The Family Clause Read online

  Once the coffee has been drunk, the son clears his throat. We need to talk about the father clause, he says.

  * * *

  A father who has become a grandfather is woken early by his mobile phone. It rings again and again and again, and eventually he answers. His son really wants to see him today, because next week he is on paternity leave and it’s now or never if they want to meet one on one. They agree to meet. The father dozes off. When he wakes, the son is creeping about inside the flat. He has opened the door and let himself in. The father can hear his irritated sighs from the kitchen. He’s grumpy. Like always. He was born grumpy and he’ll die grumpy. In the son’s presence, it’s impossible to do anything right. If you ask questions, you’re too nosy. If you don’t ask questions, he gets annoyed because you don’t care about whatever might be going on in his incredibly boring life. If you bring food, he accuses you of importing cockroaches. If you don’t bring food, he gets annoyed when you ask him to buy some basics. If you stay for a month, it stops him from being able to work. If you stay ten days, you don’t have time to see his children. He also manages to link everything that happens to historical events that no one but him cares about. They might be watching a football match on TV, sitting in a café in town or walking along Drottninggatan. Life is going on around them, and there is no reason to bring up the past, yet the son always finds a way. He says that the football team’s shirts remind him of the colour of the painting in the waiting room outside the father’s hospital room. The son weighs a coffee cup in his hand and asks the father whether he remembers the time he got into an argument with that fat old woman in McDonald’s. They are walking up the hill towards Tegnérlunden and the son says, apropos of nothing, do you remember the time you hit me in the kitchen at the old flat? The father doesn’t remember any hitting. There was never any hitting. What the father does remember is the son as a greasy, spotty teenager with a flabby gut. He hung out with the wrong friends and dressed like a gangster, he wore red bandannas on his head like a pirate, his jeans were baggy and flapped like hurricanes, he came home from the youth centre and looked at the father with disgust, all because the father was ill. And once, while they were standing in the kitchen, the father had gently asked how his studies were going and the son had said they were going well and the father had said that the most important thing in life is to do as much as possible, and the son said that the father certainly didn’t seem to do much himself, and then the father lost his temper. But he didn’t hit him, it was barely a push, and the son should actually be grateful that he didn’t put his back into it, because that would have left a much bigger mark.

  They walk over to the café. My treat, you pay, the father says, laughing at his funny joke. He lets the son treat him. It’s a sign that the son is grown up, a signal to the world that he has done a good enough job as a father. But the son isn’t happy. The son is never happy. The minute they sit down, the son starts totting up everything he has helped the father with over the past few years. He has booked the father’s trips, he has moved money between accounts, he has kept an eye on the father’s post. How hard is it to open a few envelopes? the father asks. I had a bank account that worked just fine. It was you who said I should move to online banking so that I got better rates. The son doesn’t reply. And I can book my trips myself, if you just show me how the internet works. You don’t have a computer, says the son. Or a bank card. Order me one, says the father. That costs money, says the son. It doesn’t matter, says the father. The most important thing is that we get on. I don’t want to argue with you.

  But the son isn’t ready to find a solution. He wants war. He accuses the father of never tidying up after himself. He claims that the father has stolen things from the office. He says that the father only ever gets in touch when he needs help with something, which isn’t true, since it’s the son who never calls the father. Is this a courtroom? the father asks. What am I accused of? Nothing, says the son. So why do you want to throw me out on the street? The son sighs. No one’s going to be thrown out on the street. You don’t even live here, so how could you be thrown out? Have you spoken to your mother about this? the father asks. What does she have to do with this? Talk to her before you do something you’ll regret, says the father. The only thing I regret is letting this go on for far too long. The father studies the son. He tries to understand where the son’s anger is coming from.

  I just want you and me to have a different kind of relationship, says the son. At first, I was the child and you were the adult. Then I became the adult and you were the child. Wouldn’t it be great if, at some point, before it’s too late, we could behave like adults with one another? They sit in silence. You aren’t an adult, says the father. You’ll never be an adult. Someone who changes nappies and lives off his wife’s money is a child. Why do you have to say things like that? asks the son. Don’t you realise it upsets me? It’s just the truth, says the father. Someone who gets upset by the truth isn’t an adult. I’ve taken care of myself all my life. I’ve never needed anyone else. No one. But haven’t there been people who’ve needed you? says the son. Which people? Your children, for example? My children! the father shouts, so loud that the man behind the counter looks up from the coffee machine. I’ve never let my children down. I’ve always been there for my children. I’ve supported them. I’ve . . . Do you think your first daughter would agree with you there? says the son. The father gets up and leaves the café. He crosses the road. Then he turns around and walks back, he looms over the son and whispers: you’ll regret this once I’m dead.

