Nineteen-year-old Johanna Matea Hætta from the pine barrens in Tverredalen was thereby appointed master of the keys and the larder in an affluent rectory with a view of the sea; she pulled a thread from her skirt, tied the key around her neck and carried on breastfeeding without a word before the eyes of Ingrid, who felt obliged to direct her gaze past both her and the baby.

She gave Ellen and Sara a quick hug, told them to go and play with Nelvy and Gunvor, reminded Nelvy once again that she had to start school, heard Anja ask what was wrong with her, and rushed out into the snow with an irksome sense that she was past the point of no return, she felt it in her knee joints, in the form of a kind of quivering.

She was given as much margarine and sugar as she wanted by Margot, who remarked that Ingrid war looken’ in fein fettle. In exchange for coupons and money. But she didn’t respond to Margot’s questions about how she had been doing, just hurried out and wheeled the goods down the road at an ever increasing speed, slowed down when the masthead lantern and crow’s nest of the Salthammer came into view above the trading post’s roof, put one foot before the other across the snow and ice, rigid and cautious, the hefty weight of the cart yoke against her back.

They had moved the boat back against the quayside; in front of the trading post a local fisherman was unloading his catch while two other boats were waiting, the eyes that were trained on her from the quay, recognising her, some waves, some shouts, she waved back and walked at a measured pace down the twelve steps to the Little Quay and yelled across the empty deck of the Salthammer that she had come to say goodbye.

No reaction.

She shouted again, heard faint laughter from somewhere above her and spotted Magnus at the wheelhouse window, his brown beard, his hair, his eyes that were looking out and up into the air. The deck was swabbed and shiny, the canvas tent had been removed from the harpoon cannon mountings, the wooden pole was gone, and the ship’s engine was running.

Ingrid wished them a good trip north.

He answered something she didn’t catch. She shouted:

“What?!”

He yelled through the noise of the engine:

“Your things.”