The Circle (52 page)

‘Why are you so pissed off all the time?’ He walks back to the kitchen table.

Vanessa dries the dishes while she waits for him to speak again. She knows he can never stay silent for very long.

‘I had a look at those links you sent me,’ he says finally.

She turns with a glass in one hand and the towel in the other.

‘They’re not for me,’ he continues.

Vanessa squeezes the glass so hard it should have cracked. ‘You didn’t see anything you liked, or what?’

‘I don’t want to be a fucking telesales representative, Nessa.’

‘Then what the hell
do
you want, Wille?’

He laughs feebly, not seeming to realise how angry she is.

‘I don’t know … I guess I think things are pretty good the way they are for me. For us.’

‘And then what?’

‘What does that mean?’

So, Vanessa knows that the end of the world is approaching, yet it’s Wille who has trouble thinking about the future.

‘If you want a decent job, then you’ll just have to go back to school,’ she says.

‘Fuck that. I was never any good at school.’

‘There are vocational schools.’

‘Yeah, but … I don’t know.’

‘So you’re happy with the way things are? Is that what you’re saying?’

‘Well, it would be cool if we had our own place, of course. Maybe you can hook us up with one once you’ve got a job?’ Wille says jokingly.

She can tell he thinks he’s being cute. She’d like nothing better than to hurl her glass at the wall. She probably would have, too, if it hadn’t belonged to Sirpa, just like everything else around them. And Vanessa doesn’t want to explode: she can’t take responsibility for what might happen.

She sets the glass on the counter and lays the towel on the table in front of Wille. ‘You can do this,’ she says.

‘Nessa, I was only kidding! I understand we can’t live like this forever, but I haven’t a clue what to do.’

‘I know you were kidding. But I have to go out for a bit – and if you want us to carry on being together, then I’d advise you to shut up.’

Vanessa walks through the town without knowing where she’s going. Thoughts are spinning in her head like a nausea-inducing merry-go-round. There are far too many
Vanessas
now, and she no longer knows which is the real one. The Vanessa she is when she’s with Michelle and Evelina is different, for example, from the Vanessa who’s trying to save the world. And then there’s the Vanessa she has to be when she’s with Wille, and the Vanessa who’s trying not to be too much of a burden on Sirpa, plus the Vanessa who wants to leave school with at least a pass grade in her final exams … She’s lost her way among all her different personas.

Vanessa looks at the tall high-rises that surround her. She’s ended up near Linnéa’s place. She hears music coming from a few of the apartments around her. It’s Saturday night and she’s only just realised it. When did her life become so dull that she no longer has plans for a Saturday night? Getting drunk might help. Evelina and Michelle were talking about a party, she remembers.

Vanessa hesitates. She doesn’t want to be alone, but she doesn’t want to see them either. Michelle will obsess about Mehmet whom she’s just started dating and Evelina will whine that she’s never going to meet anybody, even though they all know she’s the best-looking of the three of them.

When was the last time she felt like seeing Evelina and Michelle? So much has happened in Vanessa’s life since last summer. There’s so much she can’t talk to them about.

It would have been easier to go back to being the old Vanessa. Christ, she wishes she could.

Vanessa looks up at the high-rises again. Maybe it isn’t pure chance that she’s ended up here.

She makes for the entrance to Linnéa’s building, takes the lift up to her floor and rings the bell. Nobody comes to open the door and she feels disappointed. It makes her realise how much she wants to see Linnéa.

Vanessa rings again, and hears a toilet flush. When Linnéa opens the door she’s wearing the same Dir En Grey shirt as she had that night with Jonte.

‘Hi,’ Vanessa says.

‘Hey,’ Linnéa answers.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Nothing.’

‘It’s Saturday night,’ Vanessa says. ‘Shouldn’t you be having fun?’

‘Who says I’m not?’ Linnéa says. She looks so grimfaced when she says it that Vanessa starts laughing.

