The Merman (23 page)

He drained the last from the bottle and took out a new one. He seemed to have a whole stash in his lap.

‘Why should I do that? I might be mistaken. Besides, it's not interesting.'

He was keeping him on tenterhooks, I thought, expertly leaving Peder in a state of uncertainty. In the space of a second he went from letting him think he knew everything, to making it seem that everything was normal.

‘I don't know if you think about this stuff, Ironing Board, but when people are uncertain you can get them to do almost anything. Some really sick stuff, in fact. Because they have to prove they're – what's the word – loyal?'

‘Can I have my jacket now?' I said. ‘We've got to go.'

‘You'll get it, don't worry. Let me finish first. Have you managed to get my money?'

‘What?'

‘Come on, you still owe me a grand. Regardless of who snitched about the cat.'

He was smiling the whole time. As if this was all a game.

‘I'm not giving you any more money. You got that Walkman and five hundred kronor. That's plenty.'

‘Come on, Nella, let's go.' Tommy took the jacket out of his lap and handed it to me. Gerard let it happen, even extending his arms to the sides in a gesture possibly meant to show we could have taken it long ago.

‘Only it's more than a grand now. I should've had it two weeks ago, that was what we agreed. Twenty per cent weekly interest is not unreasonable in this situation – you can ask your dad about that. Let's make it fifteen hundred.'

I didn't understand what Dad had to do with this. Nor did I understand what he expected me to say. So I said nothing, just took my jacket from Tommy and checked that everything was still in the pockets.

‘You look really fit in that dress,' Gerard said. ‘It suits you. You're even fitter than average. On a scale of one to ten I'd give you a seven... or maybe even an eight. I see now you've got some makeup on. That lipstick colour looks good on you.'

I felt like I was going to be sick when he said that. He might as well have groped me.

‘And here come my footsoldiers,' he said, turning towards the door where Ola and Peder had turned up. ‘Is there anything going out there?'

‘Lovisa wants us to clear off,' Peder said. ‘It wouldn't surprise me if she called the cops.'

‘Your problem, Peder, is that you get stressed out over nothing. And Lovisa is not the one who decides when it's time for us to go.'

He turned back towards me.

‘I want it by Monday at the latest. I'm serious this time. No more haggling, no more lame excuses. Otherwise something's gonna happen... '

G
erard's deadline expired on Monday, but I didn't hear anything from him. Because I still didn't have any money, I let the matter rest. I'd had enough fear, I thought. After Christmas he was going to be sent to borstal in another town. I just had to hold out until then.

Besides, I had other things to think about. The day after Lovisa's part, Olof came home from hospital. Tommy listened in as he was brought up to date on the situation downstairs in their games room, The creature was gone... the sea monster, as they called him... and there was no trace of him. The brothers didn't know what to think. It seemed completely implausible that anybody had managed to get into the mink farm and release him. The fact that the guard dog lay dead in the yard but nothing else had been touched or stolen just made it more mysterious. Jens and Olof had looked through every single room in search of something that might solve the riddle. But the rain had helped us: that night over an inch had fallen, and all traces were gone, except for the hole we cut in the fence. Neither of the brothers had any suspicions about us.

But they seemed concerned because it had some connection with their business dealings. Tommy didn't understand exactly what, but something seemed to have happened on that front as well. Something that made them cautious.

All that meant we couldn't let our guard down. If we were going to check on the creature, we'd have to wait. It was crucial that we didn't go near the abandoned cottage, at least not for a while.

Instead, I was pleased my brother had decided to go to back to school. At lunchtime he turned up by my locker, looking the same as usual, minus his glasses.

‘My stomach won,' he said with a smirk. ‘I can't go round being hungry any longer.'

Nobody bothered to go food shopping at home any more. And at school at least he'd get one hot meal in his belly every day.

‘I just won't be able to see a thing in lessons,' he said. ‘I'm more or less blind without my glasses.'

‘We can go to the school nurse and see if she can sort out some new ones. Or the school welfare officer. I can help you if you want.'

Robert shook his head.

‘Later,' he said. ‘For now, I'm just here to eat. And to explain why I've been off. And this is a good day, because we've got home economics.'

‘What are you making?'

‘Pancakes with cream.'

That's the kind of thing people couldn't understand, I thought as I watched him head off towards the Year 7 cloakroom with his uncertain gait and his back slightly stooped: that some kids went to school only so they wouldn't go hungry. It suddenly seemed so messed up, with all the kids who hid the fish they didn't like under a mountain of napkins so the dinner ladies wouldn't see how much they were throwing out. But those glasses needed sorting out. I put it on my mental to-do list.

If Mum had a list like that, it didn't show. It seemed like she'd gone to bed and was never going to get up again. Everything was going downhill at home. Every room was a pigsty. She stayed in her bedroom with the curtains drawn, sleeping the days away. We didn't see hide nor hair of Dad, either. He would head out every afternoon and not come back until late at night. Since his return from Gothenburg, he was barely contactable. I was becoming increasingly convinced that something had happened during that trip that terrified him. Leif and the other dodgy blokes seemed to be out of the picture. Or maybe not, because one afternoon when I came home, Dad was sitting on the sofa waiting for me.

‘We need to talk,' he said.

I stood in the doorway, and he seemed to be all right with that.

‘I've got to get away from here. And it might be a while before I get back. I mean, I'm not going back inside... not doing more time. I just need to stay away.'

‘From what?'

‘From certain people. I plan to clear out your room beforehand so you can move back in there.'

‘Can I go now?'

He looked at me, almost in surprise.

‘Sure. Just look after Robbie, there's a good girl. He won't make it on his own.' He made a significant gesture in the direction of upstairs. And Mum... well, you can see what shape she's in.'

‘Don't worry.'

