The Living and the Dead in Winsford Read Online Free

mean that, for once, he could hear things straight from the horse’s mouth – instead of having to plough his way through endless masses of discourses, analyses and essays that attach themselves to every writer’s output, like mould in a badly ventilated cellar. I didn’t know what Martin’s academic research was concentrated on, but if he was working on a doctorate it was more likely that he would be devoting his studies to something Swedish, or at least Nordic.
    But I never asked him about that, and a few years later when we were married and living in our first shared flat in Folkungagaten, that collective in Samos was the only thing I could remember clearly from our first conversation.
    Looking back, I doubt if we actually discussed much else.
    I was employed by Swedish Television because I was good-looking and could speak clearly.
    One of my male bosses – in worn-out jeans, a black jacket and with the makings of a dapper little beard – summarized the appointment procedure in those words a few months later. Several of us had gone to one of Stockholm’s pubs after work – I don’t remember which – and since he had been involved in that procedure he suggested that I might like to accompany him afterwards to his five-roomed flat in upmarket Östermalm, and listen to some of his unique Coltrane recordings. I declined the offer on the grounds that I was not only happily married but also pregnant, and if I’m not much mistaken my place was taken by a jolly, red-haired colleague who had presumably been awarded her contract on the same well-established grounds as me.
    Be that as it may, the Monkeyhouse became my workplace. That was what Martin and I used to call the television centre all the years I worked there – just as our name for the university he worked at was Intensive Care, or sometimes the Sandpit. I read the news for several years, was hostess for various unmissable discussion programmes, and then shortly after the turn of the century started working as a producer. I could still speak clearly, but my looks had undergone the subtle change that maturity brings and were no longer considered to be ideal for the screen. As another male boss with a dapper beard explained to me on one occasion.
    However, for the whole of my adult life I have grown used to being greeted by people completely unknown to me. In the supermarket, in the street, on the underground. The harsh truth is that half of Sweden recognizes me; and even if it was Martin who dominated those headlines in May and June – I have no wish to take that distinction away from him – no doubt my name and my face played a significant role when it came to assessing the news value.
    But I didn’t resign from the Monkeyhouse. I merely applied for a year’s leave of absence – a request that was granted in two minutes without specific comment by Alexander Skarman, who was temporarily in charge of such matters during the summer holidays. It was the middle of July, and hotter than it ought to have been in a house occupied by renowned primates. He stinks of Riesling after his lunch, and comes from an established and loyal media family, although he is by no means a mogul or even especially gifted. He was wearing a linen tunic-shirt and shorts. How times have changed . . . Sandals and filthy feet.
    I had not given any motive for my application, nor was that necessary given the circumstances.
    ‘From the first of September?’ was all he said.
    ‘I’m on holiday in August,’ I reminded him.
    ‘You are a very well-known name, you know that.’
    I didn’t respond. He suppressed a belch, and signed the form.
    Our children, Gunvald and Synn, rang a few times during the summer – not several times , just a few – but it was not until well into August that either of them came to visit us. It was Synn, who flew in for a three-night stay from New York. ‘Are you going to leave Dad now?’ was the first thing she asked me, and in among the mass of repressed