John Lindqvist - Little Star

Laila looked at him. ‘What are you talking about?’

Jerry waved at the table. ‘For fuck’s sake, you’re sitting here like…I don’t know…something out of Neighbours. As if everything in the garden was rosy. What’s going on?’

Lennart shrugged his shoulders. ‘Is there a problem?’

‘No, there’s no problem. That’s what’s so bloody spooky. Have you joined a cult or something?’ Jerry just didn’t get it. He gobbled a couple more biscuits, said thank you and went down into the cellar.

The cot was gone, and Theres was sleeping in his old bed these days. She wasn’t wearing a nappy, so presumably she had learned how to use the toilet in the cellar. A home-made cupboard had appeared, with a fretwork front. Jerry could just see a CD player behind the fretwork. Theres was standing in the middle of the floor, not moving a muscle. She was holding a CD in one hand.

She had grown into a very pretty little girl. Her pale blonde hair had begun to curl around her face, framing her enormous blue eyes and making her look like an angel, nothing more or less.

Jerry was very taken with the sight of her, and sat down on the floor in front of her without speaking. Her eyes were fixed on his lips. After perhaps ten seconds, she took a step forward, hit him hard across the mouth and said, ‘Talkie!’

Jerry almost fell over backwards, but managed to support himself with one arm. A reflex action made him give Theres a slap that was hard enough to knock her over. ‘What the fuck are you doing, you little bastard!’

Theres got to her feet, went over to the bed and crawled up onto it. She sat facing the wall, her back to him, and started humming something. Jerry felt at his mouth. No blood.

‘Now then sis,’ he said. ‘We’re not starting all that again, are we?’

Her shoulders hunched and she bent her neck as if she were embarrassed. Jerry’s heart softened and he said to her back, ‘Oh, let’s forget it. It doesn’t matter.’

He crept over to her and realised it wasn’t that she was ashamed. She had simply bent her head so that she could see her reflection in the CD. Jerry reached out to take it. ‘Let’s see what you’ve got there.’

Theres pulled the disc away and growled. There was no other word for the sound that rose from her throat. Jerry laughed and withdrew his hand. ‘OK, OK. I won’t take it. I get it. It’s fine, sis.’

He sat quietly beside her for a while, looking at her as she looked at herself. Without turning her head, Theres eventually said, ‘Talkie.’

‘But I am talking. What do you want me to say? Sorry, or what? Are you cross because I haven’t been around? Is that it? OK, I’m sorry.’

‘Tarrie talkie. Singie.’

Jerry frowned. Then he understood. He took out the guitar and played a C. Theres turned and looked at his fingers as he played C again. Her arm shot out. She whacked him on the hand with the CD, and let out a single note.

Jerry controlled himself and didn’t hit back. A red welt was beginning to appear on the back of his right hand. Theres sang the note again, and raised the CD for a fresh attack.

‘OK, OK,’ Jerry said. ‘Calm down. Here you go.’ He played E-major seventh, and the disc was lowered. ‘I forgot. Sorry.’

As he hadn’t got around to writing anything new, Jerry just sat strumming for a while, playing a few appropriate chords as Theres improvised a melody. The tunes that began to emerge sounded at least as good as the one he had laboriously written down in advance.

He muted the strings with his hand and looked around the room. Her meagre little world. The CD player, the bed, the jars of baby food.

Is this it? Is this the way it’s going to be?

He was roused from his pondering by a pain in his right hand. Theres had stabbed at him again.

‘Tarrie talkie!’

Jerry rubbed the back of his hand. ‘For fuck’s sake, do you think I’m a machine or something?’ He knocked on the body of the guitar. ‘The tarrie will talkie when I want it to talkie, OK?’

Theres leaned forward and gently stroked the neck of the guitar, whispering, ‘Tarrie? Tarrie?’ She laid her ear against the strings and for a moment Jerry thought the guitar was going to reply. He too lowered his head towards the fretboard.

From the corner of his eye he just caught sight of the CD heading straight for his cheek, and jerked his head away. The edge of the disc hit the wood of the guitar and made a small notch. Theres opened her eyes wide and screamed, ‘Tarrie! Poor tarrie!’ She reached out to the guitar as if to comfort it and as tears welled in her eyes, Jerry got to his feet.

‘Listen sis, no offence, but there’s something wrong inside your head. No question.’

What had happened? What kind of sect had Lennart and Laila joined?

Just the usual one, the two-member sect that diligent married couples are inducted into, if they’re lucky. The sect with the motto: We only have each other. Lennart couldn’t say exactly how he had reached this point, but one day he found himself standing in front of the microwave warming pastries as he waited for Laila to get home from Norrtälje. As he watched the pastries slowly spinning around on the plate, he realised that he missed Laila. That he was looking forward to her coming home so they could have a cup of coffee and a warm pastry. That it would be nice.

It might sound simplistic, but if something can be expressed simply, then why not express it simply?

Lennart was beginning to appreciate what he had.

It wasn’t a matter of falling in love with Laila all over again, of forgetting the past and starting afresh. That only happens in the magazines. But he was beginning to look at his life with different eyes. Instead of grinding his teeth over everything he had missed out on, he was actually looking at what he had.

He had his health, a decent house, work he enjoyed and which brought him a certain amount of recognition. A wife who had stuck with him all these years and who had his best interests at heart, in spite of everything. A son who at least wasn’t a drug addict.

And on top of all that he had been chosen as the guardian of the gift down in the cellar. It was impossible to fit the girl into the usual scheme of things; she was a freak of nature, and a considerable responsibility. But the simple fact of bearing a responsibility can be something that gives meaning to life.

So not a bad life, all in all. Maybe not the stuff of a tribute journal or a framed obituary, but perfectly acceptable. Fine. Perfectly OK.

He still couldn’t say that Laila looked good exactly, but sometimes, in a certain light…She had lost at least ten kilos in recent months, and a couple of times when they were lying in bed about to go to sleep, he had been turned on by the warmth of her body, her skin, and they had done what man and wife tend to do. This led to more ease and intimacy, and that meant his opinion of her changed a little more, and so on.

When the girl was five years old, Lennart and Laila were celebrating their wedding anniversary. Yes, celebrating. There was wine with dinner and more wine afterwards, as they sat looking at old photo albums and listening to Abba. Suddenly the girl was standing in the middle of the living room floor. She had come up the stairs from the cellar by herself for the first time. Her eyes swept around the room and did not pause when they reached Lennart and Laila. She sat down on the floor by the fire and started stroking the head of a stone troll she found there.

Lennart and Laila were happy and slightly tipsy. Without even thinking about it they picked the girl up and settled her between them on the sofa. She wouldn’t let go of the stone troll, but clamped it firmly between her thighs so that she could keep running her hand over it.