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  They stood in silence as Jansson smoked.

  ‘So you’re leaving now?’

  Annika nodded.

  ‘Maybe you can come back another time,’ Jansson said.

  Annika laughed. ‘I wouldn’t bet on that.’

  The night-editor laughed too.

  ‘Can I give you a lift anywhere?’ She looked at the exhaustion in his face and shook her head.

  ‘I’ll walk,’ she said. ‘I want to enjoy this beautiful weather.’

  They both looked up at the fog and laughed.

  *

  Her clothes reeked of cigarette smoke, so she pulled them off and left them in a heap on the floor out in the hall. She pulled on her dressing-gown and sat down on the sofa in the living room.

  Patricia was out somewhere, which was just as well. She reached for the phone book.

  ‘You can’t leave the Journalists’ Union just like that, you know,’ an operator at the union told her reproachfully.

  ‘Really?’ Annika said. ‘So what do I have to do?’

  ‘First of all you have to write to your local group and ask to leave, then you have to write to us here. Then you have to confirm your resignation six months later, both locally and to us.’

  ‘You’re joking!’ Annika said.

  ‘The six months are counted from the first day of the following month. Which means that the earliest you can leave the union is the first of March next year.’

  ‘And I have to pay the full membership fee until then?’

  ‘Yes, unless you stop working as a journalist.’

  ‘Ah, well, you see, that’s exactly what I’m going to do,’ Annika said. ‘As of now.’

  ‘So you’re leaving your current position?’

  She sighed. ‘No, I’ve got a permanent contract with the Katrineholm Courier.’

  ‘Then you can’t leave.’

  I’m going to strangle this stupid bitch with the phone-wire, Annika thought.

  ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘I’m leaving the union, now! Today. For ever. Whatever I do or don’t do is none of your damn business. I’m not paying another penny to your rotten union. Take me off your database, right now.’

  The woman on the other end was angry and insulted.

  ‘I certainly can’t do that,’ she said. ‘And anyway, it isn’t our union, it’s yours.’

  Annika gave up, and started laughing.

  ‘God, you’re just unbelievable,’ she said. ‘If you won’t let me leave at once, I’ll pay for the privilege. Send me a paying-in slip.’

  ‘We don’t work like that.’

  Annika swallowed and closed her eyes. It felt like her brain was about to explode.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Fine. And I want to give up my right to unemployment support from you as well! Go to hell!’

  She put the phone down and leafed through the phone book again. She called the General Workers’ Union on Sveavägen.

  ‘I’d like to join your unemployment programme,’ she said.

  ‘Great! Sure, I’ll send the papers.’

  As easy as that.

  She went out into the kitchen and made a sandwich. She ate half, then threw the rest away. Then she found a pad of paper and settled down. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then wrote two letters. She had to go and buy envelopes and stamps from the Japanese newsagent on the corner.

  51

  It was already evening by the time Patricia walked into the hall and almost tripped on the pile of clothes.

  ‘Hello?’ she called out. ‘Have you been at the pub?’

  Annika poked her head out from the kitchen.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your clothes smell of pub.’

  ‘I got the sack.’

  Patricia hung up her jacket and went into the kitchen.

  ‘It’s started raining again,’ she said, pushing her hair from her face.

  ‘I know,’ Annika said. ‘I just got in.’

  ‘Have you eaten?’

  Annika shook her head. ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘You’ve got to eat,’ Patricia said encouragingly.

  ‘Otherwise what? Bad karma?’

  Patricia smiled. ‘Karma means your sins from a past life catching up with you in this one. This is called hunger. People die from it, you know.’

  She went over to the stove, cracked some eggs and started cooking. Annika looked out of the window as the rain rattled down, making the grey evening even more dismal.

  ‘It’ll soon be autumn,’ Annika said.

  ‘There you go, mushroom omelette,’ Patricia said, sitting down opposite her.

  To her own surprise, Annika ate the whole lot.

  ‘So what do you mean, “got the sack”?’ Patricia said.

