The Journey to the End of the World (Joel Gustafson Stories) Read online

  After dinner, Samuel went to his room. He switched on the radio and lay down on top of his bed. As he had closed the door of his room, Joel was forced to peep in through the keyhole. He could see that Samuel was gazing at the only photo of Jenny he still possessed.

  Joel went to his room and also lay down on his bed. Grown-up people who had important things to think about often seemed to lie down on their beds to do so. As Joel was almost grown-up himself, he thought he’d better join them. But he was too restless. He got up again and went to look out of the window. It was still light out there. He tried to imagine the house where Mummy Jenny lived. Then it dawned on him that he actually possessed a map of Stockholm. He’d found it in a rubbish bin at the railway station a few years ago. The only question was: where had he put it? He started searching. And finally found it right at the back of his wardrobe. He took it to the kitchen and spread it out on the table. Samuel’s door was still closed. Joel could hear music playing on the radio. He bent down and took another look through the keyhole. Samuel was still holding the photograph of Jenny. But now he was staring up at the ceiling. Joel went back to the kitchen and pored over the map of Stockholm, trying to remember what Samuel had said. Mummy Jenny lived in a street called Östgötagatan. And worked in a grocer’s shop in Medborgarplatsen.

  Joel started running his finger over the map. He found Medborgarplatsen first. His heart started beating more quickly. Mummy Jenny seemed to have become more real, now that he had found the place where she worked. He kept on searching.

  He had just managed to trace Östgötagatan when the door opened and Samuel came into the kitchen to join him. Joel gave a start, as if he’d been found out doing something that wasn’t allowed. Maybe Samuel wouldn’t want him to pin down Mummy Jenny’s address? But Samuel just came to stand by his side.

  ‘I didn’t know you had a map of Stockholm,’ he said in surprise.

  ‘I found it in a rubbish bin,’ Joel told him. ‘I thought I’d better see if she – Elinor, that is – was telling the truth.’

  ‘She didn’t use to tell lies,’ said Samuel. ‘Not all that often, at least.’

  Joel pointed out Medborgarplatsen. And then Östgötagatan. Samuel went back to his room to fetch his glasses. Then he pored over the map and nodded.

  ‘She doesn’t have far to go, then,’ he said. ‘From Östgötagatan where she lives, to Medborgarplatsen where she works.’

  It suddenly occurred to Joel that there was something he had to say. Something he couldn’t overlook.

  ‘Can’t we go and visit her?’ he asked. ‘Now that we know where she lives.’

  Samuel sat down at the table. Looked hard at Joel.

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘She might be glad to see us,’ said Joel. ‘After all these years. She might want to know what her son looks like. Now that he’s fifteen years old and has got a good school Report. In geography, at least.’

  Samuel looked doubtful.

  ‘At least we can go there and take a look at her,’ said Joel. ‘Peer in through the window of the shop where she works. She probably won’t be able to recognise me. And you can wear dark glasses.’

  Samuel burst out laughing. That was a surprise. It was always a surprise. Samuel didn’t often laugh. He often smiled. But laugh? Joel could hardly remember the last time it had happened.

  ‘You’re right, of course,’ said Samuel. ‘As soon as you’ve left school, we’ll go and look for her.’

  Joel wondered if he could believe his ears. Samuel realised that his son was confused.

  ‘We’ll go as soon as you finish school,’ he said. ‘I’ll apply for a few days’ holiday right away.’

  ‘Should we write to her and tell her we’re going to visit her?’ Joel wondered.

  Samuel thought for a moment before answering. Then he shook his head.

  ‘She didn’t tell us when she left. So why should we tell her that we’re going to pay her a visit?’

  Joel had another question.

  ‘She probably won’t recognise us. But the question is: will you recognise her? She might look quite different.’

  ‘I’ll recognise her all right,’ said Samuel confidently. ‘No matter how much she’s changed.’

  That evening, when Samuel had gone to bed, Joel got up again. He hadn’t got undressed. He picked up his shoes and his jacket, and tiptoed out. He knew which steps to avoid, because they creaked.