Linnéa stares at her for half a second. Then she laughs, too. It turns into one of those hysterical, can’t-breathe-can’t-stop-laughing fits and Vanessa can’t even remember the last time she had one. They laugh till they almost choke, then make the mistake of catching the other’s eye, which sets them off again.

They sit opposite each other on the sofa and talk. A stream of morose-sounding boys and girls with guitars plays on Linnéa’s computer, but strangely it doesn’t depress Vanessa. Instead the music, with the dim red lighting, envelops her in a soft, warm sensation.

Their conversation flows naturally. Linnéa tells her what the
Book of Patterns
has revealed about protective magic.
Vanessa
tells Linnéa how she poured the serum into Gustaf’s cola, but leaves out the details of what he said. ‘You know I was with Gustaf once?’ she says instead.

When she registers the shock on Linnéa’s face she giggles. ‘For a whole afternoon in year one. I used to do this thing back then … Any boy who managed to swing in sync with me on the swings during break could be with me for the rest of the day.’

‘So you were cheap even then?’ Linnéa says, cackling harshly.

‘If only it was that easy to decide who to be with now,’ Vanessa says, and giggles.

They laugh as they recall when Ida was forced to confess that she was secretly in love with Gustaf. They talk about how five or six girls used to bike around his house, around and around, in the hope that he would look out of a window and see them. Magic or not, he’s always had girls under a spell.

Then they talk about Minoo and whether or not she’s a lesbian. Vanessa is convinced she is. Linnéa says definitely not.

‘I think I like her, but I don’t understand her. I can’t work out when she’s pissed off and when she’s just Minoo,’ Vanessa says.

Linnéa laughs and nods. ‘I think she may be a little pissed off with me,’ she says.

‘What for?’

‘A misunderstanding.’ Linnéa doesn’t elaborate.

‘We Chosen Ones are a pretty strange bunch,’ Vanessa says.

‘Aren’t we just? Look at the two of us,’ Linnéa says, and grins.

‘Who would’ve thought you and me would be sitting here like this? I’ve always like hated you. Or, at least, I’ve been jealous of you over the whole Wille thing.’ What
am
I saying? Vanessa wonders. But it feels okay. She had almost forgotten how it felt to be so relaxed. And she realises she needs to talk about Wille. Linnéa will understand. ‘I don’t want to break up with him,’ she says, ‘but he’s driving me crazy.’

‘Do you have to live with him?’

‘It’s complicated,’ Vanessa says. She can’t bring herself to explain why she isn’t living at home. It sounds so pathetic when she imagines the story from Linnéa’s perspective. Linnéa, who doesn’t even have a mother. Linnéa, whose father dances drunken jigs in Storvall Park.

‘I don’t understand how I can be in love with someone who pisses me off so fucking much,’ Vanessa says. ‘Or why I’m always so fucking pissed off with the person I love.’

‘Don’t ask me.’ Linnéa leans back on the sofa.

‘Why not?’

‘You should never offer advice about other people’s relationships.’

‘But at Monique’s you said—’

‘That was a mistake.’

Linnéa sits cross-legged and looks straight at her. ‘Don’t you get it?’ she asks. ‘You deserve someone better than Wille. But if I say that, and you break up with Wille, I’m the one you’ll be angry with if you regret it. And if you
decide
to stick it out, then you’ll know what I think and hate me for it.’

‘But I won’t—’ Vanessa protests.

‘I just mean I don’t want to be the girl you blame everything on later,’ Linnéa interrupts.

Vanessa doesn’t know what to say. She feels as if she’s just been paid a compliment that’s really nice and really strange at the same time.

‘But he doesn’t call me any more,’ Linnéa says.

Vanessa sinks a little deeper into the sofa, and gets a flashback of how Jonte and Linnéa looked when they were lying there that night. It feels like a lifetime ago. ‘Are you still seeing Jonte?’

‘No. I plead temporary insanity for that whole thing.’

