‘Or eggs,’ Lo says, and nods at the leftovers on Linda’s plate. ‘It’s like menstruation, except it comes out the bum.’
‘That’s enough,’ his dad says.
‘Yes, please,’ Linda adds.
Imagine if Lo knew his mum keeps a peeing bucket next to her bed. She stands over it when she doesn’t have time to make it to the bathroom in the night.
Sometimes Albin has had to help her in the bathroom as well. Her toilet seat rinses her bum, so he doesn’t need to do anything down there, but she needs someone to hold on to while she shuffles the few paces back to her wheelchair.
A few tables away, those girls from the terminal are laughing again. Lo glares at them. ‘I love middle-aged people with pigtails,’ she says. ‘Isn’t it heartbreaking that she looks like the world’s fattest five-year-old?’
Albin giggles again; the grown-ups pretend not to have heard.
‘But then again, maybe that’s what she’s going for,’ Lo presses on. ‘Maybe that was her big goal in life. If that’s the case I shouldn’t feel sorry for her, because she made all her dreams come—’
‘Enough now,’ Linda breaks in. ‘Wait until you get older; you’ll see it’s not so easy to look perfect all the time.’
‘At least she has a lovely laugh,’ Lo says, smirking. ‘I’m done. Can Albin and I go and have a look around?’
His dad opens his mouth to object as she starts pushing her chair out.
‘Please,’ Albin puts in quickly. ‘I haven’t seen Lo for so long.’
‘I don’t know if I think it’s such a good idea,’ his dad says in that way that means he knows exactly.
‘It’s fine with me if it’s fine with you,’ Linda interjects, glancing at Lo. ‘It might be a relief for all of us.’
His dad looks imploringly at his mum, but he has already been voted down. Albin has to force himself not to bounce up and down on his chair impatiently.
‘You have to be in bed by eleven,’ Linda says, and Lo smirks again. ‘I don’t want you running around out here on your own once people are getting tipsy.’
‘One of us will stop by the cabin to check on you,’ his dad adds. ‘At eleven sharp.’
‘We promise,’ Albin says.
‘Don’t talk to grown-ups you don’t know—’
‘But Dad,’ Albin tries to cut him off. ‘We know.’
‘—and if you need us and you can’t get a signal, ask a member of the crew for help. Or go to the information desk and have them call us over the speakers. And don’t lean out over the railings if you go outside, because if you fall in—’
‘Don’t get worked up, Mårten,’ his mum says with a quick laugh. ‘We’re not sending the kids to war, we’re just letting them have some fun on their own for a bit.’
‘People have actually been known to disappear on these boats,’ his dad says.
‘I know,’ Lo replies, and turns to him. ‘I have a friend whose mum used to work on a cruiseferry. But the people who disappear are the ones who are so drunk they’re oblivious, or they jump overboard to kill themselves. And we’re not going to drink and we’re not like Grandma …’
Albin can feel rather than see his dad stiffen.
‘Lo!’ Linda gasps.
‘Sorry,’ Lo says quickly, still looking at his dad. ‘All I’m saying is, it’s fine. We’ll be good. I just want to check out the tax-free shop and buy some sweets and then we’ll go and watch a film in the cabin. Right, Abbe?’
He nods fervently.
‘It’s fine, Mårten,’ Linda says. ‘It’s hard to believe sometimes, but Lo has good judgement where it counts.’
‘Eleven o’clock,’ his dad says. ‘At the latest.’
Albin and Lo get up from the table.
‘I’m finished too,’ Linda says. ‘What do you think? Should we go and have a look around as well?’
His mum picks up the napkin from her lap and places it on her smeared plate. His dad gets to his feet, swaying slightly, and asks the family at the table behind them to move to allow Mum to get past in her wheelchair. A small blonde girl studies Mum curiously.
‘Are you a baby?’ she asks.
‘Do you think I look like one?’ his mum says with a laugh.
‘No. But you’re in a pram.’
The girl’s parents look mortified.
‘Stella, leave them alone,’ the dad says, and Albin recognises his voice from the terminal.
