Eva's Eye

16

Eva returned to reality.

She glanced up at Sejer, amazed that he was still sitting there.

He could have told her to start talking now, but he didn’t. He could take a break, it was worse for her. She was still wearing her coat, now she put her hand in her pocket and fumbled for something.

“Cigarette?” he asked, and found the packet in his desk, the packet he never touched.

He lit one for her, still keeping quiet; he could see she was trying to gather herself, find the beginning, a good place to start. The blood had begun to congeal around her mouth, and her lower lip was swollen. She couldn’t go back to the house. So, finally, she began at the beginning. With the day Emma had gone on holiday, and she’d taken the bus into town. She’d been standing in Nedre Storgate feeling cold, with her back to the Glassmagasinet department store and thirty-nine kroner in her pocket. A carrier bag in one hand. With the other, she clasped the top of her coat together under her chin. It was the last day of September, and cold.

She should have been at home working, it was eleven in the morning, but she’d fled from the house. Before that she’d phoned her electricity supplier and phone company; she’d asked them for a breathing space, for just a few more days, then she’d pay. And she was allowed to keep her electricity supply as she had a young child, but the telephone would be cut off in the course of the day. If the house burnt down, they’d have to live in the ruins as she hadn’t paid her insurance. Every week a new debt-recovery threat came in the post. Her Arts Council grant was late. The fridge was empty. The thirty-nine kroner was all she had. In her studio she had great piles of paintings, the work of several years which no one wanted to buy. She glanced to her left, across to the square, to where she could make out the illuminated Sparebank sign. A few months before the bank had been robbed. The man in the tracksuit had taken less than two minutes to make off with four hundred thousand kroner. About one hundred seconds, she thought. The case remained unsolved.

She shook her head in despair and looked furtively across at the paint shop, peered down into her bag where the aerosol can of fixative lay. It had cost 102 kroner and was faulty. Something was wrong with the nozzle so that nothing came out, or worse, it would suddenly deliver a great flood of the stuff at her pictures and ruin them. Like the sketch of her father that she’d been so lucky with. She hadn’t the money to buy another one, she’d have to exchange it. The few kroner she had left would buy her milk, bread, and coffee and that was all. The problem was that Emma ate like a horse, a loaf didn’t last long. She’d phoned the Arts Council, who’d said that her grant would be sent out “any day now,” so it could take another week. She had no idea what she would eat tomorrow. It didn’t take her breath away or make her panic, she was used to living hand to mouth, they’d done it for years. Ever since she and Emma had been left alone, and there was no longer a man bringing in money. Something would turn up, it always did. But the worry was like a barb in her breast, over the years she’d become empty inside. Sometimes reality began to quiver, and rumble quietly as if there were an earthquake in the making. The only thing that held her fast was the overarching task of satisfying Emma’s hunger. While she had Emma she had a sheet anchor. Today she’d gone to her father’s, and Eva searched for something to hold on to. All she had was the carrier bag.

Eva was tall and truculent, pale and frightened all at once, but the years with little money had taught her to use her imagination. Maybe she could demand her money back instead of a new aerosol, she thought, then she’d have another 102 kroner to buy food with. It was just a bit awkward asking. She was an artist, after all, she needed fixative and the man in the paint shop knew it. Perhaps she should sweep into the shop and make a real scene, act the difficult customer and mouth off and complain and threaten them with the Consumer Council; then he’d understand how the land lay, that actually she was broke and upset, and he’d refund her money. He was a nice man. Just as Père Tanguy had been when, for payment, he’d cut a pink prawn out of a van Gogh picture. Provided he could buy a tube of paint, he didn’t care if he ate or not. Nor did Eva, for that matter, but she had a child with a ravenous appetite. The Dutchman hadn’t had to contend with that. She psyched herself up, crossed the street and went into the shop. It was warmer inside, quite cozy, and had the same smell as her studio at home. A young girl was behind the counter in the perfume section, flicking through a hair-tone chart. The paint man himself was nowhere to be seen.

“I want to return this,” Eva said with determination, “the spray mechanism doesn’t work. I want my money back.”

The girl assumed a pouting expression and took the bag. “You couldn’t have bought that here,” she said sullenly. “We don’t stock that hairspray.”

Eva rolled her eyes. “It’s not hairspray, it’s fixative,” she said wearily. “I ruined a rather good sketch on account of that aerosol.”

The girl blushed, lifted the can out, and sprayed above Eva’s head. Nothing came out. “You can have a replacement,” she said tersely.

