Now she felt enveloped in a cocoon of sorrow and great love. In Selma Falck’s life there was no room for any of that. Her inability to cry had always suited her down to the ground. During the World Championship Bronze Final against the DDR in the Netherlands in 1986, with the score at 21-11, she was hit on the nose by a goalkeeper’s elbow. The injury was more serious than it had first appeared. Three operations later, her nose looked fine again, but her tear ducts were destroyed.

Selma could not shed tears, and she was the only one in the room who was not doing so. She stood apart, staring at her deceased godson in the hope that everyone would leave her in peace.

Haakon had been a longed-for and carefully planned child, in every sense of the word. He was loved from the date of his conception, and was still equally adored by his mothers as he lay in state in the most colourful living room in the world.

Selma’s children were born because offspring were part and parcel of a marriage.

She was fond of her children. Admittedly, she liked Johannes better than Anine, but that didn’t matter. Her daughter was just so difficult to understand. Even as a tiny baby Anine had seemed so strange. As soon as she was old enough to hold a ball – Selma had been so looking forward to this and had managed to get one with the Bækkelaget logo on it – the little girl had put the ball to sleep in her doll’s cot and wrapped a little quilt around it and started to sing a lullaby.

Anine and Johannes were the nearest Selma had come to loving anyone.

Maybe she did actually love them. She didn’t know for sure, but doubted it. She didn’t especially miss them. She never had done. Neither on her own travels when they were little, nor when they themselves went on trips once they grew older. She was glad they existed, and she was sometimes anxious when she didn’t know what they were doing. It pained her that they hated her now. She tried as hard as she could not to think about them. It was difficult, even though, deep down in her heart of hearts, she did not believe any of the furious messages they had sent her recently. They were just so angry on their father’s behalf. It would pass. In time. Maybe.

Don’t think of the children. Don’t.

Once in a while she tried to imagine what it would be like if they died. The thought terrified her, but the dull sorrow that overcame her then was so different in intensity from the life-affirming, overwhelming energy it gave her to risk something. To take chances. To compete.

To gamble.