Death By Water (5 page)

Suddenly he feels brave. Looks into her eyes for a long time. They’re brown, with black flecks.

– Be right back, he says, and turns away.

– No rush, Ylva says. – You can bring it back later.

He stands there in the half-dark of the kitchen and squeezes the opener in his hand, the little point against his palm. He presses it so far down it goes through the skin and the pain shoots up through his fingers.

Then he hears Mother’s voice from the bedroom. Snuffling and full of sleep. Next moment she emerges stark naked on her way to the toilet. He slips back out into the light. Ylva’s bathroom window is open. Maybe she’s standing in front of the mirror. Combing her long wet hair. He knocks again. This time she opens straight away, without asking who it is.

– Finished already? she says with a little smile.

– Tin of tuna, he explains, couldn’t think of anything else. – Nice place, he adds quickly, because he can see she’s about to close the door again.

– Very, she says.

– Good beach, he says.

She nods. – I’m going down in a minute. Just need to get ready first.

He feels his face prickle. What she says is nearly
Shall we meet down on the beach?
He raises a hand to touch her, can’t bring himself to, rubs his lip.

– See you, he says.

She raises her eyebrows, mostly the right one, he notices.

– Sure … yeah, she says, and closes the door.

He stands outside her door and realises he has forgotten to give her the tin opener. She forgot too. Too busy talking to him. But it would be a mistake to knock again. Jacket would advise against, Jo feels certain of that. Instead he puts the opener in his pocket; it gives him the chance to go back later. He jogs away. The cats are still there in the little playground with the swing and the slide. Some slinking round, some climbing the trees. The one-eyed creep is by itself over by the fence. Jo lets himself in. The creep recognises him, slinks across and starts to rub itself against his bare leg. The fur is scruffy but still feels soft. The pitiful little thing looks up at him with its one eye and gives a complaining meow, like maybe it’s asking for something. He wants to do something or other with it. Not sure what. Lift it up and feel the fur against his cheek. Feel with his finger inside the empty space below the eyelid. Squeeze this kitten so hard it stops its whining.

He contents himself with kicking at it, so that it won’t follow him out through the gate.

Just past the kiosk, he stops and sweeps the beach with his gaze. The parasols are made of straw and make him think of the Hottentot Hoa who bangs away on his drums at night and saves the village from enemy attack. He sidles over to the big tree. She must be somewhere or other on this beach, Ylva, because he’s already checked out the other beach, about a hundred metres further away.

Then he sees her. On her way up from the sea in the bikini with the dark red hearts. She takes hold of her hair, twists it round a few times then tosses it like a tail on to her back. The little fair-haired one is waddling along behind her, like a tubby pet. Jo grins and keeps his eyes on Ylva. She walks up to a parasol on the second row down, picks up a towel, dries her face and her thighs, hangs it out, lies down in the sun.

Go over there now
, Jo can hear Jacket saying.
Or wait till she goes for another swim. Follow her into the water and get talking to her
. Not difficult to find something to talk about with the breakers washing over them and just about tipping her over.

He chooses the first option, can’t be bothered to wait. Makes his way slowly towards the end of the beach where she is. Recognises the grown-ups she was sitting with in the dining room. The man, must be her father, has grey hair. And the mother is completely unlike Ylva, small and with a bigger belly bulge than Mother.

Arne sits two parasols away from them.

Jo freezes. Naturally, Mother is there too. And the couple they were dancing and necking with that first night. Mother is wearing her pink bikini and is lying flat on the sunbed with a straw hat over her face. In the sand next to her are two big green bottles of beer. Arne has his back turned and is talking to the other grown-ups. Hasn’t spotted him yet. Jo turns and runs away, reaches the shelter of a tree. Without stopping he carries on up the hill, past the apartments and down on to the other beach.

Fewer people there. In the middle of a crowd of boys he sees Daniel, heads towards him.

– Ready for football?

– Where?

– In the shade, of course. If you don’t want your legs to burn up under you.

Daniel always seems to have a crowd of friends around him. He’s cool, Jo has to admit it. And good looking. Last night he was sitting by the edge of the swimming pool talking to some girls who looked to be quite a bit older than him.

