She cast a quick glance up towards Pernilla’s empty kitchen window and hurried to her car. She couldn’t be seen here right now. Couldn’t risk that Pernilla would open her window and shout to her.
She had just set her bag in the back seat, and in only a couple more minutes she would have made it. But fate would have it otherwise, of course. Just as she was about to climb into the driver’s seat they appeared on the path from the park, and spotted her.
‘Hi, what a surprise to see you here.’
Monika glanced over at Maj-Britt’s balcony. The sun was reflecting off her windows and she couldn’t rule out that someone might be standing inside. Watching.
Pernilla had reached her now and set the brake on the pram.
‘We’ve just been out for a little walk.’
Monika nodded and sat down in the driver’s seat.
‘I’m in a bit of a rush. I was just making a house call and have to get back to the clinic.’
‘Oh really, who’s the patient?’
Suddenly Monika realised that now she could get her answer, and it was better to have her worry confirmed than to continue floating in uncertainty.
‘Her name is Maj-Britt. Do you know her?’
Pernilla looked thoughtful and slowly shook her head.
‘Does she live in our building?’
‘No, across the courtyard.’
‘I don’t know anyone there.’
Monika’s body relaxed. It had all been her imagination. Her nervousness was making her hypersensitive; she had let the woman’s comment take on more importance than necessary.
She put the key in the ignition.
‘By the way, I talked to the people at the programme today. They will be depositing the money in your account sometime today. I gave them the account number you use to pay your bills.’
Pernilla smiled.
‘I hope you know how grateful I am for this.’
Monika nodded.
‘I’ve got to run, sorry. I’m already late.’
‘Would you like to come over for dinner tonight? My way of thanking you for all your help.’
To her surprise Monika realised that she was hesitating. How she had waited for this moment. For Pernilla of her own free will to grant her an audience without her having to beg for it. But she was so tired. So exhausted by continually being on her guard and maintaining appearances. She was thinking of taking her sleeping pills early and escaping the evening and the night. But she couldn’t say no. She didn’t have the right.
‘Of course. What time do you want me to come?’
‘What time is good for you?’
She was supposed to finish working at five. She mustn’t forget that Pernilla thought she had gone back to work. There was so much to keep straight.
‘I get off at five.’
‘Shall we say six, then?’
After a last look at Maj-Britt’s window she drove back in towards the city. She was already late. Her mother had been waiting a quarter of an hour for her, and Monika knew that she would be sitting with her coat on in the hall, growing more and more impatient with each minute that passed. But first she had to drop by the bank. And the head of the clinic had rung four times and left messages that she hadn’t answered. Some of her colleagues had also left messages repeatedly, but she still hadn’t called them back.
Somewhere deep inside her something was trying to speak, something that was trying to make her realise that the situation she had created was growing more and more untenable with each hour that passed. But since there was no turning back and there was not a single way she could alter the state of things, it was much easier not to listen. Much easier.
The most important thing at the moment was that the threat she had just experienced had been eliminated, and for the time being she could feel fairly safe. She simply had to take ten minutes at a time. That was all she could ask.
All she had the right to ask.
26
Maj-Britt was standing at her window and watching what was happening down in the parking area. She followed their conversation with interest, although of course she couldn’t hear a single word they were saying. But each gesture and facial expression confirmed what she had suspected. That doctor had lied to her, but she still didn’t understand why.
Ellinor had sat down on the sofa. Saba was standing by her feet and wagging her tail, and Ellinor patted her on the back. Neither of them had said a word since they had been left alone together. Maj-Britt was still dealing with the humiliation of having exposed her incapacity so completely to Ellinor. Not being able to go through even a simple doctor’s examination. Ellinor had at least had the good taste not to comment on her obvious displeasure, nor had she tried to make things worse with sympathy or some idiotic claim that she understood how Maj-Britt felt. And that was lucky. Because if she had done that, Maj-Britt would have had to tell her to go to hell, and that was an expression she did not like to use.
Maj-Britt saw the car drive off, and the mother and child went to their door.
Ellinor still showed no sign of leaving. She had completed her duties but was still here; it was always puzzling when she did that. But right now Maj-Britt had something else on her mind and didn’t much care. It was Ellinor who broke the silence first, which was no surprise to either of them.
‘Why didn’t you say anything about the blood in your urine?’
The mother and her child had gone inside and the main door swung closed behind them. Maj-Britt left the window and went over to the easy chair.
‘Why should I? It wouldn’t have made it go away.’
There was silence for a while. Water was running through a pipe somewhere in the building, and from outside in the stairwell voices were heard and the sound of footsteps which grew louder and then faded away, only to cease abruptly when the door closed. She looked at Ellinor, who was lost in thought and picking distractedly at the cuticle of her right thumb. Maj-Britt was full of questions, and she knew that Ellinor had the answers. Thoughtfully she sank down in the easy chair.
‘How did you know this person, did you say?’
Ellinor abandoned her cuticle.
‘Her name is Monika, actually. If that’s who you mean.’
Maj-Britt gave her a weary look.
‘Excuse me. How do you know Monika?’
She pronounced the name with the obvious distaste she felt, and she didn’t even have to look at Ellinor to sense how much her remark annoyed her.
‘I actually think it was quite decent of her to come over.’
‘Of course. A fantastically noble human being.’
Ellinor gave a heavy sigh.
‘As I said, sometimes you might think a bit about who deserves your contempt and who doesn’t.’
Maj-Britt snorted. And with that it was quiet again. But Maj-Britt knew that if she just waited long enough, Ellinor wouldn’t be able to resist telling her. That was the closest thing to a weakness she had been able to find in this obstinate girl. The fact that she couldn’t keep her mouth shut. At least not for long.
A few minutes passed.
‘I’m not the one who knows her, my mother does.’
Maj-Britt smiled to herself.
‘They met at a course a few weeks ago. They went there together in my mother’s car.’
Ellinor got up and went over to the window. Maj-Britt listened with interest.
‘Do you remember I told you someone died a few weeks ago who lived across the way here?’
Maj-Britt nodded, though Ellinor couldn’t see her.
‘His name was Mattias. He died on the way home from that course in a car crash. My mother was driving. She hit an elk.’
Maj-Britt stared into space. She could see the father and child outside in the playground in her mind’s eye.
‘And your mother?’
‘Well, it’s unbelievable, but she walked away without a scratch. She was in shock, of course, and she has such a guilty conscience because he died and she survived. She was driving, after all. And he had a child and everything.’