Trapped, page 40
He downed the wine. Ulrika wasn’t laughing any longer. She downed her glass of wine too. Then she waved to the barman and ordered two strong gin and tonics. She was apparently taking the information about Rebecka seriously. In her own way.
‘Well, she’s not cutting herself in my house,’ she said. ‘That must be something you bring out in her at yours. At mine she’s mostly happy.’
‘Good God,’ he said, staring at his ex-wife. ‘How oblivious are you? What exactly do you know about your daughter? When did you last have a proper conversation with Rebecka?’
‘What? We talk …’ Ulrika protested, sipping the G&T which had appeared on the bar in front of her.
He stirred his drink, unable to conceal his irritation. If the conversation was going to continue like this, then thank God for the booze.
‘So what’s her best friend called?’ he said. ‘And don’t try saying it’s you. There’s nothing worse than mums who want to be BFFs with their teenage daughters.’
‘Hmm, isn’t it Emma?’
Vincent spun around on his bar stool, so that he was facing Ulrika.
‘She doesn’t have a best friend,’ he said gravely. ‘She has lots of acquaintances, but no real friends. That smile you see on her lips, it’s not a real smile. It never reaches her eyes. How can you not see that? Or don’t you want to see it, because it doesn’t fit with your own self-image as a successful, fit mother with perfect kids?’
His drink was almost empty. Anger had made him down it far too quickly. He had to be careful. Had to remember he hadn’t eaten.
‘Jesus Christ, Vincent,’ she hissed back. ‘Enough already. But thanks for saying you think I’m successful and fit, I think.’
Vincent sighed. As usual, she’d managed to turn the argument upside down.
‘Did I just get the blame for you not seeing what’s happening?’ he said. ‘Is Rebecka’s situation supposed to be entirely my fault? Sometimes I wonder whether you’re for real.’
‘Nope,’ she said, moving the stirrer around her empty glass, making the ice cubes rattle. ‘I’m a figment of your imagination. You’re actually sitting here drinking and talking to yourself. The people at the tables behind us have already started to wonder what’s going on.’
She pointed at her and Vincent’s glasses while catching the eye of the barman, who immediately began to mix two more drinks.
‘Hey, do you have almonds or something I can eat?’ he asked.
The barman nodded, disappeared for a minute and then returned with a plate of toasted almonds that he set down in front of Vincent. It was far too small a meal, but it would have to do for now. Vincent put a fistful in his mouth. The fire of alcohol in his belly was mitigated a little.
There was a ping on Ulrika’s phone.
‘The others are late,’ she said, after reading the message. ‘You’ll have to keep me company for a while longer.’
He glanced at his watch. He only had 840 seconds to go.
‘Consider it a child-free evening in adult company,’ she added. ‘Surely you don’t get those very often. Peace?’
He nodded. She was right. He might as well make the best of the situation. He did however wonder whether they were ever going to talk about Rebecka properly.
The bar gradually filled up until it was packed. Ulrika continued ordering drinks. Bit by bit, he had been squeezed closer to her and they were now sitting shoulder to shoulder. He could no longer see her as they talked. If he turned his head, his face would be an inch from hers. Far too close. He needed at least half a metre around him in his personal bubble. But there was no chance of that in this packed bar. He was on his third bowl of almonds. He inserted a few more into his mouth.
‘Vincent, Vincent,’ said Ulrika, her pronunciation of the first letter in his name a bit woolly.
She smiled when the barman set down a glass of Cava in front of her and a whisky in front of him. They’d long since moved on from G&Ts.
‘What exactly has happened to you?’ she continued, pressing her shoulder against his.
‘What’s happened to me?’ he said, sighing. ‘I don’t know, Ulrika. What’s happened to you? You’re sitting there like some perfect doll, not wanting to look at anyone but yourself. Were you always like that?’
‘You think I’m perfect?’
