A Bridge to the Stars (10 page)

When he opens the flat door it's obvious that Samuel
is already at home. He shouldn't be. It's not late enough
in the day for him to have finished work. Joel can see
that he's in a serious mood.

I'm rumbled, Joel thought. He knows I was the one
who threw the stone, he knows that I haven't been to
school, he knows everything...

Now Joel will have to watch his step. Samuel can get
very angry, especially if his son tells lies. Nevertheless
Joel will have to try to find out precisely what Samuel
knows and what he doesn't know. Unless it's necessary,
a full admission won't be called for.

But Joel is wrong. It's not what he thinks at all.

'There's been an accident,' says Samuel. 'Somebody
was hit by a falling tree. We had to take him to hospital
by horse, but it was too late.'

It has happened once before that one of Samuel's
workmates died in an accident. On that occasion he
stayed at home for days, studying his sea charts, before
going back into the forest again.

It strikes Joel that his father looks like a little boy,
sitting on the kitchen bench with his big fists clenched
on the table in front of him. His hands are large and
rough, but even so they look small. Hands can look sad
as well.

Joel takes off his boots and jacket and sits down on
his chair.

If I console him he'll realise that he and I are the
ones who belong together, he thinks. Not Samuel and
Sara.

The stove is cold. Joel stands up and starts loading it
with paper and firewood. He keeps an eye on Samuel all
the time, but he's still sitting with his little fists on the
table in front of him, staring at the cloth.

Joel lights the fire and puts on some water for coffee.

'He's dead now,' says Samuel. 'This morning he got
out of bed and made coffee. He had no idea he was
going to go into the forest and die, Evert Petterson . . . '

He raises his head and looks at Joel. His helplessness
makes him seem so small. Just as small as when he's
spent some nights scrubbing away his demons. Just as
small as when he's been drinking and stays in bed
punishing himself.

'The forest is no place to be,' says Joel. 'Why don't
we move away from here? Why don't you become a
sailor again? Next time it'll be your head the tree falls
down onto. What shall I do then? Move in with old Mrs
Westman downstairs? Or go and live with Sara?'

He hadn't intended to say that last bit. The words just
came tumbling out. But Samuel doesn't react. He just
continues looking miserable.

'I've thought about that, in fact,' he says. 'About what
will happen to you if anything happens to me. I've
thought about that . . . '

'I'm not moving in with Sara,' says Joel. 'I'd rather
live with Simon Windstorm.'

Samuel looks at him in surprise.

'Whatever for?' he says. 'The man's mad. . . '

'He's not mad at all,' says Joel. 'I think he's very
sensible.'

Samuel shakes his head.

'That's not on,' he says. 'But I have thought about
it . . . '

'If we move away from here you don't need to think
about it,' says Joel. 'There aren't any trees at sea.'

'There are other things at sea,' says Samuel. 'Other
things that can fall on your head.'

The water has started boiling on the stove. Joel adds
three spoonfuls from the coffee tin and counts slowly to
nine, just as Samuel does when he makes coffee. He
takes out two cups, one each.

'Do you drink coffee?' asks Samuel. 'I didn't know
that.'

'Sometimes,' says Joel. 'Half a cup.'

Samuel gives Joel a funny look. As if Joel were
somebody he'd never seen before.

'You're eleven now,' he says. 'Nearly twelve. I keep
forgetting that . . . '

He stirs his coffee.

It seems to Joel that he has to continue now, when
Samuel is in a sorrowful mood, when he doesn't look
capable of getting angry.

'I don't like Sara,' he says. 'Why do you keep on
seeing her?'

'There's nothing wrong with Sara,' says Samuel.
'She's OK. She puts me in a good mood. She laughs her
way through life even though she's endured a lot of
things bad enough to make her cry.'

'Don't we laugh, then?' says Joel.

'Don't keep comparing all the time,' says Samuel.
'Sometimes I miss her something terrible, I do so
miss . . . '

Samuel breaks off without finishing the sentence.

'Mum, Jenny?' suggests Joel.

Samuel nods. Now he seems so small he can barely
reach up to the table.

'Of course I miss Jenny,' he says. 'But she ran off. I
don't want to miss her. I don't want to miss somebody
who doesn't miss me.'

