Safe as Houses Read online

  ‘Good girl. Have a little sleep.’ She strokes her daughter’s soft, dark hair tenderly. When Anouk coughs, she hears the phlegm rattle in her lungs.

  ‘Seems like all the kids have got asthmatic bronchitis these days,’ Kreuger growls.

  ‘It’s getting a lot more common.’

  ‘That’s because of the bloody pollution. We’re poisoning the world and our children are paying with their health.’

  Could Kreuger’s own son or daughter have the same illness? Before she has time to think, Lisa has asked him. Kreuger slowly turns towards her. For a moment she worries that she’s ruined the relaxed atmosphere, but Kreuger simply answers.

  ‘Yes, my son had bad asthma. Much worse than hers.’ His remark is accompanied by a surly glance at Anouk, as if it’s her fault.

  ‘Do you think it was because of the pollution?’ Lisa asks cautiously, more than aware that Kreuger had spoken in the past tense.

  ‘Yes, of course it was the pollution. We always gave our children healthy food, but we lived in the middle of a city. Every morning they had to cycle to school through heavy traffic and exhaust fumes. We should never have stayed in the city.’ Kreuger stares ahead, to a past that Lisa is unaware of, but that she is keen to learn more about.

  His breathing quickens and his eyes dart around restlessly.

  ‘They say that the temperature of the earth is rising because of the carbon-dioxide emissions in the air,’ she says to distract him. ‘CO2 is an insulator, so that fits. But it seems that there’s not as much CO2 emitted as we think. With everything that people have burned and produced in terms of exhaust fumes, the earth has only been warmed up very slightly. For Al Gore’s doomsday scenario to happen, we’d need to emit three times more CO2, maybe more.’

  As she talks, she keeps an eye on Kreuger. He doesn’t seem to be listening, but she continues all the same.

  ‘It’s debatable whether people have caused the greenhouse effect. Volcanic eruptions release CO2 into the air, and in the billions of years the earth has existed the temperature has always gone up and down.’

  ‘Really?’ Kreuger asks with a complete lack of interest.

  ‘Yes – they found that out by drilling into the Antarctic ice. The deeper you bore, the older the ice that you bring to the surface. They discovered from the composition of the ice that there is a link between the temperature and the CO2 concentration at the time. During the time of the dinosaurs, for example, CO2 levels were ten times higher than now, but it wasn’t ten times warmer. Actually it was the other way round: thousands of years after the temperature rose, the CO2 level went down.’

  Kreuger looks her up and down. ‘What a clever clogs you are,’ he sneers. Lisa mumbles that she just read it somewhere.

  Kreuger turns away with a snort of derision. ‘Women . . .’ he says. ‘Tell me something about your husband. Where is he and why did you break up?’

  It is clear he wants to know whether they are still in touch – and whether Mark might turn up unexpectedly. Lisa thinks quickly.

  ‘Mark and I got divorced because he was horribly jealous,’ Lisa says with a strange remoteness in her voice, as though talking to herself, not to a total stranger who couldn’t give a damn. ‘His jealousy was a kind of illness, and it drove me mad. At the beginning of the relationship I found it endearing, flattering even. But that changed when he began to spy on my every move.’

  For the first time Kreuger’s face expresses interest. ‘What did he do then?’

  ‘He checked up on me, called me the whole time to ask what I was doing, who I was with and what time I’d be home. At first I used to tease him about it, but one evening he was furious because I came home ten minutes later than I’d said I would. He was convinced I was hiding something.’

  ‘And were you?’

  ‘No, of course not. I loved my husband.’ And that’s still true – at least, the man he once was.

  Something flashes in Kreuger’s eyes. ‘All women cheat. They’re whores.’

  ‘I didn’t. I loved my husband – he was all I needed.’

  The left side of Kreuger’s mouth twitches: the beginning of a smile, which then collapses. ‘All women are whores,’ he repeats. ‘It’s in them – maybe they can’t even help it. It’s in their genes: flirting, challenging, seducing, lying, fucking other men.’

