When Jack Jones had finished, Birger held court, demanding their attention again.

‘Meja, my love, do you know how Anita and I met?’ he asked one evening.

His sons groaned and sighed, but it didn’t put him off. Birger’s face was affected by an almost imperceptibly small tremor when there was something he was eager to talk about. Meja sat up on the rug. It was always her attention he demanded most.

‘How did you meet?’

‘Well, you see, once upon a time we were siblings. Brother and sister.’

‘Birger, really!’

Anita’s needles stopped. Then the room dissolved into laughter. Meja looked at Carl-Johan and saw his face was bright red.

‘Not biological siblings, of course,’ Birger went on. ‘But in our younger, teenage years we ended up in the same foster family, and we were supposed to act like brother and sister. But as soon as I set eyes on her,’ he pointed at Anita, ‘I knew that would never happen. She’s a beauty of the old sort, just like you, Meja. A classic femme fatale, who can turn the head of the most cold-hearted man without even having to try.’

Anita’s face blushed over her knitting.

‘So, naturally, even our foster father took a liking to her. Damned lucky the house was small and you could hear everything that went on, so he couldn’t get away with it. I caught him at it in the laundry room, when he was trying to put his hand up her skirt…’

‘Birger,’ warned Anita. The needles worked faster and faster in her hands, building up to a crescendo.

Birger rested a hand on her shoulder and continued: ‘I smacked him so hard he fell and hit his head on the tumble dryer. We thought the man was dead. So we packed our things and fled, determined to steer clear of the authorities and look after ourselves. I was seventeen and Anita sixteen, and it was us two against the world. Ten years it took, to save up for this piece of land. And the rest is history.’

Birger leaned forward in his chair and fixed his eyes on Meja and Carl-Johan. His chin jutted out as he smiled. ‘All you need to succeed in this life is a true partner. Someone you can share everything with. If you’ve got that, you can do anything. Just look at us.’

Meja thought of Silje and the way she had always pursued love, but never managed to hang on to it. How unhappy and troubled her life had been, with the seeking and the loneliness. She leaned her head on Carl-Johan’s shoulder and promised herself she would never be like that. She would hold on to love.