Anders
When Anders was at school and they asked him what would he be when he grew up, he always said that he would be an accountant like his father and grandfather. He would go to work in the big family firm with its impressive office in Stockholm. Almkvist’s was one of the oldest companies in Sweden, he would tell you proudly.
Anders was a very happy child with blond, floppy hair in his eyes. He loved music from an early age and could play the piano creditably at the age of five. He wanted a guitar when he was older, and learned to play without any instruction. You could hear him playing in his room night after night after he’d finished his homework; then their housekeeper, Fru Karlsson, introduced him to the nyckelharpa, the traditional Swedish keyed fiddle. It had belonged to her grandfather, and as she had learned how to play from him so she now showed Anders. She taught him some traditional Swedish songs to play on it, and he fell in love with its ethereal sound.
He lived with his parents, Patrik and Gunilla Almkvist, Fru Karlsson and their dog, Riva, in a beautiful apartment overlooking Djurg?rdskanalen. He told people that his was the best school in Sweden, and that Riva was the best dog in the world. To praise Papa’s office was only just another part of the contented world he lived in. Two of his cousins, Klara and Mats, had gone to work in the family firm already, gaining office experience as they did their accountancy studies. Mats was a bit self-important but Klara was very down to earth and already knew the business inside out. They knew that Anders, as the heir and successor, would leave his piano and his nyckelharpa behind and go away to university to be groomed for the job that would one day be his. Meanwhile, they would take him out for coffee and tell him stories of the clients they met.
All kinds of well-known personalities from big business, sports and entertainment filed through the big arched doors of the office. There were meetings in the boardroom, there were discreet lunches in the private dining rooms of restaurants. Everyone in the office dressed very well; Mats wore designer suits and immaculate shirts, while Klara always managed to look elegant. Although she wore understated, sober office clothes she always looked as though she was ready to step on to a catwalk. Efficiency, style and discretion were the watchwords at Almkvist’s. Mats and Klara looked and sounded the part. Anders wondered whether he would ever feel comfortable in this world.
It was the style aspect Anders found the most challenging. He hardly noticed what other people wore, and always liked to dress comfortably himself. He could not begin to understand the importance of handmade shoes, precision Swiss watches and pure silk ties, and they certainly didn’t figure in the world of folk music to which he was most drawn.
His mother laughed at him affectionately.
‘Well-cut clothes make you look much more handsome, Anders. The girls will admire you if you dress well.’
‘They won’t notice clothes. Either they will like me or they won’t like me.’ He was fifteen, awkward, unsure.
‘So wrong, so very wrong. They’ll love you but first they have to look at you. It’s the first impression that counts. Believe me, I know.’ Gunilla Almkvist always looked elegant. She worked for a TV station where they set a high value on style. She never left the house before she was properly prepared for what the day would bring. She walked the two kilometres to work wearing her trainers; her elegant high-heeled shoes were kept in her office on the bottom shelf – seven pairs of them.
She made every effort to interest Anders in dressing more smartly, trying to build an enthusiasm where none existed. By the time he was eighteen she had stopped cajoling.
‘It’s not a joke any more, Anders. If you were in the army you’d have to wear a uniform. If you were going to be in the Diplomatic Service there would be rules about what to wear. You are going to work in Almkvist and Almkvist Accountants. There are rules. There are expectations.’
‘I’m going to study accountancy, isn’t that what it’s about?’
‘It’s what some of it is about. But it’s also about respecting the family traditions, about fitting in.’ There was something different, something odd in her tone this time.
He looked up. ‘None of that’s important, surely? It’s not what life is about.’
‘If you remember nothing else I’ve ever told you, just remember this. I agree that in the great scheme of things it is not important, but it is one small thing you can do to make life easier. That’s all. Just remember I told you that.’
Why was she sounding so strange?
‘You’re always going on about clothes and style. I don’t have to remember it, you keep telling me.’ He smiled at her, willing everything to be normal.
Everything was not normal.
‘I won’t be here to tell you,’ she said, her voice sounding as though her throat was constricted. ‘That’s why it’s important you listen now. I am going away. I am leaving your father. You will be going to university this autumn. This is the time for change.’
‘Does he know you are going?’ Anders’ voice was a whisper.
‘Yes. He knew that I would wait until you had finished school. I am going to London. I have a job there, and that’s where I will set up home.’