He glanced to the side and thought he saw a smile of satisfaction. It was hard to see clearly when they were sitting so close together. What was more, his vision seemed to have been afflicted by the same issues her speech was facing.
‘Stop it,’ he said. ‘Of course you’re beautiful, in purely objective terms, that is. And you know it. The problem isn’t that, it’s …’
She turned towards him. Close enough for her breath to warm his ear.
‘You want to kiss me, don’t you?’ she said.
‘The fuck,’ he said, holding out his arms in a gesture of resignation – or at least as much as was possible in the crowded bar.
‘That’s exactly what I mean. You’re impossible.’
He downed what was left of the whisky and put his empty glass next to hers. When she’d finished the Cava he had no idea. He thought they’d only just received the drinks. Apparently not. And he’d meant to take it easy. This was going well.
‘When did you and Maria last fuck?’ she said, still turned towards his ear. ‘How many months ago?’
He knew better than to bite. That was Ulrika’s way in, if he wasn’t careful she’d start talking about how much better their sex life had been. As if regular one-hour sex sessions meant they hadn’t had any issues in the remaining hours of the day.
‘When did you last get some?’ he countered. ‘I gather you haven’t met anyone new. You focusing on pickups from bars at closing time or what?’
‘And whose fault is that?’ she said, downing half a new glass he hadn’t even seen arrive.
There was no sensible answer to that. Instead, he stared straight ahead out of the restaurant’s glass walls. Thanks to its elevated position, Gondolen had magnificent views of the entire city. He loved looking out over Stockholm at night, especially from planes. When he was on his way home from a show, he would always try to work out which neighbourhoods he was flying over by studying the configuration of the dots of light beneath him.
From his position in the restaurant, he knew that he was looking towards the islands of Skeppsholmen and Djurgården, but his brain refused to assemble the pieces of the puzzle. The city’s lights danced before his eyes. He was far too inebriated. He looked at his empty glass. Hadn’t it been refilled again? If so, someone must have emptied it for him – he had no memory of finishing another drink. But the dancing lights below him implied something else. He really should have had more to eat since breakfast.
‘So what do we do?’ he said, his gaze still fixed on the summer night.
It took an effort to shape the words. Even so, they didn’t come out the way he wanted them to.
‘You mean about Rebecka?’ she said. ‘Or you mean about us?’
Obviously he had meant Rebecka. But nothing was obvious any longer. He didn’t dare say anything; it was no longer possible to know what would come out if he opened his mouth.
‘Vincent, you’re pathetic,’ she said. ‘You can’t think I still want you?’
‘Back at you,’ he said, raising the empty glass in a toast. ‘I need to pee.’
He got up from the barstool and felt the world spin. Shit. He really was magnificently drunk. Oh well. No point in regrets now. He would have those tomorrow anyway. The immediate focus was making it to the toilet without embarrassing himself. With a little luck, no one would recognize him. Then he’d say his goodbyes and take a taxi home. They would have to pick up the conversation about Rebecka another day, and he really needed to get some food in his belly before he went off the rails.
He staggered into the toilet, stood by a sink and turned the tap. Once the water was cold enough, he splashed it in his face. It didn’t help at all. Except for getting his shirt wet. Someone came in behind him, someone who wasn’t walking straight either.
‘You bastard,’ he heard Ulrika say.
Before he could react, she grabbed his collar, dragged him backwards towards one of the stall doors and pushed herself against him. She pressed her lips to his and he responded. Their tongues met and they kissed like two hungry wild animals. He took hold of her hair with both his hands and she groaned faintly as he pulled her head back, away from him.
‘Fuck you,’ he said.
Then he opened the stall door, staggered in backwards and she locked it behind them. She unbuttoned his trousers while he fumbled with the buttons on her blouse, but she beat off his hands.
‘Sit down,’ she said, and he sat down heavily on the lid of the toilet seat with his trousers and underpants pulled down around his knees.
