The suitcase and the cake tin in the bait house. She looked down at her box of provisions, lifted it quickly over into the boat, stepped aboard and ran to the stern as Ole loosened the hawsers at the prow and Magnus revved the engine so the bow was propelled outwards. Without displaying any emotion she watched Ole go back and unhitch the other rope, everything repeats itself, but it was her own decision, that didn’t make it any easier, there was no turning back now, though there was no relief to be found.

~

Ingrid swung herself up the two rungs to the wheelhouse and said she would guide him out.

“Foul waters ahead?”

“No.”

She qualified her answer: “A bit.”

He said:

“Thought you didn’t want to go home?”

“No.”

Then, staring rigidly ahead at the familiar fairway, she said he should go with her up onto the island and spend the night with her there, but have a wash first. He was silent for a long time and then asked:

“Where?”

“In the tub!”

He chuckled, and they said no more.

He took them north-west of Oterholmen and ploughed through an armada of eider ducks between the northern headland and the harbour, mumbled some complimentary words about the new quay, this mountain of hand-hewn pink stone built by foreign hand some time in Ingrid’s childhood, when there was also a war. She said, yes, it was a fine quay.

They left the boat in the hands of Ole and his mate, who had sabotaged his existence as a refugee and enlisted on the Salthammer for good. Something was said between the men, which Ingrid didn’t catch. She walked with Magnus up towards the unlit house, she at the front with the suitcase and the cake tin, her eyes bored into the thick snow, as if once more looking for tracks that weren’t there, he carrying the provisions and balls of yarn, into the cold, lifeless kitchen, here too she managed to keep herself blind.

She lit the lamps, and he got the fire going while she blinked her eyelids and found nothing to fear. When he had nothing more to put his hands to, she stood still in front of him until they were both embarrassed, and began to undress him, even though it was not yet warm in the kitchen, she ignored some strained witticisms about the zinc tub that had served the Barrøyers for generations, and washed him without a word, while she thought about Nelvy and water, running, purifying, soothing water, cold, hot, smooth, wet, salty . . . while she thought of soap that didn’t lather, of odours and muck, until finally she was able to give an exploratory sniff and detect not the slightest trace of a human body.

He said:

“Why are you doing this?”