‘But won’t you be lonely there?’
‘No, Anders. I have been very lonely here. Your father and I have grown apart over a long time. He is married to the company. He will hardly miss me.’
‘But . . . I will miss you! This can’t be true! How did I not see anything or know about all this?’
‘Because we were all discreet. There was no need for you to know anything until now.’
‘And do you have somebody else in London?’ He knew he sounded like a seven-year-old.
‘Yes, I have a warm, kind, funny man called William. We laugh a lot together. I hope as the years go on you will get to know him and to like him. But for your father’s sake, just remember what I said about smartening yourself up. It will make your whole life much simpler.’
He turned his head away so that she would not see his distress. His mother was going off to London with a man called William who made her laugh. And what was she talking about as she left? Clothes. Bloody clothes. He felt his world had turned sideways and everything had slipped out of focus.
His mother and father hadn’t grown apart. They had had a dinner party last Friday. Papa had raised a glass to her across the table. ‘To my beautiful wife,’ he had said. And all the time he knew she was going to leave with this William.
It couldn’t be true, could it?
His mother stood there, afraid to touch him in case he shrugged her off, shook her away. ‘I love you, Anders. You may find that hard to believe, but I do. And your father does too. Very much. He doesn’t show it but it’s there; great pride and great love.’
‘They are different things, pride and love,’ Anders said. ‘Was he proud of you too, or did he love you?’ Anders looked at her properly for the first time.
‘He was proud that I kept my side of the bargain. I ran the house well; I was a satisfactory escort to him at all those interminable dinners; I was a good hostess. I gave him a son. I think he was pleased with me, yes.’
‘But love?’
‘I don’t know, Anders. I don’t think he ever loved anything except his firm and you.’
‘He never sounds as if he loves me. He is always so distant.’
‘That’s his way. He will always be like that. But I have been there for all of your life and he does love you. He just can’t express it.’
‘If he had expressed it for you, would you have stayed?’
‘That’s not a real question. It’s like wishing that a square was a circle,’ she said. And because he believed her, Anders held his hands out to her and she sobbed in his arms for a long time.
It all moved very swiftly after that.
Gunilla Almkvist packed her clothes, as Fru Karlsson sniffed in disapproval, but left all her jewellery behind. A cover story was devised. She had been offered this post in London working for a satellite broadcasting station. It would be criminal to let the opportunity pass. Anders was going off to university; her husband was fully supportive of the move. That way there would be no accusations about a runaway wife, a failed marriage. None of the oxygen of gossip, which would be so relished and yet so out of place at Almkvist’s.
Patrik Almkvist seemed courteous and grateful. He never discussed the matter with his only child. He looked pleased that Anders had had his hair properly cut and that he’d been measured for a good suit.
He spent more and more time at the office.
The night before Anders’ mother left, the three of them went out to dinner together. Patrik raised his glass to his wife. ‘May you find all you are looking for in London,’ he said.
Anders stared at them in disbelief. Twenty years of life together, two decades of hope and dreams ending, and his parents were still acting out a role. Was this what everyone did? He had a feeling at that moment that he would never fall in love. It was all for the poets and the love songs and the dreamers. It wasn’t what people did in real life.
Next day, he set off for Gothenburg and university. His new life had begun.
He had only been there a week when he met Erika, a textile and design student. She came straight over to him at a party and asked him to dance.
Later, he asked her why she had approached him that night.
‘You looked smart, that’s all. Not scruffy,’ she said.
Anders was very disappointed. ‘Does that sort of thing matter?’ he asked.
‘It matters that you care enough about yourself and about the people you meet to present yourself well. That’s all. I’m tired of scruffy people,’ she said.
They were an item from then on, it seemed. Erika loved to cook but only when she wanted to and what she wanted to. But she loved to have people to her apartment, and when she found out that Anders could play the nyckelharpa she was appalled that he hadn’t brought it with him to university. So the very next time he went home she insisted that he bring it back with him. And then she set about organising jam sessions at her place, and she would make the most delicious suppers.
Erika was small and funny and thought that women’s rights and fashion were not incompatible. She loved to dress up for any occasion, and astonished Anders when she was the most attractive and stylish woman in the room. They made each other laugh, and quite soon became inseparable.
