Italian Shoes Read Free Page B

probably why I dislike him. It’s not easy when your closest friend is somebody you dislike.
    â€˜I’ve got a parcel for you. It’s a present from the Post Office.’
    â€˜Since when have they started giving away presents?’
    â€˜It’s a Christmas present. Everybody’s getting a parcel from the Post Office.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜I don’t know.’
    â€˜I don’t want it.’
    Jansson dug down into one of his sacks and handed over a thin little packet. A label wished me
A Merry Christmas from the Chief Executive Officer of the Post Office
.
    â€˜It’s free. Throw it away if you don’t want it.’
    â€˜You’re not going to convince me that anybody gets anything free from the Post Office.’
    â€˜I’m not trying to convince you of anything at all. Everybody gets the same parcel. And it’s free.’
    Jansson’s intractability sometimes gets the better of me. I didn’t have the strength to stand in the bitter cold and argue with him. I ripped open the parcel. It contained two reflectors and a message:
Be careful on the roads! Christmas greetings from the Post Office
.
    â€˜What the hell do I need reflectors for? There are no cars here, and I’m the only pedestrian.’
    â€˜One of these days you might get fed up with living out here. Then you might find a couple of reflectors useful. Can you give me a glass of water? I need to take a tablet.’
    I have never allowed Jansson to set foot in my house, and I had no intention of doing so now.
    â€˜I’ll give you a mug and you can melt some snow by placing it next to the engine.’
    I went back into the boathouse and found the cap of an old Thermos flask that doubled as a mug, filled it with snow and handed it over. Jansson added one of his tablets. While the snow melted next to the hot engine, we stood and waited in silence. He emptied the mug.
    â€˜I’ll be back on Friday. Then it’s the Christmas holidays.’
    â€˜I know.’
    â€˜How are you going to celebrate Christmas?’
    â€˜I’m not going to celebrate Christmas.’
    Jansson gestured towards my red house. I was afraid that all the clothes he was wearing might make him fallover, like a defeated knight wearing armour that was far too heavy for him.
    â€˜You ought to hang some fairy lights around your house. It would liven things up.’
    â€˜No thank you. I prefer it to be dark.’
    â€˜Why can’t you make your surroundings a bit more pleasant?’
    â€˜This is exactly how I want it.’
    I turned my back on him and started walking up the slope towards the house. I threw the reflectors into the snow. As I reached the woodshed, I heard the roar as the hydrocopter engine sprang into life. It sounded like an animal in extreme pain. The dog was sitting on the steps, waiting for me. He could think himself lucky that he’s deaf. The cat was lurking around the apple tree, eyeing the waxwings pecking at the bacon rind I’d hung up.
    I sometimes miss not having anybody to talk to. Banter with Jansson can’t really be called conversation. Just gossip. Local gossip. He goes on about things I have no interest in. He asks me to diagnose his imagined illnesses. My jetty and boathouse have become a sort of private clinic for just him. Over the years I have transferred into the boathouse – in among the old fishing nets and other equipment – blood pressure cuffs and instruments for removing earwax. My stethoscope hangs from a wooden hook together with a decoy eider my grandfather made a very long time ago. I have a special drawer in which I keep medicines that Jansson might well need. The benchon the jetty, where my grandfather used to sit and smoke his pipe after gutting the flounders he’d caught, is now used as an examination couch when Jansson needs to lie down. As blizzards raged, I have kneaded his abdomen when he suspected he had stomach cancer,