A Week in Winter(65)

‘You never offer, you never visit,’ she answered.

When they got back to Sweden, Anders telephoned his father. The conversation was formal: it was as if Patrik Almkvist was talking to a casual acquaintance. In as far as Anders could understand, his father sounded pleased that he was coming home for the summer and hoped to work in the office.

‘Somewhere that I can’t do too much damage,’ Anders suggested.

‘Everyone will go out of their way to help you,’ his father promised.

And so it was. Anders noticed, with some embarrassment, that people in the firm did go out of their way to help and encourage him. They spoke to him with a respect that was quite disproportionate for a student. He was definitely the young prince-in-waiting. No one wanted to cross him. He was the future.

Even his two cousins, Mats and Klara, were anxious to show him how much they were pulling their weight. They kept giving him an update on all they had done so far and how well they were handling their own areas. They tried hard to understand what interested young Anders. He didn’t seem to want expensive meals in top restaurants; he wasn’t concerned with business gossip; he didn’t even want to know of rivals’ failures.

He was a mystery.

His father, too, seemed to have problems working out where Anders’ interests lay. He asked courteous questions about life at university. Whether the teachers had business experience as well as academic records.

He asked nothing about whether Anders had other interests or a love life, whether he still loved music, still played the nyckelharpa or even who his friends were. In the evenings, they sat in the apartment in ?stermalm and talked about the office and the various clients that had been seen during the day. They ate at Patrik’s favourite restaurant some evenings; otherwise they had supper at home sitting at the dining table and eating cold meats and cheese laid out by the silent and disapproving Fru Karlsson. The more his father talked, the less Anders knew about him. The man had no life apart from the one that was lived in the Almkvist office.

Anders had promised his mother that he would make an effort to break his father’s reserve but it was proving even harder than he had thought. He tried to speak about Erika.

‘I have this girlfriend, Father. She’s a fellow student.’

‘That’s good,’ his father nodded vaguely and approvingly as if Anders had said that he had updated his laptop.

‘I’ve been to stay with her family. I thought I might invite Erika here for a few days.’

‘Here?’ His father was astounded.

‘Well, yes.’

‘But what would she do all day?’

‘I suppose she could tour the city and we could meet for lunch, and I could take a few days off to show her around.’

‘Yes, certainly, if you’d like to . . . Of course.’

‘She came to London with me when I went to see Mother.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘It all worked very well. She found plenty to do there.’

‘I imagine everyone would find something to do in London. It would be rather different here.’ His father was glacial.

‘I’m very fond of her, Papa.’

‘Good, good.’ It was as if he was trying to stem any emotion that might be coming his way.

‘In fact, we are going to move in together.’ Now he had said it.

‘I don’t know how you expect to be able to pay for that.’

‘Well, I thought it might be something we could discuss while I’m here. Now, may I invite Erika for next week?’

‘If you like, yes. Make all the arrangements with Fru Karlsson. She will need to prepare a bedroom for your friend.’

‘We will be living together, Father. I thought she could share my room here.’

‘I don’t like to impose your morality and standards on Fru Karlsson.’

‘Father, it’s not my morality, it’s the twenty-first century!’

‘I know, but even with your mother’s shallow grasp on reality she realised the importance of being discreet and keeping one’s personal life just that. Fru Karlsson will prepare a bedroom for your friend. Your sleeping arrangements you can make for yourselves.’

‘Have I annoyed you?’

‘Not at all. In fact I admire your directness, but I am sure you see my point of view also.’ He spoke as he would in the office, his voice never raised, his sureness that he was right never wavering.

Erika arrived by train the first week in July. She was full of stories about her fellow passengers. She wore jeans and a scarlet jacket and had a huge backpack of work with her. She said she was going to study in the mornings and then meet him for lunch each day.

‘My father will insist on taking us out to some smart places,’ he began nervously.

‘Then it’s just as well you got yourself some smart clothes,’ she said.

‘I didn’t mean me, I meant . . .’

‘Don’t worry, Anders. I have the shoes, I have the dress,’ she said.

And she did. Erika looked splendid in her little black dress with the shocking-pink shawl and smart high heels when they went to his father’s favourite restaurant. She listened and asked intelligent questions, and she spoke cheerfully about her own family – her demon twin brother and sister, her mother’s adventures in the taxi trade, her father’s restaurant which served thirty-seven different kinds of pickled herring. She talked easily about the trip to London and how Anders’ mother had been a marvellous hostess. She even talked openly about William.