Italian Shoes (34 page)

‘Can you collect me or can't you?'

‘I'll be with you in half an hour.'

When we had reached the mainland, I told him I'd probably be returning the same day, but I couldn't say precisely when. Jansson was ready to burst with curiosity, but I said nothing.

When I arrived at the health centre I explained what had happened. After a short wait I underwent the usual examinations and an ECG, and spoke to a doctor. He was probably one of the locums who nowadays move from one surgery to another because they can never manage to attract a doctor on a long-term basis. He gave me the medication and instructions I had expected, as well as a referral to the hospital for a more detailed examination.

I called Jansson from reception and asked him to collect me. Then I bought two bottles of brandy and returned to the harbour.

It was only later, when I was back on the island, that the fear kicked in. Death had taken hold of me and tested my powers of resistance. I drank a glass of brandy. Then I went out and stood on the edge of a cliff and yelled out over the sea. I was shouting out my fear, disguised as anger.

The dog sat some distance away, watching me.

I didn't want to be alone any longer. I didn't want to be like one of the rocks on my island, observing in silence the inevitable passage of days and time.

I had a hospital appointment for 3 December. There was nothing fundamentally wrong with my heart. Medication, exercise and an appropriate diet should keep me going for a few years yet. The doctor was about my own age. I told him the facts, admitted that I had once been a doctor, but had then gone to look after an old fisherman's cottage on an offshore island. He displayed a friendly lack of interest, and as I was about to leave, told me that I had a slight touch of angina.

Louise arrived on 7 December. The temperature had dropped, and at last autumn was giving way to winter. Rainwater in the rock crevices began to freeze at night. She had phoned from Copenhagen and asked me to arrange for Jansson to pick her up from the harbour. The connection was cut before I had time to ask her any more questions. I switched on the electric fire in her caravan, polished her shoes, cleaned up, and remade the bed with fresh sheets.

I hadn't had a recurrence of the heart pains. I wrote a letter to Agnes and asked if she had finished thinking about my suggestion. She sent a picture postcard with her answer. The picture was of a painting by Van Gogh, and the text comprised two words: ‘Not yet.'

I wondered what Jansson had thought when he read the card.

Louise stepped on to the jetty carrying nothing but the rucksack she had taken with her in the first place. I had expected her to be struggling with large suitcases containing all the things she'd collected during her expedition. If anything, the rucksack seemed to be emptier now than it was when she set out.

Jansson appeared unwilling to leave. I gave him an envelope containing the fee he'd asked for his ferrying activities, and thanked him for his help. Louise greeted the dog. They seemed to get along like a house on fire. I opened the door to the caravan, which had become nicely warm. She deposited her rucksack there, then accompanied me to the house. Before we went in, she paused for a moment by the little mound marking the grave under the apple tree.

I grilled some cod for dinner. She ate it as if she hadn't eaten in weeks. I thought she looked paler and perhaps even thinner than she was before. She told me that the plan to gatecrash the summit meeting had been hatched before she left the island.

‘I sat down on the bench by the boathouse and worked it all out,' she said. ‘I didn't feel there was any point in writing the letters any more. It had dawned on me that they might never have been meaningful for anybody apart from myself. So I chose another way.'

‘Why didn't you say anything?'

‘I don't know you well enough. You might have tried to stop me.'

‘Why should I have done that?'

‘Harriet always tried to make me do what she wanted. Why should you be any different?'

I tried to ask her more questions about her expedition, but she shook her head. She was tired, needed to get some rest.

At midnight I saw her to the caravan. The thermometer outside the kitchen window was showing plus one degree. She shuddered in the cold and took my arm. That was something she had never done before.

‘I miss the forest,' she said. ‘I miss my friends. But this is where the caravan is now. It was kind of you to heat it up for me. I shall sleep like a log, and dream about all the paintings I've seen during the past few months.'

‘I've brushed your red shoes for you,' I said.

She kissed me on the cheek before vanishing into the caravan.

Louise kept out of the way for the first few days after her return. She came to eat when I shouted for her, but she didn't say much and could become irritated if I asked too many questions. One evening I went down to the caravan and peered in through the window. She was sitting at the table, writing something in a notebook. She suddenly turned to look at the window. I crouched down and held my breath. She didn't open the door. I hoped she hadn't seen me.

While I was waiting for her to become accessible again, I went for long walks with the dog every day, to keep myself in shape. The sea was blue-grey, fewer and fewer seabirds were around. The archipelago was withdrawing into its winter shell.

One evening I wrote what was to be my new will. Everything I owned would go to Louise, of course. What
I had promised Agnes kept gnawing away at me, but I did what I've always done in such circumstances: pushed nagging worries to the back of my mind and convinced myself that things would sort themselves out if and when they came to a head.

In the morning of the eighth day after her return Louise was sitting at the kitchen table when I came downstairs at about seven.

‘I'm not tired any more,' she said. ‘I can face other people now.'

‘Agnes,' I said. ‘I've invited her to come here. Maybe you can convince her that she ought to move here with her girls.'

Louise looked at me in surprise, as if she hadn't heard properly what I'd said. I had no idea of the danger that was creeping up on me. I told her about Agnes's visit, but needless to say didn't mention what had happened between us.

‘I thought I'd let Agnes and her girls come to live here when they no longer have the house where she runs her care home.'

‘You mean you're going to give the island away?'

‘There's only me and the dog here. Why shouldn't this island start being useful again?'

Louise was furious and slammed her fist down on the coffee cup on the table in front of her. Bits of cup and saucer splattered into the wall.

‘So you're going to give away my inheritance? Aren't you going to leave me anything when you've gone? – I haven't had a thing from you so far.'

I found myself stuttering when I replied.

‘I'm not giving her anything. I'm just letting her stay here.'

