Claire S. Duffy - The Stranger - Season 1

It occurred to Fergus that only a couple of weeks previously, he had been well known in the City of London as a fearsome litigator. The more hopeless a case appeared, the more Fergus was like a dog with a bone, worrying away at every last hairline fracture in the opposing side’s case, to the point that even if judgement was in their favour they were still destroyed. And now here he was emptying a gym bag of nappies and camera equipment so he could take George Pig and a handful of Legos out to brunch.

Alfie grinned happily as he whispered goodbye to George and zipped him into the bag. He was content. That was all that mattered. It was all going to work out. It had to.

***

Alex exhaled a deep, rich ohhhhmmmmm, and slowly opened her eyes. The woman at the far left who had insisted that she had absolutely no time for yoga but as her friends had bought her a gift certificate she might as well use it, seemed to be almost dozing, the muscles in her face melted into an insouciant bliss. The others, most of them regulars, were slowly returning to earth, opening their eyes with serene smiles.

‘Namaste,’ said Alex, and a muttered chorus of responses fluttered around the room.

‘Thank you for today. See you all next week, have a blissful day.’

The class filed out of the room, and Alex stayed behind to put away their mats. She took an almost sensual pleasure in rolling them up perfectly so that there wasn’t a millimetre of overlap or ripple. Alex liked things to be just so.

At almost two metres, Alex was fully aware that to most casual observers, she appeared androgynous at best. For a long time she rejected the idea of transition for this reason, fearing that not being accepted as a woman would be worse than hiding that she identified as one. At least she had her hair. ’Wasted on a boy,’ her mother used to sigh as she trimmed Alex’s thick blond curls. Golden locks would tumble into the kitchen sink and Alex would stare very hard at the floor so that she wouldn’t cry. Long hair in a messy bun didn’t definitively mark one out as female in hipster South Stockholm, but after the events of the year before, Alex made up her mind that double-takes were a tiny price to pay for living as who she was.

Alex stepped out into the bitingly chilly afternoon. No snow today. There was even a wan sun peeking through a thin layer of cloud, but still she was grateful for the extra scarf she had brought to wrap over her cheeks and nose to protect herself from the worst of the wind as she cycled home. She had locked up her bike behind the yoga studio down on Hammarby Kaj, and as she glanced towards the churning water in the ice-cold granite-grey canal that runs between Hammarby and Södermalm, she took a moment to consider whether she could manipulate the tiny key to unlock it without removing her Lovisa mittens.

Alex’s blood ran cold so quickly that it took a moment for her conscious mind to register the source of her terror.

A police van was parked haphazardly on the quay. Two officers crouched behind it, tense, prepared. One of them spoke softly into a radio. Alex’s trained eye spotted two more officers pressed flat against the building adjacent to where she stood, and another group of them, three or four maybe, approaching intently from the direction of Skanstullsbron. They’re closing in on someone, she thought, and her stomach turned.

A second car pulled up and a young officer, looking barely old enough to have left school, her long blonde hair in a neat plait stretching down her back, jumped out to open the back door for her superior.

Lia Svensson.

Svensson’s haughty, almost regal profile was barely visible beneath her fur hat and full length cashmere coat. Alex hadn’t seen her in several months, and the glimpse from nearly a block away sent a shock of white hot adrenaline through her.

Alex tried to tell herself that she was safe, that she was far enough away that Svensson would never see, much less recognise her, but the words rattled frantically around her brain like a trapped bird, devoid of meaning, much less impact. Her heart thudded painfully in her chest. She turned tail and ran, skidding on a puddle of sheer ice, wrenching her ankle painfully.

She just made it around the corner before she burst into tears.

***

At the coffee shop, Alfie had hungrily polished off the porridge he was served and Fergus decided not to take offence at the implied rebuke of his cooking. As they walked home, the pavement was still covered in a dusting of snow. It was testament to just how cold it was in Stockholm, Fergus thought as they turned into Lundagatan, that such a small amount of snow was sticking around at almost lunchtime. It would have been long gone in London.

‘CAT,’ roared Alfie, wriggling out of Fergus’s grasp and toddling at speed after a hapless grey cat who swiftly darted under a car. Fergus felt a wave of overwhelming love for his son as Alfie, his face set in a determined line, gave chase, the speed making his wobbly Charlie Chaplin gait even more pronounced.

‘Where are you Cat?’ he shouted. ‘Alfie see you!’

‘Alfie pal, he’s here under the car — look!’

At Alfie’s joyful shout the cat took off again, skipping nimbly across the frosty pavement to the sanctuary of another car. ‘ Cat! Kom och leka med mig,’ shouted Alfie.

Fergus frowned. ‘Are you talking to the cat, Alfie?’

‘Cat! Come back, Cat! Snälla! ’

There it was again: that curious baby talk Alfie had been speaking in for the past few days. Fergus wondered if he should be concerned that Alfie seemed to have taken a step back with his speech since their arrival in Sweden. Before they left London, Alfie’s talking had been coming on by the day, and when he spoke directly with Fergus or Tess he was still increasingly articulate, but invariably when he was in the apartment, when he played with his toys he reverted to this new baby talk. Now he was doing it outside too. Fergus made a mental note to have a look online later. Days into full time parenting and he was a regular lurker in forums on which apparently expert mothers doled out advice on everything from tantrums to chicken pox parties. Maybe as a reaction to the move, Alfie was reverting to the security of baby talk Fergus reasoned. That sounded like something the forums experts would suggest.

Alfie squatted next to the car, his head cocked comically to one side as he waved enthusiastically. ‘My cat!’ After a moment, he observed soberly: ‘He’s gone.’ Alfie looked up at his father, his eyes wounded. ‘But Alfie love him.’

Fergus started to laugh at Alfie’s stricken face. His smile faded as he thought that he and Tess were horribly, depressingly, like Alfie and the cat. With an irritated sigh that made Alfie stare at him, Fergus firmly dislodged the thought. This was day two of their fresh start, what was the point in thinking like that?

‘I’m sure he loves you too in his own way,’ Fergus said, holding out a hand which Alfie accepted after a moment’s consideration, ‘but he had to go home.’

Father and son walked along the snow covered pavement companionably hand in hand.

‘Had to go home — his mummy?’

Alfie’s staccato little voice as he went to great effort to articulate each word never failed to make Fergus smile.

‘Exactly, his mummy was waiting for him. It was time for his tea.’

‘My mummy.’

‘Your mummy’s at work. We’ll see her at our tea time, won’t we? Will we make her something nice?’

‘My Legos.’

That made Fergus laugh. He’d have to tell Tess she was ranked along with Legos in Alfie’s mind. She’d love that.

They still laughed together sometimes. That meant something.

‘You’ve got snow on your nose pal. Do you want to ride on Daddy’s shoulders the rest of the way?’ Maybe parenthood wasn’t so bad after all.