She took some ibuprofen and her temperature came down during the night, allowing her to sleep, but it was still so high when Maria checked on Monday morning that there was no question of Teresa going to school. As if she would have anyway. She switched off her mobile and lay in bed, doing nothing but savouring her illness, giving herself up to it. That was what she had.
All the time she was conscientiously taking her pills out of the Fontex bottle and throwing them away. When Maria pressed her to take her tablet, she hid it under her tongue until Maria had left the room.
Her temperature was back to normal on Thursday morning and Maria thought she could go back to school, but Teresa said, ‘No. I’m going to stay at home and rest today and tomorrow. I’m going to Stockholm at the weekend.’
‘You are not.’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Last time you came home a complete wreck and now you’ve just been ill, so if you think I’m letting you go off there again, you’re wrong.’
‘Mum. There’s nothing you can say or do to stop me. Because it doesn’t matter. If you don’t let me go, I shall just lie here in bed until I die. I won’t eat. I won’t drink. I’m serious.’
It didn’t surprise Teresa that Maria actually listened to what she said, because something had happened to Teresa’s voice. She wasn’t speaking from her mouth any longer, but from her sternum, and she could only say what was true. Maria could obviously hear this too. For a long time she just stood and stared at Teresa. Then she vacated the dangerous plateau on which they found themselves and inclined her head. ‘Right!’ she said. ‘If that’s the way it’s going to be, then you can pay for your own ticket.’
On Saturday morning Göran gave her a lift to the station. They didn’t speak much in the car, and the few words Teresa did say just seemed to make Göran uncomfortable. Teresa understood. It was her voice, she could hear the timbre herself. Perhaps this was how ghosts spoke, or vampires: creatures without a soul.
The train took her to Stockholm and the subway took her to Svedmyra and the lift took her to Theres’ door. She felt nothing. When Theres opened the door she walked past her into the apartment and sat down at the kitchen table. Theres sat opposite her.
Teresa had no desire to say anything, but she had come here, after all. She said, ‘Is Jerry in America?’
‘Yes. With Paris. Why are you unhappy?’
‘Because of what I wrote.’
‘I didn’t understand.’
‘There’s a lot you don’t understand.’
‘Yes. A lot. Do you want some food?’
‘No. Your song is on Tracks.’
‘I know. We’ll listen. To see if it wins.’
‘What does it matter if it wins?’
‘Then more people will want to listen to it.’
‘Why do you want more people to listen?’
‘My singing is good. Your words are good. Why are you unhappy?’
‘Because I’m fat and ugly and lonely and nobody likes me. For a start.’
‘I like you.’
‘Perhaps. But you like so many people.’
‘I like you best.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘There are lots of girls. But I like you best.’
‘Is anyone coming today?’
‘Not today. And not tomorrow.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m going to be with you. Why are you unhappy?’
Teresa got up from the table and took a walk around the apartment. It was like revisiting a place you’ve been away from for so long that everything has become unfamiliar. There was the computer they had played on. There was Theres’ bed where they had sat, the sofa where they had watched horror films. Everything was true and not true. They belonged to someone else. Next to the computer lay her own notebook with lyrics in it. She read a couple of them and couldn’t understand why she had written them.
At twelve o’clock she helped Theres put the radio on, then they sat in silence on the sofa as song after song was played. Teresa listened behind the music, behind the words. There was nothing there. Yet another song was introduced as a really great track from an exciting new band, and the only thing it expressed was its complete lack of content.
It was a few minutes away from two o’clock when a crackling, buzzing sound was heard. The jingle for this week’s Bullet: the highest new entry, ‘Fly’, by Tesla. The song had gone from nowhere straight to number two, beaten only by The Ark with ‘The Worrying Kind’.
When Teresa switched off the radio, Theres said, ‘We didn’t win.’
‘Maybe next week.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Why are you unhappy?’
‘Can you stop asking me that?’
‘No. I want to know.’
Teresa took out her mobile, scrolled through until she found the clip from the garage, pressed play and gave it to Theres, who held the little screen close to her eyes as she carefully followed the course of events. When it was over she gave the phone back to Teresa and said, ‘Being sick is not good.’
‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’
Theres pondered for a couple of seconds, then asked, ‘Why did you do that? With the boy?’
‘I was drunk.’
‘You’d been drinking alcohol.’
‘Yes.’
‘Alcohol is not good. Why are you unhappy?’
Something had been silently building up and now Teresa jerked as a clearly audible ‘click’ reverberated through her body. A switch was flicked on, a hatch opened. She leapt to her feet and screamed.
‘Why can’t you understand anything? Can’t you understand that’s just about the most disgusting, ugly, revolting thing you can do and it’s on film and it’s me who’s doing it and every single fucking person in the entire fucking world can watch it and see how ugly and how completely fucking disgusting I am throwing up all over his cock and I already felt like shit beforehand and I thought I was totally empty then I had a drink so I wouldn’t be empty any more and then that happened and it turned out that it’s actually possible to be even more fucking empty. It’s possible to be so fucking empty that you really don’t exist any more and I don’t exist any more and this isn’t me standing here and this isn’t me talking and you don’t know me any more and I don’t know you.’
