A Week in Winter(66)

‘You probably don’t know him, Mr Almkvist, because of the circumstances and everything, but he was quite amazing. He’d found a pub in Bermondsey where they were playing the nyckelharpa – Anders loved it – and then we went to dinner in a restaurant with the most amazing gold mosaic ceiling. He owns a television production company, did you know? Totally capitalist, of course, and against any kind of social welfare, which he called a handout. But generous and helpful as well. Proves that people can’t be put in pigeonholes.’

Anders watched his father anxiously. People didn’t usually talk to the head of Almkvist’s in this manner. They normally skirted away from topics like inequality and privilege. But his father was able to cope with the conversation perfectly well. It was as if he was talking to a casual acquaintance. He asked nothing about Erika’s studies, or her hopes and plans for the future.

Anders wondered, had he ever shown any enthusiasm or eagerness for anything except the firm he had worked for all his life?

Erika had no such worries. ‘He’s just blinkered,’ she said. ‘Lots of people are. It’s that generation. My father doesn’t care about anything except the taxes on alcohol and customers going off on a ferry to Denmark to buy cheap booze. My mother is fixated on the need to have women-only taxis. Your father is all hung up on tax shelters and asset management and trusts and things. It’s what they do in his world. Stop being dramatic about it.’

‘But it’s not a normal way to live,’ Anders insisted.

Erika shrugged. ‘For him it is. Always has been and always will be. It’s what you want that’s important.’

‘Well I don’t want to end up like that, with no interests apart from the office. Blinkered, as you say.’

‘So you de-blinker yourself. Why don’t we go out and look for some good music tonight?’

Erika was totally practical about everything. She saw nothing wrong with pretending to Fru Karlsson that she slept in the guest bedroom. It was a matter of respect, she said.

Too soon the week was over, and Anders and his father sat again in the empty house speaking only of audits, new business and mergers that had been the order of the day at work. Anders found he enjoyed the business conversations and relished the debates, but he longed to be back at university and moving into his new apartment with Erika. He sensed his cousins were relieved that he would be leaving the office again. His father seemed indifferent, shaking his hand formally and hoping that he would study well and bring all today’s thinking and economic theory back to Almkvist’s.

Once he was back at university, the voice of his father seemed to Anders like something from a different planet.

The months flew by. He did as he had promised his mother and kept in touch with his father. He made a phone call every ten days or so; a stilted conversation where they ended up talking about personnel at Almkvist’s, or new business that had come in their direction. Sometimes he told his father of a business development or an element of tax law he had come across, or the long weekend when he had gone to Majorca with Erika’s parents. But he was always relieved when the call was over and felt that his father thought exactly the same.

When it came to the summer holiday the following year, Anders wrote saying that he and Erika were going to spend two months in Greece. If his father was startled that the months would not be spent in the office learning the ropes, he said nothing. Anders felt rather than heard the disapproval.

‘I’ve worked very hard. I need a break, Father.’

‘Indeed,’ his father had said in a chilly voice.

They had a magical summer in the Greek islands, swimming, laughing, drinking retsina and dancing at night to bouzouki music in the tavernas.

Erika told him of her plans. When she graduated, she was going to be part of a new venture conserving ancient textiles; the funding had been put in place. It was very exciting. And where would it be based? Well, right here in Gothenburg, of course. It was going to be attached to the World Culture Museum.

Anders was silent. He had always hoped she would eventually find work in Stockholm. That they would get a little apartment on one of the islands in the city centre.

They would not marry because Erika still considered it a form of slavery but they would live together when he ran Almkvist’s, and have two children.

This did not seem to chime in with Erika’s plans. But he would say nothing until he had thought it out.

‘You’re very silent. I thought you’d be so pleased for me.’

‘I am, of course.’

‘But?’

‘But I suppose I hoped that we would be together. Is that selfish?’

‘Of course it’s not, but we were waiting until we knew what we wanted to do. You haven’t decided yet, so I came up with my plan first to see if you could work round it.’ She looked anxious that he should understand.

‘But we know what I’m going to do. I’m going back to run the family firm.’

Erika looked at him oddly. ‘Not seriously?’ she said.

‘Well of course, seriously. You know that. You’ve been there. You’ve seen the set-up. I have to do that. There’s never been anything else.’

‘But you don’t want to do it!’ she gasped.

‘Not like the way it is, but you told me to de-blinker myself and I did, or I am trying to, anyway. I’m not going to live for the place like my father does.’