“The money,” Eva persisted doggedly. “I know the owner, he’d give me my money back.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because I’m asking for it. It’s called service,” she said curtly.

The girl sighed, she hadn’t been in the shop long and she was twenty years Eva’s junior. She opened the till and took out a hundred-kroner note and two kroner pieces.

“Just sign here.”

Eva signed her name, took the money, and left. She tried to relax. Now perhaps she could manage for a couple of days more. She did some mental arithmetic and worked out she had 141 kroner, almost enough to treat herself to a cup of coffee at Glassmagasinet’s in-store café. You could get a coffee there without having to eat as well. She crossed the street and went through the double glass doors which parted invitingly. She took a quick look in the book and stationery department and was just about to make for the escalator when she caught sight of a woman standing at one of the shelves. A buxom brunette with closely cropped hair and dark eyebrows. She was leafing through a book. Many years had passed, but it wasn’t a face you could forget. Eva stopped dead, she couldn’t believe her eyes. Suddenly the years fell away and she was transported all the way back to that day when, as a fifteen-year-old, she’d been sitting on the stone steps at home. Everything they possessed had been packed in boxes and put on a lorry. She sat staring at it, unable to believe that everything had really fitted into one small lorry, when the house and garage and cellar had been so full of stuff. They were moving. Just then it was as if they didn’t live anywhere, it was horrible. Eva didn’t want to leave. Her father went about with restless eyes as if afraid they’d forget something. He’d got a job at last. But he couldn’t meet Eva’s gaze.

Then there was a crunch of gravel and a familiar figure rounded the corner.

“I had to come and say goodbye,” she said.

Eva nodded.

“We can write to each other, can’t we? I’ve never had anyone to write letters to before. Will you come back in the summer holidays?”

“Don’t know,” Eva mumbled.

She’d never find another friend, she was certain of it. They’d grown up together, they’d shared everything. No one else knew how she felt. The future was a dreary gray landscape, she wanted to cry. There was a quick, shy hug, and then she’d gone. That was almost twenty-five years ago, and since then they’d never set eyes on one another. Not until now.

“Maja?” she queried and waited expectantly. The woman turned and tried to pinpoint the call, and caught sight of Eva. Her eyes opened wide and grew large, then she rushed toward her.

“Well, of all things! I can’t believe my eyes. Eva Marie! My God, how tall you’ve grown!”

“And you’re even smaller than I remember you!”

Then they were silent for a moment, suddenly bashful, as they scrutinized one another to pick out everything, the changes, all the traces left by the intervening years, recognizing their own decay in the other’s wrinkles and lines, and after that they searched for everything they knew so well and which still was there. Maja said: “We’ll go to the café. Come along, we must talk, Eva. So, you’re still living here? You really do still live here?”

She placed an arm around Eva’s waist and shepherded her along, full of amazement, but soon the same person Eva remembered: bright, chatty, determined, and always bubbly, in other words the opposite of Eva. They had complemented one another. Oh God, how they’d needed each other!

“I never got any further,” Eva replied. “This is a bad place to live, I should never have come with that removal lorry.”

“You’re just like you were when we were girls,” Maja giggled. “Downcast. Come on, let’s grab that window table!”

They rushed over to claim it before anyone else, and plonked themselves down on the chairs. Maja got to her feet again.

“Sit here and keep our places, I’ll go and get us something. What would you like?”

“Just coffee.”

“You need a piece of cake,” Maja objected, “you’re thinner than ever.”

“I haven’t got the money.” She’d blurted it out before she’d had time to think.

“Oh? Well I have.”

She went off, and Eva watched the way she helped herself greedily at the cake counter. It was awful having to say that she couldn’t afford a piece of cake, but she wasn’t used to lying to Maja. The truth popped out all of its own accord. She could hardly believe it was true, that she really was over there pouring out their coffee. It was as if those twenty-five years had just rolled away, and as she looked at Maja from a distance she still seemed like a young girl. You get sleeker if you’re a bit chubby, Eva thought enviously, and pulled off her coat. She didn’t bother much about food. She ate only when hunger became a physical discomfort and ruined her concentration. Apart from that she lived on coffee, cigarettes, and wine.

Maja returned. She placed the tray on the table and pushed the plate across to Eva. A Danish pastry and a slice of cake covered in icing.

“I can’t eat all that,” she complained.

“Then you’ll have to make a special effort,” said Maja emphatically. “It’s only a matter of training. The more you eat, the bigger your stomach gets and the more food it needs to fill it. It only takes a couple of days. You’re not twenty anymore, you know, and it pays to put on a bit of weight when you’re pushing forty. Oh God, we’ll soon be forty!”

