The Merman by Carl-Johan Vallgren

in Falkenberg. At weekends she would go back to Okome, the village where my gran lived. The weekend she met Dad shewas actually supposed to be there, but there was a snowstorm, and the bus that went to Ätradalen had been cancelled. So instead she went to a party with some friends from school, and a few of them had boyfriends who were fishermen. One of them brought Dad along, and that’s how they met. That same evening they went out dancing. Dad paid for everything; he was dressed like a gangster, Mum had told me, in a suit and hat, and he must have stood out from everyone else. It’s amazing to think, but she was only three years older than I am now.
    They continued to meet up whenever Dad’s route brought him to the area, and within a year she was pregnant. I don’t think they really wanted to become parents. Dad liked going round the west coast as a free man, selling nets and trawls, and conducting shady deals on the side. And Mum was really too young.
    When she got knocked up, she quit school and took a job at the same factory where Gran worked. She moved back into her old room at home and lived there until Dad quit his job and moved down here. They rented a ramshackle house in the village. Dad got a job at a timber yard. Then I entered the world.
    After a few years the removal van headed to Vinberg, much closer to town. They had had a feud with Gran, who thought that Dad was going to ruin Mum’s life. They were already drinking quite a lot in those days; social services came round and investigated; there was talk of my going to live with Gran or to stay with a foster family, but ultimately it came to nothing. Dad had also made himself unwelcome at work, got into fights and served a stretch for possession of narcotics. When he came out, he had no desire to take a regular job. He had contacts down at the docks, would buy vodka and diet pills from the Polish ships and sell them to shady characters throughout Halland. I know all this because I happened to find a box containing old court judgments and appeals in his wardrobe.
    Robert was born just after I turned two. It was around Christmas, several months early. He had to stay in an incubator in the hospitalin Varberg. Mum and I would go there to look after him. I have vague memories of a little doll asleep in an oxygen tent, a doll with loads of tubes and drips in his arms that you wanted to stroke, even though it was prohibited. You weren’t allowed to touch him, and you could hardly talk when you were in the vicinity. Nobody knew if he was going to make it. The doctors couldn’t say anything for certain, so we had to take it one day at a time. Dad never came along. By that time his criminal career had taken off.
    I have clear memories of events from the time I was four. I remember the week when we got evicted from our flat in Vinberg and had to move into a council flat in town. And the night when the police entered the flat and turned everything upside down in their hunt for stolen goods, and how strange it felt because in everyone else’s world the police are nice, helpful people. Another time I watched as Dad got beaten up by two blokes he owed money to. It was a summer evening when they rang the doorbell, and when Mum opened the door they chucked her aside like an old rag and headed straight for the sofa, where Dad sat watching TV with Robert and me on his lap. They hit him with a bottle and kicked him as he lay there. I don’t know what possessed me, but I tried to protect my brother by grabbing hold of one of the men’s legs. They didn’t even notice me, just carried on punching and kicking until Mum came rushing in with her purse and they emptied it of all the banknotes and disappeared.
    I have a load of sick memories like that. Of parties where total strangers turn up and stay for several days and engage in marathon drinking sessions, and when one passes out the next takes over, so it’s basically never quiet at