The Runaways Read online

I could get my parents to believe anything I said, even though I’d just made it up. No one could know what I was thinking.

  I could do anything.

  Like Adam, who was really called Ronny, I was “for freedom.”

  Was it wrong to lie when it made everyone happy?

  “Would you play and sing for me?” I asked my mother.

  “What, right now?”

  “Yes, it sounds so super-lovely.”

  “If you say so.” She smiled. “Just a little.”

  She sat at the black piano. Her voice quavered when she sang. The song was “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” about a country on top of a rainbow where everything is exactly the way you want it to be. My mother loved this song. She was still singing when the toots came. Three of them, as planned.

  “Time to go.” I got up.

  “I’ll help you with your bag,” said Dad.

  “You don’t need to,” I said.

  “No, but still,” he said.

  I was afraid that Adam-Ronny would give us away. But he didn’t. He stood outside the gate beside a newly washed van. He was wearing football socks and a cap to look authentic.

  He threw the suitcase in the back. “Hop in,” he said. “And we’ll go and get the others.”

  Then he turned to Dad. “You should be proud. Your son really has talent. Especially for tricking the opposition.”

  “Is that right?” said Dad. “Good to hear.”

  He gave me a clumsy hug and some money in case there was anything good to buy in Sollentuna.

  “Have fun,” he said.

  “I will.”

  “Will you call this evening?”

  “I don’t think I can,” I said.

  I sat beside Adam in the van. Now and then I watched his Adam’s apple moving up and down. He chewed gum, beating time with his fingers on the wheel. He was wearing sunglasses even though it was cloudy.

  He’d borrowed the van from the mechanic.

  “Did you call the hospital and tell them we’re picking Grandpa up?” I asked.

  “Nah,” he said. “I said we were going to pick up my father. I pretended to be your father. ‘I see, doctor…that’s good then, doctor,’ they said. ‘Nice for him to get out for a little while.’ But it sounded more like it would be nice for them not to have him there for a little while.”

  “Yes, he can be difficult,” I said. “Lucky you have a deep voice. But what will we do when we get there? They’ll know you’re not my father.”

  “I said that unfortunately I couldn’t come myself. But that my son and his very nice cousin would come instead.”

  I didn’t mind having Adam as a cousin, even if it was just for a day. He gave me some chewing gum. That’s the sort of thing cousins do.

  We sat in silence for a while, chewing, listening to the radio and watching autumn glide past outside.

  Now and then I said something about Grandpa.

  “You don’t mind a bit of swearing?” I said.

  “I think I can manage it,” said Adam.

  After a while I saw a shop. “Would you mind stopping for a minute?”

  “What for?” Adam asked. “Do you want something to drink?”

  “Yes. Can you buy a couple of bottles of beer?” I took out the money Dad had given me in case I wanted to buy something nice.

  “No, you’re too young,” he said.

  “It’s not for me,” I said. “It’s for Grandpa.”

  So he stopped the van. He didn’t want my money. He said I’d already given him too much. I waited while he went in and did the shopping.

  After that it wasn’t far to the hospital. It was where it should be, after the church on the hill.

  Adam drove right up to the entrance.

  He took off his sports cap and football socks and put on another cap with a shiny brim, one like the ones the hearse drivers wear outside the chapel at the old people’s home.

  “Now let’s go and get your grandfather.”

  “Try not to provoke him,” I said.

  6.

  GRANDPA WAS ALL READY when we arrived. Freshly shaven, dressed in a dark suit, tie and coat. He looked like a child going to a birthday party, forced to put on best clothes that he didn’t like wearing.

  A pair of crutches leaned against the bed.

  “There he is,” said the nurse who’d followed us into the room.

  Grandpa lit up when he saw me.

  “Great to see you, Gottfried Junior,” he said. “But who’s this raving lunatic in the chauffeur’s hat?” He nodded at Adam.

  I thought: now the nurse will realize something’s up. And she’ll call Dad. Because the hospital was careful not to let patients out with unknown persons, that much I knew.

