He had been at a party at Matbaren, and he had a little too much to drink. He decided that he was in love with a woman who worked for some investment company with a stupid name.
Almost every time he got drunk, the night ended with him in bed with a woman. If he was lucky, she wasn’t a production assistant at TV4 or the ex-wife of a colleague. On this occasion, she was a complete stranger.
They got a taxi back to her villa out in Djursholm. She was divorced and her only child was on an exchange trip to the USA. He kissed the back of her neck as she switched the alarm off and let them in. An old golden retriever came padding through the rooms.
They both knew what they wanted, and didn’t talk much. He selected a bottle of wine from the large wine fridge, and remembers swaying as he tried to open it.
She got out some cheese and crackers which they never touched.
With an air of inevitability, he had followed her through the carpeted hallway towards the master bedroom.
She dimmed the wall lights and disappeared into the bathroom.
When she came back she was wearing a silver nightgown and kimono. She opened the drawer of the bedside table and handed him a condom.
He remembers that she wanted to be taken from behind, maybe because she didn’t want to look at his face. She got on all fours, with her pale backside uncovered, the nightgown pulled up, bunched around her waist, and her mid-length hair hanging over her cheeks.
The antique bed creaked and a framed embroidered angel wobbled on the wall.
They were both too tired, too drunk. She didn’t orgasm, didn’t even pretend to, just muttered that she needed to sleep when he was finished, sank onto her stomach and fell asleep with her legs wide apart.
He had gone back to the kitchen, helped himself to a glass of cognac, and leafed through the morning paper, which had just been delivered. The Foreign Minister had made some stupid comment about how there were extreme feminist forces that wanted to destroy the age-old relationship between men and women.
Rex had swept the paper onto the floor and left the house.
He had one thing in mind. He had walked straight down to Germaniaviken and followed the shore all the way to the Foreign Minister’s villa.
He was too drunk to care about any alarms or security cameras. Driven on by a very clear sense of justice, he clambered over the fence, walked right across the grass and up onto the deck. Anyone could have seen him there. The Foreign Minister’s wife could have been standing at the window, or a neighbour could have driven past. Rex didn’t care. One thought was running through his mind: he had to piss in the Foreign Minister’s floodlit swimming pool. It felt like the right thing to do at the time, and he smiled like a prize-fighter as his urine splashed into the turquoise water.
23
Rex ignores the taxi that’s waiting outside the TV4 building and starts walking instead. He needs space to breathe, needs to collect his thoughts.
A few months ago he would have calmed his nerves with a large glass of whisky, followed by another three.
Now he walks along beside the busy Liding?v?gen instead, and is trying to figure out what the cost of his behaviour might be when DJ calls.
‘Did you see me?’
‘Yes, really good,’ DJ says. ‘You looked almost hungover for real.’
‘Sylvia thought so too. She asked if I’d been drinking.’
‘Did she? I can come and swear that you only drank water yesterday … even if a fair bit of it was seawater.’
‘I don’t know … it’s just so ridiculous that I have to pretend to be an alcoholic so I don’t lose my job.’
‘But it can’t be a bad idea for you to take it a bit—’
‘Stop that. I don’t want to hear it,’ Rex interrupts.
‘I didn’t mean it in a bad way,’ DJ says quietly.
Rex sighs and looks through the railing at the entrance to the big sports stadium that was built for the 1912 Olympics.
‘Have you heard that the Foreign Minister is dead?’ he asks.
‘Of course.’
‘We had a complicated relationship,’ Rex says.
‘In what way?’
‘I didn’t like him,’ he replies, and walks through the stadium entrance and out onto the red track.
‘OK, but you shouldn’t talk about that just after his death,’ DJ says calmly.
‘It isn’t just that …’
David Jordan says nothing as Rex admits what he did. He says that he had a little too much to drink three weeks ago and just happened to urinate in the Foreign Minister’s swimming pool.
He concludes the confession by saying that he got all the garden gnomes and threw them into the pool as well.
Rex walks out onto the football field and stops at the centre circle.
The empty stands surround him. He remembers that some of the gnomes floated while others sank onto the bottom, surrounded by little air-bubbles.
‘OK,’ DJ says after a long silence. ‘Does anyone else know what you did?’
‘The security cameras.’
‘If there’s a scandal, the investors will pull out – you know that. You do realise that, don’t you?’
‘What should I do?’ Rex asks pathetically.
‘Go to the funeral,’ DJ says slowly. ‘I’ll make sure you get invited. Talk about it on social media, say you lost your best friend. Talk about him and his political achievements with the greatest respect.’
‘That’ll look bad if the security footage gets out,’ Rex says.
‘Yes, I know. But pre-empt it by getting in first and talking about your jokey relationship and the silly pranks you used to play on each other. Say that you sometimes went too far, but that was just what you were both like. Don’t admit to anything specific, because with any luck the recording has already been deleted.’
‘Thanks.’
‘What did you have against the Foreign Minister, anyway?’ DJ asks with interest.
‘He was always a slippery bastard, and a bully. I’m going to piss on his grave – one last prank.’
‘As long as no one films you,’ David Jordan laughs, and ends the conversation.
Sammy is sitting on the bed drying his hair with a towel when Rex walks into his hospital room.
‘Nice make-up, Dad,’ he says in a hoarse voice.
‘Oh, yeah,’ Rex says. ‘I came straight from the studio.’
He takes a step towards the bed. Chaotic images of the stomach pump and his own angst at the Foreign Minister’s death fight for space in his head.
He reminds himself the only option right now is to stay calm, not to be judgemental.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asks tentatively.
‘OK, I guess,’ Sammy replies. ‘My neck hurts. Like someone pushed a tube down my throat.’
‘I’ll make some soup when we get home,’ Rex says.
‘You just missed the doctor. Apparently I need to talk to a counsellor before I’m allowed to leave.’
‘Do you have an appointment?’
‘She’s coming at one o’clock.’
‘I have time to see DJ before then,’ Rex says when he realises that he has an AA meeting in half an hour. ‘But I’ll come straight back after that … we can get a taxi home.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Sammy, we need to talk.’
‘OK,’ his son says, clamming up instantly.
‘I don’t ever want to have to go through this again,’ Rex begins.
‘It can’t have been much fun,’ Sammy says, turning his head away.
‘No,’ Rex replies.
‘Dad’s a celebrity,’ Sammy says with a crooked smile. ‘Dad’s a superstar TV chef, and he doesn’t want a failure for a son, a faggot who wears make-up and …’
‘I don’t give a damn about that,’ Rex interrupts.
‘You don’t have to put up with me for long, just a few weeks,’ his son says.
‘I hope we can still have a reasonable time together – but you have to promise to try.’
Sammy raises his eyebrows.
‘What? How am I supposed to try? Is this about Nico?’
‘This isn’t some kind of moral debate,’ Rex explains. ‘I don’t have an opinion, I believe that love just happens between people.’
‘Who’s talking about love?’ Sammy mutters.
‘Sex, then.’
‘Did you love Mum?’ Sammy asks.
‘I don’t know. I was very immature,’ Rex replies honestly. ‘But now, in hindsight, I can see that she was the person I should have stayed with … I would have liked to have lived my life with the two of you.’