She hitched up her skirt, pulled her knickers to one side and straddled him. He was surprised how hard he was as he glided into her. He grabbed hold of her hips to keep herself in place but also to make sure she didn’t get too close. She rode him with the frenzy of someone who had been disappointed and angry for so long that she didn’t know any other way. There was no love when she pressed herself against him, only anger. He didn’t know whether it was him or someone else she was angry at, and he didn’t care. He didn’t look up, didn’t want to see her face. All he saw were her hips and him thrusting into her. They were going to fuck everything they’d had to destruction, everything that had been good, make it unforgivable and inescapably broken and they both knew it.
Suddenly she stopped moving. She coughed heavily once and climbed off.
She didn’t look at him and he didn’t look at her.
Ulrika adjusted her knickers, pulled down her skirt and buttoned her blouse while he looked down at his cock at half-mast. He heard her exit the stall and close the door.
Vincent remained sitting there with his trousers around his ankles.
Fucking hell.
Fuck, fuck, fucking hell.
92
She was on her way to bed when the phone rang. She was standing in the bathroom having just thrown away the cotton knickers she’d been wearing that day and put on a new pair for the night. Ideally, she wanted to crawl in between her freshly laundered sheets as quickly as possible – if it took too long, her new pants might feel unclean before she’d made it to bed and then she’d have to change them again.
At first she considered not answering. It was past midnight. But the phone kept ringing. Mina went into the bedroom where her mobile was charging and looked at the display. It was Vincent. It was unlike him to call so late. Something must have happened.
She inserted her buds into her ears and answered.
‘Hi, Vincent, how are you?’
‘Minahi,’ he said quickly and far too loudly.
She could hear at once that he was drunk.
The sound of traffic blended with his words. He was outdoors. It sounded like he was walking along a road.
‘Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you,’ he continued. ‘I didn’t know who to call.’
The words were slurred, as if he had cotton wool in his mouth. He was struggling to formulate his consonants. Vincent was clearly very, very drunk. She hoped he wasn’t walking too close to the cars that were audible in the background.
‘Has something happened?’ she said, frowning.
This really wasn’t like him. Vincent was always in control.
‘You might say that,’ he said. ‘I’ve done something so fucking stupid. So fucking, fucking stupid.’
He paused for a long time.
She wrapped her dressing gown around her and sat down on the edge of the bed, waiting for him to start talking again. The traffic in the background faded a little. He must have found somewhere better to stand.
‘I’ve cheated on Maria,’ he said. ‘With her sister. My ex-wife.’
‘Your ex-wife?’ she exclaimed.
All of a sudden, she didn’t know whether she wanted to be part of this conversation. It was too close, too intimate. Too messy. She and Vincent had a professional relationship. The distance was just right. She liked him, and had even let him in more than she had anyone else in a long time, but that was enough. Now he was giving her part of his life that she hadn’t asked for. On top of that, he seemed to have a very tumultuous personal life. But at the same time … He had called her. Because he trusted her. He could have called someone else, anyone really. But he hadn’t. Of all the people in the world, he had chosen to confide in her. That had to be worth something. Mina talked feverishly to herself. Tried to convince herself that this was a good conversation. Between friends. But somewhere deep down she knew the truth. Jealousy had ignited a fire in her belly.
‘Vincent,’ she said sharply. ‘Are you saying you’ve slept with your ex-wife?’ She tried to make her voice sound controlled, but she could feel that she had the phone in a vicelike grip.
‘I don’t know that you’d call it sleeping,’ he said. ‘Mostly felt like fighting. It was just … anger. So, so stupid. I don’t know what to do.’
He choked out the final words through the hum of the traffic and it sounded as if he were crying.
‘Does Maria know?’
‘No, no, if she did I would have been beaten to death by now. I don’t dare go home. I’ve ruined everything.’
She looked at her dry hands and thought about the choices she had made herself. The choices that had made her lose her friends. Her family. The choices that had left her lonely, going to AA each week and with no one to confide in. And she was afraid of what else Vincent had ruined. Perhaps more than his family.