  “Don’t you recognize Adam?” I said quickly. “You know, my cousin. He’s going to drive you because Dad couldn’t come.”

  “Good afternoon, Grandpa,” said Adam. He put two fingers to the brim of his cap.

  “Don’t be an idiot, nincompoop,” said Grandpa. “How would I know you if you never come and visit?”

  “And do you know why?” said Adam. “Because you’re always so angry and difficult. Ma doesn’t like it. She’d love to see more of you. But then you’d have to change and be like other people, she says.”

  I thought Grandpa would explode.

  But he didn’t.

  He laughed. “Bravo, Adam!” he said. “You’re not like the rest of the family. You’re like me and Gottfried Junior. You aren’t scared. Nurse, can you bring the pills so we can get out of here. My son, the dentist, is waiting for me.”

  Grandpa got his pills in two small canisters.

  “The white ones are for the heart, the red ones help you keep calm and not swear so much,” said the nurse, winking at us.

  Grandpa put the canisters in his pocket.

  “I’ll get you a wheelchair,” said the nurse.

  “Like stink,” he said. “I can walk by myself.”

  “No, you can’t,” she said.

  She wheeled him out to the van. And we managed to get him into the front seat. Before we left the nurse stroked his cheek. “Look after yourself,” she said. “Don’t overdo it with your heart.”

  “I’ll sit still and be fed the whole weekend.” Grandpa giggled.

  We didn’t say much in the van. We were three master liars who’d managed to spring Grandpa free.

  We laughed to ourselves at how clever we were.

  The morning clouds had suddenly blown away. It was as if the gods wanted Grandpa to enjoy blue sky and sunshine that day.

  Grandpa wound down the window and breathed in the fresh air.

  “Ah.” He closed his eyes.

  Then he said “AHHH” again.

  “Just say if you need to pee,” said Adam.

  “Thank you, but I’ll wait till I get to the boat,” he said.

  He and Adam talked about boat engines. I know nothing about them, so I said nothing. But Grandpa had worked all his life as chief engineer on big ships. So he knew a lot about cylinders, pistons and things like that. Now he leaned forward and turned one ear to the engine. “It sounds like a screw’s loose in the fuel pump,” he said.

  “I’ll have a look when I’m back,” said Adam.

  When we reached the jetty Adam got out and took down the semaphore flag, so the boat would stop. We were the only ones waiting. We sat in the van till we saw the white boat steaming towards us.

  “There she is, the terrible old tub,” said Grandpa, wiping his eyes and blowing his nose.

  It sounded like a trumpet fanfare.

  We helped Grandpa out of the van. And we unloaded my suitcase, Grandpa’s crutches, the bag of meatballs, the bag of things Adam had bought in the shop and another bag that was Adam’s surprise.

  “Cardamom buns, something sweet and a loaf of bread. I baked them last night,” he said. “It’s good to have provisions when you’re on the run. I’ll come and get you at 12 o’clock tomorrow.”

  “You’re
a cracker of a nephew,” said Grandpa once we’d got him on board and Adam was about to go back on land.

  “Grandson,” said Adam. “Don’t forget!”

  7.

  “DO YOU SEE THAT?” asked Grandpa.

  He sat with his back to the orange metal door of the engine room. I’d opened it a little, ignoring the sign on it, just so he could listen to the sound of the engines, feel the warmth from down below and sniff the wonderful smell of oil.

  He looked out the window at the islands we were passing, at the cliffs rising from the sea, at the pines and firs and autumn trees whose leaves were super-glowing because it was such a special day.

  He looked at everything he’d seen thousands of times.

  “Do you see?” he asked again.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You don’t,” he grumbled.

  “Mmm,” I said.

  I understood that we didn’t see the same things. He saw things that had been. The things he’d seen thousands of times when he came this way when Grandma was alive. He’d gone back in time. You could see it in his face. Even though it was just as old and wrinkly as always, there was a sort of younger Grandpa behind the wrinkles.

  “What will we do when we get there?” I wondered.