Louise stared at me long and hard. It felt as if I was confronted by a snake. Then she stood up so violently that her chair fell over. She took her jacket and stormed out, leaving the door open. I waited and waited for her to come back.

I closed the door. At last I understood what it had meant to her that day when I turned up outside her caravan. I had given her a possession. She had even given up the forest for the sea, for me and my island. Now she thought I was taking all that away from her.

I had no heirs apart from Louise. I had once entertained the thought of giving the island to some archipelago trust or other. But that would only mean that, at some point in the future, greedy politicians would sit on my jetty and enjoy the sea. Now everything had changed. If I fell down and died that very night, Louise would be my direct heir. What she did with it then would be entirely up to her.

She didn't appear at all the next day. In the evening, I went to the caravan. Louise was lying on the bed. Her eyes were open. I hesitated before knocking on the door.

‘Go away!'

Her voice was shrill and tense.

‘We must talk this over.'

‘I'm getting out of here.'

‘Nobody will ever take this island away from you. You don't need to worry.'

‘Go away!'

‘Open the door!'

I tried the handle. It was unlocked. But before I could move she had flung it open. It smashed into my face. My bottom lip split open, I fell over backwards and hit my head on a stone. Before I could get up she had thrown herself on top of me and was hitting me about the face with what remained of an old cork lifebelt that had been lying nearby.

‘Stop it. I'm bleeding.'

‘You're not bleeding enough.'

I grabbed hold of the lifebelt and wrenched it from her grasp. Then she started punching me. I eventually managed to wriggle out of her clutches.

We faced each other, panting.

‘Come up to the house. We have to talk.'

‘You look awful. I didn't mean to hit you so hard.'

I went back to the kitchen, and was shocked when I saw my face covered in blood. I could see that not only my lip but also my right eyebrow had been split open. She knocked me out, I thought. She'd made good use of her boxing skills, even if it was the caravan door that had landed the most telling blow.

I wiped my face and wrapped some ice cubes in a towel which I pressed on my mouth and eyebrow. It was some time before I heard her footsteps approaching the door.

‘How bad is it?'

‘I might live. But new rumours will spread around the islands. As if it weren't enough that my daughter undresses in front of the men who rule the world, she comes back home and behaves like a violent madwoman towards her
ageing father. You're a boxer, you must know what can happen to a face.'

‘I didn't mean it.'

‘Of course you did. I think what you really wanted to do was to kill me before I could write a will that disinherited you.'

‘I got upset.'

‘You don't need to explain. But you're wrong. All I want to do is to help Agnes and her girls. Neither she nor I can say how long the arrangement will last. That's all. Nothing else. No promises, no gifts.'

‘I thought you were going to abandon me again.'

‘I've never abandoned you. I abandoned Harriet. I knew nothing about you. If I had done, everything might have been different.'

I emptied the towel and refilled it with new ice cubes. My eye was by now almost totally closed.

Things had started to calm down. We sat around the kitchen table. My face hurt. I stretched out my hand and placed it on her arm.

‘I'm not going to take anything away from you. This island is yours. If you don't want her to come here with her girls while they are looking for another home, then of course I shall tell her that it's not possible.'

‘I'm sorry you look like you do. But earlier this evening, that's what I looked like inside.'

‘Let's go to bed,' I said. ‘We'll go to bed, and tomorrow I'll wake up with a perfect set of bruises.'

I stood up and went to my room. I heard Louise closing the front door behind her.

We had been on the edge of a storm. It had passed by very close to us, but hadn't enveloped us completely.

Something is happening, I thought, almost cheerfully. Nothing earth-shattering, but still. We're on our way to something new and unknown.

The December days were chilly and oppressive. On 12 December I noted down that it snowed for a while in the afternoon – nothing much, and it didn't last long. The clouds were motionless in the sky.

My bruised face was painful and took a long time to heal. Jansson's jaw dropped when I met him on the jetty the morning after the fight. Louise came to say hello. She was smiling. I tried to smile but failed. Jansson couldn't resist asking what had happened.

‘A meteor,' I said. ‘A falling star.'

Louise was still smiling. Jansson asked no more questions.

I wrote to Agnes and invited her to the island to meet my daughter. She replied after a few days and said it was too soon. Nor had she decided whether or not to accept my offer. She knew that she would have to make her mind up before long, but hadn't done so yet. I could tell that she was still offended, and disappointed. Perhaps I felt relieved that she wasn't going to come. I was still not convinced that Louise wouldn't launch another attack on me.

Every day I walked round the island with the dog. I listened to my heart. I had got into the habit of taking
my pulse and my blood pressure once a day. Every other day after resting, every other day without resting. My heart was beating calmly and steadily inside my ribcage. My steadfast companion on my journey through life, to whom I had not devoted many thoughts. I went round and round the island, tried not to lose my footing on the slippery rocks, and occasionally paused to contemplate the horizon. If I had to leave this island, what I would miss most would be the rocks, the cliffs and the horizon. This inland sea, which was slowly turning into a bog, didn't always produce pleasant smells. It was an unwashed sea that sometimes smelled of a hangover. But the horizon was pure and clean, as were the rocks and the cliffs.

As I made my daily round of the island in my cut-down wellington boots, it was as if I were carrying my heart in my hand. Even if all my readings were good, I sometimes felt panicky. I'm dying, my heart will stop beating a few seconds from now. It's all over, death will strike before I'm prepared for it.

I thought I ought to talk to Louise about my fears. But I said nothing.

The winter solstice was approaching. One day Louise sat down on a chair in the middle of my kitchen and asked me to hold a mirror. Then she used a pair of kitchen scissors to cut off her long hair, dyed what remained red, and laughed contentedly a couple of hours later when she examined the result. Her face became clearer. It was as if a flower bed had been cleared of weeds.