Kennedy's Brain Page 0,41

your life who's there to stay.'

'No. There is nobody.'

'There's nobody in my life either.'

'You don't need to answer questions I haven't asked.'

He looked quizzically at her. Her voice was becoming shrill, accusing.

They ate in silence. The radio was on, broadcasting an Australian news bulletin. A train crash in Darwin, a murder in Sydney.

They drank coffee after the meal. Louise fetched the disks and the documents she had brought with her, and put them on the table in front of Aron. He looked at what she had given him, without touching it.

He went out again, she heard the car start, and he did not return until after midnight. She had fallen asleep by then, but was woken up by the car door slamming. She heard him moving quietly around the house. She thought he had gone to bed, but then she heard the sound of the computer being switched on, and him tapping at the keyboard. She got up cautiously and peered at him through the half-open door. He had adjusted a lamp and was studying the screen. She recognised the man she used to live with. The intense concentration that made his face totally motionless. For the first time since she had met him on the pier in the rain, she felt a wave of gratitude flowing through her.

Now he's helping me. Now I'm not on my own any more.

She slept restlessly. She occasionally got out of bed and observed him through the half-open door. He was working at the computer, or reading Henrik's papers that she had brought with her. By four in the morning he was lying on the sofa, with his eyes open.

Shortly before six she heard faint noises coming from the kitchen, and got up. He was standing over the cooker, making coffee.

'Did I wake you up?'

'No. Have you slept at all?'

'A little bit. Enough, anyway. You know I've never needed much sleep.'

'As I remember it you could sleep in until ten or eleven.'

'Only when I'd been working very hard for a long time at a stretch.'

She noticed a hint of impatience in his voice, and back-pedalled immediately.

'How did it go?'

'It has been a very strange experience, trying to enter into his world. I felt like a burglar. He'd erected some pretty efficient fences to keep unwanted visitors out, and I couldn't get through them. It felt like fighting a duel with my own son.'

'What have you found out?'

'I must have a cup of coffee first. So must you. When we lived together we had an unwritten rule, never to discuss anything seriously until we'd had a cup of coffee in dignified silence. Have you forgotten that?'

Louise had not forgotten. Locked away in her memory was a whole rosary of silent breakfasts they had endured together.

They drank their coffee. The parrots circled round and round over the wooden table in a shiny red swarm.

They cleared away their cups and sat down on the sofa. She was expecting him to clasp hold of her at any moment. But he switched on the computer and waited for the screen to light up. It eventually did so to the accompaniment of a furious drum roll.

'He's made this music himself. It's not too difficult to do if you are a computer professional, but it's pretty hard for a normal computer user. Did Henrik have any IT tuition?'

You don't know because you were never there. In his letters to you he never wrote about what he was working on, or what he was studying. He knew that you weren't really interested.

'Not as far as I know.'

'What did he do? He wrote that he was studying, but he never said what.'

'He read theology in Lund for one term. Then he got bored. After that he qualified as a taxi driver, and earned his living by erecting venetian blinds.'

'Could he really make a living out of that?'

'He was very thrifty, even when he was on his travels. He used to say that he didn't want to make up his mind what work he was going to take up until he was absolutely certain. In any case, he didn't work with computers, although he did use them, of course. What have you found?'

'Nothing at all, really.'

'But you were up all night?'

He glanced at her.

'I thought I could hear that you were awake sometimes.'

'Of course I was awake. But I didn't want to disturb you. What did you find?'

'I got a feeling for how he used his computer. The stuff I couldn't open, all those