Others come along and join them as they measure out the pitch and put down towels for goalposts. There are seven of them. The Swedes they hammered at volleyball the other day, and some others whom Daniel speaks to in English.

– Just going to see if Daddy’ll play, then we’ll be four a side.

It makes Jo smirk to hear Daniel still calling his father
Daddy
, but he keeps the smirk to himself. Daniel sprints across to one of the parasols by the stone staircase. Jo sees the father lay down his newspaper and get up, ambling through the sand. When he arrives, he shakes hands with them all.

– Have to know whom I’m playing with, he says with a broad smile. He’s very tall and looks strong, and with his longish hair he reminds Jo of Obi-Wan in
Star Wars
.

One of the Swedes is on their team. His name is Pontus. Short and thin and with very quick feet. Typical winger. Jo prefers playing in the middle. He has a good shot, and the trainer is always praising him for his ability to read the game. It’s fine by him that Daniel wants to play up front. His father plays at the back and calls himself a roaming ’keeper.

Daniel of course is good. Frighteningly good. A neat swerve, and fantastic acceleration. Once he takes a shot on the volley. Keeper nowhere near it. Like Marco van Basten. But he’s no egomaniac. He centres, runs, plays one-twos.

– Good ball, he shouts to Jo, who’s threaded a pass through the sand. And after beating a defender and the keeper, he dribbles the ball over the goal line and then gives him the thumbs-up, as though to say it was the pass that was good, and not what he was able to make out of it.

His father is the same, always encouraging.

– Great work, Jo, he shouts when Jo intercepts a long through ball. – Saved me a lot of trouble there.

After the game Daniel says:

– Come on over with us, we’ve got a cooler bag with cold drinks. But no Coke. My mother’s a health freak. Much worse than Daddy, even though he’s a doctor.

Jo hesitates. What does it mean, the way he’s always being invited along? There must be something behind it, something that he doesn’t know about yet. The whole time he’s waiting for Daniel to give some kind of clue. Show that he’s laughing at him. But that’s not what happens. Is it possible that some people here didn’t see Mother legless on the dance floor?

Daniel gives the order: – We need ten litres of juice to put back what we sweated out. Jo ran twice as far as me.

His mother is wearing a white bikini with a big leaf pattern on one of the cheeks. She’s lying on her front reading a book and not wearing a top. She glances up at them.

– Hey there, Jo, she says, in a rather deep voice, and then goes on reading.

This is the first time Jo sees Daniel’s mum up close. She has hardly any wrinkles and looks years younger than Mother.

– Help yourselves, she yawns. – I’m off duty now.

Daniel’s father has wrapped an enormous towel around himself and changed into swimming trunks. Jo can’t stop himself from taking a look between his legs. Fortunately the shorts are as big and wide as the ones he and Daniel are wearing.

They swim out breaststroke. Jo keeps his yellow T-shirt on in the water. He realises that he’s not going to go bare-chested for the duration of the holiday. Could have taken it off that first day. Now it’s too late. But Daniel doesn’t mention it.

– Don’t try to race him, he warns his father with a nod in Jo’s direction. – Especially not underwater.

– Oh really?

– He must have swum fifty metres yesterday. Against the current.
Compleeetely craaazy
. He repeats the phrase from the day before, in a thick accent, joking, but the respect he has for Jo is obvious.

– Is that right, Jo?

– Roughly.

– You must have a fantastic pair of lungs, Daniel’s father says. – I noticed that anyway when we were playing earlier. You ran the others into the ground, simple as that.

– Where do you get to if you keep on swimming out? Jo asks, to change the subject.

– Out? Daniel’s father peers towards the horizon. – Africa first.

– I mean, whereabouts in Africa?

– Egypt, maybe. Or Libya. If you can keep a steady course, that is. I suggest if we swim out to those buoys that’ll do us.

No more than twenty metres out there, thirty at the most. Jo dives, arrowing downwards until he reaches the sandy bottom. Follows it as it slopes into darkness. He feels a prickling in his ears, because he must be three metres below. Follows the depths outwards. Sees the others’ legs breaking the delicate surface high above him. There’s a throbbing in his head. As if someone’s standing there and keeps hitting it. If I don’t swim up and join them, he feels the thought race through him, if I just keep going along the bottom here until I disappear, then he’ll take over, the one standing in the dark with the sledgehammer.

