‘Don’t worry about him,’ said the real estate agent, tossing his cigar into a forsythia hedge. ‘That’s just something he made up.’

She watched the boy go. He wasn’t wearing socks. It was the beginning of May, and it was cold.

Smiling uneasily at the agent, the woman opened the door and invited them in with a vague hand gesture. She was somewhere between thirty and forty years old. Her face was quite pretty, but her hair was dull and unkempt. She was wearing an apron with a wet spot, as if she had just come from the sink. A little girl of five or six stood beside her, pulling on her dress while observing the strangers with a cross face. With visible, strained effort, the real estate agent patted her on the cheek. He didn’t have any children himself. The girl twisted shyly away from his large hand.

‘Well!’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Sorry we’re arriving without notice, but I didn’t know your phone had been cut off. I tried calling you.’

‘I forgot to pay it,’ the mother said quickly, untying her apron. ‘Please, come in.’

She led them from the entry into a large living room which was separated from a bedroom by a glass door. From the other side they could hear the persistent cries of an infant.

She looked toward the door.

‘I was just about to nurse,’ she said apologetically. ‘It can wait a little. Here is the family room,’ she said, with a watchful glance at the potential buyers. ‘Excuse the mess –’

‘That doesn’t matter,’ said the wife, looking around.

There were sharply defined areas on the floor from furniture that had recently been removed. On the faded walls, the original color was revealed in small squares. The few remaining pieces of furniture were collected in the center of the floor in a kind of ‘guests visiting’ composition, hastily and temporarily arranged. The sun streamed in diagonally over the windowsill, where the soil in the potted plants was so dry it was full of cracks.

The wife felt a chill and pulled her jacket more tightly around her throat.

‘This is very roomy,’ she said, peering inquisitively up at her husband.

He could try and look a little friendlier, she thought.

He stared up at the ceiling and pointed at a dark spot.

‘Does the roof leak?’ he asked skeptically.

The real estate agent shrugged his shoulders.

‘Minor problem,’ he said. ‘A roof tile is broken. It will just cost a few kroner to have it repaired.’

‘Those kinds of things ought to have been taken care of.’

The young man regarded the house’s owner coolly. Her baby’s crying had changed to a resigned whimper.

‘You can go ahead and nurse if you want,’ said the wife quickly. ‘Mr Henriksen can show us around while you’re busy.’