A hangover took over from the anguish. All the footballers georgåbyericson ralfedström ronniehellström staffantapper ovekindvall and their teammates stared down on me. They saw a miserable busted creature sitting on her childhood bed with a string of dribble at the corner of her mouth. The creature fell asleep again and woke when the light was fading into evening.

I made coffee and knocked on bror’s door. Silence in there no snoring and even no sound of breathing when I pressed my ear to the door.

I tidied away the supper leftovers and then cleaned inside some of the cupboards to pass the time. A mantra of tidy clean tidy clean tidy clean tidy clean rang in my head until it cleared enough to make eskilbrännström’s seem possible.

I settled the dog and borrowed the jeep. It wasn’t far. Just downhill through the crossing and turn right into the track.

The yard looked deserted. The house was dark but he might 31be painting or sleeping. I couldn’t remember if we had set a time to meet.

He didn’t open the door. It was locked. People around here rarely locked the door. If they did for some reason the key was hung on a nail near the door or else they left it in the lock. But there was no nail and no key and the door stayed locked.

I stood outside a door listening for signs of life for the second time that day.

The farm had been built on a low ridge with the forest at its back and with the bakehouse and byre at an angle to the house. A tractor had snowcleared the yard all the way to the outbuildings.

I almost slipped as I crossed the yard to the byre. It looked well cared for. No sign of burnt haystacks and children killed by smoke. I turned the wooden bar that held the door shut and stepped straight into the byre smells of my childhood. Cow stalls and chains on welded rings. The remembered calf stalls strewn with straw as my inner eye could still see them. Bull calves just a few days old separated from their mothers and condemned to slaughter. I heard them calling out to the cow. The cow replying from a bit away. I put my hand inside so the calves could suck on my fingers. And then he came. Father in farming overalls his belly pulling at the buttons. Black heavyboots and his broad back that always seemed to say the calves must go.

Get on with it. Settle the beasts.

My eyes adjusted to the failing daylight. The milking parlour the barn sanctuary that should always be clinically clean had large spiders’ webs spreading over the walls and dirt blown in from outside formed drifts on the floor.

The white coat dangling from a nail had turned grey with age. 32