  Annika looked down at her empty plate.

  ‘They didn’t extend my contract. The union wanted me gone right away.’

  ‘They’re idiots,’ Patricia said, so firmly that Annika couldn’t help laughing.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘they are. I left the union.’

  Patricia cleared the table and washed up.

  ‘So what are you going to do now?’

  Annika swallowed. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’ve resigned from the Katrineholm Courier and told the housing office that I’ll be moving out of my flat in Hälleforsnäs. I posted the letters this afternoon.’

  Patricia stared at her, wide-eyed.

  ‘But what are you going to do for money?’

  Annika shrugged. ‘I have to wait a month before I get any unemployment benefit, but I’ve got some savings.’

  ‘Where are you going to live?’

  Annika held out her hands.

  ‘Here, at least for the time being,’ she said. ‘It’s due to be pulled down, but that could be a year away. After that, well, I’ll just have to see.’

  ‘We always need people at the club,’ Patricia said.

  Annika laughed mirthlessly.

  ‘Yes, I’ve got all the right qualifications,’ she said. ‘I’ve got tits, and I’ve played a bit of roulette in my time.’

  Patricia stared at her.

  ‘You play roulette?’

  Annika sniffed.

  ‘I used to work part-time at the town hotel in Katrineholm when I was a student. I can spin the wheel eleven times and can sometimes even get the ball to land on thirty-four if I start from zero.’

  She started to cry.

  ‘But we need someone for the roulette table,’ Patricia said.

  ‘I’m going away for a bit,’ Annika said.

  ‘Where?’

  She shrugged. ‘I can’t remember the name of the place. It’s in Turkey, somewhere on the Mediterranean.’

  ‘That sounds nice,’ Patricia said.

  They sat in silence for a while. Annika tore off a piece of kitchen roll.

  ‘You need to work out what you’re going to do,’ Patricia said.

  ‘Thanks, I know,’ Annika said, blowing her nose.

  ‘Hang on, I’ll get the cards,’ Patricia said.

  She got up and went over to her room. Annika heard her unzip her sports bag. A few seconds later Patricia appeared in the doorway holding a dark-brown wooden box in her hands.

  ‘What’s that?’ Annika said, crumpling the sheet of kitchen roll into a little ball.

  Patricia put the box down on the kitchen table and opened it. Inside was a piece of black cloth, which she carefully unwrapped.

  ‘Tarot is an ancient form of knowledge,’ she said, laying a pack of cards on the table. ‘It’s based on a set of cards with different esoteric images. Each image possesses the energy of what it represents. It’s a tool for finding your way towards greater consciousness.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Annika said, ‘but I don’t believe in things like that.’

  Patricia sat down.

  ‘You don’t have to believe,’ she said. ‘You just have to listen, to be open, and able to look into your own kingdom.’

  Annika couldn’t help
smiling.

  ‘Okay, you’re sounding a bit weird now.’

  ‘Don’t laugh, this is serious,’ Patricia said sternly. ‘Look, seventy-eight cards, the Major Arcana, the Minor Arcana, and the court cards. They each represent different insights and perspectives.’

  Annika shook her head and stood up.

  ‘No, don’t go,’ Patricia said, taking hold of Annika’s wrist. ‘Let me do a reading for you!’

  Annika hesitated, then sat back down with a sigh.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘What do I have to do?’

  ‘Here,’ Patricia said, placing the pack of cards in her hand. ‘Shuffle them, then cut the pack.’

  Annika shuffled the cards, cut them, then handed them back to Patricia.

  ‘No, you’ve got to cut them three times, then shuffle and cut them another two times.’

  Annika looked sceptical. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because of the energies. Come on!’

  Annika sighed silently and shuffled and cut, shuffled and cut.

  ‘Good,’ Patricia said. ‘Now, don’t put them back together. Pick a pile with your left hand and shuffle those cards again.’

  Annika raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Good,’ Patricia said. ‘Now, concentrate on the question you want answered. Are you facing a big change in your life, for instance?’

