Theo chuckles. “You’re a very strange person, Zackell.”
“So I’ve been told.”
Theo slaps his hands on his desk and stands up cheerfully. “I like that! The media will like it, too! The coaching job is yours; let me worry about the general manager. I look forward to the two of us working together.”
He looks as though he’s considering attempting a high five. Zackell looks very much as though that isn’t going to happen. “My main ambition is that you and I will never have to ‘work together.’ I’m here for the hockey, not politics.”
Theo throws his arms out brightly. “I hate hockey; you can have that all to yourself!”
Zackell’s hands are firmly embedded in the pockets of the tracksuit. “For someone who hates hockey, you seem to be very involved in it.”
Theo’s eyes narrow contentedly. “That’s because when everyone else runs the same way, I go the other way, Zackell. That’s how I win.”
10
How Do You Tell Your Children?
The lights in the law firm are switched off, except for in one office. Kira Andersson is working while her colleague is lying across two armchairs looking for package holidays on her computer.
“A package holiday? You don’t even like taking time off,” Kira points out.
Her colleague stretches like a cat that’s been told off. “I don’t. But with this body, Kira, it would be a crime against humanity if it didn’t get shown off in a bikini at least once a year!”
Kira laughs. How wonderful that her colleague can still make her do that so easily. That she has a friend like her. “Tell me when you’ve booked so I can call and warn the country in question to keep all its husbands locked away.”
Her colleague nods seriously. “And sons. And dads, if I’ve drunk enough Fernet.”
Kira smiles. Then she blinks slowly and mutters, “Thanks for being here . . .”
Her colleague shrugs her shoulders. “The Wi-Fi at home is bad.”
Which is rubbish, of course. She’s still at work because she knows Kira doesn’t want to go home early tonight and sit in an empty house waiting for Peter. She doesn’t judge, she doesn’t go on about it, she just stays behind in the only office where the lights are still on.
* * *
How wonderful to have a friend like that.
* * *
“Never love a hockey club. It can never love you back.” Peter’s mother told him that. She was softer than his dad, although sometimes Peter thinks his dad might have been softer, too, before she got sick. “Never believe you’re anything special,” his dad said. Peter evidently didn’t listen to either of them.
He’s called everyone he knows. Everyone he’s played with. Asked for advice, asked for money, asked for players to save the club. Everyone understands, everyone sympathizes, but hockey is built on statistics and figures. No one gives you anything for nothing.
His phone rings: it’s his childhood friend Tails, the supermarket owner and Beartown Ice Hockey’s last real sponsor. Tails’s voice is trembling when he says, “This is so fucked, Peter. It’s so fucking fucked . . . it . . . they’ve posted something . . .”
“What?” Peter asks.
“I wanted to call so you can stop the kids seeing it. They’ve . . . the bastards, there’s a death notice in the local paper today. Your name.”
Peter says nothing. He understands the message. You can tell yourself as much as you like that “the criticism belongs to the job” and that you “shouldn’t let it bother you.” But we’re all only human. If your name appears in a death notice, it bothers you.
“Ignore them,” Tails advises, even though he knows it’s impossible.
It might be possible to save a hockey club in Beartown even if you don’t have everyone on your side. But not if everyone’s against you.
Peter hangs up. He ought to go home, but Maya’s camping with Ana and Leo is sleeping over at a friend’s. Peter and Kira will be alone in the house, and he knows what she’s going to say. She’s going to try to persuade him to give up.
* * *
So Peter turns the Volvo around and drives. Out of Beartown, off along the road, faster and faster.
* * *
On the wall of Richard Theo’s office hangs a picture of a stork. Theo has studied statistics and knows that the simplest way to influence people’s opinions is to demonstrate a connection: bad diet leads to illness, alcohol causes road accidents, poverty generates crime. He also knows that numbers can be massaged to suit a politician’s needs.
In a book by a British statistician, Theo learned, for instance, that there are statistics showing that the number of children born each year is much greater in towns where there are storks than in towns where there aren’t many storks. “What does this prove? That storks deliver babies!” the statistician wrote sarcastically. Of course that isn’t the case; there are more storks in towns with a lot of chimneys, because that’s where they build their nests. A lot of chimneys means a lot of houses, which means more people, which means more babies.
So Richard Theo has a picture of a stork on the wall of his office to provide him with a daily reminder that whatever is happening isn’t important. The important thing is how you explain it to people.
* * *
He’s interested in other animals, too, such as bears and bulls. Like all the other children around here, he grew up knowing that those were the names of the hockey clubs, but when he started to study economics abroad, he learned a different story. On Wall Street brokers call an optimistic market with rising share prices a “bull” market, and the slow, remorseless downward movement of the market in a recession is a “bear” market. The idea is that both are necessary, that the conflict between the two keeps the economy in balance.
Richard Theo has the same idea about the hockey clubs, but his goal is to alter the balance. Because political elections are simple: When everything is going well, when people are happy, the establishment wins. But when people are angry and arguing, people like Richard Theo win. Because for an outsider to win power requires a conflict. But if there’s no conflict? You have to create one. He dials the number of an old friend in London. “Is everyone agreed?” he asks.
“Yes, everyone’s on board. But you appreciate that the new owners require certain . . . political guarantees?” his London friend says.
“They’ll get what they want. Just make sure they show up here and look happy in the pictures for the local paper,” Theo says.
“And what do you want?”
“I just want to be their friend,” Theo insists.
His London friend laughs. “Yeah, right, as usual.”
“It’s a good deal for the new owners,” Richard promises.
His London friend agrees. “A very good deal, no doubt about it, and it couldn’t have happened without your specialist knowledge and political contacts. The new owners appreciate your help. But seriously: Why are you so interested in the factory?”
Theo’s voice is gentle. “Because the factory’s in Beartown. I need it because it’s going to give me a hockey club.”