Jansson displayed great skill with the tractor as he manoeuvred the caravan into position. We placed old fish boxes and driftwood where necessary until it was level and steady.
‘It’ll be OK now,’ said Jansson, sounding satisfied. ‘This is the only island out here with a caravan.’
‘Thank you. You’re invited to coffee,’ said Louise.
Jansson looked at me. I said nothing.
It was the first time he’d been inside the house as long as I’d lived there. He looked inquisitively around the kitchen.
‘It looks just as I remember it,’ he said. ‘You haven’t changed much. Unless I’m much mistaken this is the same tablecloth as the old couple used to have.’
Louise brewed some coffee and asked if I had any buns. I didn’t. So she went to her caravan to fetch something.
‘She’s a very elegant woman,’ said Jansson. ‘How did you manage to find her?’
‘I didn’t find her. She’s the one who found me.’
‘Did you advertise for a woman? I’ve considered doing that.’
Jansson isn’t exactly quick-witted. You couldn’t accuse him of indulging in too much activity behind the eyes. But it was beyond belief that he could imagine that Louise was a lady I had somehow picked up, complete with caravan and a dying old woman.
‘She’s my daughter,’ I said. ‘I told you I had a daughter. I distinctly remember doing so. We were sitting on the bench by the jetty. You had earache. It was last autumn. I told you I had a grown-up daughter. Have you forgotten?’
Jansson had no idea what I was talking about. But he didn’t dare to argue. He didn’t dare to risk losing his personal physician.
Louise came back with an assortment of buns and biscuits. Jansson and my daughter seemed to hit it off from the start. I would have to explain to Louise that she could hold sway over her caravan, but when it came to my island, nobody but me was allowed to lay down the law. And one of the laws that applied was that Jansson must on no account be invited to drink coffee in my kitchen.
Jansson towed away his cow ferry and disappeared round the headland. I didn’t ask Louise how much she’d paid him. We went for a walk round the island as Harriet was still asleep. I showed her where my dog was buried. Then we clambered southwards over the rocks and followed the shore.
Just for a short time, it was like having acquired a little child. Louise asked about everything — plants, seaweed, the neighbouring islands barely visible through the mist, the fish in the depths of the sea that she couldn’t see at all. I suppose I could answer about half her questions. But that didn’t matter to her — the important thing was that I listened to what she said.
There were a few boulders on Norrudden, a headland on the north side of the island, that centuries ago the ice had shaped into throne-like constructions. We sat down.
‘Whose idea was it?’ I asked.
‘I think we both hit on it at about the same time. It was time to visit you, and for the family to get together before it was too late.’
‘What do your friends in the forest up north have to say about this?’
‘They know that I’ll come back one of these days.’
‘Why did you have to lug the caravan with you?’
‘It’s my shell. I never leave it behind.’
She told me about Harriet. Harriet had been driven to Stockholm by one of Louise’s boxer friends called Sture who made a living by drilling wells.
Then Harriet suddenly took a turn for the worse. Louise travelled down to Stockholm to look after her mother, as she had refused to go into a hospice. Louise had insisted on being authorised to administer the painkilling drugs Harriet needed. All that was possible now was palliative care. Every effort to prevent the cancer from spreading had been abandoned. The final countdown had begun. Louise was in constant touch with the home-nursing authorities in Stockholm.
We sat on our thrones, gazing out over the sea.
‘I can’t see her lasting more than another month at most,’ said Louise. ‘I’m already giving her enormous doses of painkillers. She’s going to die here. You’d better prepare yourself for that. You’re a doctor — or, at least, were one. You’re more familiar with death than I am. But I’ve realised that death is always a lonely business. Nevertheless, we can be here and help her.’
‘Is she in a lot of pain?’
‘She sometimes screams.’
We continued our walk along the shore. When we came to the headland reaching out towards the open sea, we paused again. My grandfather had placed a bench there: he’d made it himself from an old threshing machine and some rough oak planks. When he and Grandma had quarrelled, as they sometimes did, he used to go and sit there until she came to fetch him and tell him that dinner was ready. Their anger had always subsided by then. I had carved my name on the bench when I was seven years old. My grandfather was no doubt less than pleased, but he never said anything.
Eider and scoter and a few mergansers were bobbing up and down on the waves.
‘There’s a deep underwater ravine just offshore here, where the birds are,’ I said. ‘The average depth is fifteen to twenty metres, but there is this sudden abyss fifty-six metres deep. When I was a lad I used to lower a grappling iron from the rowing boat, and always imagined that it was bottomless. We’ve had visits by geologists trying to work out why it exists. As far as I can understand, nobody has been able to give a satisfactory answer. I rather like that. I have no faith in a world in which all riddles are solved.’
‘I believe in a world where people fight back,’ said Louise.
‘I assume you’re thinking about your French caves?’
‘Yes, and much more besides.’
‘Are you writing protest letters?’
‘The latest ones were to Tony Blair and President Chirac.’
‘Have they replied?’
‘Of course not. But I’m working on other courses of action.’
‘What?’
She shook her head. She didn’t want to go into that.
We continued our walk and came to a stop at the boathouse. The sun was shining on the lee wall.
‘You fulfilled one of the promises you made to Harriet,’ said Louise. ‘She has another request now.’
‘I’m not going back to that forest pool.’
‘No, she wants something to take place here. A midsummer party.’
‘Meaning what?’
Louise was annoyed.
‘What can you mean by a midsummer party apart from what the words say? A party that takes place at midsummer?’
‘I’m not accustomed to throwing parties here on my island. No matter whether it’s summer or winter.’
‘Then it’s about time you did. Harriet wants to sit out on a sunny summer evening with some other guests, to eat some good food, drink some good wine, and then go back to bed and die soon after.’
‘That’s something we can arrange, of course. You, me and her. We can set up a long table on the grass in front of the currant bushes.’
‘Harriet wants guests. She wants to meet people.’
‘Who, for instance?’
‘You’re the one who lives here. Invite some of your friends. There don’t need to be all that many.’
Louise set off for the house, without waiting for a reply. I could invite Jansson, Hans Lundman and his wife Romana, who works as an assistant at the meat counter in the big indoor food market in our nearest town.
Harriet would be able to partake of her last supper out here on my island. That was the least I could do for her.
Chapter 4
It rained more or less non-stop until midsummer. We established simple routines based on Harriet’s deteriorating condition. To start with, Louise slept in her caravan; but when Harriet screamed out two nights in succession, she moved into my kitchen. I offered to help by giving Harriet her medication but Louise wanted to keep that responsibility. She used a mattress on the kitchen floor, and stored it in the vestibule every morning. She told me the cat would sleep at her feet.