ALEXANDRA

2.00 P.M.

Alexandra looked out over the garden and noted that the beauty bush by the entry needed pruning — it was a little higher than the left side of the gate.

From the time Alexandra and her parents moved from Poland, she had always dreamt of a kitchen sink by the window, where she could stand and look out over her garden.

She spent many hours there. Sometimes she could tell that stress was getting to her when she realised she was staring her time away. Even so, it was the only place where she could truly disconnect and relax. She often drank her tea standing by the sink. She cultivated herbs in the window. They were sun-worshippers, just like her, and she soaked in the lovely aromas of basil, oregano, chives, and parsley. In the garden, where she had more herbs and flowers, she could stroll around on the crunching gravel paths for hours — until someone or something disturbed her.

Now, her eyes fastened on the dirt on the windowsills. She started feverishly rubbing with the dishcloth, but the paint had already flaked in several places, and she didn’t want to make it worse than it already was. And it wasn’t visible from outside yet.

Instead, she noted that the garden had never been so beautiful as it was now and felt a touch of pride about that. That was something she had succeeded at anyway. She pulled a few tired leaves off the basil.

The rainy summer had made the plants flourish, but when the heat came, most people had had problems with the drought. She, on the other hand, had managed to keep the greenery alive. She’d spent whole days watering. The hydrangeas were statelier than ever, even though they were the thirstiest flowers there were. They needed her, and perhaps that was just why she liked them so much.

Märtha was playing in the water sprinkler. The first thing she did when she came home from school was to put on her bathing suit. Even though they had a pool, the water sprinkler was her favourite. Presumably because she could play there by herself without any adult having to mind her.

The sound of an engine disturbed the peace, and Bea drove right into the gate with the moped, even though Alexandra had asked her countless times to open it first, as there were marks on the white-painted fence and too much strain on the fence posts. She didn’t have a helmet on either. Alexandra swore silently.

The anger always came so suddenly; so little was needed for it to spike. But she wouldn’t argue with Bea about it. Not now. Didn’t have the energy for yet another quarrel. What if something were to happen to her? If she got run over. For a hundredth of a second, she tried to imagine how that would feel. Relief? She quickly dismissed the thought and was frightened that she’d even let it pass.

She looked at her oldest daughter, who had got so tall and slender. Her body sinewy and muscular. Alexandra only wished she wouldn’t dress so provocatively and couldn’t bear to think about how her parents would have reacted if they’d seen their grandchild in such a short jumpsuit. At the same time, she knew that that boundary had already been crossed, considering how Alexandra had chosen to live her life.

Bea took out her phone and started talking into it. Alexandra would have liked to know whom Bea was calling, or in any event have a sense of who it might be.

They’d stopped talking to each other long ago. When, on various occasions, she’d tried to make contact with Bea, it just ended with them screaming at each other.

She knew that her daughter was seldom at school and that when she was there she mostly sat in the cafeteria or carried on with some other shit that Alexandra couldn’t bring herself to think about.

She’d almost picked off every leaf on the basil when Bea got on her moped again. Just as quickly as she’d arrived, she was gone.

As usual, Bea didn’t bother to close the gate behind her. Alexandra felt her cheeks burning and tore herself away from her place in the kitchen, went out, and closed the gate, while she looked for her daughter who had turned towards town. At the same moment, Alexandra caught sight of a pink car a little further up the street. Märtha would like that, she thought as the car slowly started moving. She followed it with her eyes, and as it passed their house, she saw the TV4 logo pasted on the back window. She couldn’t see who was driving, but it looked like a woman with long hair.

She called to Märtha to come in and hurried into the house.

‘What are you doing?’ Her mother-in-law, Eva, came in from the patio. She sounded irritated. ‘Why are you so hysterical and running around here like a crazy hen?’

‘I saw a reporter on the street,’ she answered, wiping her forehead.

‘Well?’

Eva was dressed in khaki-coloured trousers and a white shirt that accentuated her tanned lizard skin. Her grey hair was in a short pageboy cut and she had her indoor shoes on, despite the heat. She looked stronger than ever. Every day the paper warned about the risk to old people of dying from the heat, but the heat didn’t even seem to bother her.

Märtha came into the kitchen with water running off her body. There were big pools with every footstep and Alexandra felt the effort it took her not to say anything.

‘I want you to go and get dressed now, honey. Daddy is coming soon, and then we’ll eat.’

‘Are we going to eat already?’ Eva sounded accusatory.

‘Yes, we’re having a late lunch or so-called early dinner today. Patrik wasn’t able to work the whole day.’ She herself barely had the energy to make dinner, but someone had to try to keep this house of cards together.

‘Quite, I understand that. He has so much going on, my boy.’ She looked worried.

Alexandra didn’t comment on the criticism, which she knew was directed at her.

Patrik was a plastic surgeon at the City Clinic in Stockholm and commuted every day. Sometimes, he slept over. But a week ago, Alexandra had found out that there was something else that was also enticing him to stay in the capital. Today, he’d cancelled the afternoon appointments, actually for the same reason that he’d been spending more time in Stockholm recently, although now the situation was quite different.

Everything had happened so fast. And exactly like the last time he had put her in a frightful situation.

The food was prepared. The meat was sliced and ready to be tossed on the grill along with the sausages; the salad was cut up. She had put the different kinds of cheese in the pantry to let them soften up a little. The wine was decanted, and she had set the table nicely on the patio.

She had no appetite, herself.

Suddenly Patrik slipped up behind her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. He smelt of disinfectant. ‘How are you feeling?’ she asked.

He shrugged. Alexandra wished he would ask her the same thing, but he didn’t. Everything was about him. Fury bubbled up inside her, but she swallowed it.

‘There was a journalist here just now,’ she said. ‘I saw her in the car — I think it was a woman anyway. From TV4, she had the logo on the car, a pink Porsche. It felt like she was snooping around.’

Patrik was silent a long time. ‘I think that’s von Platen’s daughter. She works for some TV channel and was probably just here to visit her dad. Definitely nothing to worry about. I’ll go up and change, then we’ll eat.’

How could he be so calm? As if he hadn’t understood what had happened. Alexandra straightened the pillows on the couch and went back to the kitchen sink and the window. The pink car was nowhere to be seen.

‘He certainly is handsome.’

‘Who?’ she asked, turning to her mother-in-law, who’d taken down one of the photos from the fridge.

It was a photo of Patrik, who was swimming in the pool. She took the picture from her mother-in-law’s hand and put it back on the fridge.

‘You know that’s your son you’re talking about.’ Eva was out of her mind. How long would she stay? She’d already been there for over a week and it felt like several months.

Patrik and his mother had always had a strange relationship. If Eva could have chosen, she and Patrik would have stayed living on the farm up in the forests of Värmland. Just the two of them.