He sighed as the train stopped yet again. He sent a message to Anders, the chair of the board, explaining that he was on the train from Västervik but was delayed because of the weather. He asked him to move the bakery discussion to the end of the agenda.
The train set off at a snail’s pace; when they reached a tunnel, it stopped altogether. “Unfortunately we have to wait for an X2000,” the driver informed everyone. Henrik shook his head. The meeting was starting right now. He wasn’t going to make it; he would have to call his father.
No network coverage.What the hell? He was beginning to panic. He was going to miss the meeting. He was going to miss everything. He got up and walked through the carriage in an attempt find a cell phonesignal. Eventually he spotted one tiny bar in the corner of the screen. He called his father’s number. Stuttering signals rang out, and then it went to voice mail. He swore out loud and tried his sister. Camilla answered almost straightaway.
“Hello? Hello? Henrik?”
“Hi—can you hear me?”
“Hello?”
“Can you hear me?”
“I can’t hear you properly. Everyone is here. We ...” Camilla’s voice disappeared. “Without ...” She was gone again.
“Camilla? I’m here. Hello?” Henrik was almost yelling, even though he knew perfectly well that it wasn’t going to do any good. His fellow passengers scowled at him.
He lost the connection altogether as the train began to move. He returned to his seat and tried again, but this time Camilla rejected the call. Then a text message came through:We have to begin. There’s a lot on the agenda and we don’t have time for technical glitches.
Those were his father’s words. He could imagine Hasse snapping at Camilla.
When the train finally reached Stockholm, he ran out and grabbed a cab. The traffic was flowing well, and he arrived in minutes. He hurried upstairs, hoping the other agenda items had taken a lot of time.
He flung open the door. Tall candles were burning on the table, and the dark walls and tiled stove made everything extremely atmospheric. It was a lovely place for a winter lunch, but right now it felt more like a medieval torture chamber.
“Nice of you to join us.” Hasse stared at Henrik over the top of his glasses. He was seated at the head of the table, of course. Camilla glanced up at him, then immediately looked down again. Tom was on Hasse’s left-hand side. “However, you’re in luck,” Hasse added.
“We had a lot to get through,” Anders explained, “but we put the bakery last on the agenda, and we’ve just reached it.”
Henrik took a deep breath and sat down. He took out his laptop, typed in his password with trembling fingers, and found the relevant document. For some reason the program containing his presentation and all his notes refused to cooperate. He clicked frenetically on the window, but to no avail. He looked around the table. Hasse gazed wearily back at him. His siblings were concentrating on their printouts.
He was precisely the worthless waste of space his father thought he was, meeting every single one of Hasse’s low expectations.
He reached for one of the printouts on the table. He didn’t have his notes for support, but he knew most of his presentation by heart.
And yet he stammered and stuttered when he began to speak. When he reached the last page, he understood why. As he looked around the room, it was clear that everyone had already made their decision. He could feel it, and he could see it in his father’s eyes. Henrik’s presentation was merely a formality.
He thought about Nora and how capable and determined she was. To her the idea of running a business alone was perfectly simple and straightforward, while he couldn’t even manage a fucking presentation. Was his father right when he said Henrik had had everything served up to him on a plate? Was that why he was so incompetent?
“Time to vote,” Anders said. “All those in favor?” Anders held up his hand, as did Henrik, even though the vote was humiliating at best. He looked at his siblings. Tom leaned back on his chair, glanced at Henrik, then stared at the wall. Camilla was still focused on the presentation before her. The only one who met Henrik’s gaze was his father, who kept his eyes fixed on Henrik without saying a word.
No more hands were raised. Henrik couldn’t bear it for another second.
Anders didn’t seem surprised by the result. It was obvious they had discussed the matter before Henrik arrived. It was a small consolationthat Hasse hadn’t managed to browbeat the board’s external chair, but it didn’t help.
“We had a brief discussion about this earlier,” Hasse said. “You were late, so we went ahead without you. We all know you have no business acumen—you’ve already proved that in the past. So we simply dare not take the risk.”
A waiter came in with a plate of beef Rydberg and put it down in front of Henrik. He had hardly touched his breakfast on the train, but the sight of the food made him feel nauseated.
Once again he thought about Nora and how driven she was. He ought to be able to do this, to ignore his father’s words. He looked around at his family. “You do realize what an opportunity this was? We could have rented the perfect location at an unbelievable price—we’ll never find anything like it again.”
“As I said, it feels way too risky,” Hasse said firmly.
No one else spoke for a few seconds.
“I need to pick up the kids,” Tom said eventually.
“Okay, meeting closed.” Anders looked sympathetically at Henrik, who got to his feet and left the room without looking at any of them.
