Hell Fire (16 page)

“Do you know if she had any enemies?”

“I can't think who they would have been. No, absolutely not.”

“Did she say anything that might indicate that someone was after her?”

“Men,” Britt said with a smile. “I'm assuming you've seen photographs of her.”

“But she never mentioned anyone in particular?”

“No, not like that. Not after Olav.”

On the wall there was a picture of Britt and Bonnie standing close together. It was taken in the rain and both of them were wearing red raincoats, the hoods pulled up against the weather.

“Jens took that photo,” she told them. “It's quite recent.”

“So your husband also knew Bonnie?”

“Yes, but not very well.”

“How close were you? Did she tell you everything?”

“Oh no, definitely not. No one tells someone everything; we're adults, after all. And adults have secrets. I do too.”

Suddenly she started to cry. Sugar Man padded over to comfort her.

“So what you're saying is that Bonnie might have had a secret that you knew nothing about?” Skarre suggested.

“Yes, I suppose that's what I'm saying,” she answered, and dried her tears.

“Something in the past, perhaps?”

“Yes, although I know some things about her childhood. I know that she had anorexia, for example, and it was pretty serious.”

Skarre jotted the information down.

“So she told you that. Did she give any more details?”

“Not really. She was a teenager, though, which is often when it happens.”

“And anorexia is usually triggered by other things, you know that?”

“Yes, I know a little. Low self-esteem, pressures at school, even sexual abuse, and other horrible things like that.”

“Do you have any reason to believe that something like that may have happened in Bonnie's childhood?”

“I don't know. It certainly wouldn't have been Henrik because I know him quite well, and he worshipped her.”

“But could it have been someone else, perhaps?”

“Of course,” Britt said. “There are always nasty uncles.”

WHEN CHRISTMAS FINALLY
arrived, Simon danced around clapping his hands. He was delighted by everything—the tinsel, the gifts, the smells from the kitchen. He had made some of the Christmas decorations himself at daycare, with Kaja's help: baskets and shiny paperchains and red felt hearts. Granny and Grandpa were sitting on the sofa; his mom was wearing a dress and had flushed cheeks from standing over the stove for so long. It was Simon who handed out the presents. He had a red hat on and saved his presents until last. He placed the presents in their laps one by one and waited with glee. Grandpa Henrik didn't really know what he was doing, but Bonnie helped him with the ribbons, and a pair of brown leather gloves appeared. He put them on and held his hands up to his face and smelled them.

When everyone else had opened their presents, Simon sat on the floor with his gifts. There were five in total and the tip of his tongue peeped out of his mouth as he tussled with the paper. Bonnie folded it up neatly so it could be used again. In the evening, she drove her parents home. The lock cylinder had been changed and everything was working again, at least for the moment. The car should have been in for a tune-up a long time ago, but she couldn't afford it. These were happy days, and there were still some to come. They stayed up as long as they liked, slept as long as they liked, and ate cake every evening.

THE HOLIDAY PASSED
all too quickly, and in January, Bonnie had to go back to work and Simon had to go back to daycare. He was slow and uncooperative in the mornings. He banged the table with his little fists and shouted that he didn't want to go. Bonnie gritted her teeth; she half carried, half dragged him out to the car with an aching heart.

Then, one morning in the middle of January, she woke up with him calling her. She leaped out of bed and ran into his room. She turned on the light and asked if he'd had a bad dream as she stroked his hair. Then she noticed something strange on his face: several big blisters. She pulled his pajamas off in a panic to have a look. His whole body was covered in blisters, and she was terrified. She had never seen anything like it and couldn't imagine what it was. She got him out of bed and into some clothes, and then she called the office to say that she had to take her son to the doctor, but that she would be at Erna's as soon as she could.

“Will I need any shots?” Simon asked from the back seat, once they were in the car.

“I don't know,” Bonnie said. “You might just get some medicine. Pills or some cream. We'll have to wait and see what the doctor says.”

“Will I have to go to daycare after?”

“No, not as long as you've got those spots. I'll call Granny, so she can look after you while I'm at work.” When they got to the doctor's, she was relieved to see that there weren't many people sitting in the waiting room. There were only two others in front of them in line, and she did everything she could to calm Simon, who was frightened. As they waited, her mind was racing and she thought that perhaps it was some kind of allergy. Even though Simon had never been bothered by anything like that before, and nor had she. When they went in to see the doctor, she took off his clothes, and the doctor ran his fingers over the angry rash.

“It came up overnight?”

“Yes.”

“Has he had it before?”

“No.”

“Will I need to have a shot?” Simon whispered.

“No, no,” the doctor said reassuringly. “You won't need a shot, little man. This is quite harmless and easy to treat.”

“But what is it?” Bonnie asked.

“Hives,” the doctor explained. “I'll give you some prednisolone, and that should make it disappear fairly quickly.”

He patted Simon on the head and wrote out a prescription. “Do you think he might be suffering from stress?” he asked.

Bonnie felt like she'd been punched. “I guess he might be. It's just the two of us—Simon and me—and he's not very happy at daycare. But we don't have any choice.”

She took the prescription and thanked the doctor. Then she and Simon walked down the corridor to the hospital entrance, where there was a pharmacy. They got the medicine and then drove to Bonnie's mother's, who met them at the door. Simon had no objections to staying there, and finally Bonnie was free to drive to Erna's.

“It's about time,” the old woman said grumpily. “I've been waiting for an hour and a half. Punctuality is a virtue, you know. You won't have time to do anything now.”

Bonnie stood quietly and took a deep breath. “But you did get a message from Ragnhild to say that I needed to take Simon to the doctor?”

“Yes, I got the message. In my opinion, single mothers with small children shouldn't actually work at all; they have to take so much time off.”

