Dead of Winter

9 Winter 1987

They had dinner in the main cabin, a square building with a flat roof that was more like a barracks than anything. It contained a large dining room, a kitchen and several toilets.

Laura liked it very much. Liked the feeling of community that radiated from its walls, the aroma of hundreds of meals that had impregnated the linoleum flooring and the pine panelling on the walls.

Hedda’s paintings were everywhere. Laura’s particular favourite was right in front of her. It showed the lake early in the morning, with the ridge in the background looking like the outline of a sleeping giant.

Laura had longed for this moment. Iben and Jack on either side of her, Aunt Hedda opposite, Peter playing the fool, Tomas listening quietly.

And yet she wasn’t quite as happy as she’d expected to be.

Milla seemed OK, although her style was way too cool for both Vedarp and Gärdsnäset. She had backcombed hair with pink streaks, and she was wearing dark-framed glasses, a denim jacket over a mint-green hoodie, and ripped, stonewashed jeans. The very ones Laura’s mother had refused to buy her.

‘Hi, Laura. Good to meet you at last,’ she’d said when they were introduced.

Her eyes were dark and alert, and her accent was very similar to Laura’s own, a pretty neutral standard Swedish. She’d tried to read Milla as she did her classmates, but it was difficult to pick up anything beyond the colourful façade.

Milla also kept a low profile. She didn’t say much, she simply listened, which made her even harder to work out.

Just as Iben had said, Peter and Tomas seemed to be competing for Milla’s attention, Peter by being funny, Tomas by doing errands.

Laura hadn’t managed to ask Hedda why she hadn’t mentioned Milla in her letters. She had, however, learned that Milla wouldn’t be staying at Gärdsnäset for very long, so maybe that was why?

It wasn’t Milla that was preventing her from feeling happy, but what Jack had said in the car. Things had happened around the lake – what did that mean? Things he obviously didn’t want to talk about while Iben was listening. And why was he so anxious, almost scared?

Laura’s train of thought was interrupted as Hedda got to her feet and tapped her spoon against her glass.

‘Darling Laura – you’re here at last! We’ve missed you so much. Gärdsnäset isn’t the same without you, but now all my children are back home, and I’m so happy . . .’ Hedda’s eyes shone with unshed tears, and she cleared her throat. ‘So we raise our glasses to your homecoming, Laura – skål!’

After dinner they settled down on the sofas in front of the open fire. The flames danced, and the heat made their cheeks red. Jack fetched his guitar, and he, Laura and Iben sang ‘Hold Me Now’ and ‘You’re the Voice’ just as they had in the summer. Hedda, Tomas and Peter applauded enthusiastically after every song, and for a while everything was just as it used to be. However, Laura couldn’t help glancing at Milla from time to time. Making fresh attempts to read her.

Milla still wasn’t saying much, but after a while Laura got the feeling that she was watching Jack and Iben. Following their movements, observing their expressions, leaning forward a fraction, listening in to their conversation.

Were they sitting a bit too close together? Looking at each other more than at anyone else? Laura thought about the photograph she’d taken out on the plane. Iben’s cheek pressed against Jack’s.

The nausea came from nowhere. She stood up, mumbled that she had to go to the toilet, but slipped outside instead.

The snow had stopped falling, the air was clear and cold in the way that was unique to Vintersjön. The only sound came from inside the cabin, and a bird calling in the distance. In Hong Kong, Singapore and all the other places she’d lived it was never quiet, and Laura realised how much she’d missed it. She leaned back against a tree trunk, turned her face up to the sky and let out a long breath as she tried to sort out her thoughts.

What exactly did she suspect? That Jack and Iben were in a relationship? Was that what Jack had meant in the car?

Just putting it into words was so painful that she clutched at her stomach.

Jack was playing his guitar again. Laura didn’t recognise the song, but Iben clearly did. She joined in the chorus, singing the harmony so beautifully that Laura could hardly breathe.

She pushed herself away from the tree and began to run, away from the cabin. The tears burned behind her eyelids, and she bit her lip to stop them from falling.

Hedda’s house had red walls and white window frames, just like the cabins in the holiday village. There wasn’t a scrap of moss or algae on the roof; Jack must have pressure-washed it when he was doing the end-of-season cleaning.

Inside there was a kitchen, a living room and three small bedrooms. One of the bedrooms had been Jack’s before he moved into the apartment above the boathouse. These days Hedda used his old room as a combined office and studio.

Everything was clean and tidy as usual. The smell was a mixture of creosote, oil paints, cat and lake. Laura always associated that smell with Hedda, and it made her feel calm and safe. Tonight, however, it wasn’t working quite so well.

‘Hello, George, have you missed me?’

The grey tabby cat wound herself lovingly around Laura’s legs. She picked George up and hugged her as tightly as she dared. The pain in her stomach eased a little.

Her own room was full of things that she and Hedda had created together over the years. Drawings, ceramics, even paintings. Hedda had framed Laura’s best painting and hung it right in the middle of one wall. It depicted a woman sitting on a rock, gazing at her reflection in a lake. Long blue-black hair reminiscent of seaweed covered the front of her body, so that it was only possible to glimpse her nakedness.

Hedda swore that she’d seen the nymph with her own eyes early one morning, sitting on the flat stone by the eastern shore just below the castle. Ever since, she’d tossed a sandwich into the water before she went fishing, to make sure the nymph was in a good mood.

A sandwich for father, a sandwich for mother. And one for the nymph who lives down below.

Laura liked all of Hedda’s stories, but the one about the nymph was her absolute favourite. Sometimes, especially in the winter, the nymph even came ashore, searching for someone to lure into the deep water. She was very beautiful, but her burned, pitted back gave her away, which was why she rarely revealed it. Not even in Laura’s painting. All that could be seen was the hint of an ominous dark patch near one shoulder, and Laura was particularly pleased that she’d managed to convey her secret.

She went over to the desk and took down the framed photograph from the shelf above. Jack was eleven, she was eight. He had his arm around her, and was looking straight at the camera. There was anxiety in his eyes; his expression reminded her of how he’d appeared in the rear-view mirror just a few hours ago.

The tears threatened once more. She hugged George, buried her face in the soft fur.

The sound of a powerful engine made her look out of the window. She saw headlights over by the cabin, the outline of a familiar truck. It belonged to Iben’s father. The rear lights glowed like two angry eyes.