Her decision to quit was made on the flight home. She wrote a message on a napkin and asked her father to drive her up to the Cross-Country Skiing Federation HQ. There, she calmly walked in, borrowed a roll of tape from the receptionist, and hung the napkin on the door of Bottolf Odda’s office.

When she strode out of the Crystal Palace, with determination in every step, towards her father’s car to drive home to Vettakollen, she didn’t yet know that she would never again strap on a pair of cross-country skis.

Instead, she became a doctor and moved abroad.

EPILOGUE

THURSDAY 29 DECEMBER 1977

Bloody, shitty brother.

Arne wasn’t allowed to leave his side. Their mother had been uncompromising when, earlier that day, she had crammed the lunchbox into the rucksack and screwed the lid on the Thermos so tightly that Arne had struggled to take it off again when they took a break at Sinober: ‘Don’t leave your brother. Do you hear me?’

Mum had rumpled the hair on both of their heads, even though Arne was taller than her now. In addition, Vetle had to endure a smacker of a kiss on his cheek before their mother had knotted the blue-and-white Kjelsås football scarf more firmly around his neck and pushed the two boys out the door.

‘Do you hear me, Arne? Don’t leave your brother, and be home by six.’

Vetle didn’t yet have a wristwatch, but he knew they were very late. Far too late, he felt. Darkness had crept across Nordmarka ages ago, because even though the sky was clear, the days were at their shortest now. The temperature had dropped in the course of the afternoon, and Vetle’s feet had started to freeze in earnest. The ski boots that had been passed on by Arne were still far too big for him, so he had swapped the woollen socks for thin ones when his mother wasn’t looking. It was bloody awful going around in ski boots that slid with every push-off. In all secrecy, behind the row of garages below the apartment block, Vetle had forced his feet into his old boots that were far too tight.

The skis were brand, spanking new.

Fibreglass, and the first pair of unused skis he had ever owned.

Vetle was only seven years old, but he had skied since the age of two. With his brother’s well-used planks, in Arne’s old boots and ski clothes. Heavy wooden skis, always too long, with scratches, dents and blunt edges.