  ‘You know I am!’ Annika said, getting annoyed.

  ‘Okay, then I’ll deal a Celtic cross …’

  Patricia lay the cards on the table. She put two in the centre, on top of each other, and the others heading away from them in the shape of a cross.

  ‘Nice pictures,’ Annika said. ‘Weird designs, though.’

  ‘This pack was designed by Frieda Harris, from sketches by Aleister Crowley,’ Patricia said. ‘It took her five years. The symbols have their origins in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.’

  ‘Good grief,’ Annika said sceptically. ‘And these are going to tell me my future?’

  Patricia nodded seriously and pointed at one card lying beneath another.

  ‘This one,’ she said, ‘is your central card. This is your situation today. The Tower, the sixteenth card of the Major Arcana. You see that it’s on the point of collapse. This is your life, Annika. Everything you know, all your security, is on the verge of collapse, and you already know it.’

  Annika looked closely at Patricia.

  ‘What else?’

  Patricia moved her finger and pointed at the card lying over the Tower.

  ‘The five of Coins is crossing your central card, blocking or obstructing it. It means Mercury in Taurus, anxiety and fear.’

  ‘And?’ Annika said.

  Patricia gave her a serious look.

  ‘You’re afraid of change, but you don’t need to be,’ she said.

  ‘Okay; what else?’

  ‘Your conscious attitude to your situation is what you might expect. Judgement, which stands for self-criticism and reflection. You think you’ve failed and are giving yourself a hard time. But your unconscious attitude is much more interesting. See here, the Prince of Swords. He’s a master of creative ideas, always trying to break free from narrow-minded idiots.’

  Annika leaned back in her chair as Patricia went on.

  ‘You’re coming from the seven of Coins, restriction and failure, and are heading towards the eight of Swords, involvement.’

  Annika sighed. ‘Sounds nasty.’

  ‘This is you. The Moon. That’s odd. The last time I did a reading on myself I got the Moon too. It stands for the female sex, the final test. I’m sorry, it isn’t a good card.’

  Annika didn’t say anything. Patricia studied the rest of the cards in silence.

  ‘This is what you’re most afraid of,’ Patricia said. ‘The Hanged Man. Rigidity. Fear that your will is going to be broken.’

  ‘So what happens?’ Annika said, no longer sounding quite as sceptical.

  Patricia pointed hesitantly at the tenth card.

  ‘That’s the result. Don’t worry, it shouldn’t be taken literally.’

  Annika leaned forward. The card was a picture of a skeleton holding a scythe. ‘Death,’ she said.

  ‘It doesn’t necessarily mean physical death. It can also mean radical change. Old relationships dissolving. Can you see, Death has two faces? One tears things down and destroys, and the other frees you from your shackles.’

  Annika stood up suddenly.

  ‘I don’t give a shit about your stupid cards,’ she said, going into her room and slamming the door.

  Part Three

  SEPTEMBER

  Nineteen years, two months and eighteen days

  I think I’m good at living. I like to think that my life is actually quite bright. My breath is so light, my legs so smooth, my mind so open. I think it’s easy for me to be happy. I think I love life. I have a suspicion that there’s something just out of reach, quite close to me, unobtainable.

  How simple things can be. How little we actually need.

  Sun. Wind. Direction. Context. Involvement. Love.

  Freedom.

  Freedom …

  But he says

  he will never

  let me go.

  Monday 3 September

  52

  The landscape only appeared a minute or so before the plane hit the ground. The clouds were hanging on the treetops, spreading a fine haze of rain.

  I hope the weather’s been this bloody awful the whole time, Annika thought. It would serve the bastards right.

  The plane taxied to a stop at Terminal 2 at Arlanda, the same one they’d left from. Annika had been seriously disappointed. Terminal 2 was like a little appendix to the main departure hall, and it had hardly any duty-free shops. The smaller airlines were based there, domestic and foreign, charter and scheduled flights alike, no glamour at all.

  There was little sign of life as she went through customs.

