Håkan Nesser - The Living and the Dead in Winsford

‘Okay, I understand that you need to get away from here. What with that mad woman, and all the rest of it.’

Thus spake Eugen Bergman, publisher, pataphysicist and good friend for half a lifetime.

And so on as described before.

It was a simple plan: when we met Bergman it was over a month since Martin had proposed it, and I had agreed without much thought. Perhaps that was a mistake on my part — yes, of course it was: not the fact that I didn’t think much about it, but that I said yes. Afterthoughts of one kind or another wouldn’t have done much good; it was a situation that called for instinctive reactions and intuition, not for logical or emotional calculations.

And perhaps I made the wrong decision. Completely and utterly wrong.

But that meeting with Magdalena Svensson was fresh in my mind, I can blame that.

‘Let’s disappear from the face of the earth for half a year,’ said Martin. ‘Let’s grant ourselves that luxury.’

‘What do you mean exactly?’

He pretended to think it over while eyeing me with that innocent look of his which had been a trump card for so many years, but no longer was. ‘I mean. . I just mean that we should go away for six months without telling a soul where we’ve gone to.’

‘Really?’

‘Apart from the fact that we’re going to Morocco, perhaps. Telling a few people that, at least. They can send post to Marrakesh or Agadir. Poste restante. That still works, and we can pick it up when it suits us. If we need to be in contact with the outside world we can always find an internet cafe. No mobiles, I’m so damned fed up with mobile phones. Just you and me. . Time to think things over and heal wounds, and whatever else you want.’

‘Have you any special place in mind?’ I wondered. ‘A particular house, or anything like that?’

He had been back to Morocco not all that long ago. The end of the nineties, if I remember rightly — an assignment commissioned by the university, some Sufi poets or something of the sort, and he had tagged on a week’s holiday as well. Maybe he had met Herold, maybe not. We’d never spoken about precisely what he had got up to, I don’t really know why. Perhaps there was some kind of crisis at the Monkeyhouse at the same time. Or in the Sandpit. Both institutions generally imploded a few times every year.

‘There are several possibilities,’ he said. ‘I have a few contacts down there.’

‘And those thousand pages?’ I asked, because he had told me that as well.

‘Of course.’

‘And you’re going to write about them? About Herold and Hyatt?’

‘Why not?’ said Martin, adopting his non-committal expression once again.

I thought about that promise of silence he had made, thirty years ago by this time, and assumed that death had rendered it no longer relevant. Herold’s death. I didn’t follow it up.

‘What have you thought about doing with the house?’ I asked instead. ‘And Castor?’

‘We can let out the house,’ said Martin. ‘Or just leave it, whichever you prefer. And we can take Castor with us. He has a doggy passport, getting him into Morocco would be no problem, and I don’t think getting him out of Sweden would present any difficulty either. If it did, we could do a spot of smuggling — we’ve done that before, after all.’

He had already worked out answers to any possible questions.

‘Are you sure you didn’t rape her?’ I asked. ‘Sure that she had sex with you willingly?’

He had an answer to that as well. I didn’t mention that I had been to Gothenburg and spoken to his victim.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Perhaps it’s not a bad idea.’

‘When a hurricane’s blowing you have to take shelter,’ said Martin.

And so we had made our decision. I recall that the only feeling I could manage to muster was that it didn’t matter.

We got up late. Or at least, I did. Castor is not the type who gets out of bed simply because he’s opened his eyes.

I had a quickish shower. The cramped bathroom is cold and damp. And there is an odd smell that suddenly reminded me of a pair of old Wellington boots in my childhood (they were always standing in the area between the veranda and the kitchen in the home of my classmate Vera: for a year or two I used to spend about four days a week in their house. They must have belonged to her father, those boots — he was a large, big-nosed and generally unhealthy person). The water for the shower is heated up by a gas flame as it runs through the pipe: a primitive arrangement that doesn’t work very well, but I suppose it’s better than nothing. Maybe I don’t need to have a shower every morning, as I have done for the whole of my life so far. In any case, it seems more sensible to get a fire going first and warm up the rest of the house. I’m learning a lesson: cold and damp give rise to distress and feelings of hopelessness.

We had breakfast, and made plans for the rest of the day. I let Castor out for a three-minute peeing excursion. Stood in the doorway, watching him. He wandered indifferently round the yard a few times: apparently there wasn’t much here worth sniffing at — not even the dustbin over by the stable block was worth investigating this morning, it seemed. He eventually peed on both sides of the only tree, a big, lop-sided larch. That was evidently the right place: he’s used it every time since we came here. I sometimes wonder what goes on inside his head.

Northerly wind. Grey-blue sky. I decided I should buy a thermometer, if for no other reason than to enable me to make more or less accurate weather forecasts every morning. Fire — shower — breakfast — weather: they seemed to be suitable hooks on which to hang up our existence.

I guessed it was about eight degrees today, and noted that figure down. The fourth of November. I also wrote that I was fifty-five years old, three months and four days.

Then a walk, of course. Dogs are made for taking exercise — or at least, African lion-hunting dogs are. I decided on Tarr Steps, a place that’s mentioned in all the guidebooks I’ve thumbed through so far and it’s only a ten-minute drive from here. In the direction of Withypool. It’s an old stepping-stone set-up over the River Barle, as I understand it; from the Middle Ages or thereabouts. There are footpaths to explore on both sides of the river, and a cafe that might be open.

Then some shopping, followed by dinner at the village pub, in the early evening. A good plan. A day in the life. .

Or perhaps the other way round — that would involve a different kind of truth. A life in a day . The way you live one day can be repeated every other single day. Until the end of time. Is that why I’m here? The simple plan? I must stop asking questions like that.

*

Tarr Steps turned out to be protected from the wind, but on the other hand it started raining — as unwelcome as news of a death while you’re busy solving the daily crossword puzzle. Mind you, it held off until we had walked a fair distance along the river bank, and met two elderly women each with a retriever. The dogs greeted one another politely, as did the women and I, and I had begun wondering whether to continue along the path as far as Withypool. That is less than two hours’ walking time from Tarr Steps, and there is a pub there.

But the rain forced us to beat a retreat. We crossed over a ford and began retracing our steps along the other side of the river: after two-and-a-half hours in all we were back at our starting point. The cafe was open, but I felt too wet and muddy to go in. We sat in the car, I took out my mobile and checked the situation: no signal. I switched off. Maybe I ought to find a place where there was a signal and then sit there for a while every other day.