'How do you know that?' asks Joel.

Samuel suddenly grows up and is big again.

'She left me,' he says. 'She ran away from me and
you and all the things we were going to do. We were
only going to stay here for a few years, while you were
little. I was a sailor, this was the only other job I could
get at that time. We thought it was a good idea to live
here where neither of us had been before. Only for a few
years. After that I would sign up with some ship or other
again. But then she simply vanishes . . . '

Samuel smashes one of his fists hard down on the
table.

'Not a word for all these years,' he says. 'Not a single
word. I don't know if she's still alive, or what she's
doing. . . '

'She had an itch,' says Joel. 'That's what Mrs
Westman downstairs thinks.'

'Mrs Westman? That old hag downstairs?' says
Samuel. 'What does she know about it?'

Joel doesn't know what to do next. He wants to talk
about his mother and he wants to talk about Sara, but it's
not possible to talk about them both at the same time.

Samuel suddenly stands up.

'I don't want any food,' he says. 'You can make
whatever you want for yourself. I know you can. I'm
going out for a bit.'

'Don't go to Sara,' Joel begs. 'Don't go to her.'

'I'll go to whoever I want to go to,' says Samuel,
glaring at him with a frown.

Joel can see the dangerous glint in his eye.

'Joel,' says Samuel. 'Somebody threw a stone through
Sara's window. It wasn't you by any chance, was it?'

Oh yes, thinks Joel. It was me. It was Joel Gustafson
who threw that stone. It was Joel Gustafson who lugged the
ladder over the street, it was Joel Gustafson who peeped in
through the window and saw Samuel Gustafson sitting
naked on Sara's bed, showing off his scar. It was me, Joel
Gustafson, who threw that stone and hoped it would hit
Sara on the top of her head and that she'd get a bump so big
that she couldn't wear that red hat of hers any more. . .

That's what he thinks. But what he says is different.

'No,' he says. 'I haven't been throwing stones.'

Now I must be careful not to look away, he thinks. If
I do, Samuel will know it was me.

He looks at Samuel and tries to think about something
else. The dog heading for a star. He can think about that.

'I just wondered,' says Samuel. 'But it happened in
the middle of the night, so it could hardly have been
you. Unless you've started sleepwalking again . . . '

'I haven't been sleepwalking,' says Joel.

Samuel puts on his boots. Then his leather jacket and
his fur hat, in the same order as usual.

'Come with me,' he says out of the blue. 'Come with
me to Sara's. I'm sure she'll make you a bite to eat.'

Go with him to Sara's? Joel stares at Samuel. Does he
really mean it?

'Come,' says Samuel. 'Let's go together.'

Joel is pleased, thrilled to bits.

But how can he feel pleased when meeting Sara is the
last thing he wants to do? He can't understand it.

But when Samuel asks him to accompany him it's like
him becoming Joel's father again. It's like putting your
feet in a bowl of warm water when you're cold. Your
whole body glows with warmth.

'Are you coming or aren't you?' asks his dad.

Joel nods. He's coming.

As they walk through the streets in the wintry
darkness Joel thinks how odd it is that somebody has
died in the forest that day of all days. The very day he'd
decided to get lost in the forest on purpose and freeze to
death in a snowdrift.

He walks close to his dad. It's ages since he last did
that.

'Are you sad?' asks Joel.

'Yes,' replies his father. 'It's so hard to grasp that
Evert is no longer with us. It's so hard when death
strikes like this. And he was only twenty-four. No more
than twice your age. He said only the other day that he'd
soon have saved up enough money for a motorbike. He
was so proud of that. And now he's gone . . . '

'What happens when you die?' asks Joel.

'If only I knew,' says his dad. 'But I don't.'

Joel doesn't know who Evert was. He's only met one
of his father's workmates, and his name is Nilson but
everybody calls him The Wizard. He's short and fat and
speaks a funny dialect. He came back home with Samuel
once, for coffee. Joel heard them talking about clubbing
together to buy a rowing boat so that they could go
fishing, but they got no further than talking about it. Joel
heard nothing more about a boat.

