Free I Am Behind You by John Ajvide Lindqvist, Marlaine Delargy Page B

battles. For the most part she complies with Donald’s wishes, but when she does object, he usually listens. This truce has not been achieved without cost, and harks back to an incident in the fourth year of their marriage.
    At the time their one-year-old son Albert was still sleeping in a cot in Donald and Majvor’s bedroom, while his brother Gustav, who was two years older, had his own room. Albert woke up crying several times each night, and Donald decided that he should go in with his brother so that he could get used to not being picked up and consoled all the time.
    By the second night, Majvor had had enough. Albert screamed and screamed, and refused to go back to sleep. Gustav started yelling too, although he was slightly more articulate in his protests. Majvor got out of bed to go and fetch Albert, but Donald held her back, said that the boy had to get used to it, however long it took. Majvor lay awake for two hours listening to the child screaming, until he eventually subsided into exhausted sobbing, then silence. Her heart was in shreds by then, and she couldn’t get to sleep.
    The same thing happened on the third night, but with one difference. When she tried to get up and Donald held her back, she said:‘Let go of me, Donald. I mean it. Let go of me.’ Donald gripped her arm even more tightly. Albert’s despairing cries stabbed and tore at her breast. She said it again. ‘Donald, let go of me. I’m falling apart. I mean it.’
    But Donald didn’t let go; instead he made a point of lying awake and watching her so that she couldn’t creep off and console Albert, whose despair turned to pure fear. Every fibre of Majvor’s body told her to go and get him, to take him in her arms, but Donald stopped her with sheer force.
    The following day when Majvor was making chilli con carne for Donald’s dinner, she finished it off with a spoonful of rat poison. She sat opposite her husband as he ate, grimacing at the strong chilli flavour; she had made the dish extra spicy to hide the taste of the poison.
    Donald didn’t even finish his meal before he was overcome by convulsions. He staggered into the bathroom and threw up, over and over again. When Majvor went in a few minutes later, he was lying on the floor, shaking. His lips were blue, his face bright red. Majvor held out a jug of cream.
    ‘Drink this. You’ve eaten rat poison.’
    Donald stared at her, unable to speak, but he managed to pour most of the cream down his throat, apart from a small amount that trickled down his chest and stomach. A little while later he threw up again. Majvor left him in peace.
    When he emerged from the bathroom an hour or so later after a cavalcade of vomiting and diarrhoea, he held up a shaky hand and announced that he was going to report Majvor to the police for attempted murder.
    ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘As you wish. Our marriage will be over, of course. Or you could try listening to me when I really mean what I say. If you do that, then this kind of thing won’t happen again.’
    Donald chose the latter option, and Majvor never again felt the need to resort to such extreme measures. Albert was allowed to sleep in their bedroom for another year, and when he moved intothe other room, Donald didn’t say a word if Majvor got up to comfort him.
    Since then there had been only a few occasions when Majvor had got her own way by saying a very clear yes or no. Donald knew where the line was, and in return Majvor made sure that she didn’t weaken her veto by overusing it. Peace reigned.
    *
    Without asking, Donald places two cans of beer on the table and waits until Peter has opened his and taken a swig. Then he says: ‘If anything is going to get done around here, then you and I are going to have to do it. Would I be right in saying that you realise that too?’
    The look Peter gives Donald suggests that he isn’t quite so sure, so Donald feels the need to expand on his original statement.
    ‘You’re a doer , just like me. You