Vanessa giggles and wriggles to adjust her position on the sofa so that her feet are resting against Linnéa’s legs.

Everything’s going to work out. Somehow.

52

MINOO IS STANDING
in the forest near Kärrgruvan. It’s spring and the leaves on the trees are a verdant green. It’s almost painful to look at them. She hears water burbling and looks down. A stream is flowing at her feet. A thousand little suns glitter on its surface. A pair of black feathers float past. It’s strange that she can know it’s a dream without waking up.

Minoo?

Rebecka’s calling to her.

Minoo?

Minoo is suddenly in a hurry. She starts to run along the water. She has to find Rebecka. But her feet keep sinking into the damp earth. A little deeper with each step.

Minoo!

She’s stuck.

And in the water she sees Rebecka. She’s lying on her back in her white nightgown. Her long reddish-blonde hair spreads out around her pale face. Her eyes are angled up at the sky, her mouth open as if in ecstasy. In one hand she’s holding a garland of flowers. Their colours are unnaturally vivid against the black water.

She is the drowning Ophelia.

‘You’re not Rebecka,’ Minoo says, angry and disappointed.

Rebecka looks at her. It’s Rebecka’s face, Rebecka’s body. Rebecka’s voice. And yet it isn’t.

The stream eddies and ripples around her, but she’s floating, motionless in the middle of the current. She’s speaking but her mouth isn’t moving.

The woman who posed for this painting was Elizabeth Siddal. She fell gravely ill afterwards. The bath she was lying in was fitted with lamps to stop the water getting cold. But one day they went out. The artist didn’t notice. He was absorbed in his painting. And little Lizzie said nothing. She just suffered in silence. All so that he could fulfil his vision. To be reduced to an image comes at a high price
.

Somewhere in real life the doorbell rings, but Minoo clings to her dream.

‘What are you talking about?’

I thought your mind was your superpower, Minoo. You have to wake up now. You have to find the courage to see yourself as others do. And you have to let go
.

The dream dissipates and she’s awake. The doorbell rings again.

Minoo’s father is unshaven and has dark circles under his eyes. Anna-Karin smells the coffee on his breath when he says he’s unsure if Minoo is up yet. Maybe it would have been better if she’d waited a few hours before coming here. But she had to do it before her courage failed her.

He shows her into the front hall and shouts at the ceiling that Minoo has a visitor.

‘I’m coming!’ Minoo’s voice replies.

Anna-Karin takes off her coat and follows him into the living room.

‘Would you like something?’ he asks. ‘Coffee? Tea? Milk? Water?’

‘No, thanks,’ Anna-Karin mumbles, and looks around the big, bright room.

The furniture is expensive. Four packed bookcases with a built-in TV cabinet stand along one wall. There’s real art – not the usual Ikea prints or hangings embroidered with some proverb that Anna-Karin’s mother is so fond of. ‘A penny saved is a penny earned’, ‘There’s no place like home’, ‘A merry heart makes a cheerful countenance.’ They’re everywhere in her house. As if she were trying to convince herself. Anna-Karin feels pangs of shame as she imagines what Minoo’s father would think of those wall hangings.

You can see into the big kitchen with its white cupboard doors and dark wooden floor. The study door is ajar: a brand-new laptop stands on a desk next to a steaming coffee mug. Even more bookshelves.

How many books can you have in a home? Anna-Karin wonders. Where do they find the time to read them all? Do they, even?

She lets her gaze fall on a painting that doesn’t depict anything, just colours and shapes. Her mother would scoff at it and say that any five-year-old could’ve painted that. But Anna-Karin likes it.

‘I’m Erik Falk,’ Minoo’s father says, holding out his hand.

Anna-Karin realises she’s been standing there staring, like a fool. She takes Minoo’s father’s hand and meets his eyes for a split second.

‘Anna-Karin Nieminen,’ she mumbles. It’s strange to introduce herself with her last name. ‘Minoo and I are in the same class. We’re working on a project together.’