‘Fifteen weeks, it’s not that far along,’ I say. ‘If you think about it, I mean.’

‘Sure, but we can relax a little bit,’ she says, sharply.

‘I’m just saying,’ I tell her. ‘So you don’t feel disappointed.’

‘I know,’ Marthe says.

‘My God, though, that’s amazing news,’ I tell her eventually, serving up a wide smile and hugging her once more to be on the safe side. ‘To think, it all worked itself out.’

‘It did,’ Marthe says, laughing, she wants to be happy, not to argue. ‘We were just about to go the test-tube route again, and then poof.’

‘Poof,’ I repeat. ‘The old-fashioned way, you mean?’

‘Yep,’ Marthe says. ‘Can’t beat it,’ she says, making a fist and punching the air in triumph.

I laugh. 22

‘My God,’ I say again.

‘Don’t you think the cabin looks good painted white?’ Marthe says on her way out of the room. ‘Much better than the yellow, I think. More like the ones you see down south.’

I pretend not to hear her and close the door leading to the hallway.

Chapter 4

I remove my sweaty T-shirt and lie back on the bed that’s already been made up for me, then gaze up at the ceiling, listen to the sounds drifting in from outside; the window is open, gulls screech in the distance and Olea shouts at Kristoffer to watch something she’s doing, she shouts until her pleas start to sound cross, DA-ddy!, and he shouts I’m watching! in a tone that betrays the fact he’s looking at his phone. I can hear a boat out on the water, it’s going fast, the sky has clouded over, it’s cold lying here in my bra. I don’t cry. It always smells a little stale in here, and the sheets are soft and slightly threadbare and smell like fresh linen straight off the line, the mattress is old foam rubber, just as it should be, I’ve lain in this bed every summer since I was a child. And now I’m here. With Marthe. With her husband and their unborn baby and Olea.

I hadn’t believed it, not really. My friends have all over-taken me, each and every one of them, but now Marthe too, somewhere inside I had always believed that nothing would come of it, that things wouldn’t ever change, that 24Marthe would always be there in need of consolation, that she wouldn’t ever overtake me.

She can’t overtake me.