  Oh well, I suppose that’s something, she thought as she sailed through the green channel.

  Of course her bags were the last to appear. The airport bus was packed, and she had to stand all the way in to the City Terminal in the centre of Stockholm. By the time she stepped out onto Klarabergsviadukten it was raining properly. Her bags sucked up the moisture like sponges, the contents getting soaked. She swore through her teeth and got on the number 52 bus at Bolindersplan.

  Everything was silent and white up in the flat, the curtains hanging limply in the morning light. She put her bags down on a mat in the hall and sank onto the sofa, dizzy with tiredness. The plane should have left Antalya at four o’clock the previous afternoon, but for reasons that were never properly explained they had to sit in the Turkish hangar for eight hours, then inside the cabin for another five before the plane finally took off.

  She leaned back in the sofa, shut her eyes and let the feeling come back. She had been suppressing it through all those hot days in Turkey, concentrating instead on absorbing the Asiatic light, the sounds and smells. She had eaten properly, salads and kebabs, and had drunk wine with lunch. But now she felt her stomach clench and her throat contract again. When she tried to visualize the future she couldn’t see anything. A blank. White. Empty. Shapeless.

  I have to forget, she thought. This is where everything starts afresh.

  She dozed off, slumped on the sofa, then woke up ten minutes later because her wet clothes were making her feel cold. She quickly undressed and ran down to the bathroom in the next building.

  When she came up again she crept into the kitchen and looked into Patricia’s room. It was empty. She was taken aback, and surprised. On the way into Stockholm she had wound herself up about Patricia being there, imagining that she’d rather be alone. She was wrong. The absence of that mane of dark hair on the pillow gave her a terrible sense of loss, and she didn’t like it.

  Restless, she wandered through the flat, in and out of the rooms, and made coffee that she didn’t drink. She tipped her wet clothes out in a heap on the living-room floor
, hanging them over chairs and doors to dry. The room smelled of damp, and she opened a window.

  What now? she thought.

  What am I going to live off?

  What am I going to do with my life?

  She sank into the sofa again, her tiredness growing into a lump of anxiety in her chest, making it hard to breathe. The curtain in front of the open window billowed into the room, then sank back down again. Annika noticed that the floor by the window was getting wet, and got up to wipe it.

  It’s down for demolition anyway, she suddenly thought. It doesn’t matter. There’s no point. No one cares if the floor gets ruined. Why bother?

  The parallels with her own situation sent a wave of sentimental self-pity through her. She slumped back in the sofa, pulled her knees up under her chin, and rocked back and forth, crying. Her arms stiffened round her legs, aching with cramp.

  It’s all over, she thought. What am I going to do? Who can help me now?

  And suddenly the answer was crystal clear.

  Grandma.

  She dialled the number, shut her eyes and prayed that her grandmother would be in her flat and not out at Lyckebo.

  ‘Sofia Hällström,’ the old woman said as she picked up the phone.

  ‘Oh, Grandma!’

  Annika was in tears.

  ‘But, little one, whatever’s the matter?’

  The woman sounded worried, and Annika forced herself to stop crying.

  ‘I feel so lonely and awful,’ she said.

  Her grandmother sighed. ‘That’s what life is like,’ she said. ‘It can be a real struggle sometimes. The main thing is never to give up, you hear?’

  ‘But what’s the point?’ Annika said, tears running down her face.

  ‘Loneliness is hard.’ The old woman’s voice sounded tired. ‘Human beings can’t survive without their flock. You’ve been forced out of the group you wanted to belong to, so it feels like you’re out on your own right now. There’s nothing strange about that, Annika. It would be more remarkable if you felt okay. Just let yourself feel bad, and take care of yourself.’

  Annika wiped her face with the back of her hand.

  ‘I just want to die,’ she said.

  ‘I can understand that,’ her grandmother said. ‘But you’re not going to. You’re going to survive, so that you can bury me when the time comes.’

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’ Annika exclaimed. ‘Are you ill? You can’t die!’