During this entire screaming monologue, Theres sat straight-backed with her hands resting on her knees, listening attentively. When Teresa flopped down in the armchair, her face bright red, and wrapped her arms tightly around her body, Theres said, ‘Those were good words. That you wrote.’
‘Which fucking words?’
‘I live in another world, but you live in the same one.’
‘And do you understand what that means?’
‘No. But I laughed.’
‘I’ve never heard you laugh.’
‘I’ve started.’
‘What do you mean, you’ve started?’
‘Some of the girls laugh. Then I laugh too. Sometimes. Otherwise they get scared.’ Theres looked over at the window. ‘We’re going now.’
‘Going where?’
‘I’ll show you what to do.’
Five minutes later they were standing by the loading bay at the back of the local shop, which had closed at two o’clock. Teresa looked at the hammer Theres had brought with her from home, and which was now dangling from her hand.
‘Are we going to break in?’
‘No. He’s coming now. I know.’
Just as Theres uttered the last word, the door opened and a man in his forties came out. He looked remarkably like Teresa’s English teacher. The same sparse beard and slightly bulging eyes, the same clothes: jeans and a check shirt. In his hand he was holding a small metal box, presumably the day’s takings. He caught sight of Theres and Teresa as soon as he opened the door.
‘Hi girls, and what—’
He didn’t get any further before Theres smashed the hammer
into his temple. He staggered backwards a couple of steps into the shop, then went down full length on his back. Theres grabbed the door before it swung shut, and walked in. Teresa followed her. She had not yet begun to feel anything.
The heavy metal door closed behind them, and the room was in semi-darkness. Only the light from the shop windows filtered in through a doorway. Teresa found the light switch, and a couple of fluorescent tubes on the ceiling came on. The man was lying on the floor with his mouth open, one hand pressed to his temple. A small amount of blood was seeping through his fingers.
Theres gave the hammer to Teresa and said, ‘Make him dead.’
Teresa weighed the hammer in her hand and looked at the man. She tried a practice blow in the air. The man started to scream. Inarticulate noises at first, and then with words.
‘Take the money! There’s almost eight thousand! Take it and get out of here! I’ve never seen you, I don’t know who you are, my mother’s ill, she needs me, you can’t, please don’t do anything stupid, just take the money…’
Theres found a roll of packing tape and tore off a strip, which she wound twice around the man’s mouth. Teresa was surprised that he offered no resistance, but his hands were moving in an odd, jerky way. Presumably the blow to the head had sabotaged something to do with his bodily functions. The man snorted and snot ran out of his nose and down over the packing tape. It looked a bit like Hostel. That was probably where Theres had got the idea of the tape from.
Teresa took a step towards the man and his feet scrabbled on the floor as he tried to move backwards. She raised the hammer; asked herself how she felt. Then she held it out to Theres.
‘I can’t.’
Theres didn’t take it. ‘No. You have to do it.’
‘Why?’
‘You say you’re empty. You need to.’
Theres turned to face Teresa and looked her in the eyes. Teresa gasped. She stared into those dark blue voids as Theres’ voice flowed into her ears. ‘You make him dead. Then you take him. There will be a little bit of smoke. Red smoke. You take it. Then you’re not empty. Then you’ll be happy and you’ll want to do things again.’
Theres’ voice had taken on something of the same quality as Teresa’s; it was coming from a different place in her body, not from her mouth, and everything she said was true. When Teresa turned back to the man, he had managed to turn on his side and grab hold of something on the floor. A Stanley knife for opening boxes. He was holding it up with the blade pointing at Teresa as he tried to get to his feet. His eyes were staring insanely and snot kept spurting out of his nose.
Teresa gritted her teeth and raised the hammer. The man’s hand flew out and the blade sliced through her top, making a superficial cut on her stomach. The movement overbalanced the man, and he fell on the floor again. Theres stamped on his hand until he dropped the knife.
Teresa looked at the blood tricking down towards the waistband of her trousers, drew her index and middle fingers through it and stuck them in her mouth. It turned red inside, and the colour billowed up in her head until that too was red on the inside. Colour. She had colour. When she ran her tongue over her teeth, it felt as if they had been sharpened into points.
She quickly squatted down and slammed the hammer straight into the man’s forehead. There was an echoing crunch and a sound like a heavy foot stamping on a frozen puddle. The man’s body arched upwards and his hip brushed against Teresa’s hip before he collapsed and lay flat on his back again. His hands and feet were shaking, and the blood vessels in his eyes burst.
The smells. Teresa was aware of the smells. The sweat of fear from the man’s body, the iron smell of the blood and all around her a miasma of storeroom odours, floating through the air. Rotting bananas, fresh mushrooms, printer’s ink and stale beer from the container of cans for recycling. She recognised them all, she could identify them and tick them off. They melted together with the red, cascading colour inside her head and became one single experience, one single thought going around and around: I’m alive. I’m alive. I’m alive.