It was just before Easter time that she told him she would never marry him because she thought marriage was a kind of enslavement, but she would love him all of her life. She said she needed to explain this to him at once lest there be any grey areas.
Anders was startled. He hadn’t asked her to marry him. But it all looked good, so he went along with it.
Erika asked him home to meet her parents.
Her father ran a tiny restaurant; her mother was a taxi driver. They welcomed Anders warmly, and he envied the kind of family life they all had. Her sister and brother, twins aged twelve, joined in everything and argued cheerfully with their parents about every subject from pocket money to breast implants, from God to the royal family – subjects that had never been discussed in the Almkvist household. The twins asked Erika when would she be going to meet Anders’ family. Before he could answer, Erika said quickly that there was no hurry. She was an acquired taste, she explained. It would take longer for people to welcome her in.
‘What’s an acquired taste?’ her brother asked.
‘Look it up,’ Erika teased.
Later, Anders said, ‘I would be happy for you to come and stay at my father’s house.’
‘No way. I don’t want to give the man a heart attack. But I might go with you and stay at your mother’s in London, though.’
‘I’m not sure if that would be a good idea . . .’
‘You just don’t want to meet William and think of him sleeping with your mother, that’s all.’
‘Not true,’ he said and then, because he couldn’t keep up the lie, ‘Well, I suppose it’s a little true.’
‘Let’s see if we can get to London. I’ll try and find a project, and we can improve our English and see London and check out your new stepfather at the same time.’
It was April when they finally made the visit to London. The daffodils were out in all the parks and gardens and everything seemed alive and sparkling. Gunilla and William were living in an elegant house in a beautiful square quite close to the Imperial War Museum; from there, it was only a few minutes’ walk to the River Thames and all the history and pageantry London was famous for. It was the first time they had seen the city and all the richness and bustle. The crowds and the noise were daunting at first, but they dived in with enthusiasm, determined to make the most of every moment.
Gunilla was relaxed and delighted to see them. If she had any doubts about Erika’s suitability as the partner of the next head of Almkvist’s, she did not even hint at them. William was very welcoming and took three days off work from his television production company to show the young visitors the real London. The first stop was the London Eye, from where they could see for miles in every direction. He had looked up a few of the folk-music clubs in the city so they could take off on their own for an evening if they wanted to. To Anders’ delight, William had even found out that there would be nyckelharpa playing at a Scandi session in a pub not far away in Bermondsey.
Anders found that it was easier to talk to his mother than it had ever been. No longer was she complaining about how he looked. In fact, she was full of admiration.
‘Erika is just delightful,’ she told Anders. ‘Have you taken her to meet your father yet?’
‘Not yet. You know . . .’
If his mother did know, she didn’t say so.
‘Don’t leave it too long. Take Erika to meet him soon. She’s lovely.’
‘But you know how snobby he is, how much he cares about what people do, and are. You’ve forgotten what he’s like. She stands up for herself. She hates big business. She can’t bear the kind of people he deals with all day.’
‘She will be much too polite to let any of that show.’
Anders wished he could believe her.
Gunilla wanted to know about the office. Did Anders go in there much when he went home?
‘I haven’t been home much really,’ he admitted.
‘You should go and keep an eye on your territory, your inheritance,’ she said. ‘Your father would like that.’
‘He never asks me or suggests it.’
‘You never offer, you never visit,’ she answered.
When they got back to Sweden, Anders telephoned his father. The conversation was formal: it was as if Patrik Almkvist was talking to a casual acquaintance. In as far as Anders could understand, his father sounded pleased that he was coming home for the summer and hoped to work in the office.
‘Somewhere that I can’t do too much damage,’ Anders suggested.
‘Everyone will go out of their way to help you,’ his father promised.
And so it was. Anders noticed, with some embarrassment, that people in the firm did go out of their way to help and encourage him. They spoke to him with a respect that was quite disproportionate for a student. He was definitely the young prince-in-waiting. No one wanted to cross him. He was the future.
Even his two cousins, Mats and Klara, were anxious to show him how much they were pulling their weight. They kept giving him an update on all they had done so far and how well they were handling their own areas. They tried hard to understand what interested young Anders. He didn’t seem to want expensive meals in top restaurants; he wasn’t concerned with business gossip; he didn’t even want to know of rivals’ failures.
He was a mystery.