Page 19 of The Sleepwalker
Bernard checked his phone for what felt like the hundredth time. He was worried, and had been trying in vain to get hold of both Hugo and his solicitor all evening.
They left the lift and made their way down the stairs to the restaurant, where they were shown to a small table at the very back of the room and immediately ordered two glasses of champagne.
They tried to have a nice time while they ate, with Bernard telling the story of when he found himself sitting beside Salman Rushdie on a small plane on the way to a literary festival.
‘So, you know, with my fear of flying and the fatwa against him .?.?. Selfishly, all I could think about was myself, and I was completely panic-stricken. Still, we had a good chat and became friends during the flight.’
Agneta had heard the story before, but she laughed all the same. His fear of flying probably stemmed from the bus crash he survived as a child, she thought.
She had felt the scar beneath the hairs on his chest the first time they had sex, and had asked him about it later, while they smoked a joint together in bed. Bernard had told her all about the accident, saying that it had attracted a lot of press coverage and that it was one of the reasons why seatbelts were now required by law in all buses. It was also the reason he drove so slowly, with traffic building up behind him.
Agneta put down her cutlery, sipped her wine, leaned forward and took a deep breath.
She decided to revisit their earlier conversation about Hugo, explaining that she felt they were stuck in a rut as a family and that that was why she had said she was thinking of going to stay with her mother.
‘It’s just .?.?. I don’t really know. At first – when Hugo was younger, I mean – it was all quite easy .?.?. but as he got older, he started to pull away, and now he’s always so angry at me.’
‘I don’t know what’s up with him,’ Bernard said. ‘You’ve done everything right – more than right. You even said you’d like to adopt him.’
‘I would, but .?.?.’
She trailed off as their next course arrived: brisket of beef and coriander in a steamed bun. Agneta thanked the waiter and sat quietly as Bernard was served a dish of langoustines in a dill broth.
‘I’ll do anything to make you stay,’ he said, his face solemn.
‘If I felt like you were doing that, or even something close, it would be different,’ she said. ‘But I just feel so alone in this relationship, and I have for a while now.’
‘And that’s because of Hugo?’
‘Yes, or .?.?. because of the way you are with him.’
‘It’s just that .?.?. You know what he’s like. If I give him even the slightest criticism, he puts that face on, immediately .?.?. And if I don’t stop, he gets up and walks away, and then I don’t see him for days.’
‘But that’s all just a fucking power play,’ she said, as quietly as she could.
‘I’ll be a better man from now on,’ Bernard promised.
‘Was that you or the langoustines talking?’ she attempted to joke.
‘I’m being serious. I’m going to try.’
‘You’re already a good man,’ she said, holding his gaze.
Agneta looked down and realised that her big mistake had been to tell Hugo that she wanted to adopt him at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve. Bernard had been thrilled and hugged her, but Hugo’s face had hardened and he had turned and stormed off to his room without another word.
Deep down, she knows that it was more to do with her own vanity than anything, to her trying to be a better mother than Claire.
Agneta doesn’t know how she could have been so stupid.
She suspects that one of the reasons she blurted out what she did at New Year was because her own adopted mother had provided her with so much love and comfort. Her birth mother died of breast cancer in a shanty town outside of Dakar, Senegal, when she was just three.
‘Bernard .?.?. what I said about going to stay with Mum feels a bit hasty now, considering all this madness with Hugo,’ she said with a sigh. ‘It’s not all your fault; I’ve made plenty of mistakes too .?.?.’
‘So does that mean you’ll stay?’
‘We need to stick together and be there for each other. That’s all that matters right now.’
‘Thank you, that’s a huge relief,’ he said, his eyes welling up.
