while Jesus watched from the cross.
‘Oh, sweetie,’ Stina says again and shakes her head. ‘Oh, sweetie.’
And suddenly it feels good to hear her say that. As if her words alone could heal me.
‘Let’s deal with one thing at a time,’ she says with authority.
She gets up, walks over to the worn old grey metal filing cabinet and pulls out one of the drawers.
I watch her broad back, see how her arms sort of overflow from her blouse, notice the frayed red hair that fans like a halo around her head.
The paper rustles as she digs around in the folders and the shiny synthetic sweater strains across her shoulders.
Then she closes the drawer again and returns with a flask and two small glasses.
‘Are you kidding?’ I say. ‘Surely we can’t sit here . . . ? I mean, technically this is working hours. Even though we’re closed. But we’re still getting paid. And we are in the shop. So. Even though there are no customers who . . . Well, what if someone . . . ?’
‘Hush,’ Stina says, raising her liver-spotted hand at me.
Then she unscrews the lid and pours the amber liquid into the glasses. Hands me one and gives a quick nod.
‘Drink!’
I do what she tells me.
My throat burns as the alcohol makes its way down to my stomach.
‘Now listen,’ Stina says. ‘It’s terrible that your father denied your mother access to you, but there’s nothing you can do about it n—’