‘But she’s a really weird baby,’ Stella insists, clearly surprised her dad doesn’t see it.
His mum laughs again, and her laugh is perfectly genuine.
‘They’re so lovely at that age. If only they could stay that way for ever,’ Linda says.
‘Was that for me?’ Lo asks, but when Linda looks caught, she just giggles.
‘Come on, Stella, stop staring,’ Stella’s dad says.
‘It’s all right,’ his mum says as she navigates between the chairs. ‘It’s only natural to be curious.’
She smiles at Stella and her parents to reassure them, while struggling with her joystick. And just then, Albin’s heart breaks a little. He loves her so much, he forgets that sometimes, but in this moment the feeling is so strong it overwhelms him; it kind of catches him unaware and he almost starts crying.
‘Let’s go,’ Lo says.
Calle
Calle and Vincent have just got up from their table when a group of men in ill-fitting suits pour into Poseidon. Conference guests with corporate cards; Calle could spot them a mile away. One of the men has removed his tie and is spanking the bottom of the only woman in the group with it. He is definitely the most intoxicated, but the others are not far behind. The woman snatches the tie from his hands and barks furiously at him in Finnish. He just laughs. The others laugh with him. Maybe he is their boss.
Vincent tries to take Calle’s hand, but he pretends not to notice, looks around for Pia. How ironic is this? He is about to propose to Vincent, but he doesn’t even want to hold his hand. Doesn’t want to provoke anyone. He knows how quickly fights can erupt on the Charisma.
They exit into the long hallway that runs the length of the ship. At the other end, by the stern, is Charisma Starlight. Filip is probably tending bar right now. Calle examines the booth where they sell the photographs they take of everyone as they board. He is surprised it still exists. Who buys those pictures now that everyone has a camera phone?
There is anticipation in the air. Raucous laughter and drunken voices. Many of the passengers will have looked forward to this cruise for a long time. Eating, drinking and dancing in the no-man’s-land that is the Baltic. He is suddenly seized by a desire to protect them from certain types of gazes.
Many of his colleagues at the architecture firm would consider this the most exotic experience of their lives. And isn’t that exactly the angle he has exploited in his tales about working aboard the Charisma? He’s told some of his war stories so many times they have become classics: the lady who grabbed a whole side of salmon from the buffet and shoved it in her purse; the bloke with tribal tattoos who threw a tantrum because there was no McDonald’s on board. The older, leathery woman who blew a group of young men in her cabin, after which they ran out into Club Charisma in nothing but their underwear, flashing V-signs at their friends. The man who tried to climb up a chimney. The girl with the word HARDER tattooed on her lower back. The woman who travelled with them at least three times a week, all year round, and talked about how she would love to live aboard the Charisma permanently. All the people having sex in the hallways, on the weather decks, the dance floors and the ball pit in the children’s area, without realising every inch of the ship is covered by CCTV.
He has distanced himself by acting like his life on board was nothing more than an anthropological field study.
‘There she is,’ Vincent says, pointing towards the stairs.
Pia has spotted them too. She says something to her colleague, Jarno, whom Calle has barely met. He is short, good-looking in a bland w
ay; seems nice but shy. The only thing Calle knows about him as a person is that he is married to Raili, the on-board nurse. He waves to Calle before disappearing up the stairs.
Pia stops for a moment in the hallway, seizing a turquoise aluminium can of gin and tonic from a couple of middle-aged women with short, spiky hair.
‘You’ll have to go to one of the bars if you want to drink,’ Pia says.
‘Oh come on!’ one of them protests loudly. She puts her hands on her hips and stares at Pia. The rhinestones across the front of her hoodie spell out SEXY BITCH.
‘I’m sorry, those are the rules,’ Pia says.
‘So screw the rules. What do you care?’
‘Sorry, girls. Just doing my job.’
‘That’s what the Nazis said.’
The woman’s voice has risen an entire octave. Passers-by stare curiously.
‘Fucking Nazi cunt,’ her friend mutters, and Pia chuckles.
