Minus Me (2 page)

The TV stands prattling to itself in one corner of the room, while the woodburner crackles in the other. Linda stretches out her fingers to get some warmth in them, then hurries to put her feet in the slippers that stand waiting for her by the woodburner. Looking down at her feet, she realizes her boots will never dry out there in the freezing cold hallway. Linda runs out into the hall, grabs them, and comes back in, shutting the door tight behind her. She goes over to woodburner and takes an old newspaper from the pile next to the log basket. She spreads it on the floor to stop the snow and dirt from her boots going onto the carpet. A headline catches her eye:
girl drops dead after her first kiss
. Wow, that’s so romantic, in a kind of sad and dramatic way, thinks Linda. The article is about a couple of kids in America. Further down it says that after the kiss, the girl sat down on the sofa in his flat, and that was where she died. Not from the kiss, but from a rare heart condition. Well, it was almost perfect, thinks Linda, putting her boots on the paper. Imagine if the girl had died in the boy’s arms? That would have been far more romantic, if you were going to die at all.

Linda gets up to throw some more wood into the burner. The log basket is almost empty, so she decides to be helpful and fill it up. But first she wants to check if Axel is online. She grabs the tatty carrier bag from behind the log basket, and goes into her room. She flips her laptop open. The screen immediately springs to life, and with just a glimpse at the right-hand side, she sees he isn’t there. She feels irritated at him again now. What can he be so busy with? Mia is online, however, and messages her. Linda bends forward to look at Mia’s new profile picture then slams down the lid. What is it with Mia? Does Mia really think she’d waste her time on a brainless Barbie girl? As if! They hadn’t been friends in the summer and she wasn’t about to change that now.

Taking the shortcut through the apartment, she opens the door onto the backstairs.

Linda slips some clogs on before opening the door out to the little wooden bridge that crosses over the backyard to the outhouse. She holds the rail, since both the bridge and her clogs are slippery. On the other side of the bridge she lifts the latch on the outhouse door. A black cat streaks out from the darkness and runs down the steps into the backyard. It turns to look up at her, hissing quietly, before pissing on the corner of the house, and then leaping over the fence to disappear into the neighbour’s backyard.

‘What a nice guy,’ mumbles Linda to herself, pressing the light switch just inside the door. She sniffs the air to see if the little beast has left its calling card in here too, but it hasn’t. Linda fills the carrier bag with logs and hurries back into the flat. She hears her parents coming upstairs, and waits for the front door to open before tipping the logs into the basket.

‘Ah, thank you, darling!’ says her mother. ‘That’s wonderful.’ Her voice is almost lost in the noise of the logs tumbling into the basket.

Linda tucks the bag back behind the woodburner. ‘What were you doing in Granny’s flat? I hope you’re not thinking of having students down there too?’

‘Not at all. We’ve got very different plans,’ says her father grinning.

‘Like what?’

‘You’ll find out soon enough.’

‘Linda, have you been out with wet hair again?’

Linda’s mother crosses the room and feels her hair. Linda pulls away.

‘I’ve been wearing my woollen hat.’

‘You must dry it properly before you go out in the snow, or you’ll be ill,’ says her mother in a worried voice, reaching out to touch her hair again. Linda dodges away.

‘There was a queue at the hairdryer. If I had my own – one of those mini ones that fit in your sports bag – it would have been dry.’

‘Are we off again? I want this and want that,’ says her father.

‘I didn’t say I wanted a hairdryer. I was simply stating a fact.’

‘Simply stating a fact, eh?’ says her father, laughing.

‘We’ll see. It’s your birthday soon. Thirteen!’ says her mother. ‘I remember when you were born. You lay in my arms, so pink and little. It was . . .’

‘. . . love at first sight,’ says her father, finishing her mother’s sentence and putting his arm around her.

‘Hmm . . . what is it with you two?’ Linda snaps.

‘What do you mean?’ asks her mother.

‘You’re always hugging each other lately.’

‘Isn’t it good that we love each other?’ asks her father.

‘I suppose. Just don’t carry on like that when my friends are round. It’s weird. Okay?’