She stuck the fork into her cake so that the cream filling bulged out at the sides. Eva stared at her, watching how Maja took control, so that she herself could rest and relax and merely do as she was told. Just like when they were girls. At the same time she noticed her fingers with all their gold rings, and the bracelets that jingled around her wrists. She looked well-heeled.

“I’ve lived here for eighteen months,” said Maja. “It’s crazy we haven’t bumped into each other before!”

“I’m hardly ever in town. Haven’t much business here. I live at Engelstad.”

“Married?” asked Maja cautiously.

“Was. I’ve got a small girl, Emma. She’s not actually all that small. She’s at her father’s at the moment.”

“So, a single mother with a child, then.”

Maja was trying to make sense of things. Eva felt herself dwindling. When she said it like that it sounded so pathetic. And the hard times probably showed. She bought her clothes at charity shops, whereas Maja was really quite smart. Leather jacket and boots and Levi’s. Clothes like that cost a small fortune.

“Haven’t you got any children?” Eva asked, holding a hand beneath her Danish pastry as it was shedding so many crumbs.

“No. What would I want one of them for?”

“They’ll look after you when you’re old,” Eva said simply, “and be your comfort and joy when you’re nearing your end.”

“Eva Marie, isn’t that just like you. Deep into old age already. Well, you don’t say, is that why people have kids?”

Eva had to laugh. She felt like a girl again, transported to the time when they were together every single day, every single free moment, for that was how it had been. Apart from the summer holidays, when she was sent to her uncle’s in the country. Those holidays had been unbearable, she thought, unbearable without Maja.

“You’ll regret it one day. Just wait.”

“I never regret things.”

“No, you probably don’t. I regret almost everything in life.”

“You’ve got to stop doing that, Eva Marie. It’s bad for your health.”

“But I don’t regret Emma, though.”

“No, I suppose people don’t regret their kids, do they. Why aren’t you married any more?”

“He found someone else and left.”

Maja shook her head. “And if I know you, you even helped him pack, didn’t you?”

“Yes I did, actually. He’s so impractical. Anyway, it was better than sitting doing nothing and watching all that furniture disappear.”

“I’d have gone over to a girlfriend’s and cracked open a bottle.”

“I haven’t got any girlfriends.”

They ate cake in silence. Now and then they shook their heads gently, as if they still couldn’t believe that fate had really brought them together again. They had so much to talk about they didn’t know where to begin. In her mind, Eva was still sitting on those cold stone steps staring at the green lorry.

“You never answered my letters,” said Maja suddenly. She sounded indignant.

“No. My father went on at me about writing, but I refused. I was bitter and cross about having to leave. I probably wanted to pay him back.”

“I was the one who suffered.”

“Yes, I’m a bit clumsy like that. D’you still smoke?” She rummaged in her bag for cigarettes.

“Like a chimney. But not those factory sweepings of yours.”

Maja took a pouch of tobacco from her jacket pocket and began rolling. “What d’you do for a living?”

The despair showed on her cheeks. It was an innocent question, but she hated it. She was suddenly tempted to tell a white lie, but it was difficult to fool Maja. She’d never managed to before.

“I’ve often asked myself the same question. Nothing very lucrative, is one way of putting it. I paint.”

Maja raised her eyebrows.

“So you’re an artist?”

“Yes, yes I am, even though most people wouldn’t agree with me. What I mean is, I don’t sell a lot, but I regard that as a passing phase. Otherwise I’d probably have given up.”

“But don’t you work at all?”

“Work?” Eva looked at her open-mouthed. “D’you think pictures paint themselves or something? Of course I work! And it’s not exactly an eight-hour day, either, I can tell you. Work follows me to bed at night. You never get any peace. You want to get up and start making alterations all the time.”

Maja smiled wryly. “Forgive my silly question. I just wondered if you had a little job on the side, with a regular wage.”

“Then I wouldn’t have time to paint,” Eva said sullenly.

“No, I can see that. It probably takes a fair time, painting a picture.”

“About six months.”

“What? Are they that big?”

Eva sighed and lit her cigarette. Maja had blood-red nail varnish and well-manicured hands, her own were a sorry sight. “People don’t understand how difficult it is,” she said despairingly. “They think it just goes on to the canvas ready-formed from some secret muse.”

“I don’t know anything about it,” Maja said softly. “It just amazes me that people choose a life like that if it’s so difficult. And when you’ve got a child and everything.”

