She realises that he’s never going to let her grow up.
She will always be his.
He promises to drive to the shop and buy supplies so she doesn’t run out of anything. When he comes back they unload the goods at Aunt Elsa’s before he drives her the fifty metres back to the cottage to pick up her bag of clothes, and when he stops by the gate she hurries to give him a peck on his unshaven cheek before quickly jumping out. She had seen his hands on their way towards her and wanted to forestall him.
Maybe he’ll make do with a kiss.
‘Take care of yourself, now,’ he says before shutting the car door.
He just sits there in the car for what must be a couple of minutes. She takes the bag and sits down on the little step up into the house. Only then does he look away and the car start to move.
The swallows are swooping above the yard and Tupp-Anders’s dairy cows are grazing in the meadow beyond the red-painted outhouse.
She watches him drive out onto the main road, then off through the forest, and she knows that he’ll soon be back on the pretext of having forgotten something.
She also knows with the same absolute certainty what he’s going to want her to do.
It’s all so predictable, and the whole procedure will be repeated at least twice before he leaves for real. Maybe he’ll have to come back three times before he feels properly relaxed.
She clenches her teeth and peers off towards the edge of the forest, where you can just make out the lake through the trees. Three minutes later she sees the white Volvo approaching and goes back into the kitchen.
This time it’s over in ten minutes. Afterwards he settles himself heavily in the car, says goodbye and turns the key in the ignition.
Victoria watches the car disappear behind the trees again. The sound of the engine grows ever more distant, but she sits and waits with the big lump still in her stomach, so as not to celebrate victory in advance. She knows how severe the disappointment is if you do that.
But he doesn’t come back again.
When she realises he won’t return, she goes off to the well to wash. With some difficulty she hauls up a bucket of ice-cold water and shivers as she scrubs herself clean, before going to Aunt Elsa’s to eat lunch and play cards.
Now she can start to breathe.
After eating she decides to go down to the lake for a swim. The path is narrow and covered in pine needles. It feels soft under her bare feet. From within the forest she can hear a persistent peeping sound, and realises that it’s coming from hungry chicks waiting for their parents to come back with something edible. The peeping is very close, and she stops and looks.
A tiny hole reveals the bird’s nest, no more than two metres up in an old pine tree.
When she reaches the lake she lies on her back in the rowing boat and stares up into the sky.
It’s the middle of June, and the air still feels fairly chilly.
Cold water rolls up and down beneath her back in time with the waves. The sky is like dirty milk with a splash of fire, and a black-throated loon is calling from the edge of the forest.
She wonders about letting the waves carry her out, off to unlimited freedom, away from everything. She feels sleepy, but deep down she realised long ago that she can never sleep deeply enough to get away. Her head is like a lamp that has been left on in a silent, dark house. There are always moths fluttering around the naked electric light, their dry wings in her eyes.
As usual, she swims four lengths between the jetty and the big rock fifty metres out in the lake before spreading her blanket and lying down on the grass a short distance from the narrow strip of white sand. The fish are lying in wait, and midges are buzzing across the water, along with dragonflies and pond skaters.
She shuts her eyes, enjoying an isolation that no one can disturb, when suddenly she hears voices from inside the forest.
A man and a woman are walking down the path, and a little boy is running ahead of them, with long, fair curls.
They say hello and ask if this is a private beach. She replies that she isn’t really sure, but as far as she knows anyone’s allowed to come here. She’s always swum here, anyway.
‘Ah, so you’ve lived here for a while, then?’ the man says with a smile.
The little boy is running excitedly towards the water and the woman hurries after him.
‘Is that your house over there?’ the man asks, pointing. The cottage is just visible through the trees in the distance.
‘That’s right. Mum and Dad are working in the city, so I’m staying here on my own for a week.’
She lies to see how he will react. She has an idea that she wants to check out.
‘I see. So you’re an independent young lady?’ the man says.
She watches as the woman helps the little boy out of his clothes down by the water.
‘Suppose so,’ she replies, turning towards the man.
He looks amused.
‘How old are you, then?’
‘Ten.’
He smiles and starts to take off his shirt.
‘Ten years old and on your own for a week. Just like Pippi Longstocking.’
She leans back and runs her fingers through her hair. Then she looks him right in the eyes.
‘So?’
To her disappointment, the man doesn’t seem at all taken aback. He doesn’t reply, and turns to look at his family instead.
The boy is on his way out into the water, and the woman follows him with her jeans rolled up to her knees.
‘Well done, Martin!’ he cries proudly.
Then he pulls off his shoes and begins to undo his trousers. Under his jeans he’s wearing a pair of tight swimming trunks with the pattern of the American flag. He’s tanned all over, and she thinks he’s handsome. Not like her dad, who’s got a pot belly and is always white as chalk.
He looks her up and down.
‘You seem like a girl who knows her own mind.’
She doesn’t reply, but for a moment she thinks she can see something she recognises. Something she doesn’t like.
‘Well, time for a swim,’ he says, and turns his back on her.
He goes down to the water and tests the temperature. Victoria stands up and gathers her things together.
‘See you another day, maybe,’ the man says, waving to her. ‘Bye!’
‘Bye,’ she replies, suddenly troubled by her solitude.
As she walks along the path leading through the forest towards the cottage, she tries to work out how long it will be before he comes to visit her.
He’ll probably come tomorrow, she thinks, and he’ll want to borrow the lawnmower.
Her sense of security is gone.
Gamla Enskede – Kihlberg House
STOCKHOLM IS AS faithless as an old whore. Since the thirteenth century she’s been lying there in the unquiet water, tempting with her islands and islets, with her innocent appearance. She is as beautiful as she is treacherous, and her history is coloured with bloodbaths, fires and expulsions.
And broken dreams.