Her father lets go of her mother, and stretches his arms out to Linda. She knows what’s next and lets out a squeal before he grabs her and swings her over his head.

‘Careful with your back, Erik.’

‘I’m as a strong as an ox and it takes nothing to throw this little thing up to the ceiling,’ he answers.

Linda stretches and reaches out to touch the ceiling. As she does so, she sees a shadow out of the corner of her eye. There’s a figure in the window of St Elizabeth’s Hospital on the other side of the road. And like a flash, she knows it’s the boy from the tram. She can feel his gaze and that weird sensation in her body again. Her fingers don’t reach the ceiling, and instead she collapses onto her father’s shoulder. Before she knows it, she’s lying on the sofa by the woodburner.

‘What did I say about that game, Erik? Linda’s far too big for that now,’ grumbles her mother.

‘Are you alright, Linda?’ says her father, stroking her cheek. ‘You seem rather hot to me. You feel her, Ellen.’

Linda feels the touch of her mother’s hand on her cheek, then her forehead, before hearing her worried voice saying Linda doesn’t seem well. Her father lifts her up to take her into the bedroom.

‘Do you want to lie in our bed?’ he asks, hesitating at the doorway to her parents’ room.

Linda shakes her head.

Her mother is a few steps ahead. She lifts the duvet to one side and tucks Linda in. Linda now has two pairs of worried eyes staring down at her. Whenever she’s shown the least sign of getting ill, they’ve always wrapped her in cotton wool, taking time off work to make her warm milk and honey, or just to read aloud to her and stroke her hair. It’s lovely, but you can have too much of a good thing. If Linda had siblings her parents would have had to share all this attention out between them. It’s a bit much for one person to carry on their own. Linda sighs, and the lines on her parents’ faces grow even deeper.

‘I’m fine. I’m just a bit tired,’ says Linda, smiling and trying to be reassuring.

Behind her parents, on the other side of the street, the shadow has moved to another window. Linda’s smile freezes. She feels sure the shadow is going to lift its hand and wave at her now, and she doesn’t want to see it, so she closes her eyes.

‘Can you switch the light off, please? I think I need to sleep a bit,’ says Linda, with eyes tight shut.

‘Let me help you off with your clothes, sweetie,’ says her mother. Linda lets her. Layer after layer. Mummy’s precious little doll.

Chapter 3

Linda is taking a shower. She woke up before everyone else, feeling completely better after yesterday’s events. She probably just needed a proper night’s sleep. Linda laughs at herself for this thought, it’s so boringly grown-up. Linda turns up the temperature of the water, and stands there enjoying the steam as it fills the shower cabinet. But she listens out carefully for her parents, in case they wake up; they get cross when she uses too much hot water. She closes her eyes and feels the gushing water drum against her skin, and the warmth creep down over her stomach. Scenes from the summer roll across her mind; she sees herself fighting with Axel in the lake, she sees him stopping suddenly, his face close to hers, his hand reaching up to her cheek to brush away a strand of hair. She brings her own hand up to her cheek.

‘Linda!’

There’s a bang on the bathroom door and Linda turns off the water hurriedly.

‘Yes!’ she shouts.

She opens the shower door, grabs her bathrobe from the hook and wraps herself in it before unbolting the bathroom door, almost stumbling on the slippery floor. Her mum rushes in, but instead of shouting at Linda, she apologizes and immediately crouches down in front of the lavatory.

‘Aren’t you well?’ asks Linda, winding a towel like a turban round her head.

‘Don’t worry. It’ll pass,’ her mum groans. ‘How are you feeling, darling?’

‘I’m fine. Shall I boil some eggs?’ asks Linda.

‘Yes . . . do.’

Her mother retches.

‘But just for you and Dad. I don’t want any,’ she says, waving her hand behind her.

