The Shadow Girls Read Online Free PDF Page B

dream had been to become an artist, but she had not been talented enough. Furious, she had turned to the dramatic arts and started a theatre with the financial help of her father. There she created some scandalous performances which involved her dragging herself across the stage in an almost completely transparent nightdress. Later she had owned a gallery, then she turned to music. Lastly she had been involved in the film business.
    She was seventy and newly widowed when she realised she had never seriously thought of dancing, at which point, with her usual verve, she founded a dance company. There was no dancer younger than sixty-five in her troupe. Märta Humlin had reached for almost everything in life but almost nothing stayed in her restless grip.
    Jesper had been the youngest of four and had seen his siblings leave home as quickly as they had been able. At twenty he informed his mother that his turn had come. When Jesper woke the following morning he couldn’t move. His mother had tied him to the bed. It took him a whole day to talk her into letting him go. First she had forced him to promise to come and see her three times a week for the rest of her life.
    Humlin lifted a box of skating laces from his chair and sat down. Märta Humlin went into the kitchen and returned with a bottle of wine and two glasses.
    ‘I don’t want any, thanks.’
    ‘And why not?’
    ‘I’ve already had a bottle this evening.’
    ‘And with whom, might I ask?’
    ‘Viktor Leander.’
    ‘I have no idea who that is.’
    Humlin was shocked. He stared at his mother who was in the process of filling his glass to the brim. He was bound to spill some when he lifted it, which would give her yet another reason to chastise him.
    ‘But you’ve been to a number of his readings.’
    ‘Well, I certainly don’t remember him. I’m almost ninety years old. My memory is not what it once was.’
    As long as she doesn’t start to cry, Humlin thought. I don’t have it in me to go through her emotional blackmail tonight.
    ‘Why do you pour me wine when I say I don’t want any?’
    ‘Isn’t it good enough for you?’
    ‘It’s not about the wine. What I’m saying is that I’ve already had all the wine I could want tonight.’
    ‘You don’t have to come over and see me if you don’t want to.’
    Here it comes, Humlin thought.
I’m used to being alone.
    ‘I’m used to being alone.’
    The satisfaction he had felt at giving Viktor Leander a good jab had already dissipated. His mother already had him pinned him to the ground. He picked up his glass, spilling wine on the tablecloth as he did so. It was going to be a long night.

3
    WHEN HUMLIN WALKED in through the doors of his publishing company the following day he was very tired. The conversation with his mother had lasted long into the night.
    He knocked on his publisher’s door at a quarter to one. The name on the sign was Olof Lundin. Humlin always entered Lundin’s office with a certain trepidation. Although they had worked together for many years now – and Humlin had never had another publisher – their conversations often led to hopeless circular discussions of what kind of books the market wanted. Lundin was one of the most unclear thinkers Humlin had ever met in the book business. He had often wondered with irritation how such an intellectually confused man as Olof Lundin had actually been able to climb to the heights of the publishing world.
    ‘Didn’t we say a quarter past one?’
    ‘No, it was a quarter to one.’
    Olof Lundin was overweight and a rowing machine sat among the manuscript piles that littered the floor. He also had a blood-pressure cuff beside the overfilled ashtray. When the company in its negotiations with the unions decided to institute a complete non-smoking policy it had led to war. Olof Lundin had simply refused to play along. He threatened to leave effective immediately if he were not allowed to keep smoking in his own office. Since a graphic designer