  Don’t react, don’t move a muscle, don’t contradict or agree. If she can’t figure out the best thing to say, she’s better off keeping silent.

  She casts a swift look in Kreuger’s direction. He is sitting on the arm of the sofa and cleaning the dirt from under his thumbnail with the knife.

  ‘Whores, the lot,’ he mutters.

  Then there’s a silence that hangs heavily in the room. There is something provocative and scornful in Kreuger’s expression, as though he is challenging her to continue the conversation while knowing that she doesn’t dare.

  ‘Are you married?’ she asks casually.

  For a moment she’s scared she has gone too far. But to her amazement he continues to pick at his thumbnail and shrugs.

  ‘I’m not divorced, so you could say I’m married,’ he says. ‘My wife is dead.’

  He checks for her reaction, and Lisa knows she should hold his gaze.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, as sincerely as she can manage.

  ‘I’m not,’ he says indifferently. ‘She was a whore. I had to kill her.’

  9

  The first thing she becomes conscious of is the sterile air she’s breathing. Around her she can smell cleaning products and a trace of alcohol. Then she realises that she has no idea where she is.

  It’s completely dark. A darkness so absolute that there isn’t even a hint of grey anywhere. Whatever she is lying on is soft and warm like a bed. It is a bed. Her own bed?

  She tries to picture her bedroom, and sees a space with a whitewashed wooden floor, freshly decorated with apple-green curtains and yellow bedding. The way the light falls, the smell, the things that complete the picture, are absent, telling her she’s not in that room.

  She wants to turn her head to try to see her surroundings but it’s difficult. Worse, it’s impossible. And why can’t she see anything? It can’t be that dark; even in the middle of the night you can usually make out something. Here she can’t even work out where the door is.

  Alarm washes over her. She tries to breathe evenly, but her growing fear is difficult to repress. When she opens her mouth to call out, her throat releases no sound.

  Fear shoots through her. Opening her eyes wide, she stares into the intense darkness and wonders where in God’s name she could be.

  A voice reaches her from far away. It doesn’t sound familiar and she can’t make out all the words, but it is the only purchase she has in the darkness spinning around her. A man’s voice, gentle and reassuring.

  All her senses focus on the voice. Someone must have turned on a light in the far distance, because behind her eyes there is a grey haze in which shadows are moving.

  ‘Where am I?’ she asks, but her mouth won’t move.

  The voice is speaking to her, but the words enter her mind as gibberish. She listens to the sounds that softly lap against her like waves. It is reassuring that someone is next to her. In any case she is not alone.

  Then she feels herself sinking away, more and more quickly, into a heavy, syrupy darkness, like a freefall into outer space.

  Time passes but she doesn’t know how much. Moments of inky darkness and a more diffuse world are separated from each other by a paper-thin haze. She often sleeps, if you could call it that, and when she floats to the surface she lies there, keeping vigil with her eyes shut. Her body remains motionless, but thoughts and images race through her mind.

  Something changes. From time to time there is a bright light near her eyes, though she still can’t see at all. She hears voices more often around her, and then she catches words that are familiar. She understands that they are talking about her and comes to the conclusion that sh
e is in hospital. At once the proof of this becomes apparent. The beeping of the machines around her, the routine movements when her body is unexpectedly picked up and rolled over.

  She is washed, and they speak to her in a friendly babble, the kind you use for the elderly and the infirm. Though she tries her hardest to understand what is being said, she picks up only fragments.

  ‘. . . slept well . . .’ ‘. . . have a look . . .’ ‘. . . going again . . .’

  In one way or another, she has ended up in hospital. She has no idea how or why, but that will come. She can still think and draw conclusions. Her memory might be temporarily absent, but there is nothing wrong with her thought processes.