  * * *

  A sister who is a mother is making Sunday dinner for her family. Or, at least, the part of the family that still talks. Her mother and father can’t be in the same kitchen without starting to scream and wave forks in the air. She can’t invite her son to dinner, because he still lives with his father and rejects her calls whenever she tries to reach him. She doesn’t want to invite her boyfriend because he isn’t her boyfriend. Coming tonight are her father and her brother. She has made her vegetarian lasagne. For once, they’ll manage to spend time together without fighting. They’ll talk about everyday things, the election in Italy, the advantages of cycle paths, how their friends are planning to celebrate Christmas. They’ll talk about some TV programme everyone is talking about but which none of them has managed to watch yet. Her brother won’t see the dinner as an opportunity to confront the father for being absent when they were younger, and her father won’t reply by saying that the son is a disappointment for earning less than his classmates. She won’t sit in the middle, trying to mediate between a brother who acts like a teenager and a father who acts like an idiot. They’ll just spend time together. Like a perfectly normal family.

  She reaches for the bottle of wine. She stops herself. She fills her wine glass with extra strong strawberry cordial and glances at the clock. They should be here soon. Her phone buzzes. The brother asks whether he should bring anything. She replies. Then she checks her emails. She doesn’t need to do that. It’s Sunday evening. She isn’t expecting anything in particular from work. She has already sent off a few lines to her son, who never replies. She jumps with joy when she sees the son’s name as a sender. Then she reads the message and almost drops the phone.

  * * *

  A son who is a father has left the house to go to Sunday dinner at his sister’s. It’s incredible really. He was just picking her up from playschool, sending letters to the Disney Club saying that she should be that week’s hero because her father had disappeared, comforting her every Friday night when it transpired that some other child had won. Now she lives in a quiet turn-of-the-century flat in Vasastan and is responsible for four client accounts at a PR company with fifty employees. Just a few seconds ago, the sister was coming home from school with red eyes after someone had teased her, now she organises anti-bullying galas sponsored by socially aware companies to be broadcast on TV. He was just showing her how to make a witch’s brew with the dregs
from the mother’s drinks trolley: Campari, vodka, whisky, Bailey’s and Fernet, in a dark, viscous mix. Now she is telling her brother that he is welcome to bring wine, ‘ideally a bottle’. Of course he’ll bring wine. And it’s a few years since he drank it exclusively from boxes. He stood in the kitchen at home, deliberating between two bottles. Just to be sure the price range was right, he went onto the Systembolaget website. One bottle cost 170 kronor, the other seventy-nine. He chose the cheaper one. Taking the more expensive bottle would place unreasonable demands on an ordinary Sunday dinner. Want me to bring anything other than wine? he sends a message from the metro on the way into town. Mango for the salad! the sister replies. And spring onions! in the next message. He buys mango, spring onions and a carrier bag. He doesn’t really need a carrier bag, but he wants to show his sister and father that he is the type of person who buys one even though his purchases would probably fit in one of the small transparent ones that don’t cost a thing.

  * * *

  A sister who is a mother reads the words from her son over and over again. She sits down on the sofa. She lies down on the bed and pulls the bedspread over her head. She reminds herself of what her father used to say when she was young, when she was sad, when Elise Petrén or Francesca Åberg said something horrible about her birthmark in the changing room, or when Max Lutman teased her about her hairy forearms. The father would crouch down and whisper that they only said those things because they were jealous. They’ve realised that we’re not like them, you see. We’re double them. You might think you’re an ordinary person, but you’re not, the father whispered. You’ve got wings, you’re a queen, you’ve got shooting stars in your veins, your eyes are full moons. Is that true? she said, and the father nodded. For once, he was serious. We’re not like everyone else, he whispered. We’re space angels. Everything we are has always existed. Do you know what a person is made of? Oxygen. Hydrogen. Carbon. And a few other elements, like nitrogen and calcium. That’s all it takes to make a person. Before you were born, I wasn’t interested in having any more children. I had a daughter, I had a son, and though I’d had them with two different mothers, I thought it was enough. The world felt full. Then you came along and everything changed. You weren’t like anyone else. You were a masterpiece, the end point of humanity, I could spend hours looking at your elbows, the hollows of your knees, the concerned crease you got above one eyebrow that I recognised from my own reflection. And that birthmark isn’t ugly, it’s beautiful, it’s a sign that you’re the chosen one. Chosen for what? she asked. No one knows, said the father. Not yet. But we’re both greater than our context. We’re smarter than 99.9 per cent of the world’s population. We’re more beautiful, funnier, we’re more musical, we think quicker, run faster, sell better and therefore get higher commission, so high that people feel threatened by us, bosses get scared that we’ll take their jobs, that’s why they lie and say we have problems with authority and that we’re selling things for our own gain, that’s why they recommend that we’re given the boot, but it’s not true, it’s the bosses who have the problem because they can’t handle people who take the initiative and don’t show any visible weaknesses. Her father caught his breath. We’re just too smart, said the father. Too smart to work with normal people. Too smart to subject ourselves to their idiotic rules. What rules? she asked. All rules, he said. We’re made from a meteorite that became a tadpole that became a Triceratops that became a hat stand that became an orange tree that became your grandmother that became me that became you, and we’re never going to die.

