WOMAN: As I said, I think we’ve reached the stage where we can say we’re …

MAN: I’m the one who’ll decide when you and I are finished. It’s important to maintain balance between us as well. You’re the therapist. I get to decide when we’re finished.

The door slams behind the MAN. The WOMAN remains seated, restless again, for a long time.

SUNDAY 10 DECEMBER 2017

A STROKE OF LUCK

The second Sunday in Advent was six and a half hours old when Selma Falck opened the door into the apartment in Toftes gate.

She was humming an ABBA song, and the first thing she did was to give Darius some food. Then she unpacked the cat litter tray she had bought on Thursday, and filled it with sand. In the course of the next hour she had sorted out clean and dirty clothes from the cardboard boxes. There was a relatively new washing machine in the bathroom; at least it worked. After using two bottles of bleach to scrub the walls and porcelain, she tore down the shower curtain and threw it out. She showered for a long time, washed her hair, noticed that Darius had devoured all the food and had crapped in the box. She vacuumed the whole apartment, connected the TV without switching it on and scoured the kitchen until it at least smelled acceptable.

To round it off she put on a machine load of underwear.

Last night, when it was no longer possible to resist, she had taken out 9,000 kroner from the ATM. That was almost half of all she owned.

When she was let out of the Poker Turk’s dive just after six that same morning, it had started to snow. Selma had 29,500 kroner in her handbag. Divided into three envelopes, with 1,000 kroner notes in one, 500 bills in another and small denomination notes in the third.

For more than six hours she had experienced peace. Not given a thought to the children. Not to her office, not to Haakon, Vanja or Kristina. And certainly not to Jan Morell or his daughter. Selma had won nearly all the time, been lucky and skilful and on top of everything.

She would buy a new bed with some of the cash.

Besides, there was another poker session on Monday.

The stakes were higher there, and if she shopped at IKEA, she wouldn’t need to touch what was left in her bank account. She put a clean sheet over the cheese puffs settee, placed a pillow at the head and let Darius curl up at the foot.