The couples trip, p.12
The Couples Trip, page 12
I took a deep breath, bent my knees a fraction and tensed my muscles. Three determined steps later and I was in shallower waters. I had done it. The final step onto the gravel bank was child’s play. Jacob and Milena smiled and applauded.
“Nice one, Anna!”
Jacob held his hand up to give me a high five, and I couldn’t help grinning and returning the gesture. Milena gave me a high five too, but her attention was already on Henrik. He had just put on his second trainer and was holding a boot in each hand.
“You can do this, Henrik!” Milena yelled.
“Tie your boots together and hang them over your rucksack!” Jacob shouted.
But Henrik didn’t listen to Jacob’s advice—in fact he didn’t even look up. He set off across the shallower reaches of the river, slowly and cautiously.
“Looking good, sweetheart!” I called out.
He reached the main channel. Jacob picked up his poles, which I had dropped on the ground. He waded out into the water and threw them in Henrik’s direction. “Throw me your boots!” This time Henrik listened and did as Jacob said. The boots came flying through the air and landed on the gravel bank where we were standing. Then he began to wade, steadily and tentatively like the rest of us.
Just before he reached the middle, he stopped dead. He seemed very unsure of himself, looking both upstream and downstream as if he were looking for an easier route that none of us had discovered. There wasn’t one of course.
I could see from both his posture and his facial expression that he was frightened.
His hands were gripping the poles so tightly that his knuckles were white. Milena, who knew him almost as well as I did, could see it too.
“I think you’re going to have to help him,” she said quietly to Jacob.
“Hang on—I’m coming!” Jacob began to move toward Henrik. I’m certain that Henrik must have seen him out of the corner of his eye, even though he didn’t look up. The humiliation of needing assistance from Jacob was too much, so instead of waiting, Henrik took a long stride forward, then another and another, and I don’t know whether he stood on a wobbly rock or whether the current was simply too strong, but he lost his balance and fell.
Milena let out a scream and I ran into the river.
For a few seconds both Henrik and his rucksack disappeared beneath the surface.
He half stood up, his mouth gaping with shock from the icy water, but the current caught him again and he tumbled backward. In seconds he was carried ten or fifteen meters downstream. He managed to find a foothold and tried to stand up, but fell again. Fortunately he was in shallower waters now, and wasn’t washed any farther along.
I made my way over to him as quickly as I could and grabbed hold of his collar with one hand and his rucksack with the other. I dragged and heaved, and together we struggled onto the gravel bank. Henrik was still clutching Jacob’s poles in a viselike grip. I let him catch his breath for a minute or so, then we made our way across the narrow arms to the safety of the other side. We had made it.
Henrik shrugged off his sodden rucksack and collapsed onto the grass. He kicked off his trainers, lay down on his back and started to remove his trousers. Milena helped by tugging at the legs. I was busy stripping off my own clothes—I too was soaked to the skin.
Thank goodness the sun was still shining down from a cloudless sky. At least we had a chance of getting warm and dry again. If the weather had been less kind, we might have been condemned to shiver for the rest of the week.
“You should have waited—I was coming to help you,” Jacob said. Henrik didn’t reply.
“You can borrow some of my clothes for the time being,” I said, also ignoring Jacob. Henrik nodded.
“Didn’t you undo the straps of your rucksack?” Jacob persisted.
“I did,” Henrik said tersely before turning back to me. “I guess we should have lunch now—maybe that will give our clothes a chance to dry.”
But Jacob hadn’t finished.
“That could have gone really badly. What if you’d broken your foot, or banged your head? We might have had to abandon the whole trip. So unnecessary.”
“Well, it didn’t.” Henrik stood up.
“Perhaps you could lend him some clothes?” Milena said to Jacob, who simply looked away.
Henrik went through his rucksack and quickly established that the only dry items he had were the boots he’d thrown to Jacob. If he’d had a more modern rucksack it might not have been so bad, but his had seen many years of service. The worst thing was that his phone refused to start. Admittedly there was no coverage in Sarek, but he’d been planning to take photographs and do some filming. He’d also bought a digital map of the park and downloaded it onto his phone. Now it was gone.
Once again I felt a stab of irritation. I’d reminded him about putting his phone in a waterproof bag—I’d even given him a special bag for that very purpose, but he’d forgotten.
Milena took out the stove and started to prepare lunch. It was earlier than Jacob had planned, but after the challenges of the morning we were all in need of hot food. We opted for freeze-dried meals. Jacob didn’t protest, but he looked less than happy.
Henrik and I spread out our wet clothes on rocks and low-growing bushes. I put on my dry clothes and Henrik tried one of my vests, but it was far too tight and looked quite comical. Even Jacob couldn’t help smiling. He lent Henrik one of his vests, which in contrast was much too big.
As we ate our lunch, the tension and ill humor gradually eased. Jacob joked that Henrik must be very clean by nature, since he’d decided to take a bath before lunch. We all laughed, including Henrik.
