Хьелль Аскильдсен - The Dark Blue Winter Overcoat and Other Stories from the North

And again I see myself reflected in him, the way I did twenty years earlier on the back seat of my parents’ car while heading north along the E45 motorway, only this time not as the person or persons I so much wanted to be, but as the one and only no one I have become: divorced, homeless, restlessly roaming, staggering unsettled from one day into the next, with strained and jagged features, and a look in my eyes that is far too intense, desperately searching, focused to the extreme, though without knowing exactly what I am searching for, but surely it can’t be L. Ron Hubbard?

It was like a video sequence, not a Hollywood movie, not even a cheap TV documentary, just a black-and-white clip from a surveillance camera, a recording that would certainly be forgotten, consigned to the endless fractal depths of the internet, seen by no one unless someone, me perhaps, by chance happened to notice, like when you’re standing in the checkout line in Netto and your eyes absently pass over the shelves of cheap German chocolate, and all of a sudden you see yourself in monochrome on the little monitor to the right of the checkout guy. It lasted less than a minute and concerned nothing, there was no story in it, no Conception, only what remained of one: a man, a human being, twirling around a corner and down a street, then gone.

He’s over there in the living room. Let’s keep the noise down. The computer’s still on, and the reading lamp too. I’ll quietly switch them both off, the computer at least. I can watch Emmerdale on the small telly in the kitchen. Wait here. OK, I switched off the computer but left the lamp on so he doesn’t wake up. I’ve put a blanket over him too. He’s lying on his left side. That’s good. He’s always a bit crabby when he wakes up on his right side. Let’s go into the kitchen so he doesn’t wake up. Poor thing hasn’t slept properly in hours. It’s the depression, you see. It started on Monday when he was supposed to be out guiding. Didn’t eat his breakfast, though I put it by his bed. I had to leave for the hospital because my shift was starting, so I left him in the bedroom sleeping with his eyes wide open… How long will it go on for this time? Last month the depression lasted three days. It might pass quicker this time, seeing as he keeps dozing off like that and sometimes even licks his paws.

I decided to have a beautiful summer wedding, the same kind of wedding Jemina had two years ago. She set aside eighteen months for all the wedding preparations. It wasn’t enough. Towards the end she was so short of time that she had a nervous breakdown and ended up being admitted to a psychiatric unit. I said there’s no way I’m going to fall into the same trap, so I started getting everything ready three years before the big day. A midsummer wedding is a must, otherwise what’s the point? And it’s got to be at the cathedral, obviously, because that’s by far the fanciest scenery going.

When I told my girlfriends they’d better start getting ready for a summer wedding, I got six volunteers straight away: Kelly, Ann, Jenna, Melina, Sara and Tiia. I chose Kelly, Sara and Melina to be my bridesmaids because they’re all uglier than me. The show got off to a great start, and I called Daddy in Brussels and he promised to give me ten grand towards the wedding budget, but that’s next to nothing. I called Grandad in Madeira, and he was so excited he agreed to give me twelve thousand, because he always wants to go one better than my dad. The rest of the cash came from my mum (though she moaned that she always has to foot the bill for everything), my godmother who is a make-up artist and loves weddings, and my aunt who gave me another five thousand because she thinks my mum—her sister—is stingy and boring as hell. That’s already forty grand in my wedding budget—woohoo!

I looked around online for a few weeks, checking out thousands of wedding planners, and eventually employed an American company to design and make all the little stuff, the napkins, the origami, the rosettes… Ten thousand went on trinkets for two hundred guests. Then there was the wedding dress. I checked out all of the bridal stores in the city, but everything looked just awful. So me and the girls did three trips to Stockholm before I finally found the right dress in a store in Paris. It was just as cheap as most of the dresses I’d found here, only five thousand. Of course, the shoes, the handbag, gloves, underwear and tights all came separately. We found everything in a store on the Champs Élysées for a total price of six hundred and ninety-nine a head.

Now I had a wedding dress, a ton of knick-knacks and a church. Daddy pulled some strings and helped me book the Halikko manor house for the reception. All this had taken two years. I still had to put together the menu, plan the evening programme and draw up the guest list—then, of course, there were the presents. I sat down with the head chef from the Halikko manor and together we designed the menu. The chef was super-cool right from the word go. We spent five wonderful weekends together getting everything ready.

Two days before Midsummer’s, Daddy flew in from Brussels and I showed him everything me and the girls had got together. Daddy was so proud of me he positively sighed. Later that evening, when he was tasting the wines we’d chosen and complimenting me on my choice of vintage, he asked me who the groom was. I was like, what groom? Well, he said, didn’t Jemina have some hairy brute standing at the altar saying I do ? That’s right, I gasped, and looked at the girls and asked them what we should do now. Sara suggested I could ask Jasu to be the groom—he’s bound to agree, he’s an engineer and they’ve got a weird sense of humour. But I was like, I can’t ask Jasu because he’s a foot shorter than me. Then I had an idea. I called the chef at Halikko and asked him if he’d join me at the altar and do everything you’d expect a groom to do at a wedding. Why not, he said straight off, but the problem was he was already married. I was like, don’t worry, that’s just a minor hitch, and so he turned up and from start to finish played the role of the groom with utter professionalism.

I’m so fucking ashamed. Last night I passed out on the settee in front of the nine o’clock news and only woke up this morning. Jere had put a blanket over me, like he always does. It feels so shameful to get up after the boys have already left for school. Maija was keeping herself occupied on the PlayStation in a corner of the living room. She didn’t even look at me as I dragged myself into the bathroom. I had a loose shit in the loo, went into the kitchen and cracked open a can of lager. Only after I’d stood in front of the fridge and downed the can did I pluck up the courage to call out to Maija. She walked into the kitchen, a sulky scowl on her face, and cast an angry glance at the empty can in my hand. I told her I’d take her to nursery in just a minute. She nodded and went off to get dressed.

I left Maija at the doors of the nursery school around midday. I watched her quickly run inside, went into the corner shop and bought a twelve-pack of lager, a sandwich and a packet of ham reduced to half-price. I walked home and got to work on the twelve-pack, one can at a time. Shame sure fucking stings—a grown woman, a single mother of three, drinking her life away. It’s the kids that suffer most, I know that, and that makes me even more ashamed. When I should be putting food on the table for them, I buy lager instead and drink myself stupid.

Even thinking about how I turned out like this makes me feel ashamed. Was it circumstances, society, my parents, was it bad luck, fate, destiny, other people, or was the problem with me? I can’t remember my mother or father ever doing anything so terribly wrong that I had to start drinking. I just started. I can’t remember how or why. One bottle at a time, I suppose.