All communication was to be via email, and he had no problem with that. He was quite happy to avoid the hassle of trying to explain himself to parents or brothers or whoever.
When they had said goodbye and talk soon, Max sat there for a long time staring straight ahead. Then he took out Robbie and pressed him to his lips, whispering, ‘Well done, buddy.’ When a waiter came to ask if there would be anything else, Max ordered a small bottle of champagne. Well, sparkling wine. The same thing for half the price. That was his theme tune.
The following weekend they recorded the demo in a studio on Götgatan. A series of emails had criss-crossed between Theres, Teresa and Max Hansen. A background tape to the song ‘Fly’ had been prepared, and the decision had been made to cover Abba’s ‘Thank You for the Music’.
Teresa felt small and lost in the soundproofed basement rooms. She didn’t know what Max Hansen had said to the studio technicians and the producer, but it was obvious that everyone regarded her as an irritating hanger-on and barely tolerated her.
This was partly down to Theres. Even when she was due to go in and record her vocal track, she refused to do anything unless Teresa went in with her. Teresa was told not to make a sound. Not to rustle, not to move, not to breathe audibly. Preferably not to exist.
Theres was familiar with the technology involving headphones and the microphone from her home recordings, and as far as Teresa could judge she sang perfectly on the very first take. The warnings about audible breathing were superfluous, since Teresa was holding her breath most of the time in any case.
The producer’s voice came over the speakers, asking Theres to put a little more emphasis on this phrase, hold back in the first verse and so on. Theres did as she was asked, and after two more takes the producer was happy.
After another hour or so they played the raw mix. Teresa couldn’t understand this business of a ‘raw mix’. It already sounded like something you might hear on the radio, and a shiver ran down her arms when she heard the first lines and thought: That’s my song. I wrote that.
Faced with a result, something similar seemed to occur to the studio people, and they looked on her with a slightly kinder expression. A guy in his twenties turned to her and said, ‘Good lyrics, kid,’ and Teresa had to stare at the floor because she was blushing. She could handle nastiness; kindness and praise were tricky.
The song continued, and even though it sounded much more like a real song than it had before, Teresa felt something was missing; it had lost something from the simple version they had recorded in Svedmyra. She couldn’t for the life of her put her finger on what it was, and didn’t dare to say anything because she knew she would be waved away. Presumably they knew what they were doing.
Then they moved on to ‘Thank You for the Music’, and when Theres had sung the last line, ‘For giving it to me…’, the people on the mixer desk were sitting motionless and open-mouthed. Then the producer switched on the speakers so that Theres and Teresa could hear the spontaneous applause.
Max Hansen was satisfied, and announced they were ‘onto a surefire winner’. When Teresa asked if they could have a copy of the raw mix on CD, he said it was impossible because they didn’t want to risk it getting out before the whole thing was finished. It would also be a good idea if they deleted the version they had at home, to make sure there couldn’t be any unnecessary leaks. Teresa said of course, without the slightest intention of doing so. Max Hansen gave Theres a five-hundred-kronor note. He would be in touch as soon as things started moving.
After the comparative calm of the studio it was something of a shock, in spite of everything, to emerge onto Götgatan, which was busy with Sunday shoppers and people out for a stroll. Teresa breathed in the cold air and tried to clear her brain. Then she felt a hand come down heavily on her shoulder; she caught a movement at the corner of her eye and turned around just in time to catch Theres, who was on the point of falling over.
People gave them odd looks as they stood there clinging tightly to one another, with Theres’ face pressed into Teresa’s chest. Teresa whispered, ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’
Theres’ body shuddered as she let out a single long breath of air that went right through Teresa’s top and spread warmth across her skin. She held Theres more tightly and they stood there without moving for a long time. Then Theres straightened up just enough for her mouth to come away from the fabric, and said, ‘They eat.’
‘Who? The people in the studio?’
‘They take. They eat.’
Teresa groped for Theres’ hand to support her, and found that the hand was clutching the note Max Hansen had given her. When Teresa touched her she opened her hand and the crumpled note fell to the ground. Teresa looked at it, lying there in the wet and the dirt, and a fierce rage flared up in her stomach as she saw how it all worked.
They take. They eat.
In an email Max Hansen had indicated that he would very much like to see the film Teresa had taken from his camera destroyed. Teresa had replied that she had thrown it away. But she still had it, and she remembered exactly what she had seen. How he had wanted to exploit Theres, take something from her, eat her, swallow her, documenting the whole thing so that he could relive it all over again.
The same thing had happened in the studio, only in a way that was deemed generally acceptable. Theres had something they wanted. They would suck it out of her, package it up and sell the result to the highest bidder, and the only thing Theres got was that bit of paper lying in the slush.
They take. They eat.
Teresa hadn’t seen it. She had been misled by the way the people at the studio had behaved as if it were all a matter of course, and the simplicity with which Theres seemed able to sing just about anything.
She hadn’t understood. That it cost. From Theres’ behaviour in public places she had realised that Theres found it difficult to be surrounded by adults. Now she had spent a whole day in that situation. In cramped, silent rooms.
When Teresa tried to hug Theres again, she made a feeble attempt to pull away. Teresa let go, and caught her eye instead. Theres’ eyes were a pale, transparent blue, not unlike the zombies in Dawn of the Dead. As if someone had stuck needles in them and sucked out the colour.
They take. They eat.
Teresa bent down and picked up the five-hundred-kronor note. She ignored Theres’ half-hearted resistance and led her towards Medborgarplatsen.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We’re taking a taxi.’
Teresa had never hailed a taxi before, but the driver seemed to find it perfectly natural as she waved at him, and stopped to let them climb into the back seat. Teresa told him the address and showed him the crumpled five-hundred-kronor note, just to be on the safe side.
Theres shuffled as far into the corner as she could, wrapped her arms around her body and closed her eyes. She looked so small and pitiful that Teresa was overcome by a new feeling: tenderness. She wanted Theres to rest her head on her knee, she wanted to stroke her hair and whisper: everything’s fine, you’re safe, I’m here.
Instead she simply sat there with her hands clamped between her thighs watching Theres, who appeared to have fallen asleep. An enormous, tranquil happiness came into her body. Grew. And grew. When they passed the Globe Arena she felt as if she might disintegrate with happiness. She had never seen the Globe before. She had never been in a taxi before. She had never sat beside the sleeping form of someone she loved before. She had been living in the shadows.