Bonnie went into the bedroom as usual and picked up the basket of socks. She put the socks on the legs of all the chairs and tables, while Erna sat in her chair and watched her like a hawk. As she worked, Bonnie thought about Simon. Of course he was stressed, just like the doctor said. And she should do something about it, only she didn't know what. Of course it wasn't good that he had practically no contact with his father. She had robbed him of that. She often regretted it, but she was so proud. And Olav had a daughter now. He was happy with Kathrine, and every time she thought about it, she boiled with rage. She washed the floor and vacuumed as well as she could. Then she did the bedroom, changing the bed and, as usual, looking up at the photograph of Erna as a young girl. It was hard to imagine that the radiant girl in the picture had become the flinty woman out in the living room. What does life do to us? she thought. When she was finally finished, she went to say goodbye, and Erna followed her to the door so she could lock it.

“And next time, I expect you to be punctual” was her parting shot.

Over Christmas, Ingemar had finally been given a place at Hallingstad nursing home, so Bonnie went to visit him later on in January.

He was sitting in a chair by the window, but there were no horses to be seen outside—only a parking lot with long rows of cars. There was a box of chocolates on the table, still wrapped in cellophane. No doubt from his family. Bonnie thought to herself that the chocolates were an insult to a man who only wanted soured milk, sausage, and cod liver oil straight from the bottle.

“It's Bonnie,” she said as she went over to him. “How are you?”

He turned his head and looked at her. He definitely recognized her, but he did not give her a smile. He turned his gaze back to the cars outside the window, his bushy gray eyebrows knitted.

“You don't need to speak so loudly,” he said. “There's nothing wrong with my hearing.”

Bonnie looked at his large white ear, and thought suddenly that it reminded her of a beautiful conch shell. She wondered, if she put her ear to his, whether she would hear the sound of his long life. Which was over now. The memory of life in his old house with the horses outside the window was all that he had left. Ahead there was nothing.

Then she did something she had never done before. She gave his cheek a gentle stroke. And that teased out a little smile.

When she was in the car driving home again, she thought to herself that she never wanted to be old. She couldn't face the deterioration, the helplessness. She didn't want her hair to go gray and her jowls to sag. She thought about her father; he was like a child now. His life was over too, even though he was only seventy-five. He was in another world, but he was in good physical health and might live for years yet with serious dementia. She had seen an Alzheimer brain on TV once, and it was as full of holes as Swiss cheese.

That evening she sat on the sofa with Simon and looked through a photo album. She had to point out and explain who was who all the time.

“That's Granny and Grandpa,” she said, “on their wedding day. Isn't Granny lovely?”

Simon agreed. There wasn't a picture like that of his mother and father because they never got married.

“Look, that's me,” she pointed and laughed. “I was just a baby there, and I was pretty fat. And there I'm ten; we're at the beach. I remember that swimsuit because I had it for a long time.”

“And that's me and Daddy,” Simon said as he looked up at her. “And I've got a sister.”

“A half-sister,” Bonnie corrected him. “It's not quite the same.”

She helped him brush his teeth, tucked him into bed, and switched off the light. She felt utterly exhausted and went back into the living room and sank down in an armchair. She tried to find something to watch on television. Where was her life going? What was going to happen? Sometimes, like now, she felt that something was close, something she couldn't articulate.

EVERY WINTER
, on the night before Christmas Eve, Eddie went to bed first. When the door closed behind him, Mass swung into action. She filled an old red stocking with candy and hung it above the door to her son's bedroom. He would lie awake in bed and listen to the hammering. Early the next morning, he would empty the contents of the red stocking out onto the table and munch his way through it in no time. And now it was already January. Mass had tidied Christmas away and all the pine needles had been swept up.

Eddie had been working on the crossword for some time, chewing a pencil that was about to disintegrate. Intrigue.
Plot.
When he had finished, he sat and pondered. And after he had pondered for a while, he sat down at the computer. Mass took over the newspaper but kept an eye on her son staring at the screen. After a while, he turned and looked at her.

“When was Dad born?” he asked.

“Oh, darling, I've told you so many times before.”

“Well, tell me again,” Eddie insisted. “I need to get it absolutely right.”

“November sixth, 1945,” she said with a frown.

Something about her son's behavior made her uneasy. There was a determination about him that she had seen on a couple of previous occasions; it meant he was up to something.

“Do you have his personal ID number as well?”

“No.”

“And where was he born?” Eddie asked.

“In Bergen.”

“And when did he leave us?”

Mass sighed in exasperation. “Eddie, darling, why do you want to know all this?” she asked anxiously.

“When did he move?” Eddie persisted.

“In 1987. On May twenty-seventh.”

He looked at her in surprise. “Crikey, you even remember the date?”

“Women remember things like that,” she said wearily. “Men don't always pay attention to the details.”

“And when did he die?”

“In '92. But don't ask me the date because I don't know. And I don't know where he's buried, and I don't know if he had any children with his new wife. And I don't want to know. He was a coward.”

“Why do you always say he was a coward?” Eddie asked.

Mass thought for a while before she reluctantly replied: “Well, when you were little, you weren't very easy to deal with.”

Eddie looked at his mother with piercing eyes. “Why? What do you mean?”

“You didn't want to do anything. You didn't want to go to daycare; you didn't want to be with other children. You clung to us all the time because you suffered from what's called separation anxiety. So even though we managed to get you a place at daycare, we couldn't use it. I'm just being honest now. And Anders was at the end of his tether. He didn't think you'd ever amount to much. He called you a sniveling brat, and fathers shouldn't say things like that about their own children. It's just not right.”

“But if you weren't in touch, how did you find out that he'd died?”