Murder of Halland Read Online Free PDF Page A

they are going to run me over. What will death feel like? Will I scream or fall silently? But nothing happened.

8
    Being there for each other in the proper way is a fine art.
     
    Peter Seeberg, SHEPHERDS
    Inger came outside just as I was unlocking my front door. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ she said.
    ‘I know.’
    ‘Is he really dead?’
    ‘It says so in the paper.’
    ‘Was he really shot?’
    ‘Didn’t you hear the shot?’ I asked, vaguely interested in what she would say.
    ‘Yes, I did. The sound woke me up. At first, I thought it was Lasse coming home late. Have they found the murderer?’
    I didn’t reply.
    ‘How are you doing?’
    I didn’t reply.
    ‘It always happens to the person next door, doesn’t it?’ she said. ‘But I don’t want it to happen to the person next door. I’m frightened. Aren’t you frightened?’
    She always had something to say; she was constantly jabbering on. I cocked my hip, the posture I used to adoptas a bored teenager. I had never stood that way since. I was fond of Inger, but I didn’t want to listen to her.
    ‘On the inside I’m the same person I’ve always been,’ she went on. ‘I look at myself in the mirror in the mornings and think, It’s high time you had an early night. Then I think, But you had an early night last night, and the night before. It’s just the way I look! Shocks me every morning because I feel young inside, or at least the same as I’ve always felt.’
    I didn’t think Inger looked old, but then I myself didn’t feel like the same person inside any more. Perhaps she was expecting me to say something. I couldn’t.
    ‘Where have you been?’ she asked.
    ‘Shopping.’
    ‘Are you hungry?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘I’ll leave a casserole on the step for your supper. You might want something by then.’
    I went inside. The postman had come. When I picked up the newspaper and a letter, I recognized my mother’s handwriting and tore open the envelope. The phone rang. As I dashed into the bedroom to answer it I banged my leg against the bed frame. Rubbing my knee, I picked up the receiver, expecting to hear Abby’s voice. It was a journalist. I pulled the plug out of the wall. The letter lay crumpled in my hand. It read: ‘Dear Bess. She doesn’t want to. I’ve told her you called and that Halland is dead, but she doesn’t want to. What did he die of? Love, Mum.’ Why didn’t she ring to tell me? Was this her idea of a condolence letter?
    I had led a good life with Abby and her father. A normal, everyday life full of joy, sex, laughter, boredom, drudgery, acrimony and minor arguments. My husband took a sabbatical from his teaching job to go on some courses. He travelled a lot that year. I met Halland. If the five-minute encounter in a bookshop could have been avoided, everything would have worked out differently. Of course, any event can be thought of as inevitable or as something you could have altered or ignored.
    The moment I told him I was leaving, my husband became consumed by a fury I never knew he had in him. For a year, Halland and I tried, though never consciously, to make my decision to live with him work. We really tried. We went on holiday and to parties. During the summer, we swam in the fjord every morning. Had people round. Planted roses. I painted the little summer house white; we put a weathervane on the roof. We never had any children, though. Before the year was out, Abby’s father became the father of twins. There was no turning back. A cliché, for sure. But it described reality. Abby wouldn’t see me. Halland and I were happy – at least until he fell ill.
    Despite our year together we barely knew each other, and our relationship became more difficult as his condition worsened. Though we ate together and shared a bed, I felt as shy and awkward as I had been when we first met. That never changed. Right from the beginning I kept my sanitary towels, make-up, lotions, even my vitamin pills hidden away in drawers in