  * * *

  A son who is a brother is standing down by the front door. The code has changed, and the old number pad has been replaced by a new digital metal box that asks for the surname of the person you’re visiting. He works his way through to the sister’s and the father’s and his surname. The screen tells him that she is being called, but hers isn’t the only name on the display, her ex-husband’s is there, too, the name of the man she hasn’t lived with in over ten years. Then he gets an error message. This number cannot be reached, the screen says. He calls the sister’s mobile. I’ll come down, she says. He waits a few minutes. Then she appears. Her face is red from crying. It’s been a rough day, she says, looking out at the traffic.

  They take the lift to the sixth floor, her front door is unlocked. She leaves it unlocked when she goes down to the laundry room. She once left it unlocked all weekend, with the keys on the inside, because she had two friends from Gothenburg who might need a place to stay. Close friends? he asked. I mean, I’ve met them a few times, she said, laughing at his shocked face. They’re really nice, she added with a smile. This is where we couldn’t be more different, he said.

  And it was true. They had the same parents, had grown up in the same flat, but they would never be able to understand this particular aspect of one another. She always laughed when she took him to house parties where everyone dumped their jackets in a pile on the bed; everyone but him, who stood on his tiptoes and coaxed his coat onto the curtain rail. What the hell are you doing? she asked. I’m hiding my coat, he said, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. Then he emptied everything out of the coat and filled the pockets of his jeans with his wallet, keys, headphones. She smiled when he gave her a portable hard drive and helped her to back up all her files after mentioning in passing that she kept everything – her photographs, work and diaries – on a computer she had never backed up. But how can you have a computer without a backup? he practically shouted. It works perfectly, she said with a laugh. One Sunday, there was a large black suitcase in her hallway. Is that yours? he asked, though he knew it wasn’t, she would never have bought such a cheap bag, and she would never have packed it so full. It’s a friend of a friend’s, she said. Which friend? he asked. Adrian’s friend, she said. The one I met in Cuba. What’s Adrian’s friend’s bag doing here? he asked. She told him about the dance tour, Adrian’s friend had been travelling around the country with the National Theatre; they had been paid Swedish wages, which meant that all of the dancers had bought a lot of stuff, and when he flew home he hadn’t been able to take this bag with him. So he asked me to bring it with me, she said. Next time I go to Cuba. They stood in the hallway, the suitcase between them. Are you serious? he asked. What? she said. You’ve opened it, though, haven’t you? It’s not my bag, she said. Are you crazy? What if there are drugs inside? Stop, she said. It’s full of clothes. He walked into her flat without taking off his shoes. He fetched the toolbox he had used to help her put together a bunk bed for her son and a TV stand she had never actually put a TV on. Oh, come on, she said. It’s not my bag, she said, over and over again. He pulled out a screwdriver, some pliers, a hammer that wasn’t quite a hammer, more one of those clubs used to beat meat. She left him to it. Ten minutes later, he had managed to break the lock. He shoved his hand into the case and started to go through it, layer by layer. How’s the sniffer dog getting on? she shouted from the kitchen. You found any coke? Hope so, because I could really do with some. He found sportswear. Trainers. Headphones. Two large bags of birdseed. But nothing illegal.

  His sister laughed when he gave up. You see, she said. People can be trusted. But he couldn’t drop it, and the night before she was due to leave for Cuba he called her again, he told her to go through the lining of the case and check there was nothing hidden inside the bags of birdseed. There’s nothing in the bags of birdseed, she said. Sure? he asked. Yes, she said. Now I need to pack. She packed and left. He could just see the customs officers taking her to one side, discovering that the birdseed was in fact something else entirely, marching her into a courtroom and sentencing her to death, she would be executed by firing squad, it would happen immediately, and she would use her last phone call to ring her son and say that she loved him. The son would reject the call, and then she would call her brother and say it was all his fault. But, in the end, she just had to pay slightly more for excess baggage. Adrian and his friend picked her up at the airport, th
e friend took his bag back, said thanks, and didn’t seem to care about the broken lock. Then things ended with Adrian and she came home.

  How did the sister turn out to be so well functioning? Maybe it was because she was so young when the father left. Maybe because she was built to survive this world. Maybe because the son who was a big brother became the father the father never was.

  The brother takes off his shoes and follows his sister into the kitchen. He’s first. Of course he is. The father probably won’t arrive for another hour. She has a chandelier made of upside-down wine glasses. The black magnetic board above the dining table reads: You owe yourself the love you so freely give to others and All progress occurs because people DARE to be DIFFERENT and Increase the peace. Her fridge is covered in magnets holding baby pictures of her son, the boy who hasn’t been part of their family for over a year now. Every time he sees the pictures, he wonders how it would feel to be separated from his children, how long he would survive, how much of it would be panic, how much would be liberation. She squats down to check on the lasagne. Do you want to talk about it? he asks. She shakes her head and hands him a wine glass. Can you at least tell me what happened? he says. Soon, she says. But let’s talk about something else first, I need to load up on good things before I get into all the bad.