‘It’s fine,’ Klara says. She turns away and opens the car door. The wet air hits her as she puts her feet into the slush.

‘I really didn’t mean for it to sound like that, Klara,’ says Gabriella, rounding the other side of the car hood. ‘Things are just kind of messy right now.’

‘How did you mean it to sound, then?’ Klara says, as she walks around the car and up the stairs to the hostel. She immediately regrets her tone. She has no right to sound like that, to be so touchy. But she’s too tired to hold back any more. An incredible wave of exhaustion has flattened all of her defences. She doesn’t even have time to turn the doorknob before she hears Gabriella’s quick steps behind her, and feels her put a hand tenderly on her shoulder.

‘Well, I definitely didn’t mean it to sound like that,’ Gabriella says. ‘Please turn around, Klara.’

Reluctantly, with a sigh, Klara turns around and looks at her friend from beneath her bangs. ‘I’m sorry,’ Klara says. ‘I’m just too tired for any bullshit tonight.’

Gabriella nods and keeps her hand on her shoulder. ‘I get that,’ she says. ‘The thing is…’ She falls silent.

‘Yes?’ Klara says. ‘What?’

‘Well,’ Gabriella says. ‘This isn’t the night to talk about it. But it’s the job, Klara, not you. Come on, and let’s go inside. I’m freezing.’

Their adjoining rooms look exactly like Klara had imagined them. White walls, soft mattresses, thick blankets with starched duvets and bedside lamps with bulbs missing. The sea lies no more than fifty metres away, but the darkness and snowfall make it impossible to see anything through the windows.

*

‘It’s off-season,’ says Gertrud, the hostel’s owner, while she turns on the radiators and checks to make sure all the faucets are working. If only she’d had a little more notice, she could have made it more comfortable, she complains. But Klara assures her that a bed is all they need. They’re getting up early in the morning again. Gertrud continues to apologize while putting a couple of ready-made liver pâté sandwiches into the ancient refrigerator in the restaurant’s kitchen and shows them how the coffee maker works. Finally, she’s done prepping, and as she turns on the last of the heaters and makes sure all the windows are shut tight, she tells them that payment is out of the question.

‘Out here we take care of each other,’ she says, narrowing her eyes at Gabriella. ‘It’s not like up in Stockholm, where people only think about themselves.’

Klara notices Gabriella trying to catch her eye, sees the shadow of a smile on her lips. She smiles back but the crater in her chest makes it hard for her to give in to their usual level of mutual understanding.