“Kay?”
“Call me tonight, Clive,” she said, suddenly sounding tender. “I can’t talk now. I’m going out with Annabel. But tonight I’ll be… in our house. You can call me then.” She hung up.
A flash of jubilation exploded in his chest. It wasn’t too late! Kay loved him!
He went back to the hotel. Michael had left three messages. Clive left one for him. If he didn’t get the meaning of that one, he had to be an idiot. He went to his room and switched on his computer. He wanted to book a trip for Kay. She had never been across the Atlantic and had often mentioned how much she would like to see Paris. It was sixty degrees in Paris, nothing like the raw cold that dominated Copenhagen. He checked flight departures and began to plan. There was a departure from Vancouver, via Seattle, over London and onward to Copenhagen the next day at 1:20 p.m., arriving at Copenhagen Tuesday morning at 6:20 a.m. Clive could meet Kay here and together they could fly on to Paris at 12:35 p.m. He paid for the ticket with his credit card. Almost two thousand Canadian dollars for a return flight. It was a lot of money. But then he remembered he hadn’t bought Kay a present for their silver wedding anniversary. He also remembered he didn’t want to be alone. He tried to call her at Franz’s, but no one answered. He imagined she would like some time to pack. Soon afterward he fell asleep. He slept heavily and only surfaced a couple of times, when the telephone in his room rang angrily, but he slipped back to sleep the moment it stopped. At first, he dreamt about Helland, about Kay, about the boys, about Michael and Tybjerg. They all apologized to him. The dream changed and became about Jack. Jack stood close to him, smiling, as he said something. Clive couldn’t hear what it was because there was music playing. Clive asked Jack to repeat himself, but when he did, Clive could still not hear it. Suddenly, Clive realized that Jack’s face was that of a child. He was as tall as a grown man and wearing a grown man’s trousers and thin sweater, but his face was a boy’s; the sharp upper lip, which had pointed at Clive for nearly forty years, his eyes filled with a child’s admiration. Clive’s groin throbbed. Jack smiled and nothing felt wrong. You’re allowed, Jack said. The music had stopped. It was very quiet. Clive knelt in front of Jack and carefully pulled his trousers down over his slim hips.
Clive woke up with a start and sat bolt upright in the bed. He was dripping with sweat. He dried himself furiously with a towel and tried to rub away the stains on the sheet. His watch on the bedside table glowed fluorescent green. The alarm would soon go off to remind him to call Kay. Clive showered and when he sat, clean and refreshed, in the chair by the telephone, he called Kay. She answered after four rings.
“Hi,” she said gently. “I’m glad you called.”
Clive breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t want to be alone.
“Do you know what you’re doing tomorrow?” he said.
“Looking after Annabel. She has tonsillitis,” Kay replied.
“No, you’re going to Paris!”
“Paris?”
“Yes, I’ve bought you a ticket. If you check your e-mail, you’ll see. Your flight leaves tomorrow afternoon at 1:15 p.m. from Vancouver, via Seattle and London, and on from there to Copenhagen. I’ll meet you at the airport, and we’ll fly to Paris together.” There was silence down the other end.
“I can’t.”
“What do you mean?” Clive was flabbergasted.
“I can’t. I have plans tomorrow.”
“But I’ve already bought the ticket,” Clive protested.
“You should have checked with me first.”
“Can’t you cancel your plans? What are you doing, anyway? You can look after Annabel some other time.”
Pause.
“Kay?” he said.
“I don’t want to,” Kay said quietly. “You should have checked with me first. I want to go to Paris, but I’m looking after Annabel tomorrow. It’s important to me. She’s looking forward to it. You should have checked with me first.”
When their conversation had ended, everything around Clive went black.
Chapter 15
In 1975 Søren’s parents, Peter and Kristine, had rented a vacation cottage on the North Sea coast. Søren suddenly remembered the cottage. It was wooden and painted pale blue, situated in the corner of a vast plot, surrounded by tall trees. The beach lay a little further away with the fishing village beyond it. The accident happened one week into their vacation. Søren’s father was busy fixing the car and had stripped it of everything: wings, bumper, silencer. The sun came out and it was time for ice cream. The stand was only two miles down a tiny road, but they took the car because Søren’s mother wanted to come, and she couldn’t ride her bicycle because she was heavily pregnant with Søren’s baby brother or sister. They only had one major intersection to cross. They would be fine.
The car was squashed into a cube when it hit the truck. Søren didn’t die. His face was badly cut, he broke several ribs, and he suffered a concussion. It took the emergency team more than an hour to cut him free. Søren remembered nothing. Not the drop of sweat trickling down the nose of one of the ambulance men, the smell of coffee, the golden wheat swaying in the summer heat. Nothing. Blackout. His parents had sat in the front of the car, which was squashed flat.
At the hospital, no one knew who Søren was or where he came from.
The doctors and nurses asked him over and over, but he said nothing. He was in the hospital for nearly three days and didn’t utter a word. Something terrible had happened, he was alone, and he was five years old. It was important to be very quiet. Knud and Elvira hadn’t come, either. No one loved him.
Knud and Elvira had no idea what had happened. They were attending a seminar in Finland. They weren’t at home when they heard the news, nor did Knud go out into the garden to tell Søren about the accident, like they had told him. It was a lie. They were in Finland.
After three days, Søren said: “My grandfather’s called Knud Marhauge, he lives in a red house outside Ørslev in Denmark.” After that, everything happened very quickly, a telephone call was made, a friend housesitting for Knud and Elvira answered it, another call to Finland, and Knud and Elvira flew back to Denmark to pick up their grandson.
When Vibe had finished her story, she looked anxiously at Søren. His arms hung helplessly by his sides, and he stared at the candles in Vibe’s white ceramic candleholders, burning infinitely slowly on a bookcase in the living room. Søren had been playing in the garden when the accident happened! At the far end. Knud had come down to tell him. He remembered it, though he was only five years old and had moved to Copenhagen soon afterward. The house outside Ørslev had been red, there were three apple trees in the garden, and Elvira had a large barrel for collecting rainwater into which Søren would tip tadpoles he found in a nearby lake. Peter and Kristine had been on their way to Ørslev to pick him up when the accident happened. His grandparents had been looking after him for the weekend, and he had been playing with a red car when Knud came down to him at the far end of the garden. Later, they had had ice cream. It wasn’t like Vibe had said.
“Why did you keep it secret?” he asked. His sweater was sticking to him, something was howling inside his head.
“I’ve known since I was seventeen,” Vibe said. “I’ve known it since the summer I saw the wedding photograph on the sideboard and discovered that Elvira and Knud were your grandparents. I was shocked your real parents were dead. Dead! It was the first time I realized you can lose someone you love in an accident. When I went home, I was beside myself. That night, when my mom said goodnight to me, I burst into tears. You had lost your parents, and I was terrified of losing mine. I was seventeen years old,” she defended herself. “I told my mom what Elvira had said. How awful it had been for Knud to find you in the garden and tell you about the accident. She had stayed in the house, slumped against the wall in grief. My mother hugged me and promised not to die.