Red Wolf_ A Novel - Liza Marklund [23]
Feeling utterly helpless, she left the boy alone.
9
Thomas could feel himself getting more and more irritated as he tried one code after another on the door of the nursery. The same thing had happened only yesterday, leaving him standing there like an idiot, unable to get in.
‘Do you know the code?’ he asked his son.
The boy shook his head. ‘Mum always does the code.’
A moment later the door was unlocked from inside. A woman in her forties with two snotty toddlers stepped onto the pavement. He muttered his thanks, held the door open for Kalle and went into the hall.
‘It was fun going to nursery,’ the boy said.
Thomas nodded absent-mindedly, gathering his thoughts. Every time he walked into the nursery he felt like an alien, his wax jacket and briefcase and tie seemed somehow to clash with the sensible shoes and cosy sweaters of the staff. Among the tiny boots and miniature furniture he was a clumsy giant, sweaty and out of place. But most of all it was communication that shut him out; he had never managed to have the same sort of relationship the staff had with his children. He couldn’t handle sitting and talking about the same drawing for ten minutes, the wire in his veins started tugging and itching after just a few seconds . . . yes, that’s lovely, Ellen, is it a cat? After that he was on to his next thought, the next action.
She was doing some cutting-out when he arrived, and enthusiastically showed him the fish and plants she had made for her little sea.
‘Shall I help you with your overall?’ he offered.
She looked at him in surprise.
‘I can do that on my own,’ she said, putting away the scissors and paper and going off to the cloakroom, a stern little figure with narrow legs and swinging arms.
They took the bus from Fleminggatan, but before they had even got on Thomas realized it was a mistake.
‘I want to start playing hockey,’ Kalle said, as Thomas tried to stop a pensioner with a walking frame from running over Ellen. The mere thought of driving his son through the centre of the city several times a week made him shudder.
‘Don’t you think that might be a bit too soon?’ he said, hoping to put him off.
‘William’s started going to Djurgården. They said he was almost too old.’
Good grief, Thomas thought.
‘Right, Ellen,’ he said, ‘up on the seat with you. We’re almost there.’
‘I’m swelting,’ the little girl said.
‘It’s sweating,’ the boy said disdainfully. ‘You’re so stupid.’
‘Now, now,’ Thomas said.
The half kilometre to their home on Hantverkargatan took fifteen minutes. Kalle fell over twice when the driver braked sharply to get over the congested junctions on Scheelegatan.
As the sweat ran down his back and the air grew thicker with carbon monoxide and coughed-up virus particles, Thomas swore that from now on he would ignore party politics and only vote for the party that promised a solution to the traffic in Stockholm.
‘Is Mummy home?’ his daughter asked once they’d finally got to the second floor of number 32.
‘She’s in Norrland,’ Kalle said. ‘She said so yesterday.’
‘Is Mummy home?’ she asked again in the same hopeful tone, this time turning to Thomas.
He saw her eyes, so completely trusting, the chubby little cheeks, the rucksack. For a moment the world spun: what have we done? What sort of responsibility is this? How on earth are we going to manage? How are the kids going to survive in this bloody world?
He swallowed hard, leaned over the child, sweeping off her damp woolly hat.
‘No, darling; Mummy’s working. She’ll be home tomorrow. Here, hold your hat while I unlock the door.’
‘What are we having for tea?’ his son asked.
‘Baked meatballs with garlic and veg.’
‘Mmm,’ Ellen said.
‘Yummy,’ said Kalle.
The air in the flat was stale and slightly pungent. The streetlights below threw quivering blue shadows over the ceiling mouldings.
‘Can you get the lights, Kalle?’
The children started to take off their outdoor clothes as he went into the kitchen and turned on the lamps and the oven. Annika had prepared frozen meals in plastic