Lars and his sons have lit a fire on the quay, between the stones the rinsing tub usually stands on, the weather is good, he grabs the sledgehammer Arne used on the herring barrels and smashes the lid off one of the catering canisters of sausages, which he places on the fire, and Ingrid remembers how he used to light fires on this precise spot in his younger days when he decided it was too cold to work outside, but couldn’t desist. Now he pushes his sons in front of Barbro and says they should say hello to their grandmother, turns quickly back to the bottle on the table, unscrews the cork, fills one of the glasses and offers it to Ingrid.

Ingrid takes it and drinks, almost says “yes” to his unspoken question, whether he is the master of Barrøy now. He pours another glass and gives it to his mother, whose shaking hands spill it. She puts it down again and instead places a hand on each of her grandchildren’s heads, then asks her son who the horrible armchair is for.

“It’s f’ tha, Mother,” Lars says, with his back to her, as he fills more glasses.

Ingrid walks up to the house with the two newly arrived women and shows them where they will be sleeping: Hanna, the baby and the young girls in the South Chamber, Selma in Grandfather’s closet, her sons and Lars can sleep in the Swedes’ quay house, which has just become vacant, and Suzanne is banished to Ingrid’s old childhood room, where Fredrik sleeps.

They slice the loaves Barbro baked and place them together with some newly arrived butter and jam and sweet cheese in a wooden box, and Selma asks who the old woman asleep in the rocking chair is.

“That’s Jadviga,” Ingrid says.

~

It has turned dark and the rain is coming down in sheets. The doors of the quay house are open, the flickering light from the fire illuminates the group of people who have moved in the furniture and are sitting around two tables covered in a cloth, as in a restaurant, eating and drinking and talking, it resembles a banquet hall with four bedrooms, two conjoined parlours and two kitchens: Barbro reigns at one end of the long table, with a grandchild under each arm, she doesn’t know what to say to them, but she fills their plates with sausages, which they eat with their fingers, and butters their bread, wondering whether to ask if they also like sweet cheese.