The Circle (Hammer) - By Elfgren, Sara B.,Strandberg, Mats Page 0,15
the table.
Grandpa is wearing a red and green checked shirt and corduroy trousers. He always takes off his overalls before he comes inside. He doesn’t want to bring dirt inside.
He gazes at her inquisitively. ‘Back already?’
‘They let us out early.’
‘Really?’
It’s an opening to say more, but Anna-Karin’s throat tightens. She doesn’t want to talk about Elias, doesn’t even want to think about him.
Suddenly she wishes she were a little girl again. When she’d fallen and hurt herself, it was always in Grandpa’s lap that she’d wanted to sit. Now she wants to go back to that time. Then maybe she’d have the courage to cry, to let out all the stuff that has stuck and hardened in her chest. Anna-Karin hasn’t cried properly since primary school. There’s just too much to cry about. Now it’s as if a manhole cover is blocking her tears.
‘Has Mama been out today?’ she asks.
‘Don’t think she was quite up to it.’
‘She’s out of bed anyway,’ Anna-Karin says, and feels the hard, bitter anger inside her.
‘Mia doesn’t have it easy,’ Grandpa says.
Anna-Karin regrets having brought it up. Officially her mother has taken over the farm, but Grandpa still does most of the work. Some days she loads everything on to him. Still Grandpa never has a bad word to say about his daughter.
Sometimes Anna-Karin is seized by terrible pangs of guilt because she’s so angry with her mother. She understands that she’s probably depressed, that she didn’t want to take on the farm and is stuck with it. But at the same time it seems as though she lives to complain. Because what would she do without it? She’s always the one who’s most wronged, who suffers most, is the most deserving of sympathy in the whole world. That’s how it’s been for as long as Anna-Karin can remember.
Anna-Karin looks at Grandpa as he gazes out of the window. He can sit there for hours. She often wonders what he’s looking for.
Grandpa was seventy-seven last spring, but it’s only over the past year that he’s really started to look old. Anna-Karin doesn’t want to think of what will happen when he’s gone.
Vanessa lays her towel on the lawn in front of Jonte’s house. It has a washed-out pattern of yellow and brown flowers and doesn’t seem completely clean. Who cares? She just wants to lie down and forget everything. Without getting grass stains on her clothes.
She glances up at the red two-storey house, which also looks washed-out – the paint is sun-bleached and flaking. She hears a bass line throbbing inside. It’s making the windowpanes rattle. Through the living-room window, she sees the gigantic TV and the silhouettes of Wille, Jonte and Lucky against the explosions on the screen.
She lies down, pulls her shirt up to her bra and lets the sun warm her stomach.
Wille had been in a bad mood when he’d picked her up from the school. ‘I’m not a bloody taxi,’ he’d mumbled.
‘Well, go fuck yourself then!’ she’d shouted, and had thrown open the door while the car was moving.
Wille had jammed on the brakes and the car behind them had come close to crashing into them.
Vanessa had stared at him, fear pulsating through her.
‘Shut the door,’ he had said, in a low voice, and she had done so immediately.
‘Fucking old man.’
That had hurt, she could tell. Wille is twenty-one and she knows he finds the age difference between them embarrassing.
When they had got together she had just turned fifteen. By then she had already heard a lot about Wille. Vanessa recognised something of herself in him. He wanted more – to feel more, experience more. She had thought that life with him would be an adventure.
And now she’s lying here while he’s playing video games with his slacker friends.
But he’s still the best-looking guy she knows. And he kisses her in that firm way she likes.
Vanessa angrily swats at a fly that refuses to understand it’s unwelcome on her face. The sun is warm, but she can detect the first hint of autumn chill. Big clouds have started to gather on the horizon.
‘Nessa?’ Wille calls.
She raises a hand and waves.
‘Vanessa?’ Wille says again.
‘Yeees!’ she shouts back. ‘What do you want?’
No answer. She sits up on her towel. Wille is standing at the open window, staring at her.
No. He’s staring right through me. It’s happening again. ‘Wille!’ she shouts, panic-stricken.
No reaction. Wille cranes his neck and scans the lawn. ‘Where the hell are you?’