Ingrid was about to say she always had been, but her aunt stood weighing her up with the same bend of the hip, as if she couldn’t believe it. Barbro went right up to her, grabbed the plait and studied it, tossed it back and returned to the pots and pans humming maddeningly – and Ingrid, in her agitation, remembered where she had hidden her sketch pad: she had run up to the closet as soon as she had seen the men in the boat, taken the pad and dashed around the house in panic until she found a less safe place, fool that she was: under the mattress in her grandfather’s bed. But Barbro stood in front of her like a wall, with the potato bucket dangling from her little finger, still wearing that same irritating smile.

Ingrid grabbed the bucket and went out into the rain, opened the cellar door and knelt down to let the light in, picked potatoes like eggs from a nest and stacked them in circles, counted them and was sure beyond all doubt that she was right about it, then she went in and put the bucket on the worktop next to the sink, continued into her grandfather’s room, whisked the bedding aside to make sure the pad really was there, and it was.

She clutched it to her bosom, opened it and saw again the fir cones and shells from her schooldays, the Russian poem consisting of three unreadable verses of three identical lines, shifted from one foot to the other and rocked up and down, until she no longer had any doubt she had the pad in her arms, then she went to the loft and slipped it under the bed linen in the closet where it belonged, in the North Chamber.

When she was on her way down again, Barbro was standing at the bottom of the stairs with her hands on her hips, and asked:

“Hvo’s the feither?”

Ingrid descended the last steps, swept her aside, contin-ued into the kitchen and said several times – it sounded like a litany – that it was none of Barbro’s business, what the hell did it have to do with her who the father was, then changed tack completely and reluctantly admitted something about a whaler from Reine, and Barbro stood there looking as if she was searching for a reason to doubt her.

She asked what his name was.

Ingrid didn’t answer. Barbro nodded, alreit then, turned and lifted a chunk of fish from the water and waited for Ingrid to come alongside so that they could admire the rainbow sheen on the gleaming white flesh and work together to find that delicate balance between well-cooked and overcooked fish. Barbro asked where she had caught it. Ingrid said near Skogsholmen, as far as she could remember, she wasn’t sure.

“Wi’ a hand lein?”

“Ya . . .”

Barbro looked at her.