  It was still light when he left the house. He wheeled his bike out of the gate, then got on and started pedalling for all he was worth. He raced down to the bridge and when he eventually pulled up he was sweaty and out of breath.

  He’d arrived at Gertrud’s house. Gertrud didn’t have a nose, and lived in a strange house in an overgrown garden on the other side of the river. Joel felt that he really had to tell her about what had happened. Gertrud was his friend. He’d already told her about Mummy Jenny who’d gone away when he was very small.

  Gertrud had once undergone an operation that went wrong, and as a result she lost her nose. She didn’t have many friends. Joel was one of the few.

  As he leaned his bicycle against her ramshackle fence, she came out to greet him. She’d seen him coming, through the kitchen window.

  ‘Long time no see,’ she said.

  ‘There’s so much to do for school,’ Joel said. ‘Lots of homework.’

  But that wasn’t true. And they both knew it. Joel sometimes thought it was awkward, visiting somebody who didn’t have a nose, and Gertrud knew that was what he was thinking.

  But sometimes Joel felt he simply had to see her. Sometimes Gertrud was the only person he could talk to.

  Like now, for instance. When a mum called Jenny suddenly appears out of nowhere, having been missing for so long that he can’t remember what it’s like to have her around.

  Joel went with Gertrud into her kitchen, which was chaotic and nothing like a normal kitchen. That’s the way Gertrud was. She did whatever she fancied with her furniture and fittings, made her own clothes, and paid no attention to what other people said or thought.

  Joel didn’t want to be seen with her in public, but it was all right to meet her here, late in the evening, in her kitchen. Besides, she gave him an opportunity to practise for the future. He’d read that when a boy became a man, the thing to do was to have secret meetings with women.

  ‘We’re going to Stockholm,’ he said. ‘Samuel and me. We’re going to meet her. Obviously, I wonder how she’s going to react.’

  Gertrud thought that over, while she fitted a new handkerchief into the hole where her nose used to be.

  ‘I’m sure she’ll be pleased,’ she said eventually. ‘She’s bound to be.’

  But later, when Joel was cycling back home, it struck him that Gertrud hadn’t sounded really convincing.

  Seeds of worry had been sown in his stomach.

  What if Mummy Jenny didn’t want to see him or Samuel? What if she was furious about Elinor having written that letter telling where she lived and worked?

  It was dark in the kitchen when Joel got home. The door to Samuel’s room was closed. But he wasn’t snoring. He was probably still awake, thinking about the letter.

  Joel went to bed. But he found it hard to go to sleep. He could picture himself and Samuel walking down a street in Stockholm.

  Samuel still hadn’t started snoring.

  We’re both lying awake, Joel thought. In our respective beds.

  But we’re thinking about the same thing.

  A mum who’s suddenly come back.

  2

  When Joel raised the roller blind he found that it had been snowing during the night.

  The ground was totally white.

  He stared out of the window, scarcely able to believe his eyes.

  It was the beginning of June. Today was his last day at school. At the leaving ceremony they would sing about sunshine and joy and ‘All things bright and beautiful’. And the ground was covered in snow.

  A thought
struck him. One he’d never had before. Perhaps it was the snow, which could sometimes fall in June, that had driven Mummy Jenny away? Perhaps she simply hadn’t been able to stand it any more? All that cold and darkness and snow that wouldn’t go away, despite the fact that it was summer already?

  Joel shook his head in annoyance. It was a big day. His last day at school. And there was snow on the ground.

  He got dressed and went to the kitchen. Samuel had already drunk his coffee. He’d also got shaved. Joel looked at him in surprise. Samuel hardly ever shaved in the middle of the week. Only if he had an appointment with the doctor, or had been summoned to the logging company’s office for some reason.

  Not only that, he had shaved himself thoroughly. Joel was often irritated by the careless way his father usually shaved. There was always some stubble left under his chin.

  ‘It snowed last night,’ said Samuel with a smile. ‘You never know what the weather’s going to do in these parts.’

  ‘But what you do know is that you shouldn’t live here,’ said Joel, making no attempt to disguise his annoyance.

  ‘I’ve taken the day off,’ said Samuel.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘So that I can go to the school-leaving ceremony.’

