The regatta was over at long last, and there were celebrations that evening. Prizes would be awarded by King Harald of Norway, who had participated in the competition, and then there was a gala dinner at the Yacht Club.
Nora would be wearing a new dress in shades of turquoise, together with white high-heeled strappy sandals. After the terrible events of the past few days, she was desperate for some frivolity. She was looking forward to spending an evening with her husband, who hadn’t exactly honored the family with his presence lately. Nora felt a powerful urge to enjoy herself, to get slightly tipsy and forget everything. She had wondered whether it was appropriate to attend the dinner in view of the recent deaths. The Yacht Club board had evidently been considering the matter, too; she had heard rumors that they were thinking of postponing the whole thing. However, they had eventually decided to go ahead as planned. After all, this was an international sailing championship, with participants from all over the world. With a bit of luck, many of the overseas participants might have missed all the commotion on the island, since they didn’t read the local papers or watch Swedish television.
Nora just wanted something else to think about.
When she got over the initial shock of finding Jonny, she tried to fill her mind with anything but the sight of his dead body. She had slept for almost twelve hours straight and had felt much better afterward. A long walk in the forest had also helped clear her head. But the best medicine of all had been a game of Monopoly with the boys. Sitting there with Simon on her knee as they tried to decide whether to buy Norrmalmstorg, the most expensive lot in the game, was pure therapy.
Thomas had been careful not to release her name to the press, so hardly anyone knew that Nora had found the body and dragged it ashore. She blessed his thoughtfulness and his ability to keep tabs on something like that in the middle of everything that was going on.
She went into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine before she got changed. The boys were staying over with her parents, so she and Henrik would have the night to themselves.
Ever since she was a little girl and used to go there with her parents on Sundays, Nora had loved having dinner in the Royal Swedish Yacht Club’s old clubhouse, where the traditions of competitive sailing were a part of the very fabric of the place. Wonderful old photographs showed elegant ladies in full-length dresses strolling along with their parasols as they admired the beautiful wooden boats, which in those days were regarded as the greyhounds of the sea.
The contrast with today’s competitive sailing craft, which didn’t even have as many bunks as crewmembers because the crew worked in shifts, was almost laughable. In the old days, sailing had been all about sleek boats that combined beauty with speed. Today the major competitions were a complex and commercial machine, where technology and sponsorship were of equal importance.
But the old clubhouse retained the atmosphere of those bygone days, and it wasn’t difficult to picture its inauguration under the patronage of Oscar II, with bearded gentlemen and gleaming mahogany sailboats.
Nora and Henrik’s party would be seated on the eastern veranda, with a perfect view of the sea. On a clear day you could see all the way to the lighthouse at Almagrundet, which lay some ten nautical miles southeast of Sandhamn.
She did a little dance of sheer joy. It had been ages since she and Henrik had gone dancing. These days they mostly went to dinner with other families, and the conversation centered on the children, how tired they all were, and how difficult it was to get everything done. Once they were all agreed on such matters, it was time to go home.
She picked up her glass of wine and went upstairs. Henrik was lying on the bed, gazing idly at some sports program on television.
“Shouldn’t you be getting changed?” Nora asked.
Henrik grinned and winked at her. “I’ve got a better idea. Come here!”
Nora perched on the edge of the bed. “And what might that be?” she said with a teasing look.
“I was thinking of claiming my conjugal rights.”
“Have we got time?” She couldn’t help glancing at the clock. The drawback of being a mother. No wonder people said that having small children stopped you from having any more.
“Of course we’ve got time.” He pulled her gently onto the bed. “When you’ve got kids you have to make the most of every opportunity!” His hand found its way under her top. Nora put down her glass and moved close to him. She kissed the hollow at the base of his throat and breathed in his familiar scent. He had virtually no hair on his chest; it had always been that way. She used to tease him and say he was like David Beckham, minus the razor.
Everything was going to be all right, she thought. Whatever happened with the job.
CHAPTER 39
By the time they arrived at the Yacht Club, the pier was already full of happy people. The naval flags hoisted on the tall flagpoles fluttered in the wind. Waiters carried trays of champagne flutes. Everyone was dressed for the occasion, and there was an air of excitement.
Several of the sailors were in uniform, old-fashioned ceremonial dress that reminded Nora of the 1930s. Henrik had once said, half in jest, that he was thinking of buying one, but Nora’s somewhat acid comment about looking like a circus performer had made him change his mind.
She had no problem with nostalgia, but there had to be a limit when it came to romanticizing the past. She also thought the Royal Swedish Yacht Club with all its traditions could be rather too much of a good thing sometimes, but she kept that to herself.
Henrik had grown up in a sailing family; his father was a prominent figure in the Yacht Club, so all the business of kissing each other on the cheek and preserving traditions was second nature to him. Nora, on the other hand, had never felt at home in this environment.
Admittedly, she had spent every summer on the island since she was born, but her view of Sandhamn was completely different. To Nora, Sandhamn meant proximity to the sea, great expanses of silence broken only by the cry of the gulls. You caught your own fish and picked blueberries in the pine forest. On sunny days, you took a picnic down to the beach. In the evening, you fired up the barbecue down by the jetty. It was the simple life that Nora loved, the peace and quiet. The children could run free without anyone having to worry about traffic. Everyone knew everyone else. It was a feeling reminiscent of the novelist Astrid Lindgren’s Bullerby books, and it wasn’t so easy to find these days.
Deep down she regretted the development that had turned the island into a symbol of expensive sailboats and the beautiful people who followed in their wake. At the same time, it helped to keep the island alive. Far too many islands in the archipelago were already depopulated, and it wasn’t easy to find work here. Regattas and other events made sure that Sandhamn was on the map, creating permanent jobs year-round.
You had to take the rough with the smooth.
Since Henrik loved sailing and felt completely at home at the Yacht Club, there wasn’t really much to say. In any case, Nora couldn’t imagine spending the summer anywhere other than Sandhamn, so what did she have to complain about?