Johan Theorin - The Quarry

Jesper turned his head. ‘Are you going to get a new car, Dad?’

‘In a while. Not right now.’

His own Saab had worn-out shock absorbers, and it squealed and creaked over the potholes and hollows on the gravel track. But the engine was pretty good, and Per had no intention of being ashamed of his car.

Nor of Ernst’s cottage — even though it resembled nothing so much as an abandoned builders’ hut this evening, with its low roof and small, dark windows. The cottage had stood in the sun and wind by the quarry for almost fifty years and really needed scraping down and painting, but that could wait until next summer.

Per had last visited the island to check on the cottage at the beginning of March, and the alvar had been covered in snow. The snow was almost gone now, but the air still wasn’t much warmer — at least not after the sun had gone down.

‘Do you remember Ernst, our relative?’ he asked Jesper as he pulled up in front of the house. ‘Do you remember coming to visit him here?’

‘Sort of,’ said Jesper.

‘So what do you remember?’

‘He worked with stone... he made sculptures.’

Per nodded and pointed in the darkness towards a little shed to the south of the cottage. ‘They’re still in his workshop... some of them. We can have a look.’

He missed Ernst, perhaps because he had been the complete opposite of Jerry. Ernst had got up early every morning to work with hammers and chisels down in the quarry. He had worked hard — the resounding clang of steel on stone was one of Per’s childhood memories — but when Per and his mother had come to stay, Ernst had always had time for him.

His old doormat bore the word WELCOME.

When they opened the door of the summer cottage they were met by the faint aroma of soap and tar, traces of the former owner that had not completely faded away. When he switched on the light, everything looked just as Per had left it in the winter: flowery wallpaper, rag rugs with brown coffee stains, and a worn, shiny wooden floor.

In the main room was a seaman’s chest that Ernst had made, with a carving on the front showing a knight on a horse chasing a scornfully grinning troll into his mountain hideaway. On a block of stone behind the knight a fairy princess sat weeping.

The chest could stay, but when Per got some money he intended to start changing the furniture.

‘We’ll get some air in here,’ he said to Jesper, ‘and let the spring in.’

With the windows ajar, the rooms were filled with the soughing of the wind. Fantastic. Per tried to feel pleasure in the cottage he had inherited, both as it was now and as it would one day be.

‘It’s only a couple of hundred metres to the shore on the far side of the quarry,’ he said to Jesper as they carried their cases into the little hallway. ‘We’ll be able to swim there a lot in the summer, you and I and Nilla. It’ll be cool.’

‘I haven’t got any swimming trunks,’ said Jesper.

‘We’ll get some.’

The twins each had a small bedroom to the left of the kitchen, and Jesper disappeared into his room with his rucksack.

Per stayed in the little room behind the kitchen with a view over the northern section of the quarry and the ice-covered sound. This could be his study over the summer.

If he lived another twenty or thirty years he would still have this house, he was sure of it. And the children could spend as much time here as they wanted.

A telephone started ringing while Per was in the bedroom unpacking his clothes. For a few seconds he couldn’t remember where the old phone was, but the sound seemed to be coming from the kitchen.

The phone was on the worktop next to the cooker; it was made of Bakelite, and had a dial. Per picked up the receiver.

‘Mörner.’

He was expecting to hear Marika, or the confident voice of a doctor with news about Nilla, but he heard nothing but a rushing noise on the line, a poor connection with the mainland.

Eventually somebody coughed, then came a quiet, weak voice — an old man’s voice.

‘Pelle?’

‘Yes?’

‘Pelle...’

Per took his time before answering. Since his mother had died, there was only one person who called him Pelle, and besides, he recognized his father Jerry’s hoarse voice. Thousands of cigarettes and too many late nights had worn it out. And last spring, after the stroke, his voice had become slurred and lost. Jerry could still remember names — and telephone numbers; he rang Per at least once a week, but much of his vocabulary was gone.

Per had redirected the phone line from his apartment in Kalmar through to the cottage, despite the risk that Jerry might ring.

‘How’s it going, Jerry?’ he said eventually.

His father hesitated, and Per could hear him inhaling cigarette smoke. Then he coughed again and lowered his voice still further.

‘Bremer,’ was all he said.

Per recognized the name. Hans Bremer was Jerry’s colleague and right-hand man. Per had never met him, but it was obvious that Bremer had a better relationship with his father than he had ever done.

‘I can’t talk to you today,’ said Per. ‘Jesper’s here.’

His father said nothing. He was searching for words, but Per didn’t wait. ‘So I’ll speak to you soon,’ he said. ‘Bye now.’

He hung up calmly without waiting for a response, and went back to his bedroom.

Two minutes later, the sound of the telephone reverberated through the cottage once more.

He wasn’t surprised. Why had he redirected it?

When he picked up the receiver he heard the same hoarse voice: ‘Pelle? Pelle?’

Per closed his eyes wearily. ‘What’s the matter, Jerry? Can you tell me why you’re ringing?’

‘Markus Lukas.’

‘Who?’

Jerry cleared his throat and said something that sounded like ‘that bastard’, but Per wasn’t sure. It sounded as if Jerry had a cigarette in his mouth.

‘What are you talking about, Jerry?’

No reply. Per turned towards the kitchen window and looked out over the quarry. It was completely deserted.

‘Have to help Bremer,’ his father said suddenly.

‘Why?’

‘Help him with Markus Lukas.’

Then there was complete silence at the other end of the line. Per looked out of the window, towards the water and the narrow strip of black that was the mainland. Markus Lukas? He thought he’d heard the name before, a long time ago.

‘Where are you, Jerry?’

‘Kristianstad.’

Jerry had been living in Kristianstad for the last fifteen years, in a stuffy three-room apartment by the railway station.

‘Good,’ said Per. ‘Stay there.’

‘No,’ said Jerry.

‘Why not?’

No reply.

‘So where are you going, then?’ asked Per.

‘Ryd.’

Per knew that Ryd was a small village in the coniferous forests of Småland where Jerry had a house; Per had given him a lift out there once a few years earlier.

‘How are you going to get there without a car?’

‘Bus.’

Jerry had relied on Hans Bremer for more than fifteen years. Before his stroke, when he spoke in full sentences, his father had made his relationship with his colleague very clear to Per: Bremer takes care of everything, he loves his job. Bremer fixes everything .

‘Good,’ said Per. ‘Go and spend a few days there. Give me a ring when you get back.’

‘Yes.’

Jerry started coughing again, and broke off the conversation. Per put the phone down, but remained standing by the window.

Parents shouldn’t make their children feel lonely, but that was exactly what Jerry did. Per felt totally alone, without family or friends. His father had frightened them all away. Jerry had even ruined Per’s first experience of falling in love, with a smiling girl called Regina.