Afterward we lay down on the grass for a rest. It was the middle of the day, and the sun was pleasantly warm. The odd blackfly buzzed around in the air above me, black dots darting to and fro against the blue sky, but they didn’t bother me.
Jacob propped himself up on one elbow. “Do you mind if I point something out?”
“What?” Milena replied sleepily. She was lying on her stomach with her eyes closed, her cheek resting on one arm.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are now in Sarek.”
We allowed this to sink in. Then I said, in a slightly worried tone of voice: “I’m not sure... I think we should have gone to Abisko after all.”
It took a couple of seconds for Jacob to realize that I was joking. When I caught his eye and smiled, he looked lost for a moment, almost hurt, like a child that has been told off. Milena came to his rescue.
“Yeah, right,” she said with a big grin.
I sat up and pointed toward Alggavagge, the dramatic U-shaped valley that lay ahead.
“I think that looks pretty flat and boring.”
Jacob relaxed. “I guess some people are just kind of picky.”
I stood up and went over to the stove. As I passed him, I gave him a quick pat on the shoulder. “Just joking—it looks perfectly okay.” He glanced up at me; the sparkle was back in his brown eyes.
“Time for a coffee before we set off?” I asked, picking up the coffeepot.
Our entry into Sarek had been eventful, but I was sure that everything would be better from now on.
13
We continued along the southern shore of Alggajavrre. Thickets of low-growing willow extended quite a distance from the water’s edge and up the side of the mountain, and in many places it reached as high as our faces. There were tracks through the vegetation, presumably made by reindeer, but they meandered here and there and were crisscrossed by roots and branches. It felt as if we were fighting our way through a hedge that was several meters thick, growing on a steeply sloping mountainside. Here and there a narrow stream had cut deep into the mountain, and we had to climb down for a meter or two, then up the other side. Sarek seemed keen to protect its secrets.
After an hour or so the bushes thinned out, and we were able to make better progress. Alggavagge lay before us like a gigantic piece of guttering. In the distance we could see the impressive almost perpendicular face of Härrabakte stretching up into the sky. Nine hundred meters from the bottom of the valley to the top.
When we reached the opening to Niejdariehpvagge, a narrow valley descending from the mountain to our right, we took a break to eat an energy bar and fill up our water bottles from a stream. The steepest climb so far lay ahead.
Jacob and I took the lead as usual. I soon got my heart rate up, but we maintained a steady pace.
After half an hour I stopped and gazed out over the valley. I could see diagonally across Alggavagge, all the way to the snow-covered peaks on the other side. Henrik and Milena had already dropped far behind, but neither Jacob nor I felt like waiting for them. Our bodies were warmed up and we had found a tempo that suited us.
They would just have to catch up with us later.
“I hear you and Milena met online,” I said as we set off again.
“Yes.” Jacob didn’t seem keen to discuss the matter, but I kept digging.
“I’ve been with Henrik for almost ten years, so I’ve been out there. Well, I did some online dating when I was in my twenties, but nothing serious.”
“I...I’ve had lots of girlfriends, lots of relationships,” Jacob began. “I’ve often met someone in a bar, or through climbing or other interests.”
“Mm. But they say dating apps are the most common way of meeting people now.”
“Maybe—I don’t know. I just felt I wanted to try something new, find something a little deeper, so I thought I’d give it a go.”
“And it worked out well.”
“Milena is a top girl.”
There was something about the way he said it that sounded slightly condescending. A top girl—that’s what a guy might say about a girl after he’s finished with her. A girl he likes and respects, but isn’t in love with.
“She really is. You won’t find anyone better.”
“We’ll have to see where it goes. We’re very different in some ways.”
“It’s good to be different. Complementing each other rather than competing.”
“Maybe. In some ways.”
“Have you...have you ever been married? Had kids?”
“Fuck, no. No, no.”
“You haven’t got three kids to support in Helsingborg?”
“Not as far as I know,” Jacob said with a smile. “Although I was involved in a paternity case once—a DNA test, the whole thing. But it wasn’t mine.”
“A close call though?”
“It certainly was.” His expression was more serous now. “But I wouldn’t... I mean, if I find the right woman, then I’m ready to settle down. Obviously. With the right person I want the kids and the house and the dog. The whole package.”
“Seriously?” Now he’d started talking about himself I didn’t want to interrupt.
“That’s the way I am—whatever I do, I go for it one hundred percent. There’s no middle ground. If I’m climbing, I’m climbing—to the max. If I’m traveling then I’ll go to the end of the fucking world. You get it.”
“I get it.”
“And if I’m building a family, then I’m building a family. I’ll be there for my nearest and dearest for the rest of my life. My children will have a completely different upbringing from the one I had.”
Jacob was talking as if he were taking part in a TV reality show. Suddenly I wished that Henrik had heard what he had to say; I knew we would have exchanged a covert glance and thought the same thing.
And there’s your problem, Jacob.
“So what makes a good father?” I asked.
He didn’t answer immediately. For a few seconds the only sounds were our breathing, the creak of our rucksacks, our boots hitting the ground. Was he reluctant to tell me any more? Had I got too personal?