‘Wow,’ she says. ‘It’s the first time someone’s called me that. On this cruise at least.’
‘Can I have my drink back so I can at least take it to my cabin?’
Pia calmly shakes her head.
‘That’s practically stealing,’ the woman says threateningly. ‘We should fucking report you. You’re probably planning on drinking it yourself.’
‘If you want to report me you should head to the information counter by the tax-free shop. They’ll be happy to assist you. I have to move on now, but I think you should have a few glasses of water. The evening has only just started, after all.’
‘What a goddamn nanny state this is,’ the woman says, and swans off with her friend in tow.
‘Just another workday, eh?’ Calle says when Pia reaches them.
‘I’ll bet you don’t miss the Charisma quite as much after seeing that.’ She grins. ‘Ready to go?’
A new wave of anxiety washes over Calle. It is almost time. The little box in his jacket pocket suddenly feels like it is made out of lead.
But Vincent is going to say yes. He is. They have talked about this, after all, about getting married someday.
‘My God, they were such jerks,’ Vincent says.
‘You have to try to bear in mind that most of them are actually good people,’ Pia says, leading them towards the lifts.
‘And those who aren’t? What do you do with them?’
‘More often than not they can be talked down,’ Pia says, and pushes the lift button. ‘If they’re too wasted we stick them in a drunk tank. And if it’s really bad we kick them off the boat first chance we get and let the police handle it.’
The lift doors ding and slide open. A tall woman with heavy features and a chequered shirt exits, smiling when she spots Pia’s uniform.
‘What kind of trouble have you been causing, boys?’ she says in a rough-whisky voice, and smiles suggestively at Vincent.
‘You don’t want to know,’ Pia replies with a smile, and steps into the lift.
‘I can help you cuff them,’ the woman calls out after them, and Vincent laughs.
‘Don’t you ever get scared?’ he asks as the doors close.
‘Once or twice. But there are four of us on the boat and we almost never patrol alone. I’m meeting up with my colleague again as soon as I’ve taken you to the bridge.’
‘Do you carry weapons?’
The lift rises towards the tenth floor. Calle is so nervous pit stains are forming on his jacket. He looks at Vincent and Pia. It feels surreal that his two worlds are meeting.
‘Just my nightstick,’ Pia says. ‘We don’t want any peashooters on the boat, you know; it could end really badly.’
She steps off the lift ahead of them. Everything is calm and quiet up here. Just the stairs leading down, dark conference rooms with glass walls that make them look like terrariums, the doors to the promenade deck and a wood-panelled wall. Pia swipes her pass through the reader on the wall and punches in a code. Four shrill beeps, then she pushes a cleverly concealed door open.
Calle’s heart is pounding. He can barely wrap his head around the fact that this really is it. He has been planning this for so long, imagined it so many times, it feels like déjà vu. They are on their way. Captain Berggren is waiting for them.
Tomas
‘What do you want?’ Åse says. ‘Do you even know why you’re calling?’
He catches himself squinting, as if that might make her words on the other end of the line clearer. She is at home in Norrköping, but she might as well be on the other side of the planet.
Tomas takes his phone from his ear to look at the screen. One bar of reception left.
‘I just wanted to see how you’re doing,’ he says.
The lift doors in front of him open and he steps in and pushes the button. The smoked glass covering the lift walls reflects him from every angle, the reflections reduplicating again and again, endlessly. His ginger hair is tousled and damp.
Why doesn’t Åse say anything?
‘Don’t you get it? I miss you,’ he says, hating that he can’t keep from slurring. ‘Everyone’s asking about you. Don’t you get what it feels like to be at Stefan’s stag do and not be able to tell them we’re getting divorced?’
The doors open and he steps out on deck five. Just stands there, realising he doesn’t know the way to his cabin. Where are all the signs?
Åse laughs gruffly. ‘It’s so like you to pretend to want to know how I’m doing when you actually called to tell me how you’re doing.’
Tomas squeezes the phone harder. She sounds so cold, so fucking cold. She could make the whole Baltic freeze over.
