Page 77 of The Second Chance Bus Stop
There is silence, then a rustling and a croak.
‘Thank you. Yes, I do believe I’ll be coming to sort it out.’
‘Excellent news, excellent. Well, good day, then,’ the manager says and hangs up to write his last note as the Rent-A-Safe manager—about the collection of the safe’s contents and payment within a fortnight. Then, he can begin his retirement. With an empty desk.
Even without the satisfaction of having lectured a young person on his final day, the manager leaves the facility, happy to be headed home. His wife is cooking beef Wallenbergare.
Blade
London
I don’t think I can read the letters Zara found while sitting next to Mum, so I go and sit outside the hospital. They are dated, and I have to read it twice to make sense of it:2016.Years after Mum and Sven’s missed love story.
Sven,
I am so sorry that I didn’t find you before it was too late. Life feels so endlessly long doesn’t it? Like one long slog. Drain the pasta, wipe your shoes off, don’t forget to pack lunchboxes.
We talked about dying once. As we walked through Brompton Cemetery and read the inscriptions on the tombstones. Couples’ names written next to one another and sometimes whole families: five, six, seven names in a vertical row. It never made me sad, reading their names, it made me feel like more life than death existed. That there were so many people that had lived. That life was somehow more powerful than death. Giving off the impression that it could win.
‘I don’t know where I’d want to go once I’m gone,’ I said.
‘Ashes are less trouble, less environmentally taxing. I’d like to not be a bother.’
Which made perfect sense. You never wanted to be a bother.
‘But where? Ashes can go anywhere.’ I thought about ashes then.
‘I guess everyone likes a field. Some people don’t like the ocean. Too windy, too salty, too crowded, can’t swim. But do you ever hear someone say, “I don’t like an open green space”? No. I wouldn’t think so.’
Then you laughed, and we sat down and ate our sandwiches.
I wonder if you are one with a Swedish rapeseed field now, glowing yellow and bright.
I hope that you are. That you didn’t feel you were a bother; even at the end, you would have hated that. That you found a field you liked and could be at peace in. I hope for that and so much more for you, my Sven.
I fold it up again, as if I’ve read something secret. Mum looked for Sven in 2016 and found him. I can’t believe I never found them—the answer was always within the walls of our house. She’s written an endless stream of letters but never sent them. Folded neatly into blank envelopes, no stamps. All this time she’s known that he was dead. That it was too late.
Sophia
Svedala
My heart beats an extra beat, and I break a sweat when I see his name pop up on the screen. Then I see that it’s only the rental details for the camper-van.It’s obviously paid, you just return to any Sixt location, hope you’re doing okay,he writes underneath. I read it fifteen times as if there ought to be some hidden meaning in there. Then I read it backwards but still can’t find anything more.
‘I hope you had a good trip,’ the man at the desk says as I hand the keys over and he prints the invoice.
‘It was good until Markaryd, thank you,’ I reply, and I don’t even care about the look I get. This man, with brown hair and blue eyes is a blanket flower(Gaillardia aristata).He is a common feature on our streets and I’ll forget him when he’s out of sight.
‘There you go—your invoice.’
‘Great,’ I say.
Once I finish the bus journey from the car rental office and finally get off at Svedala station I hesitate. It’s empty apartfrom a stream of teenagers exiting the youth club and a couple of cars in the supermarket car park. I have three options now: my house, Lina’s house or the shop. I’m not sure I want to talk about what happened. Kept inside me, I can pretend it’s not doing any harm, that it isn’t as big as it feels.
I go and settle Cornflakes in my flat, and he goes straight to sleep, not realising I need him for company. The journey has exhausted him, and I sit on the floor and stroke him gently before I get up and slip my feet into my trainers and head out to the store, picking up the same bottle of wine I bought last time I was here. Turns out I can’t stand the loneliness after all. I take the Welcome Home notes I left myself and toss them in the paper bin.
It’s just before seven o’clock when I knock on Lina’s door. The first thing that’s different is that it takes her almost five minutes to make it to the door. When she does open it, she looks surprised and flustered.
‘I have wine,’ I say. ‘It goes well with vegetables and Sophia.’
