Фредрик Бакман - Anxious People

“Oh, Estelle, it wasn’t your fault that someone jumped off a bridge,” Julia said, trying to console her.

“It wasn’t the bridge’s fault, either,” Anna-Lena added.

“What?”

“It isn’t the bridge’s fault if someone jumps off it. I remember it well, you know, because Roger found the whole thing very upsetting.”

“Did he know the man who jumped?” Estelle asked.

“Oh, no. But he knew a lot about the bridge. Roger was an engineer, you see, he built bridges. Not that particular bridge, but if you’re as interested in bridges as Roger is, then you end up being interested in all bridges. They talked about that man on television as if it was the bridge’s fault. Roger was very upset about that. Bridges exist to bring people closer together, he said.”

Julia couldn’t help thinking that was simultaneously a remarkably odd and a rather romantic thing to say. That was probably why—unless it was the fact that she was hungry and exhausted—she suddenly said: “My fiancée and I were in Australia a few years ago. She wanted to do a bungee jump off a bridge.”

“Your fiancée? You mean Ro?” Estelle nodded.

“No, my previous fiancée.”

It was a long story. All stories are, when it comes down to it, if you tell them from the start. This story, for instance, would have been considerably shorter if it had just been about three women in a closet. But of course it’s also about two police officers, and one of them was on his way up the stairs.

57

What had happened out in the street was that Jack, before he went into the building opposite, had told his dad to wait there. And definitely not to go anywhere. More specifically, not into the building where the hostage drama was taking place. Just wait here, the son said.

But of course the father didn’t do that.

He took the pizzas and went up to the apartment, and when he came back down, he had spoken to the bank robber.

58

Inside the closet, obviously Julia regretted mentioning her former fiancée as soon as she said it, so she added: “I was engaged when I met Ro. But that’s a long story. Forget I mentioned it.”

“We’ve got plenty of time for long stories,” Estelle assured her, because she’d found another bottle of wine in the chest.

“Your fiancée wanted to jump off a bridge?” Anna-Lena repeated in alarm.

“Yes. A bungee jump. With a rubber rope tied around your feet.”

“That sounds mad.”

Julia’s fingertips massaged her temples.

“I didn’t like the idea, either. But she was always wanting to do things. Experience everything. It was on that trip that I realized I couldn’t live with her, because I haven’t got the energy to keep experiencing things the whole time. I started longing for everyday life, all the boring stuff, but she hated being bored. So I came back from Australia a week before her, blaming the fact that I had to work. And that was when I kissed Ro for the first time.”

Julia started to giggle as she said that. Partly out of shame, but possibly also because it was the first time in ages that she’d thought about how they fell in love. You tend to forget that when you’re in the middle of the life that follows, when you’re going to become a parent with someone, it suddenly feels impossible to remember that you ever loved anyone else.

“How did you meet? You and Ro?” Estelle asked, wine staining the corners of her mouth.

“The first time? She came into my shop. I’m a florist, and she wanted some tulips. That was several months before I went to Australia. I didn’t think much about it, she was… attractive, of course, anyone can see that…”

Estelle nodded eagerly: “Yes, that was the first thing I thought! She really is extremely beautiful! And so exotic!”

Julia sighed. “Exotic? Because her hair’s a different color to yours and mine?”

Estelle looked unhappy. “Aren’t you allowed to say that anymore?”

Julia didn’t know how to begin to explain that her wife wasn’t a piece of fruit, so instead she took a deep breath and carried on: “Either way, she was attractive. Very attractive. Even more attractive than she is now. Not that… don’t tell her that, whatever you do… she’s still attractive! But I, well, I’d certainly have liked to, you know… with her. But I was already taken. But she kept coming back to buy tulips. Several times a week, sometimes. And she made me laugh, out loud, out of nowhere, and you don’t meet many people like that. I happened to mention that to my mom, and she said: ‘You can’t live long with the ones who are only beautiful, Jules. But the funny ones, oh, they last a lifetime!’ ”

“Your mom’s a wise woman,” Estelle said.

“Yes.”

“Is she retired?”

“Yes.”

“What did she used to do?”

“She cleaned offices.”

“What did your dad do?”

“He hit women.”

Estelle looked paralyzed, Anna-Lena appalled. Julia looked at the pair of them and thought about her mom, and how the most beautiful thing about her was the fact that she always stared life right in the eye, and no matter what it threw at her, refused to stop being a romantic. That takes the sort of heart that hardly anyone possesses.

“Poor dear child,” Estelle whispered.

“What a bastard,” Anna-Lena muttered.

Julia shrugged, the way children who grew up too soon do, shaking the feelings off.

“We walked out on him. He didn’t come looking for us. I didn’t even hate him, because Mom didn’t let me. After everything he’d done to her, she wouldn’t even let me hate him. I always wanted her to meet someone new, someone who was kind and made her laugh, but she always said I was enough… But then… when I told her about Ro, Mom saw something in me that made me see something in her. That probably sounds… I don’t know how to explain it. Something she’d experienced once, and given up all hope of, if you get what I mean? And I thought… is this how it feels? That thing everyone talks about? The real thing?”

Anna-Lena wiped some wine from her chin.

“So what happened?”

Julia blinked, first quickly, then slowly.

“My fiancée was still in Australia. And Ro came into the shop. I’d spoken to Mom on the phone that morning, and she just laughed when I said I didn’t know how Ro felt, or even if she felt anything at all. Mom just said: ‘Listen, no one likes tulips that much, Jules!’ I suppose I tried to deny it, but Mom said I was practically being unfaithful already because I was spending so much time thinking about her. She said Ro was my ‘flower shop.’ And I cried. So I was standing there in the shop and Ro came in, and I… well, I laughed so hard at something she said that I accidentally spat on her face. She was laughing, too. So I guess she plucked up the courage, because I couldn’t do it, and asked if I’d like to go for a drink with her. I said yes, but I was so nervous when we got there that I got really drunk. I went outside to smoke, got into a row with a security guard, and wasn’t let back in. So I pointed through the window at Ro, who was standing at the bar, and said she was my girlfriend. The guard went in and told her that, and then she came out, and then she was. I called my fiancée and broke off the engagement. She’s probably been having loads of fun ever since. And I… damn, I love being boring with Ro. Does that sound mad? I love arguing with her about sofas and pets. She’s my everyday. The whole… world.”

“I like the everyday,” Anna-Lena admitted.

“Your mom was right, the ones who make you laugh last a lifetime,” Estelle repeated, thinking of a British author who had written that nothing in the world is so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor. Then she thought about an American author who had written that loneliness is like starvation, you don’t realize how hungry you are until you begin to eat.