Read In the Name of Love for Free Online Page B

Then he stopped.
    ‘Why am I telling you this?’
    Anders laughed. ‘Because you’re back in the land of the living. You can tell me more over lunch. You’ve been to the Italian place? Down by the water? Used to be where we had the shop before I married Madeleine.’
    He meant the expensive textile shop he’d run with his mother. When his mother died he’d taken over. Now he owned the antique showroom on the corner to the square instead. All this he had told Dan the first time they met.
    ‘I’ve had lunch,’ Dan said.
    ‘On your own? Why didn’t you let me know you were in town?’
    Together they walked down the busy street. Anders said this new Italian place had the best service in Norrtälje.
    ‘Simple food but well done. They’ll serve you a minestrone and a toasted carpaccio sandwich in seven minutes flat.’
    ‘That’s a recommendation?’
    ‘Better than the place you went to. Where did you go?’
    They’d stopped outside the restaurant. Madeleine and he used to live in the flat above, he said. When Madeleine’s parents split up they let her and Anders have the house outside town in return for looking after it.
    ‘They’re generous people. Her father stood guarantor for the bank loan for the showroom.’
    The apparent naïvety in all this was what gave it its charm and Dan knew better than to mock it. Anders Roos was more successful by far in the art of living happily than most men he knew.
    ‘Here, come in from the cold a moment,’ Anders said. ‘There’s something I want to ask you.’
    The doorman held up the restaurant door, regarding Dan without judgement but taking him in just the same: the worn raincoat, the thick polo-neck pullover, the threadbare corduroys, the boots. Countryman’s gear. Anders slipped off his overcoat, handed it to the waitress who’d come up to take it. Underneath he wore an elegant wool suit and a pin-striped shirt. Soft leather shoes. He put a hand on Dan’s elbow.
    ‘I’ve been thinking about you, old friend. How are you? Really?’
    Standing aside as people went past them, Dan struggled to answer. How was he? Anders and he had known each other long and well – fragments came back, dinners with candles shining through the dark glass of wine bottles, skiing the Austrian Kitzsteinhorn the first season it opened – Anders knew about such things, where the best-value hotels were, where to get tickets for shows that were sold out.
    ‘How am I? I don’t know. How do I seem?’
    ‘Lean. Healthy. Ready to live. Like a coiled spring. Does my saying that bother you?’
    ‘No. Surprises me, though. That’s not how I feel.’ He paused. ‘Or maybe it is. I don’t know any more.’
    Anders made a move with his hand, indicating to the waitress the table he wanted. She nodded, returning his smile. Clearly no words were needed. ‘Dan, I’m going to say something that may offend you. But I’ve been thinking of it for quite a while. And I talked about it with Madde after you left last week. You intrigue her, you know. She has the impression that days go by out there without you saying a single word, even seeing another human being.’
    ‘There’s a man drops in now and then, a distant neighbour. I’m not sure why.’
    ‘Does he disturb you?’
    ‘No, no.’
    ‘Listen, what I wanted to say, I grew up here, I lived here before I met Eleonora and moved to Stockholm. I know plenty of people. Single women, divorced women – everyone is divorced nowadays, it’s no one’s fault. Will you permit me to introduce you to a few?’
    ‘This conversation is beginning to embarrass me, Anders.’
    ‘All right. But there are normal physical needs we all—’
    ‘No!’ Dan touched his friend’s arm and said more gently, ‘Thanks. Really. But the answer is no.’
    ‘Well, how about taking up tennis again? There are some attractive women in the club. You wouldn’t have to talk to them. Just get used to seeing them.’
    Dan shook his head.
    Driving home he put the exchange