Linda takes the hint and goes out into the kitchen, closing the door after her. She’s seen it all before, her mother throwing up, the nervous but hopeful glances between her parents. Glances that say: will there be a baby this time? A little brother or sister for Linda? Another little one to love? But it’s gone wrong each time. Her mother has lost two babies. The last a couple of years ago. Linda gets a lump in her stomach just thinking about it. It was in the summer, and they were at the cottage down in the south of Norway. She and Axel had borrowed a boat, without permission, and crashed it on some rocks, so it got a hole in the bottom. Everything turned out okay, they’d been rescued by some local fishermen, but they’d got a terrible telling-off. And that night, it happened. Her mother had started bleeding and her parents rushed to the hospital. They’d stopped talking about having more children after that.

Is that why they haven’t said anything, Linda wonders, as she boils the eggs and puts on the coffee. Surely her parents can’t believe she hasn’t guessed? When she was little, Linda longed for a little brother or sister. But now . . . does she still? A screaming baby for whom she’ll be expected to babysit and change nappies? What is she going to say to all her friends when her mum starts getting big? After all, her parents are getting on a bit; they’re well over forty.

The eggs are ready. Looking in the saucepan she realizes she’s boiled three after all. She sighs, rinses them under cold water and puts them in the eggcups on the table. While she’s waiting for her parents to come to breakfast, she makes packed lunches for all three of them. It’s never a bad idea to make an extra effort when it’s your birthday soon – or if your mother is pregnant again.

‘So you made eggs for everyone, after all?’ says her mother, coming in from the bathroom. She’s dressed now and has put her make-up on, but she still looks rather pale.

‘Sorry, I did it without thinking. But there is bread, ham and jam also, if you prefer that.’

‘That’s okay. I’m feeling better now, so I’ll try to eat a bit,’ she says, ruffling Linda’s hair as she takes off her turban. ‘Shall I comb your hair for you afterwards?’

‘I can manage, thanks. Are you ill or something, Mum?’

‘For wanting to comb your hair?’

‘No. You were being sick.’

‘Oh, that . . . that’s nothing to worry about. It’s probably something I ate.’

Her mum folds the towel and puts it on the edge of the kitchen bench. Linda follows her movements, but doesn’t ask if she’s pregnant. She’ll have to wait to be told.

‘Erik!’ her mother calls out. ‘Are you finished in the bathroom? Linda’s made breakfast.’

Linda’s father comes out of the bathroom, hair wet and lips pursed ready to plant a kiss on her mother’s cheek.

‘Good morning, Mrs Larsen!’ he says, laughing. ‘Aren’t we lucky to have such a grown-up daughter?’

‘Oh, pur-lease!’ says Linda, rolling her eyes.

‘Oh, pur-lease!’ imitates Linda’s father, laughing. He pulls her over and gives her a hug. ‘Now, let’s eat.’

The extra time they’d gained by Linda getting up early and making breakfast is soon lost to eating their eggs. Her father looks at the clock and starts putting the milk and juice back in the fridge.

‘Are you two coming to the diving competition tomorrow?’ asks Linda, putting the packed lunch she’s made into her bag.

‘Are you sure you’re well enough? You seemed so poorly yesterday,’ says her mother.

‘You’re the one who’s throwing up,’ says Linda, getting annoyed by her mother’s anxiety.

‘We’ll be there, alright. We want to see you win the whole caboodle!’ her father interrupts with a grin.

This is an obvious attempt to stop any argument – or discussion. They never argue in this family, they discuss things. But today Dad doesn’t want to do either. He collects the rest of the food on the table to put it back into the fridge, still with that ridiculous smile on his lips. Linda gets the urge to say something spiteful, but contents herself with being grouchy.

‘Hmm, so you’re thinking I’ll win, eh?’ she says, heading for the bathroom to brush her teeth.

‘It’s bound to be your turn some day!’ says her mother, smiling. She hasn’t touched her egg or even her coffee.

‘That’s not how it works. To win, you have to be the best,’ says Linda.

‘Hey! Look! We’ve got a visitor on the bridge.’

Dad takes Linda’s arm and pulls her gently over to the window that overlooks the backyard. It’s the cat from yesterday. Big and black, just sitting there and staring up at the window.

‘Perhaps it’s hoping to get a little titbit?’ says her mother, who has joined them at the window.