Memory of Love (9781101603024) by Linda Olsson Page B

‘Anneli has been waiting for this for such a long time.’ He looks at Mother and he’s not smiling. Nor is Mother.
    Later they have dinner in the kitchen.
    â€˜This calls for champagne!’ Hans says, and opens a large bottle. The cork pops with a bang and hits the ceiling, where it leaves a small mark. Hans laughs.
    They have strange food that she has never had before. Prawn cocktail, Hans says. Pale pink things that smell like fish, in a strange pink sauce. Her stomach knots and she holds back an urge to retch. She holds her fork and pokes around in the glass bowl, but she doesn’t eat anything. Hans and Mother don’t seem to notice. Now they smile and smile. And they drink from high delicate glasses – Hans more than Mother.
    Mother has poured her an identical glass from another bottle. When she tries to balance the glass and take a sip, it seems to go straight up into her nose. She struggles to swallow and her eyes fill with tears. But they don’t notice this either. Hans talks and Mother listens. She smiles and nods and her fingers play with a strand of hair. She looks very beautiful in the soft light.
    â€˜God, you’re beautiful, Anneli,’ says Hans and reaches for Mother’s hand across the table. Mother smiles and lets him caress her hand where it lies flat on the table.
    â€˜Your looks. My talent and my contacts. Unbeatable. We’ll go far,’ Hans says. ‘The world is at our feet!’
    Then he turns to Marianne.
    â€˜Your mother will be world-famous, Marianne! Let’s drink to that! Cheers!’ And they raise their glasses, all three of them.
    Later, Mother sits on Marianne’s bed and strokes her hair.
    â€˜Sleep well, Marianne. I know it is all new and very different. But you will grow to like it. Life here in the city is so exciting. So much to do, so much to see.’
    She looks at Mother’s face. It feels as if it is burning behind her eyelids, but she doesn’t know what to do, what to say. So she lies still and silent, on her back with her hands underneath the cold sheet. Mother runs her hand over the edge of the blanket but she doesn’t bend down. Perhaps she doesn’t know what to do either. They stay like this, in silence, for a long time.
    â€˜I have wanted this for so long, Marianne,’ Mother says finally. ‘It was just never possible before. Not till I met Hans.’ Mother doesn’t look at her, but towards the window. Somehow it feels as if Mother is talking to herself. Then she turns her head and looks down at Marianne. ‘Hans is kind. You will come to love him.’ She nods slowly, as if to make the words penetrate. Whether into Marianne or herself is not so easy to know.
    â€˜We will be like a family, Marianne.’
    She says ‘like’ a family.

13.
    It is strange how quickly we fall into routines. Begin to take things for granted. After a couple of weeks it was as if we had always lived together, Ika and I. And always would.
    We organised a room of sorts for him. I cleared out the things I had stored in one of the wardrobes in the bedroom, and then we spent a day removing the back wall to make it open into the lounge. It was a deep space, intended to contain two double wardrobes opening from opposite sides, I think. Closing the door to my bedroom and opening it on the lounge side, it became like a little cave, just wide enough for a narrow bed and a chair. Before furnishing it, I asked Ika what colours he would like his room to be. He didn’t reply straight away and I wasn’t sure if he had understood.
    â€˜Come,’ I said, and nodded for him to follow me into the kitchen. From my piles of things on the bookshelf along the wall in the dining area I pulled out a colour chart I had picked up from the paint shop in town several months earlier. We sat down at the table and I pushed the chart over to him. He didn’t seem excited, but then I had never really seen him