  Joel was buttering one of the three sandwiches he ate every morning. He looked at Samuel in astonishment. Had he misheard?

  ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s a big day,’ said Samuel. ‘Your last day at school. I think I ought to be there, don’t you?’

  Samuel had never attended an end-of-term ceremony before. In the early years Joel had found it a problem. Being the only one in the class who didn’t have at least one parent present for the occasion. Then he’d got used to it, and didn’t bother any more.

  Joel tried to assess quickly what the implications were. Was it a good or a bad thing? He decided it was good, because Samuel had shaved properly for once. He actually felt pleased. Ever since that letter had come from Elinor, something had changed. It wasn’t just that they would sit in the evening and talk about Mummy Jenny and the trip they were going to make in only a few more days’ time. But Samuel knew that Joel wasn’t thinking about anything else. And Joel knew that the same applied to Samuel.

  ‘You shouldn’t arrive before ten o’clock. We shall be rehearsing until then. And tidying up the classroom.’

  He ought really to have picked some flowers the previous evening, but he hadn’t got round to it. Two cars had crashed at the corner of Kyrkogatan and Snällmans väg. Joel had been close by at the time, and watched with interest how the two drivers had started arguing. Joel walked over to the window and stood on tiptoe. He could see a few yellow flowers under a tree where they’d been sheltered from the snow.

  Joel ate his sandwiches and brushed his teeth. Then he remembered that he ought to have put on his best shirt and a different pair of trousers in view of the forthcoming ceremony. When he returned to the kitchen he realised that he would have to hurry if he didn’t want to arrive late.

  Samuel was sitting at the table, looking at him.

  ‘Perhaps we ought to take a present,’ he said.

  Joel didn’t understand what he meant at first. A present for whom? For the teachers?

  Then he realised that his father meant a present for Jenny, of course. Joel hadn’t thought about that.

  ‘We must have something to take with us,’ Samuel said. ‘Get a move on or you’ll be late for school.’

  Joel thundered down the stairs. Sometimes Samuel could surprise him. Of course they must take a present for Mummy Jenny.

  He was already in the street before he remembered the flowers. He leaned his bike against the fence and ran back into the garden. Seven drooping cowslips would have to do. He added a few straws of grass to make the bunch look a bit bigger. On the way to school he thought about what they could give Jenny. But he found it hard to concentrate. He would have to get the school-leaving ceremony out of the way first.

  He entered the classroom at the very last moment. Miss Nederström looked disapprovingly at him. But she didn’t say anything. It was the last day. Then they would all go their different ways. Miss Nederström could just as easily become emotional as she could get angry. Today she certainly wasn’t going to quarrel with Joel nor anybody else.

  By ten o’clock the classroom had been tidied up and decorated. The parents were squashed in at the back. Joel had noticed Samuel when he arrived: he was trapped in a corner now. Miss Nederström was in a good mood and only asked questions she knew her pupils could answer. Joel was asked a geography question. After the demonstration lesson they sang a hymn and then processed to the church, class by class. The snow had melted away by then. When they were all assembled in the church, the headmaster gave a speech, all the pupils were given their Reports, and then it was all over. Miss Nederström had tears in her eyes when she shook Joel’s hand. He felt most embarrassed.

  ‘You ought to have gone on to college,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve got other things I have to do first,’ Joel replied.

  He’d been thinking about that for nearly a year now. If he ought to try and get a place at college. But the thought of four more years’ schooling was too much for him. He wanted to get out. Out into the world.

  Samuel was waiting for him outside the church.

  ‘I’m pleased that you could give the right answer to the question you were asked,’ Samuel said.

  ‘It’s just as well she didn’t ask me a question about history,’ Joel said. ‘I’d have been bound to get it wrong.’

  Then they went home. Just for once, Joel also had a cup of coffee. He still wasn’t quite sure what it felt like, having finished school. Knowing that after the holidays, when autumn came, there would no longer be a teacher checking up on whether he got to school on time.

