Eddie X plays only Swedish music to accompany his memories. He has no taboos about what is beautiful or ugly, permitted or forbidden. In Eddie’s Summer programme, Ace of Base and E-Type have just as much cred as The Hives and The Soundtrack of Our Lives. Twenty-five years of the best of Sweden in a wonderful and amusing whistle-stop summary in one and a half hours.
Titus can almost hear through the walls how the Swedish nation is cheering joyfully. A new jewel in our national treasure chest has been found. First Bellman, Taube, Lundell and Hellström. And now – Eddie X.
When the programme ends, Titus texts Eddie:
Congratulations! Laughs + tears + laughs again. Thanks + cheers. Titus.
When he puts the phone down, it suddenly hits him like a fist right in his solar plexus. He feels the blood emptying out of his head. He has to sit down on the floor. He rubs his crew-cut head hard. Bloody fucking hell. How could he not have thought of it earlier? Fingernails scratching his scalp. A struggle to breathe. Hyperventilation.
Eddie didn’t say a word about his paranoid dad! When they met at the City Library he was doing research for his Summer programme! Digging into the past and learning more. Confronting nasty memories and all that sort of thing to be able to bare himself to the Swedish nation. And then: a single long harangue about the fun and games of growing up in Sweden. Just memories, no analysis. Not a word about what it was like to grow up with a dad who had mental problems.
So Eddie had lied to his face. He would never have thought that possible. So much for the loving message. A wolf in silk clothing.
Before Titus faints, he sees it all clearly: Eddie X, the new national hero, is also busy writing The Best Book in the World.
Meltdown.
CHAPTER 22
Other Sides
The doorbell rings.
Titus doesn’t know how long he has been lying there out cold. Could have been minutes, could have been twenty-four hours – it feels like an eternity. He gets up cautiously and staggers out into the hall, a bit dizzy but able to stand. His mouth feels dry and dusty. He must have been lying there in the kitchen quite a while. He looks at himself in the hall mirror, and sees he is as pale as a corpse despite the sunbed short-cut at the gym.
The doorbell rings again.
Who can it be? Is it Lenny coming back to steal the whole computer this time? Titus looks through the spy-hole. He sees a muscular guy in blue dungarees holding a gigantic toolbox, his mobile phone in a holster and blond streaks in his hair.
Then he remembers the conversation with Astra. It’s the locksmith of course. He got here so quickly. Then again, how does Titus know that? He could have been unconscious for ages. He opens the door.
‘Hello, are you the locksmith?’
‘That’s me. I came as quickly as I could, mate. There seemed to be a bit of a panic here they said.’
A local guy. You could tell from his accent. Good, somebody he could rely on, Titus persuades himself.
‘Come in.’
‘Yeah, right you are. It was this door, I gather.’
‘Yes, that’s the only door to the flat. Was it Astra Larsson who phoned you?’
‘Yeah, that’s the one. Nice lady. Phoned from Greece. Said it was urgent. So I came at once.’
‘The same day? Did she phone today, I mean?’
‘Yeah, right. I was busy with something on Hornsgatan before this. Took a bit of time. But got it done quickly anyway.’
Titus breathes out. In that case he hasn’t been unconscious for long.
‘I’m glad you’re here. Do what you have to do. Just go ahead with it.’
‘Yeah, you know, you can’t have this sort of door nowadays.’
‘No, I’ve noticed.’
‘I mean, just look at this. Come out here.’
The locksmith takes Titus out into the stairwell outside the flat and closes the door from outside. Then he pulls out a credit card from his wallet and slides it into the chink between the door and the doorpost just above the bolt. He pulls it downwards in the chink more or less like on an ordinary card reader in a shop. The card catches the bevelled bolt and pushes it easy as pie into its hole in the door, which opens without resistance.
‘Get it? You can’t have it like this, you realise that don’t you? Even a kid could get in through this door.’
‘Oh dear. Can you fix that?’
‘Sure. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? She, the Greek lady, said that I should do a real state-of-the-art solution. I’ll make it like a bank vault, you know.’
‘That’s great. Thanks.’
‘Yeah, you know, first there’ll be an eight-millimetre titanium plate along the whole edge. Then there’ll be triple locks: an ordinary lock, a seven-lever and a nine-lever. Or do you want a code lock too? You can get them with combinations of up to ten digits.’
‘No, I think it’s enough having to keep track of three keys.’
‘Okay, that’s settled then. It’s your door, you know? I’ll have to re-bevel the hinges too. Fix a plate all the way down. Then nobody can get at it, you know. Idiot-proof. The lady is forking out for this, don’t worry.’
‘Okay. Can you manage on your own now for a while?’
Now that Titus is awake, he wants to get into the computer as soon as possible to check that everything is still there. He leaves the locksmith, who immediately starts measuring up and pulling things out of his toolbox.
Titus blow-starts the computer.
Hello, Titus! Welcome back. After six hours I will shut down and save your work. Then you will have at least a two-hour break as usual. If you don’t use me for three days then you will have to start from scratch. Have a nice day!
Titus is amazed at how the message varies every time he turns on the computer. It must be a very complicated program that Astra has installed. No wonder the poor authors only get a quarter of the sales proceeds from their books, the software developers in Silicon Valley have to have their share, he thinks. It must cost a fortune to construct breathalyser locks that check enzymes.
Click, click, click. At last he gets to the folders on the hard disk. Everything is still there! The manuscript is where it should be. He opens the file and breathes out. All the characters are still there, every single one.
Now he must think. His worst fears have proved right. Eddie has conned him. It is extremely likely that he is fully occupied with writing The Best Book in the World. The Summer programme was just standard Eddie stuff, he had probably used most of the material earlier in his shows. He only had to gather it together, go into the studio and dazzle the public. Eddie X can do that – arousing emotions is his speciality. And perhaps Eddie is sitting somewhere working on a matchless book manuscript this very second! He is going to entrance people with that too.