He still can't grasp that he's on his way to Sara's with
his dad. What he finds hardest to understand is that it's
making him feel happy. First of all he's so desperate, he
runs in the middle of the night to throw a stone through
her window, and the next evening he's on his way to
visit her with his father. He still doesn't like her. That
hasn't changed. But he's going even so.

Grown-ups are not like children, he thinks. They
don't understand that you can do things even if you
don't want to. They don't understand that a mum who's
vanished can never be replaced by somebody who wears
a red hat and works as a waitress in a bar.

As they enter the rear courtyard where Sara lives, Joel
feels uneasy again. What if his father suddenly stops,
grabs him by the back of his neck and asks if it was Joel
who threw that stone after all?

A horrible thought strikes him. What if his father has
invited Joel to accompany him so that he can unmask
him in front of Sara?

He stops dead.

His father turns to look at him.

'What's the matter?' he asks. 'Have you changed your
mind?'

Joel tries to tell from his father's voice if his suspicion
might be true. Just how much does his dad know?

'We can't stand around here,' says Samuel. 'Come on
now, Joel.'

Joel sets off again, but he still feels a bit uneasy.

They walk up some dimly lit stairs.

Sara opens the door even before Samuel has knocked.

She's expecting him, Joel thinks. But she doesn't
know I'm with him.

'Joel,' she says with a laugh. 'How lovely that you've
come as well!'

Against his will Joel immediately takes to Sara's flat.
It's not big, smaller than the one they live in, but it's
light and warm, and it smells nice. Besides, she has an
electric cooker.

He decides to pull his head away if she tries to pat him
on the cheek, but when she does he doesn't flinch.
Doesn't move at all.

The hardest thing is looking at the broken windowpane
without giving himself away.

The hole made by the stone has been covered by a
piece of cardboard. The cracks go right up to the frame.

He looks at it furtively while pretending to examine a
calendar hanging on the wall.

It's good that he has his back turned to Sara and his
dad. They're talking about the glazier, who can't come
to mend it until tomorrow. Let's hope they don't talk too
long, he thinks. It could look suspicious if he spends too
long examining a calendar. But then his father starts
talking about the death of Evert, and Sara says she'd
heard about it in the bar and it's awful.

It's not dangerous for Joel to turn round now. He sits
down on a chair and listens to the conversation.

He notices that Sara has tears in her eyes. He hears
her saying that she knew Evert. He'd sometimes been in
the bar for a beer, but he'd never caused any trouble or
had too much to drink.

Joel finds himself feeling sad as well. He's not sure if
it's because of Evert or because Sara has tears in her
eyes. He can't sit here and be the only one who isn't sad.

It could have been me, he would like to say. If I hadn't
been to Four Winds Lake I'd probably have frozen to
death in a snowdrift. But he doesn't say it, of course. He
just sits there quietly, thinking that Sara is so grown up
but even so she has little tears in her eyes . . .

They keep talking about Evert for ages. Sara gives
Samuel a beer and Joel a glass of juice. Then she starts
making something to eat.

'Joel thinks we ought to get an electric cooker,' says
Samuel all of a sudden.

'But of course you must have an electric cooker,' says
Sara. 'That's obvious, surely?'

Joel likes Sara a bit more on the spot. But his father
ought to have bought a cooker without her having to say
anything about it.

When Sara serves the food Joel realises that he's
hungry. He eats and listens. Soon he'll know all there is
to know about Evert. Evert who is lying in the mortuary
and never got to see Four Winds Lake . . .

Joel is sitting next to his dad on a kitchen bench very
similar to the one they have at home.

When they've finished eating, he feels how tired he
is. How will he manage to find the strength to go out and
meet Ture? What he really ought to do is have a good
night's sleep and be able to go to school tomorrow
without the risk of dozing off at his desk.

His father notices that Joel is tired.

'We'll go back home soon,' he says.

That makes Joel feel even more tired. He knows now
that his dad will be sleeping in his own bed tonight.

When Sara suggests that he might like to have a lie
down on the sofa in the other room, the one he'd thrown
the stone into, he just nods and follows her. He's too
tired to do anything else. More tired than he's ever been
before. Besides, if he's in there his dad can't get
undressed and show Sara his scar.