  But she is clearly not well. If she tries to concentrate on her surroundings for any period of time, her spirit gives up and falls away into no-man’s-land, no matter how hard she resists.

  It would be easy just to float around in the soft, shadowy world around her. The darkness has withdrawn a little and is reluctantly making way for a little colour. Blue, a gentle blue, like the ocean on a sunny day. It is pleasant and relaxing here, but the calm repose of her existence is regularly interrupted by an unwelcome flash of light, like the lightning before a thunderclap. She cringes inside because she knows what comes next: a bright, all-consuming headache.

  But afterwards her head feels clearer and more tidy, as though there has been a great clear-out, creating space for the shards of memory that slowly rise to the surface.

  10

  Above the surface of the water, two shapes look down at her. She reaches out her hand but the rescuer’s grip on her wrist does not come.

  The voices talk on. The sound is distorted, but she can still understand. Not fragments but complete sentences, and the meaning is completely clear. She is in a coma. This is a shock, though no surprise. Whoever she is and whatever has happened, one thing is certain: she has to wake up. A person waking up gets up, pushes themselves up. She is not capable of it physically, but spiritually she can. Each time unconsciousness threatens to drag her back down, she resists with all her might. She focuses her inner eye upwards and strains as hard as she can, like a drowning man floating on his back, pushing his belly upwards.

  Waking up is a serious test of strength. It’s like being at the gym. Only she has never been so exhausted. Finally she has to give up and return to her gentle, heavy repose.

  It is dark around her. How long has she been away? She can’t allow herself to keep slipping back under water. That she has no control over her return isn’t good. She will have to focus on the surface above her head, break through like a swimmer gathering all her strength to try for a gold medal.

  Life is up there waiting for her, whatever kind of life it may be. It can’t have been that bad if she is so desperate to get back. She swims forward using all her willpower, but a cold undercurrent tugs at her. She just manages to stay afloat in the blue water and not sink down to the darker depths. The blue water offers hope, she realises intuitively. The more often she is dragged into the depths and the longer she stays there, the less chance she has of ever breaking through to the water’s surface.

  She is suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of loss and loneliness.

  ‘Frank . . .’ she whispers, but under water the sound of her voice dissolves as soon as she speaks the word. Frank?

  The only thing to do is to swim around and wait until somebody comes. People have sat by her bed – their voices sounded familiar, but they didn’t manage to pull her to the surface. Before she knew it, she was tumbling back down into the black depths, and when she came up again she was alone.

  Now she lies on her back and waits. It is taking a long time. Perhaps she should let herself sink into the deep darkness – it might be better than lying here trapped in a body upon which she cannot impose her will. She rejects the thought immediately: of course it’s better to be aware of herself and her environment. Intuitively she knows that every time she takes a freefall, she moves one step closer to death. It is essential to stimulate her mind, to remain active, so that she can wake up properly.

  A face suddenly flashes through her mind’s eye. A handsome, tanned male face, framed by messy dark hair. He smiles at her and she feels her heart go out to him. She loves this man, but as well as love she feels intense pain. She feels like crying, but her body doesn’t obey her command, so she buries the feeling of sorrow and tries to extract some more information from her mind.

  Just as she is about to remember something, she is dragged down again. Deep under the water she swims around, trying to find an exit route. But the inky darkness holds her prisoner.

  The next thing she becomes aware of is the squeaking of wheels that definitely need oiling. She is being moved; her bed is being pushed along. A young-sounding female voice is telling her that they are going for a scan.

  ‘You can hear us, can’t you? I think you can hear us,’ she says. ‘It feels like something has changed. Look, your eyelids are fluttering again! Are you trying to tell me something? Try again?’

  Her eyelids flutter; she blinks, opens her eyes wide and blinks several times more. Above her, there is a disappointed sigh. ‘Well, perhaps it’s asking too much. Let’s look at your brain first. Good luck, sweetheart.’

