A summer with Kim Novak Read Online Free PDF

ever. Or Rick, rather. I closed the scrapbook.
    ‘I’m taking time off from Kurren .’
    ‘Mm?’
    ‘The whole summer.’
    ‘The whole summer?’
    ‘That’s right. I’m going to write a book.’
    It was as if he were talking about going to Karlesson’s to buy an ice lolly.
    ‘A book?’ I said.
    ‘Yep. It has to happen some time.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘Some people have no choice in the matter. I’m one of those people.’
    I nodded. I was sure that he was. I didn’t really know what to say.
    ‘What’s it going to be about?’
    He didn’t answer right away. He put his feet up on his desk, took a gulp of Rio Club from the bottle on the floor and fished out a fresh Lucky Strike.
    ‘Life,’ he said. ‘The real thing. Existentially speaking.’
    ‘Aha,’ I said.
    He lit his cigarette and we sat in silence. Henry took a few long drags, his shoulder blades resting on the back of the chair. He stared up at the ceiling where the smoke was thinning out into nothing.
    ‘Good,’ I said finally. ‘It’s cool that you’re writing a book. I reckon it’ll be bloody great.’
    He didn’t seem to care what I had to say.
    ‘Was there anything else?’ I asked.
    ‘Like what?’ said Henry.
    ‘You said there were a couple of things. The book, that’s just one, right?’
    ‘Oh, you’re a devil with numbers, brother,’ said Henry. ‘A right bloody calculator.’
    ‘At least when it comes to counting to two,’ I said.
    Henry laughed. He had a short laugh that was sort of sharp. It sounded cool and I had tried to mimic it, too, but it didn’t really work. Laughs were hard to learn, I had found out.
    ‘Well, it’s about Emmy,’ said Henry and then he blew a ring of smoke that soared through the room like a sputnik.
    ‘Brill,’ I said when it hit the wall and dissipated. ‘What about Emmy?’
    ‘She’s not coming,’ said Henry.
    ‘What?’ I said.
    ‘She’s not coming to Gennesaret.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘I dumped her,’ said Henry.
    I wasn’t sure what that meant. Unless he meant that he had beaten her to death and thrown her into a canal with her feet encased in cement blocks, and that didn’t seem likely. Vera Lane had been close to getting this treatment in Darkin III , but I couldn’t imagine Henry doing something like that.
    ‘Oh no,’ I said, trying to sound neutral.
    ‘So it’s just going to be you and me and your mate. What’s his name?’
    ‘Edmund,’ I said.
    ‘Edmund?’ said Henry. ‘Bloody hell, what a name.’
    ‘He’s okay,’ I said.
    ‘Sure, sure,’ said Henry. ‘You can’t judge a person by their name. I banged a bird called Frida Arsel once. In Amsterdam. She wasn’t bad at all.’
    I nodded and sat a while, thinking about all the birds with strange names that I’d banged.
    And all the birds I’d dumped.
    ‘Let’s keep Dad and Mum in the dark,’ said Henry.
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘I don’t want them to know that Emmy won’t be joining us. They’ll only worry about us not being able to feed ourselves and what not,’ said my brother Henry. ‘But we will. Three lads in their prime.’
    ‘You know it,’ I said. ‘No problem. I’m a wiz with omelettes.’
    And then Henry laughed his sharp laugh again. It felt good. It occurred to me that when my brother laughed, it was as comforting as being scratched on the back.
    One day during the last week of school we went on a class trip to Brumberga Wildlife Park. I stuck with Edmund, Benny and Arse-Enok the whole time, and even though an all-girls’ team beat us at the quiz by one single rotten point and we lost out on the litre of ice cream, we had a pretty rewarding afternoon. Arse-Enok had just had his birthday and had raked in a whole fifty-kronor note from his dim-witted uncle, so we were rolling in it. Arse-Enok wasn’t one to hold back. He wolfed down fifty-four Dixi caramels and had to sit in one of the sick-seats on the ride home.
    I ate thirty-six Reval sweets myself and felt brilliant.
    The following