Calling her was a mistake: a big, fat mistake. But he knew that. And he did it anyway.
‘Well, excuse me for finding this fucking difficult,’ he exclaims.
Two women coming down the stairs giggle at him.
‘Excuse me for having feelings,’ he adds, as much to them as to Åse.
He heads down one of the corridors. He is just getting a pack of smokes from his cabin. He should have waited to call until after a few drags; smoking makes it so much easier to think clearly. But he doesn’t want Åse to hear him puffing away. He still cares what she thinks, even though it is none of her business what he gets up to any more. It is just that the cartons in the tax-free shop were so damn cheap and he does have the best goddamn excuse ever to start smoking again.
If things had been normal, he would have told her they got Stefan completely hammered before they even left the bus from Norrköping, and that Peo and Lasse are trying to pull every piece of white trash they can find. He wants to hear Åse laugh. Laugh for real. He would like to tell her how annoyed he is with Peo and Lasse, who expect him to pay for his share of the drinks they are buying for all those girls, and he wants to hear Åse agree with him. He wants her to know he isn’t trying to pick anyone up. That no one compares to her.
‘Say something,’ he says, ‘please. You have no idea how much I miss you.’
‘I do, actually,’ she says. ‘I do know.’
‘Don’t you miss me at all?’ He makes a face, hearing how pathetic he sounds. He pulls out the bottle of beer he stashed in the inside pocket of his jacket and takes a big swig. Lukewarm and flat. Looks around. Where is he and where the hell is cabin 5314?
5134 … 5136 … 5138 … So he is not even in the right corridor. How the fuck is anyone supposed to find their way when everything looks the same? The same carpet on the floor, the same fucking doors with tiny silver numbers.
He is like a rat in a maze, a ridiculously drunk rat at that, and he is never going to find his way out.
‘I do miss you,’ she says, ‘but it doesn’t matter any more.’
He stops mid-step, a fragile hope bubbling up inside him. She misses him. If he can find the exact right thing to say right now, he might be able to turn this around.
‘Hey,’ he says, ‘if we’re missing each other, then that’s all that matters—’
‘No.’ She cuts him off. ‘It doesn’t
matter. It’s too late.’ The frost has crept back into her voice.
‘Fuck you,’ he says. ‘You’re such a fucking bitch.’ It feels good to say it, but he regrets it instantly.
‘I’m not the one who cheated,’ she replies.
That sets him off again. It must feel pretty good to be so morally superior, to be able to throw that in his face whenever she pleases.
‘Maybe I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t been such a bitch,’ he hears himself say.
The regret is significantly more intense and even more immediate this time. He turns, walks back up the corridor, waiting for a reply, but none comes. He looks at the screen again. The one bar of reception is still there. The seconds tick by, aggravatingly large on the screen. The call has lasted three minutes and twenty-seven seconds. He stops by a short, narrow hallway that turns right. He must have just passed it, but he doesn’t recall seeing it before.
‘Are you still there?’ he asks. ‘Can you hear me?’
‘… not even 9 p.m.,’ Åse is saying. ‘How much … been drinking anyway?’
She says something else, but she is breaking up and he can’t make out the words. It makes him irrationally angry with her, as if it is her fault.
‘Never fucking mind,’ he says. ‘It’s none of your business any more. Not since you dumped me.’
‘I’d love to not mind,’ Åse retorts. ‘But you’re making it my business … calling even though … asked you not to …’
They are cut off, and for a moment he is convinced she hung up on him. But when he looks at his screen the reception is gone. He curses loudly and takes another big swig of his tepid beer. Turning right down yet another short hallway, he glances at the cabin doors as he passes: 5139 … 5137 … Suddenly the numbers jump to 5327 … 5329 … The corridor branches off again up ahead. But at least the numbers are starting to look more promising. He turns left.
This corridor is identical to the one he started from: long and narrow, low ceiling. For a split second, the perspective shifts abruptly, as though he is staring down a deep, square well, about to fall helplessly into it. Tomas’ innards do a somersault. He leans against a wall until the dizziness passes and the corridor becomes just a corridor once more.