At that moment he glimpses the buoy up in the light, spins round, cuts the surface and grabs it moments before Daniel and his father arrive.

The sun is half-hidden behind the peak in the west.

– Have you noticed how quickly it gets dark here? Jo observes. He sketches a falling arc in the air. – The sun is directly above you, and then it drops. Like that.

Daniel agrees. – But that’s nothing compared to what it’s like in Tanzania.

– Have you been to Africa?

– Yup. You have to hurry on home once it gets towards evening. There’s never a dusk. It’s like somebody suddenly turns off the light. Everything goes dark. Not a single street lamp. It’s dead cool.

The flagstones are still hot, but not burning hot, not hot enough to raise blisters under the soles of the feet. They’re walking barefoot, towels over their shoulders, shadows in front of them. If Jo stays half a pace ahead, it makes them the same height.

People are already on their way to the restaurant. He’s thinking he must get some food inside him. Avoid being seen with Mother and Arne. Have to make do with sweets.

– Just off to the kiosk.

– I’ll wait by the pool, says Daniel. – We usually meet there before we go for dinner.

When Jo returns, nibbling on a choc ice, there’s a gang sitting around the pool. She’s one of them. Half lying on a sunbed, her back turned. The fat fair-haired girl next to her.

– Pudding before dinner? Cool, says Daniel. – We thought we might do something afterwards.

Ylva turns and glances at Jo. He tosses the half-eaten choc ice into a bin.

– Where are you going?

– Up to the miniature golf. Daniel lowers his voice before continuing. – Maybe go to a café that’s a bit further up the street. You should come with us.

Ylva looks at the fat little girl, who giggles. They’re obviously up for it. Jo stands next to the end of her sunbed and from the corner of his eye, behind the sunglasses, he can see how she lifts her gaze and lets it wander over him. Suddenly he knows that it’s Ylva who has decided that they’re going to ask him along.

– I’m in, he says to Daniel, and watches to see how she reacts. She smiles and looks pleased …

All day the heat has been gathering in him. He hates it being so hot. He could bend down, take her head between his hands, do something or other with it. He takes a quick look at his watch, mutters something about having to get home, heads for the steps with easy strides. Not until he’s past the bar and they can’t see him any more does he start running. Passes the apartment, on round the last house, down to the beach, not stopping until he reaches the water’s edge and the one who stands in the shadows with the sledgehammer raised above his head is drowned out by the breakers that foam in over his feet.

He bumps into Arne in the apartment doorway.

– What have we here? His lordship deigns to put in an appearance.

– I’ve been with a pal, Jo offers.

– Tell people where you are. What sort of holiday is it going to be for us if we’re running round looking for you the whole time?

The question lingers for a few moments.

– Nini’s sick, Arne growls, as though there’s any need to say that. Nini is always sick. Earache and difficulty breathing. She’s always eaten something or other that doesn’t agree with her, or it’s the heat and the air-conditioning that makes her breathing so heavy. Or the kids’ pool hasn’t been properly cleaned. All the things Mother complains about without doing a damned shit about it. – You keep an eye on her while we go and get something to eat.

– Okay, says Jo, relieved not to have to sit with them, and the fact that he agrees at once puts Arne in a better mood.

– We’ll bring some food back for you. Unless you want to pop out afterwards and get something to eat on your own.

– Okay, Jo says again.

– There’s a Coke in the fridge, says Arne, almost friendly now. – But don’t touch any of the other bottles, he adds with a guffaw, giving Jo a friendly punch on the shoulder.

He sits Nini up with cushions on the sofa. She is so short of breath it’s an effort to say anything at all. But there’s a cartoon on one of the TV channels and she’s able to follow that. Mother has left the nebuliser ready. And he can run and fetch her at any time if Nini gets worse … Does she think he’s going to let himself be seen in the dining room with them? Better to go to reception and get hold of a doctor. Or Daniel’s father.