  She is rolled into a room where her body is lifted by several hands and pushed into something. The voices around her fall silent and a loud buzzing fills her head. Slowly she sinks away. When she becomes aware of her surroundings again, she is back in her own room.

  There is a visitor.

  ‘Where has she been?’ A stool is shifted next to her bed, and a male voice speaks with a nurse. It is a familiar voice, but she can’t attach a face or a name to it.

  ‘We’ve been on a little trip,’ the nurse says. ‘We did an MRI scan.’

  ‘But you’d already done one, hadn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but we have reason to believe she’s in the process of waking up, so the doctors wanted to see if there was increased brain activity.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘We haven’t had the results yet, sir.’

  Brisk footsteps on lino – the nurse is walking away. The stool’s legs scrape on the floor as it is moved closer to the bed.

  Warm lips gently brush her forehead. ‘Hello, darling.’

  It must be someone she knows really well. Perhaps her boyfriend or husband. Is she married? In any case, there are people worrying about her, which is a comforting thought.

  The man is sitting on the right-hand side of her bed; suddenly she hears another voice on the left. The light, young voice of a child, a young boy, followed by another, that of a girl. They are talking to each other, and now and then to her, but she is too tired to concentrate on the meaning of their words. They put earplugs in her ears and she hears music. She feels them holding her hands, the boy her right one and the girl her left, and she hears the word ‘squeeze’. She understands what she is supposed to do, but doesn’t have the strength to do it.

  ‘Mummy,’ the girl’s voice says tremulously. ‘Mummy, can you hear me?’

  Mummy? So she’s a mother and she has a daughter. And a son too. Oh God, she can’t remember any of this. What is she going to do when she wakes up? And what if she never wakes up and has to float around in this void for ever?

  ‘If you can hear me, squeeze my hand, OK? If I feel anything at all, it’ll be enough.’

  ‘Yes!’ she screams at her daughter. ‘I can hear you! I can hear you!’

  The girl takes her hand and intertwines their fingers.

  She squeezes as hard as she can, enough to give her daughter a bruise, surely. She waits for her reaction.

  ‘Senta?’ The male voice sounds tense.

  Her entire body is frozen in shock, completely rigid.

  Senta.

  At the sound of her name, she is suddenly allowed a glimpse into her memory. Something clicks inside her head, and her brain whirrs into motion. It produces a slow stream of information that she tries to piece together, join
ing the parts like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. She is called Senta, she is forty-three, married to Frank, the mother of three children. This morning, if it is in fact the same day, she left home early to get to Oss; she is a journalist and was making her way home from there. One at a time, the details of that morning come back to her, and she feels a warm wave of relief. If her memory is coming back, her body will start to work again too.

  She tries to see what else she can remember, because she’s now sure that something must have happened on the way home. The first thing that occurs to her is the mist. That treacherous, fast-rising mist that suddenly floated up around the car and obscured her view of the road. Did she have an accident? She can’t remember; there are no more images. The last thing she can remember is attempting to read the signs at a crossroads. As she thinks back, she gets a flash of herself cursing and swearing from pothole to pothole on a barely navigable road.

  Think again – it’ll come back, she tells herself. If you try hard enough.

  But nothing else comes. The mist, the crossroads and the bumpy road – this is all her memory will give up.

  She turns to her family then, the names of her children. What kind of a mother is she, if she can’t remember her children’s names?

  The girl’s voice has released a flood of emotion that she can translate only as motherly love. Even if she cannot remember her daughter, the sound of her voice is enough to trouble her heart. Her lovely, unconfident, rebellious, adolescent daughter.

  Denise.

  Out of nowhere and without any effort, her memory has given her back her children: Denise, Jelmer and Niels.

  Meanwhile she finds herself overwhelmed by an immense loneliness, a howling need to return to the world in which she belongs.

  Senta looks up desperately at the surface, suspended like a tough membrane above her head. A whole life is waiting for her, a rich life full of promise. She has to wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up.

  11