‘I want you to know I appreciate it. That you keep things ticking along here at home. I'm sorry, Nella, really, for everything. I know how it feels. I didn't have any adults I could count on either when I was fifteen. I was homeless.'

He went silent and looked down at his hands. As if he didn't really understand what he should do with them, I thought.

‘You're strong, Nella. You'll get through this. I trust you.'

He winked at me.

‘Tell Robert I'm sorry about that business with his glasses. I didn't mean anything bad, I just wanted him to have a new pair.'

He got up from the sofa, as awkwardly as an old man.

‘I saw something strange the other week,' he said in a quiet voice. ‘Something I never thought I'd get to see. There are things in this world that are completely incomprehensible.'

The creature, I thought, it was the creature he was talking about. He felt guilty about what they'd done to him.

‘And people react bloody strangely to strange things. Isn't that right?'

Maybe he was just babbling. I didn't want to know. I didn't want to think about who he was, what he had done or what he was going to do.

‘I'm clearing off the day after tomorrow,' he said. ‘If nothing else comes up in the meantime. Then we'll see when I come back.'

The next day in the lunch break, Mum was waiting for me in the common room. It felt surreal to see her standing there, confused among a mob of students who'd just come out of their lessons. She was dressed up, had put on some makeup and was carrying her bag on her shoulder. As I got closer, I noticed a bruise above her left eye.

‘I need to speak to you, Nella,' she said. ‘Come on, let's go outside.'

I took my jacket and followed her out. Without saying a word, we went over to the smoking area. She took a packet of fags out of her bag, tapped out two and held one out to me.

‘It's funny,' she said. ‘I don't know anything about you, really. Not even whether you smoke.'

She'd been drinking; I could smell it on her breath even though she'd been sucking on a Fisherman's Friend to cover it up. I shook my head.

‘Good. And don't start, either. Don't start doing anything else. You can see what shit you've got in your genes if you look at me.'

She lit her cigarette and blew smoke out of the side of her mouth.

‘I don't actually know what happened. With this, with life or whatever you want to call it. You reach out to take hold of something... and then you realise it's nothing but air. You basically can't count on anything, not even yourself.'

It was Dad who'd walloped her, I thought. Even so, it wouldn't be enough of a reason for her to leave him. And as if she could read my thoughts, she said:

‘It's not because of... He just feels under pressure. A load of crap has happened, and the situation has got threatening. He's clearing off soon and doesn't know when he's coming back. And when I told him I've had enough, that I'm thinking of leaving him, then it boiled over.'

She was looking past me, out over the schoolyard where the pupils had started to stream out for recess. Normal kids, I thought,
with normal parents. Not kids who stood in the smoking area with their mum and worried about her black eye.

‘So what are you going to do?' I asked.

‘What needs to be done.'

Maybe she was feeling sorry for herself, because her uninjured eye suddenly filled with tears.

And somehow, strangely, I felt tenderness towards her as she stood there in her best discount-store coat, smoking and feeling sorry for herself. She had nothing. She'd lost everything long ago and didn't even know what she'd lost.

‘Somebody else can take over here,' she mumbled. ‘Somebody will have to look after you two if neither Dad nor I can.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I'm going up to the headmaster's office now. There are a load of meetings I have to attend. With you and Robert's form teachers. With the child psychologists and social services.'

It was only then that I understood what she was really talking about.

‘So you're just going to leave?'

‘Same as your dad. And you're not accusing him... '

She dropped her fag on the ground and stubbed it out with the toe of her worn-out shoe.

‘And what's going to happen to us?'

‘I don't actually know. I'll try to sort this out as best as possible.'

‘What if they split us up? If we end up with different families.'

But she didn't reply. Just straightened her coat and walked off, without turning back.

O
ver to the left I could see all the way down to the sea. There was no one in sight. Just the vacant fields, heather moors and the sun breaking up more and more clouds. I shouldn't have been there, in plain sight if anyone should happen to turn up. But why would anyone? The abandoned cottage was in an out-of-the-way place; people steered clear of it.

That stuff Mum said made me really confused. She was going to walk away of her own free will, but before then she was going to hand over responsibility for us to somebody else. I couldn't bear the thought that Robert and I might get split up. That simply couldn't happen. I wouldn't be able to cope.

But who said that was going to happen? I bet they wouldn't split up siblings. Where had I got that idea from?

I felt like I was going to be sick. The sensation of a chasm opening up inside me was nothing new – I'd grown up with it; that's how my life was. And yet I never got used to it ...

The mink farm could not be seen from where I stood. The only spot I could be seen from was on the opposite side, the small road leading off towards the lighthouse. I was alone. Out of danger. Everything was all right. Those were the sort of thoughts going through me, like little reassuring telegrams.

The entrance looked exactly the same as we had left it: the soil and branches we had covered the door with were still there. Nobody had been there. Or left any tracks, anyway.

I wondered what Mum was doing just then. Sitting in the headmaster's office, trying to explain the situation? That she intended to abandon us. That neither she nor Dad was capable of looking
after us any longer. That she hoped they'd be able to find suitable foster families for us. I'd cleared out of school before the bell rang again, without even saying anything to Tommy, just cycled down to the abandoned cottage as fast as I could.

I took off my gloves and dug out the door. There was no noise from inside. For a moment, I imagined he was gone. That somebody had found him after all and taken him away. Otherwise I would have heard him, I thought, that silent language he transmitted to us in his inexplicable way. Or maybe he was dead? Maybe he couldn't handle it any more, the shock, the injuries... everything humans had done to him. Just men, I thought, always just men.

‘Are you there?'

But there was no reply. Only silence within me. As if I were empty, devoid of all feeling.

The hatch door was exposed now. There was a gap up at the top. I stuck my fingers into it, braced myself with my feet and pulled until it fell aside.