The Guests by Rosie Hedger

Author:Rosie Hedger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orenda Books
Published: 2024-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

Kai and Per stood down by the jetty, each of them with a can of beer in one hand and a fishing rod in the other. The air was still, even down by the water, small clouds of Per’s cigarette smoke billowed up and over his head before dissipating.

I often envied men their uncomplicated ease when it came to hitting their stride with each other. Fragments of quiet conversation and a sudden burst of laughter reached Hilma and me where we were sitting at the long table in the garden. The tree had finally extended its shade over the table, offering us some relief, not something that could be said about the strained atmosphere between myself and Hilma.

I had considered currying favour with her by revealing that I had a greater interest and insight into her affairs and literature and cultural activities than she realised, but it would no doubt only have been an affront to her, she’d want to keep all that to herself.

I regretted having enjoyed her books. I wouldn’t have done so if I’d known then what I know now, which is that Hilma Ekhult had taken the need to come across as a fragile genius to absurd lengths.

Reflecting on things now, writing Ibsen-inspired chamber plays in this day and age just seemed conceited.

She always, always wrote about upper-class, heterosexual couples. It was evident that she felt a strong affinity with the upper echelons of society. The protagonist in one of her novels was even the CEO of the Central Bank – though I knew now that she’d written that book without the slightest gram of insight into economics or money management.

But she hadn’t had anything published in six or seven years. Perhaps she sensed that time and the spirit of an era had run away from her, that she no longer had much to say, not to mention how difficult it must be to enlist new readers.

I started to think that ‘being in dialogue with the classics’, an aspect of her work for which she was endlessly praised – all of her novels were really just modern-day variations of well-known tragedies – was simply an expression of the fact that she was unable to come up with her own ideas, to craft anything from the ground up, from the inner workings of her own mind.

And the book you’re working on now, I said, but before I could finish my question, she held up a hand to stop me in my tracks.

There is no book, she said.

No?

No, she said, and lowered her hand, her expression gloomy.

I realised that she didn’t want to talk to me about it, that she considered it entirely meaningless to discuss the process of writing with someone like me; at the same time, it occurred to me that it was someone exactly like me that she really needed, someone with my knowledge of her writing and my general, well, perhaps not competence, but interest in the field, all concealed behind the fake identity of a cynical tech entrepreneur.

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