“To be honest, I don’t know,” he said at last. “My father left before I was even born.”
“That’s awful.”
“My mother had a whole series of boyfriends, some were pretty good, but the relationships never lasted long. They couldn’t cope with her, so they disappeared.”
“Right.”
“So that just left me for her to take it out on.”
“Sounds tough,” I said as sympathetically as I could.
“She was mentally ill. I realized that when I was quite young—she just wasn’t the way people are supposed to be. I know I spent some time with foster parents when I was seven or eight years old; I assume it was the school that sounded the alarm.”
“But your mother managed to get you back?”
“Yes. It was kind of up and down—sometimes she pulled herself together. But she was...among other things she was a hoarder. So at home there were old newspapers and all kinds of crap piled up everywhere. There were like narrow corridors from room to room. I never invited a friend over. Never. Not in nine years at school. My worst fear was that she’d find out there was a parents’ evening and come along. She once got a letter asking her to come in and see my teacher, but I told her the meeting had been postponed because he had the flu. Fortunately she believed me.”
When Jacob was talking, his self-confidence was nowhere to be seen. He sounded sad, and I couldn’t help but feel for the little boy who was ashamed of his mentally ill mother.
“That must have been terrible.”
“It was tough.”
“Wasn’t there an adult you could turn to?”
“I had a good teacher in junior school—Tony. He knew some of what was going on, but not everything. I hung out with him and his family on the weekends now and again—we’d go fishing, that kind of thing. It was fantastic. And he got social services involved again. At least I thought afterward that it must have been him. But my mother got her act together, tidied the apartment. I guess they didn’t think there was anything to worry about.”
“God, Jacob...”
“I remember once when I was about six. I got really cross about something and said cock. My mother dragged me into the bathroom and squirted Toilet Duck in my mouth. She tried to get the toilet brush into my mouth to scrub it clean, but it wouldn’t fit, so she started hitting me instead.”
“That sounds horrific.”
Jacob gave a wry smile. “It was pretty crazy at times.”
We walked on in silence for a while, then I asked: “Are you still in contact with her?”
“She’s dead. I don’t exactly lay flowers on her grave. When I feel a bit down, I...”
“What?”
“I’m sure this sounds stupid, but I think I’ve done pretty well in life in spite of my childhood. And I don’t owe anybody anything.”
“I get that.”
“Listen to me, going on and on,” he said apologetically. “Now you know a lot more about me than Milena does.”
“Really? I didn’t mean to pry.”
“It’s fine—it feels good to get it off my chest. I can talk to you.” He gave me a long intense look, and I nodded and smiled, but felt a little uncomfortable. He was getting a bit too close. I wanted to know more about him, but I hadn’t expected him to go into so much detail.
“So how was your upbringing? I assume you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth?”
I started to tell him about my childhood in Stocksund. It felt good to change the subject, to get away from the sudden intimacy that had sprung up between us. There was also a vague compulsion to share some of my difficult memories in return for Jacob’s description of his dreadful background.
“Superficially everything was good, financially and so on. My father had set up companies, then sold them and made a fortune, so when I was a child he was mainly a professional board member. And a friend of former politicians, company chairmen and so on. My mother is a qualified art teacher, but she stayed home and ran the household.”
“Mm.”
“And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a housewife—you can divide responsibilities as you wish, as long as both parties are in agreement.”
“Of course.”
“But my father is a very dominant character, so I’m pretty sure my mother didn’t have any choice. She didn’t dare go against him—none of us did. The whole family was constantly on edge, trying to read him. Great, he’s in a good mood—we can relax this evening. But if you made the tiniest mistake, or if you didn’t get straight A’s, for example, he’d be furious. Or else something had happened at work, and he’d take it out on us. Often we had no idea why. And it was always worse when he drank.”
“He sounds like hard work.”
“Yes—he really knew how to hurt us when he was in that humor. He wouldn’t stop until his target was completely crushed. He might have a go at Mum because the food wasn’t good enough, or because she’d put on weight, or because she hadn’t been firm enough with the cleaner—anything, really. He would keep on and on until she was in tears.”
Just talking about my father made the old grief and rage bubble up in my chest.
Jacob remained silent, waiting for me to continue.
“And if you complained, it was twice as bad. You just had to keep your mouth shut, deal with it. But whenever we had guests, he would be incredibly charming and generous—everyone loved him. If only you knew, I often thought.”
“Was he violent?”
“Yes. He’d give us a slap, or when we were little he would grab us by the arm, drag us through the living room—that kind of thing. I didn’t suffer too much—it was worse for my brothers.”
There was a brief silence as we continued upward. Eventually Jacob asked: “What’s your family situation now? Do you all celebrate Christmas together?”
“Er...no,” I said, hesitating.
How much shall I tell him? Shall I tell him everything?
STOCKHOLM, JUNE 2010
“By the way, where’s my bicycle?” Dad says without looking up from his bowl of pasta.
