‘It’s Belinda. Apparently she went to some party and now she’s drunk. That was one of her friends. They’re going to send her here in a cab.’
‘But I thought she was staying with Pernilla in Munkedal.’
‘So did I, but clearly that’s not where she went. Her friend was calling from Grebbestad.’
Dan began punching numbers on his mobile. It sounded as if he’d interrupted his ex-wife’s beauty sleep. He went into the kitchen, and they could hear only bits and pieces of the conversation, but it didn’t sound particularly friendly. A few minutes later he came back to the dining room and sat down at the table shaking his head in frustration.
‘Apparently Belinda told her mother she was going to spend the night with a friend. And the friend most likely said that she was going to spend the night with Belinda. Instead, the two of them went to some party in Grebbestad. Damnit! I thought I could count on her to keep an eye on the girl!’
‘You mean Pernilla?’ said Anna, stroking his arm to calm him down. ‘It’s not that easy, Dan. It’s the oldest trick in the book, but even you could have been taken in by it.’
‘No, I wouldn’t!’ replied Dan angrily. ‘I would have phoned her friend’s parents during the evening to hear how things were going. I would never trust a seventeen-year-old. How stupid can anyone be? Shouldn’t I be able to rely on her to take care of the kids?’
‘Calm down,’ said Anna sternly. ‘The most important thing right now is to look after Belinda when she gets here.’ Dan opened his mouth to say something but she stopped him before he could speak. ‘And we’re not going to yell at her tonight. We’ll save that conversation for the morning, after she’s sober. Okay?’ Everyone at the table, including Dan, could tell that this was non-negotiable. He nodded.
‘I’ll go make up the guest room,’ said Erica, getting up from the table.
‘And I’ll get a bucket,’ said Patrik, fervently hoping that he wouldn’t find himself saying the same thing when Maja was a teenager.
A few minutes later they heard a car pull up outside, and Dan and Anna hurried to the front door. Anna paid the driver while Dan lifted Belinda out of the car. She’d been lying across the back seat like a rag doll.
‘Pappa…’ she said, slurring the word. Then she put her arms around his neck and pressed her face against his chest. The smell of vomit made Dan feel sick, but at the same time he felt a tremendous tenderness for his daughter, who suddenly seemed so small and fragile. It had been years since he’d carried her in his arms.
A retching sound from Belinda made him instinctively move her head, turning it away from his chest. A stinking, reddish sludge poured out on to Erica and Patrik’s front steps. Clearly red wine had been her drink of choice.
‘Bring her inside. Don’t worry about the mess, we’ll hose it off later,’ said Erica, motioning for Dan and Anna to come in. ‘Put her in the shower. Anna and I will rinse her off and give her some clean clothes to wear.’
In the shower Belinda started to cry. The sound was heartbreaking. Anna stroked her hair as Erica carefully rubbed her dry with a towel.
‘Shhh, everything’s going to be fine, don’t worry,’ said Anna, pulling a dry T-shirt over Belinda’s head.
‘Kim was supposed to be there… And I thought that… But he told Linda he thought I was… ugly…’ She could barely get the words out between sobs.
Anna looked at Erica over Belinda’s head. Neither of them would have wanted to trade places with the girl for anything in the world. There was nothing so painful as a teenaged broken heart. They’d both been through it and understood why, in the circumstances, she’d sought to drown her sorrows in red wine. But that was only a temporary respite. Tomorrow Belinda would feel even worse, if that was possible – this was something else the sisters knew from personal experience. But all they could do was put her to bed. They’d deal with the rest in the morning.
Mellberg stood with his hand on the doorknob, weighing the pros and cons. It was undeniable that the ‘cons’ were going to win by some distance. But he had come, nonetheless, and there were two reasons for that. First, he had nothing better to do with his evening. Second, he kept seeing Rita’s dark eyes in his mind. He was still wondering whether these two factors were sufficient cause for him to do something as absurd as attend a salsa class. The place would probably be full of desperate women, women who thought they could snag a guy by going to a dance class. How pathetic. For a moment he considered turning on his heel and going over to the petrol station to buy a packet of crisps before heading home to watch his favourite sitcom, Full Freezer with Stefan and Christer. The mere thought made him laugh. Those two were such a riot.
Mellberg had no sooner made up his mind to opt for Plan B than the door opened in front of him.
‘Bertil! How nice to see you! Come in. We’re just about to start.’ And before he knew it, Rita had grabbed his hand and pulled him inside the gym. Latin-American music was blaring from a portable stereo on the floor, and four couples looked at him with interest as he came in. An equal number of men and women, Mellberg noted with surprise, and his image of himself as a meaty bone that would be torn apart by a gang of voracious bitches in heat instantly faded.
‘You’ll have to dance with me. You can help me demonstrate the moves,’ said Rita, leading him to the centre of the floor. She positioned herself in front of him, took one of his hands in hers and put his other arm around her waist. Mellberg had to restrain an urge to grab hold of her lovely plump body. He simply couldn’t understand men who preferred skinny women.
‘All right, Bertil, pay attention now,’ said Rita sternly, and he stood up straight. ‘Watch what Bertil and I do,’ said Rita to the other couples. ‘For the ladies: right foot forward, shift your weight to your left foot, and right foot back. For the men: the same move except using the opposite foot; left foot forward, weight on your right foot, then left foot back. We’ll keep doing the sequence until everybody gets it.’
Mellberg fought to master the steps. At first it was as if his brain was determined to erase even the most basic information, such as which was his right foot and which was his left. But Rita was a good teacher. She firmly led the way, making him move his feet forward and back, and it wasn’t long before he started to get the hang of it.
‘And now… we’ll start moving our hips,’ said Rita, giving her students an encouraging look. ‘We Swedes are so stiff. But salsa is all about movement, sensuality, and softness.’
She demonstrated what she meant by swaying her hips to the music, making it look as if they were ebbing back and forth, like a wave. Mellberg watched with fascination as Rita moved her body. It looked so easy when she did it. Determined to impress her, he set about mimicking her movements as he moved his feet forward and back in the pattern that he thought he’d memorized. But nothing worked any more. His hips felt wooden, and all attempts to coordinate the movement of his hips with his feet resulted in a total short circuit. He stopped abruptly, a frustrated expression on his face. And to make matters worse, his hair chose that moment to slip down over his left ear. Quickly he pushed it back into place, hoping that no one had noticed. But a stifled giggle from one of the other couples crushed any illusions on that score.
‘I know it’s difficult, Bertil. It just takes practice,’ said Rita, urging him to have another go. ‘Listen to the music, Bertil, listen. And then let your body follow the beat. But don’t look at your feet, look at me. In salsa you always look the woman in the eye. It’s a dance of love, a dance of passion.’
She fixed her gaze on him, and with great effort he managed to look at her instead of at his feet. At first it seemed hopeless. But after a while, under Rita’s gentle tutelage, he felt something happening. Only now did his body truly seem to hear the music. His hips began moving softly and sensually. He looked deeper into Rita’s eyes. And as the Latin American rhythms pulsed from the stereo, he could feel himself falling.