  Now life was going to begin. Real life. And it would start with the trip to Stockholm he and Samuel were going to make. He wasn’t at all sure what would happen after that. He’d been given a half promise of a job as errand boy at the ironmonger’s. But what then? What would he do next? It all depended on Samuel. Were they going to move house, or weren’t they?

  Joel had worked out a plan. There was a big harbour in Stockholm. Ships from all over the world went there. It wasn’t as big a port as Gothenburg, but even so: perhaps Samuel would finally make up his mind. When he saw all those ships berthed at the various quays. Joel had made up his mind to take Samuel to see the ships as often as possible. Naturally, Samuel had forgotten what it was like to be a sailor. How could he possibly have remembered? Living for so long as a castaway in the depths of those enormous forests, where there was no sea, only gloomy little lakes.

  Samuel examined Joel’s Report in detail.

  ‘You ought to have learnt how to count better,’ he said. ‘But apart from that, it’s good.’

  Joel said nothing. Samuel was right. Maths was the most boring subject Joel could think of.

  Then they started to talk about the present they were going to take to Mummy Jenny. What should they give her?

  ‘You’re the one who knows her best,’ said Joel.

  ‘She used to be very keen on hats in those days,’ said Samuel tentatively. ‘But maybe she isn’t any more. Besides, how would I be able to go into a shop selling ladies’ clothes and pick out a hat for her?’

  Joel knew that Samuel and Jenny had once met at a dance.

  ‘Maybe she’d like a gramophone record,’ he suggested.

  ‘But has she got a gramophone?’ Samuel wondered. ‘You can never be sure.’

  ‘Everybody has a gramophone,’ said Joel. ‘Apart from us, perhaps.’

  He regretted saying that the moment it had crossed his lips. Samuel didn’t like to be reminded of the fact that they had so little money. It could make him very morose. Joel didn’t want that to happen. Not now.

  ‘Maybe she has the record already,’ he said.

  ‘What record?’

  ‘The one we were going to give h
er.’

  This conversation’s getting very odd, Joel thought.

  ‘Perhaps we could give her a gift voucher,’ he suggested. ‘Then she could choose for herself what she wanted to buy.’

  Samuel shook his head.

  ‘No, it has to be something real. Something you can put in a parcel. If we had an elk steak we could have given her that.’

  Joel looked at Samuel in astonishment.

  ‘Are you saying we should take her an elk steak? What if blood were to start dripping out of the suitcase? The police would think we’d murdered somebody.’

  ‘It’s not the elk-hunting season now anyway. We’ll have to think of something else.’

  It was afternoon. The sun’s rays were streaming in through the kitchen window. Moving steadily across the wall. Until they reached the showcase containing the Celestine.

  ‘Maybe she’d like to have Celestine,’ said Joel. ‘That would be something that we like as well.’

  Samuel spent a long time gazing at the model ship in its case before answering.

  ‘I suppose it was on display there when she went away,’ he said. ‘You might be right. Perhaps we ought to give her Celestine.’

  They didn’t make a decision. But now they had an idea, at least.

  One more week before they were due to set off. They would take the night train on Saturday evening. They’d arrive in Stockholm on Sunday. Joel had asked Samuel about all the details. Not least where they were going to stay. Samuel had said that there were cheap hotels near the railway station. Joel was also worried that Samuel wouldn’t take enough money with him. But that wasn’t something he could very well ask about. Instead, he made a point of going through Samuel’s wallet when his dad wasn’t looking. Samuel had three hundred kronor. That was a lot of money as far as Joel was concerned. But would it be enough? He didn’t know.

  The days passed slowly. Joel tried to go back to sleep in the mornings after Samuel had left for work in the forest, but he was far too excited to stay in bed. He got up again, ate his sandwiches and went out. No more snow had fallen, and it had become warmer as well. He didn’t just cycle around town, but went for quite long rides, exploring the logging tracks. Whenever he came to a clearing where the sun’s rays managed to penetrate as far as the ground, he would find a biggish rock and sit down to think. Most of all about what it would be like to meet Mummy Jenny. But also about whether he would manage to persuade Samuel to make up his mind about moving at last. And what he would do if he didn’t succeed. If they came back here and Samuel carried on going into the forest to cut down trees.