She hit the man on the temple, on the head. She smashed his teeth and she knocked out one eye. She hit his forehead as hard as she could several times until a hole opened up in his skull, and she was able to creep close to him, quivering with excitement, and watch the lone thin curl of smoke rise from deep inside. No, she didn’t see it, but she knew it was there, she could smell it; sense its presence.
She drew back her lips and growled softly as it flowed into her and became a part of her.
They took a walk through the closed shop. Teresa picked up a bar of chocolate, took a bite without opening it, then threw it away. She opened a packet of crisps and ate two, then poured the rest all over the contents of the freezer. She barked and bit off a piece of Falun sausage, chewed it to a soggy mess then spat it out over the tomatoes. Meanwhile Theres fetched two plastic bags and filled them with as many jars of baby food as she could carry.
They went back to the storeroom. An irregular pool of blood had flowed from the man’s head, and on the edge of the pool lay the hammer. Teresa picked it up, went over to the sink and rinsed it under the tap. She caught sight of herself in the mirror.
Her face was spattered with blood and a few small, more solid lumps of human tissue were stuck to her cheeks. Streaks of blood had trickled down over her forehead from her hair. She turned to Theres.
‘Theres. Do you think I’m beautiful now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Would you like to kiss me?’
‘No.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
The cut on her stomach had begun to hurt, but was no longer bleeding. However, both her top and the knees of her trousers were so blood-soaked that no one could have seen her without getting suspicious. She washed her face, then they waited until it was dark before they left.
The last thing they did was to take the notes from the cash box. Then they walked back to Theres’ apartment at normal speed. They didn’t meet a single person on the way.
That night Teresa dreamed about wolves.
First of all she was a human child, a helpless little creature cast out into the forest. Out of the darkness the pale eyes approached, creeping towards her between the trunks of the fir trees. Paws moving silently across the carpet of needles. The circle closing in. She wanted to run, but had not yet learned to walk.
Then rough tongues were licking her body all over. They were in the lair, and the wolves licked and licked her skin. As the tongues rasped over her stomach, it hurt so much that she cried out. Layer after layer of skin was peeled away, and the pain was unbearable. Then the fur began to appear beneath the skin. The pain diminished and the wolves left her.
A small amount of moonlight shone in through the opening of the lair, and she saw herself from the outside. She was lying on the earth floor, wet from the wolves’ saliva, trembling with cold because the sparse fur was not yet able to protect her.
The scene changed, and from the all-seeing perspective of the moon she saw a wolf running through the forest. A crippled or sick wolf with its fur in clumps, a pitiful creature terrified of the least sound. She was in the moon and in the wolf at the same time, she was drifting in the sky and crawling over the ground through the same pair of eyes.
Then time must have passed, because the ground was covered in snow. She was racing through the forest, and every leap was an expression of joy. There was strength in her muscles, and she saw that her front legs were covered in thick, smooth fur. She was following a trail of blood. Dark patches were visible in the snow at irregular intervals, and she was hunting a quarry that was already injured.
She dashed up a hill, the snow whirling up around her paws. When she reached the top she stopped and stood, her tongue hanging out. She was panting and her breath turned to smoke in the cold air. In front of her the pack was gathered around the injured deer whose hooves still moved beneath the mass of grey fur.
The leader of the pack turned to her. The deer
stopped moving, a blown eye reflecting the sky. As the whole pack turned like one single creature, focusing their attention on the lone wolf, she showed her submissiveness. She exposed her throat and lay down on her back, waving her paws; she was a wolf cub, lowest in rank of them all.
They moved closer. She whimpered like the cub she now was, displaying her helplessness, not knowing if they were coming to accept her into the pack or to rip her to shreds.
‘Theres? When you dream—what do you dream about?’
‘I don’t know how to do that.’
‘Don’t you dream?’
‘No. How do you do it?’
Teresa was lying on the mattress next to Theres’ bed, watching the dust bunnies quiver as she breathed out. She rolled onto her back. The T-shirt she had borrowed from Theres was so small that it stopped just above the wound on her stomach. She ran her hand over the scab that was beginning to form, and it hurt. She stroked it again. If it hadn’t been for the cut, she would have been able to fly. Tell herself she hadn’t done what she had done.
But the cut was there. Inflicted with a Stanley knife, the kind used to open boxes. By someone who worked in a shop. Who was now dead, beaten to death with a hammer. By Teresa. She stroked the cut and tried to make the act real. She had done it, she would never be able to get away from the fact that she had done it. So it might as well be real. Otherwise everything would be wasted.
‘How do you do it?’ Theres asked.
‘It just happens,’ said Teresa. ‘You can’t make it happen. It’s not something you can learn. I don’t think so, anyway.’
‘Tell me how you do it.’
‘You sleep. And pictures come into your head. You don’t have any control over it, it just comes. Last night I dreamed I was a wolf.’
‘That’s not possible.’