Rays of light were filtering in through the window.

You said you were working in sundsvall I said. What was your job.

I was an officer. At that time I was training recruits for the air force.

Really. In the military. I’d never have guessed.

What would you have guessed he asked. I didn’t know. Something to do with manual skills perhaps like being a joiner or chimneysweep. In any case if you were deaf in one ear so how were you even allowed to join up.

How can you be so sure that petra isn’t your child. Children can be born early. Or late.

I arranged for a paternity test. Petra is somebody else’s child but I decided to take care of her all the same. She doesn’t know he said.

Christ I’m so fed up with all these stories I said. Why can’t anyone be normal just for once. And look normal. Say normal things.

Like göranbäckström he said. For example I said.

He got out of bed. Stirred the embers in the stove and got a fire going. His back was angry. His movements abrupt.

Mentioning göranbäckström was trouble. I hadn’t thought about how I felt about him until now. But he actually was the perfectly normal guy without being altogether dull. A little 231too predictable and cocky but attractive. Maria had thought so too.

Wasn’t he in the crew when you went hunting he asked. Yes why do you ask.

And you slept over as well. Why do you ask.

He turned towards me.

That’s how it started he said. In the hunt shed on a bunk. And in the byre in the hay. In the house on a bed. Even in church.

With the minister I asked. Yes with that fucking man of god.

There were eight of us who slept in the shed on the first day of the hunt I said. What are you saying.

He backed down a little. Excessive anger drained from his eyes. I wasn’t maria even though I have done what she did. Hooked men and thrown them back to where they came from once the fun was over. Though there was no point in telling john now. He seemed calm but yesterday’s insanity still lurked beneath a fragile quiet surface. Like taking a shortcut across the ice in spring.

Who were your parents I asked. Where did they come from.

They were travellers as people say nowadays. Tinkers who moved from place to place and took on whatever odd jobs were going. Sold things. Where they really came from I never knew.

But then how come they settled here and built the cottage.

My father was allowed to buy the forest site from johanssons. They must have taken pity on us.

So no one knows where this place is I asked. Except johanssons perhaps.