  “I just want to see the house one last time,” he said. “I want us to light a fire in the stove. And then I want to sit by the window for a while and look out over the water the way she used to. I never quite knew what she saw.”

  “Maybe she was thinking about things,” I said.

  “Yes, but WHAT?” he yelled. He made a fist and I saw small red lines in the whites of his eyes.

  “Would you like a calm-yourself-down pill?” I asked.

  “No, I wouldn’t. I’d like a cardamom bun.”

  “I’ve got meatballs, too.” I said.

  “They can wait till we get there. Go off and buy a cup of coffee and a lemonade, Gottfried Junior. Quick march!”

  Lemonade was Grandpa’s name for soft drinks.

  I bought a Fanta, orange as the engine room door, in the boat cafe.

  I drank it with a straw. Grandpa slurped his coffee and said it was the best coffee he’d drunk for ages. Then we ate one of Adam’s nighttime buns.

  “Why didn’t you ask Dad if he’d come with you?” I wondered.

  “It’s more fun to run away,” Grandpa said. “And he’d never understand.”

  “Probably not,” I said.

  “We’re too different.”

  “Dad and me too,” I said.

  “We never understood one another. He didn’t like nailing or digging. He was much happier with your grandmother. And she was happier with him. They talked and laughed together. While I’d go out and dig.”

  I thought about how often Grandpa had been outside, digging. “Can you love someone who’s dead?” I asked.

  Grandpa bit hard into his bun. “Time to shut your mouth, boy.”

  I knew what that meant. It meant yes, you can.

  After a while Grandpa put his big wrinkly hand over mine. He kept it there till the boat had passed the white house on the cliff. The house he’d built with his own hands for him and Grandma.

  He took up his crutches and stood on his spindly legs. Soon we’d head off. He stared up at the house.

  “Do you see?” he asked.

  And suddenly I did. I looked with Grandpa’s eyes. There was Grandma on the balcony in her striped apron, waving her handkerchief like she always used to when we arrived in the boat.

  “We’ll be there soon,” I said.

  I didn’t know how wrong I could be.

  It took us a long time just to get from the boat jetty over to the gate with PRIVATE on it. Grandpa sort of swung along on the crutches. Every so often he had to stop for a breather. The worst bit was still to come. Up the stony path to the house.

  “Please, Grandpa, can’t I ask Matt to drive you the long way round on the flatbed motorbike?” I asked. “You can sit on the front tray.”

  “Not on your life,” he puffed. “I’m not sitting on any devil’s tray. I’ll get up under my own steam.”

  “You swore,” I said. “For punishment you have to take a pill.”

  He got one of the white ones. I was worried about his big heart. He swallowed the pill with a gulp of beer from one of the bottles I took from the bag. It gave him a nice surprise.

  “Now it just remains to get up Rocky Mountain,” he said.

  That’s what people in the village called it, the House on Rocky Mountain. Because it was so high up. Because the path was so steep and gravelly. And because it didn’t look like any other house around.

  It was as if Grandpa had wanted to build a castle for Grandma.

  Beside the path he’d welded an iron railing. He took hold of it with one hand and put his crutches under the other arm.

  “We’ll knock this off in no time,” he said.

  It took two hours.

  “It’s these stupid trousers,” he said when we arrived. “They’re too tight.”

  8.

  GRANDPA WAS ALLOWED to sit for a long while in a chair in the kitchen to get his breath back.

  “Time for you to make yourself useful,” he puffed.

  I had nothing against that. There was wood, birch kindling and old newspapers in a box in the kitchen. I opened the vent, put in the wood and lit the fire on my first try. It didn’t even smoke.

  Then I ran down to the well and pumped up a bucket of water. I had to pump a long time because the water was completely brown at first.

  When I came back Grandpa sat in front of the wood burner with the door open, looking in at the fire.

  “Shall I call Dad and ask him to come and get us, Grandpa?” I said. “You look like you could do with a hospital bed.”

  I said that to rev him up a bit.

