“I thought perhaps not just yet,” Adolf said.

Ingrid didn’t react.

Adolf from Malvika had been the island’s anchor on the mainland for all these years, now he gave a few thoughtful nods, and said he just thought he ought to mention it, that was all, no, there was something else, he pulled a folded sheet of paper from his shirt pocket and passed it to her. Ingrid read her own handwriting, a plea to all kind people to help this man, who must never be allowed to die, that was how she had expressed herself.

She swung the plait behind her back, she had only one now, and looked at the old man as if he had been trespassing on her island. He glanced nervously at his son and said he just wanted her to know.

“Know what?”

“That everything’s fine.”

He said goodbye with a bow, strode over to his boat and muttered something to his son about the sail. Ingrid pushed the boat out and waited until they had hoisted the sail, until the wind had caught it and Adolf had settled in the stern with the tiller under his arm. Daniel waved.

~

Barbro led the ewe up to the barn and Ingrid carried the sack of flour. They put the pail of milk in the larder and Barbro continued to cry tears of joy and told Ingrid how hellish it had been at the hospital, the food, the nurses, the doctors . . . While Ingrid sat in the rocking chair listening to the sound of another person talking, missed her cat, Koshka, she was still holding the sheet of paper and wondered why he had given it to the very first person he encountered.

Because he couldn’t read it? Because he didn’t trust her? And how many other reasons were there?

Barbro clattered the pans on the stove rings, jerked the pump handle up and down and slopped about and threw out the fish guts that had been left in the bowl in the larder, had Ingrid bin s’ out o’ he’ wits that she’d gutted ’em in th’ house?

She started cooking. Ingrid folded the sheet of paper and had to say something, she said they didn’t have any fodder for the sheep.

Barbro said it could feed on the old grass now that the snow had gone, they hadn’t mown it in the summer, they could boil up some cattle feed from kelp and fish-heads, let it graze on seaweed, they could buy hay.

And they had some straw in the barn on Gjesøya, Ingrid said, and Barbro took a break from her big homecoming clean-up, a concerned furrow appeared between her eyebrows, as she said:

“Bi God tha’s changed.”

“Hvur . . . ?”

“Tha’s got comely.”