Miriam Munch had woken up in a strange flat. Not in a strange bed, no. She had not done that; he had been a gentleman, he had not even suggested it. He had fetched a duvet and made up a bed on the sofa in the charming little flat, which looked nothing like her own.
A completely different life, a life that looked like the one she had lived before she got pregnant; a freer life, somehow. Her and Johannes’s newly bought flat in Frogner had Italian floor tiles and downlighters in the bathroom. A fridge that could make ice cubes, and a special drawer to keep vegetables fresher for longer. A dishwasher with a digital display. They had electric radiators they could remote-control through their phones, so they could come home to the perfect temperature. A new car – Miriam did not even know what make it was, but it apparently had all the things you are supposed to have these days: GPS, four-wheel drive, airbags front and rear, DVD screens, sunroof and ski box. This flat represented something completely different. Old posters stuck to the walls with Sellotape. A record player in one corner. Clothes everywhere. She could feel a draught from the window as she sat up on the sofa; it was so cold in here that she tightened the duvet around her. She reached for the cigarettes on the coffee table.
October in Oslo. Winter was coming and, normally, she would have turned up the thermostat in the kitchen, which controlled the temperature throughout the flat, so Marion would be warm when she appeared bleary-eyed from her bedroom and sat down at the kitchen table to eat her breakfast, and Miriam’s guilty conscience returned. She wasn’t a good person, was she? Going to a party. And then to come back here afterwards, sitting up all night on a stranger’s sofa, drinking red wine, talking for hours about things she could barely remember ever telling anyone before. About her dad. The divorce. How she had really felt about it. About Johannes. The sneaking suspicion that she had picked him to get away, to rebel, to have a child while she was very young with a man who was the complete opposite of her father.
Miriam lit a cigarette, fumbled for her phone in her handbag on the table, but there was nothing from Johannes. No: I miss you. No: Where are you? Just a message from her mother: Is it all right if Marion stays another night? She would like us to take her to school tomorrow.
Miriam texted a reply: OK, Mum, sure, give her a kiss from me. She put down the mobile, stayed huddled under the duvet and studied the posters again.
Animal freedom is our freedom.
Stop Løken Farm.
A poster of a farm in Mysen. A place in Norway where people made money buying unwanted animals, keeping them in cages before selling them for testing abroad.
It was how they had met.
Ziggy.
Miriam felt riddled with guilt again, and yet she could not make up her mind whether to get up, get dressed, take a taxi home to Frogner, greet Johannes when he returned from his shift at the hospital, like a good girlfriend, a good mum, the person she ought to be, or whether to pull the duvet over herself in this tiny but vibrant flat which reminded her strongly of the life she had once led.
Stop Løken Farm.
She had been at the Animal Protection League shelter on Mosseveien, because she felt she ought to do something with her life. Something other than just being a mum. Tove and Kari, two decent women with no other ambition than to care for cats no one wanted. Feed them. Cuddle them. Make sure they knew they mattered. It was simple, but it had been enough for her.
And suddenly he had been there.
They had almost turned into giggling teenagers, Tove and Kari, the first time he came, blushing as if some celebrity were visiting them. And to begin with, Miriam could not see why he was any different from the other volunteers.
But she could see it now.
Damn.
Miriam reached for another cigarette, and had just lit it as the bedroom door opened.
‘Hi.’
‘Hi,’ Miriam said.
‘Did you get any sleep?’
He rubbed his eyes, walked softly across the floor, and sat down in the chair opposite her, wrapping the duvet he had brought with him more tightly around himself.
‘Not much, a little,’ Miriam blushed.
‘Good,’ he smiled, reaching out for a cigarette from the packet on the table.
Ziggy lit the cigarette and tilted his head slightly to one side, studied her over the glowing tip with his fine, smiling eyes, then he opened his mouth and came straight to the point.
‘What do you think we should do, Miriam? About this?’
Suddenly, she felt a little queasy. She stayed where she was, studying her cigarette without seeing anything. She had thought that this intoxicating feeling of sitting up a whole night with someone who made her feel like herself would pass.
‘I need coffee. Do you want some?’
Please.
‘I think I’d better leave.’
I want to stay here all day.
‘I understand.’ Ziggy smiled. ‘I just didn’t think I could let you leave without breakfast but, obviously, it’s your choice.’
Please stop talking, or I won’t be able to go.
‘No, I should probably be going.’
‘Of course. You must do what’s right for you.’
And when she had got dressed and was outside the flat, Miriam Munch realized she had a problem.
She had fallen in love.
It was more than just a crush.
What if I don’t contact him again?
She hailed a cab and tried to hold on to this thought all the way home.
It’ll pass.
She put her keys down on the console table by the front door, undressed as she walked to the bedroom, slipped under the duvet and was asleep almost before her head touched the pillow.