  It worked. He got angry.

  “I’ll be dipped in duck muck if you call anyone! D’you hear me? Do you want to ruin everything?”

  He shook his fist around like a sledgehammer. He was back to his old self.

  I laughed with relief.

  Grandpa looked at me. “Were you joking?”

  “Yes.”

  “What a stupid joke.”

  “I just wanted to get you going a bit.”

  He smiled. He became chief engineer of all the world’s ships again and started to bark out orders.

  “Get the shovel and a bucket from the shed and dig up a few potatoes,” he ordered. “You know where they are. Go, get a move on!”

  “Shall do!”

  Grandpa’s potato patch, which he used to look after so carefully, was now completely overgrown. So I ran next door and dug there.

  The tin bucket rang like a church bell when I shook it in front of Grandpa.

  “Here,” I said.

  He said a bad word. “I never would have thought it.”

  “You swore again. That means you have to peel the potatoes.”

  He muttered, trying to sound cross. But he was only pretending. He rinsed and peeled and I put the potatoes on the stove to cook. Then I set the fire in the dining room. And I took out the meatballs to heat them in the frying pan.

  I cut a few slices of bread from Adam’s night loaf.

  And I set the table.

  “We’re almost ready,” I said.

  “Just one more thing.” Grandpa tugged at his suit. “I can’t eat in this. It doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t belong here.”

  He swore a long stream of words about his best clothes. He wriggled out of his jacket and waistcoat. And pulled off his trousers.

  “Have a look for my old trousers in my wardrobe. Quick smart!”

  “Now I know why the nurses are sick of you,” I said. I tried to sound as sulky as I could. But we both knew I wasn’t really. We were both pretending and enjoying it.

  So there he sat at last, at one end of the dining table, as he always did. He’d hung his old felt hat on one of the carved lion heads on the back of the chair.
He was wearing a stripy shirt with no collar, an old waistcoat and working trousers that took him a long time to put on.

  In other words, he looked just like himself.

  “Do start,” I said.

  Grandpa’s eyes swept over the table to check that nothing was missing. I knew that look. The slices of bread were there. The butter, another present from Adam, was where it should be. The potatoes steamed in their pot. And the meatballs were waiting in their dish. The beer bottle was open. The forks were on the left and the knives were on the right.

  Even Grandma was where she should be, because I’d put a photo of her as a young woman where she usually sat at the table.

  I couldn’t see anything missing.

  “Lingonberry jam!” said Grandpa loudly.

  “What?”

  “There should be one jar left in the cellar. I’ve been thinking about it ever since I went to the hospital. Just run down and have a look, will you please, my boy.”

  What was wrong? Why had he asked me so nicely? It felt almost scary. I ran in any case, out and around the house to the cellar.

  Grandpa was right.

  On a shelf was a single jar. It said lingonberry jam on the label. Written in Grandma’s writing.

  When I brought it back, Grandpa stared a long time at the writing. Then he opened the lid and carefully took off the layer of paraffin wax with his knife.

  “Go and get a teaspoon from the kitchen,” he said.

  “You mean a dessert spoon?”

  “If I say teaspoon I mean teaspoon,” he said.

  When I’d served the meatballs and potatoes I stuck the teaspoon deep into the jar. I meant to take a good lot of jam on it. But Grandpa took the spoon from my hand and gave me a tiny little bit.

  And he took almost the same amount himself.

  “What is it?” I asked. “Can’t I have more?”

  “No,” he said. “I want this jar to last the rest of my life. You can save your jam till last and have it as dessert. That’s what I’m going to do.”

  He looked at the photo of Grandma.

  Then he put his fat index finger into the mouth of the lion on the chair.

  “Remember the time you painted these?”

  How could I forget? Grandpa had been furious. I’d just turned seven and got a box of paints for my birthday. I painted the mouths of all the chair-lions blood red. I thought they looked good. Grandpa didn’t. He took me by the ear and went around the dining table and pointed at every lion’s mouth so I could see that none of the lions was the same.