‘How do you feel about your ex-wife?’ she said.
Matter-of-fact. Cold. Sweat began to form on her palms.
‘Feel?’ said Vincent, sounding a tad more sober. ‘For a while I thought I hated her. But it’s actually just … nothing. Ashes. I think the feeling’s mutual. It was messy, see. Very messy. For a very, very long time. Well, it’s still messy. But I didn’t plan to fall in love with her little sister, it … it just happened … And Ulrika and I, we weren’t good, we barely even talked to each other any longer, so I don’t really know why she cared. But, well, I guess it’s a bit unfortunate that it was her sister that I …’
Vincent’s slurring voice faded away. Then it returned with full force again.
‘It took ten years, but she got her revenge, she got it. Fuck me … I didn’t know it was possible to hate like that.’
Mina lay down on top of the bed and shut her eyes. The fresh sheets rustled under her dressing gown. Deep down, she understood. Her own choices hadn’t been deliberate either. They had just happened. At least, she’d convinced herself afterwards that was the case. So who was she to judge? Who was she to lie there with a belly burning with pain about something that didn’t even belong to her? There were no vows between them. There was nothing. Except, there was. She cleared her throat. Screwed up her eyes.
‘Go home, Vincent. You and your ex-wife are grown-ups. You’ve done something stupid. We do that sometimes. Even us grown-ups. No one is faultless. The important thing is that you know it was wrong and that it won’t happen again. You don’t have to tell. Just leave it be.’
If there was one thing she had learned at AA, it was that life consisted of taking a few steps forward and then a stumble backwards. Anyone who believed otherwise was destined for disappointment. They were human, which meant they were not perfect. She had learned the truth of that mantra more times than she cared to remember.
‘I feel so ashamed that you know,’ Vincent said quietly. ‘I don’t want you to despise me. This isn’t what I’m like. I … I like you so much, Mina.’
She opened her eyes again. Listened to the hum of the city through the phone. She was in here in the warmth of her soft bed. He was out there in the dark somewhere. But they were breathing together. Neither of them said anything for a while.
‘Thanks, Mina,’ Vincent said, breaking the silence. ‘Sorry again for calling.’
He hung up. She remained lying there with her eyes closed and the phone in her hand. The fire in her belly was gone. But the loneliness was suddenly overwhelming. She rolled onto her side, into the foetal position.
93
Vincent was standing outside the building on Kungsholmen. He had waited two days after the encounter at Gondolen before daring to go there, to make sure he didn’t still smell of booze. It felt as if he had marinated his body in alcohol. Not that it had cleaned him on the inside; rather, it had done the opposite. The shame of what had happened at Gondolen was his to bear and process. He couldn’t blame anyone else. But everything had a time and place. And right now he ought to focus on why he was here.
The building looked like all the others in the district. Only a small plaque beside the doorbell disclosed that Alcoholics Anonymous had premises on the first floor. A big neon sign wouldn’t have been appropriate in the circumstances. The question was what he should do now. Should he stand there in the doorway and hopefully catch sight of this Anna with her animal tattoos? Or should he go in? Was he even welcome if he didn’t have his own issues with addiction? Of course, he could always fake it, but that didn’t feel right.
While he thought about this, his brain toyed with the letters on the small plaque. Alcoholics Anon became Nacho Colonials after a few seconds’ work. He felt pretty pleased with himself. But that wouldn’t help him find Anna. He had no choice but to go inside.
In the hallway outside the venue there was a table with a coffee thermos on it. Through the doorway it looked as he had expected: a large room with a number of chairs in a circle. It was reassuring that some clichés still held true. The chairs were empty. He checked his watch. Ten minutes to go. A woman in her fifties entered the room through a side door. She caught sight of Vincent and waved him in.
‘We haven’t started yet,’ she said. ‘But grab yourself a coffee and take a seat. Is this your first time?’