“I didn’t choose it.”

“Surely you did?”

“No, not really. You become an artist because you have to. Because there aren’t any alternatives.”

“I don’t understand that either. Hasn’t everyone got alternatives?”

Eva gave up trying to explain. She’d eaten both cakes just to please Maja, and now she was feeling queasy. “Tell me what you do instead. Whatever it is, you earn more than me.”

Maja lit her roll-up. “I almost certainly do. I’m self-employed just like you. I run a small one-woman firm. I work hard and single-mindedly to save up some money, and I’m actually contemplating hanging up my hat in the New Year. Then I’ll head off to northern France and open a small hotel. Perhaps in Normandy. It’s an old dream of mine.”

“Wow!” Eva smoked and waited for more.

“It’s hard work and it needs quite a lot of self-discipline, but it’s worth it. It’s simply a means to an end, and I won’t give up until I’ve got what I want.”

“No, I can well believe that.”

“If you were a different type of person, Eva, I’d have offered you a partnership.” She leaned across the table. “No capital. Full training. And you’d have made a fortune in record time. You really would. Then you could have saved for your own small gallery. You would have been able to do that in, let’s say a couple of years. Every other route is just the long way around, if you ask me.”

“But — what exactly do you do?” Eva stared in wonder at her friend.

Maja had folded her napkin into a hard lump while she talked, now she looked right at Eva. “Let’s call it customer service of a sort. People ring and make an appointment, and I receive them. There are so many needs out there, you know, and this niche in the market is really deep. About as deep as the Mariana Trench in the Pacific, I should think. But in plain terms I’m a call girl. Or, if you prefer, a good, old-fashioned whore.”

Eva turned bright red. She must have misheard. Or was Maja simply teasing her, she’d always been a terrible tease. “What?”

Maja gave a sardonic smile and flicked the ash off her roll-up.

And Eva couldn’t help staring, she looked with quite different eyes now at the gold jewelry, the costly clothes, the wristwatch, and the wallet that bulged opulently on the table by the side of her coffee cup. And up at her face again, as if she were seeing it for the first time.

“You’ve always been easy to shock,” said Maja dryly.

“Yes, it’s true, you’ll have to forgive me, but you did rather catch me off guard.” She tried to compose herself. The conversation was moving toward an unknown hinterland, and she was trying to get her bearings. “Well, you don’t exactly walk the streets do you, I mean, you don’t look like it.” She felt inept.

“No, Eva Marie, I don’t. I’m not on drugs, either. I work hard, like other people. Apart from the fact I don’t pay income tax.”

“Have you — do many people know about it?”

“Only my clients, and there are lots of them. But most are regulars. It’s really pretty good, the jungle telegraph does its work and business flourishes. I’m not bursting with pride, but I’m not ashamed either.” She stopped for a moment. “Well, what do you think, Eva,” she said, pulling at her cigarette, “do you think I should be ashamed?”

Eva shook her head. But the mere thought, the first dim flickering pictures that came when she thought of Maja and her occupation, or when she thought of herself in the same situation, made her stomach turn.

“No, goodness, I don’t know. It’s just so — unexpected. I can’t see why you need to.”

“I don’t need to. I’ve chosen to.”

“But how can you choose something like that?”

“It was simple. Loads of money as fast as possible. Tax free.”

“Well, but your health! I mean, what does it do to your self-respect? When you go giving yourself away to just anyone?”

“I don’t give anything away at all, I sell it. In any case, we all have to make a distinction between professional and private life, and I don’t find that at all difficult.” She smiled, and Eva saw that her dimples had got deeper with the years.

“But what would a man say if he found out about it?”

“He’d have to accept it or walk away,” she said curtly.

“But isn’t it a heavy burden to carry year after year? Surely, there must be lots of people you can’t tell?”

“Haven’t you got secrets? Everyone has. This is so like you, isn’t it,” she added, “you make everything so difficult, you ask too many questions. I’d like a little bed-and-breakfast place, on the coast if possible, maybe Normandy. An old house preferably, one I could do up myself. I need a couple million kroner. By New Year I’ll have it, and then I’m off.”

“A couple million?” Eva felt quite weak.

“And besides, I’ve learnt a lot.”

“What can you learn from that?”

“Oh, lots of things. If you only knew. Much more than you learn when you’re painting, I’ll bet. And if you do learn anything, it’ll probably only be about yourself. I think being a painter’s a bit egoistic. You’re really exploring yourself. Instead of the people around you.”

“You sound just like my father.”

“How’s he keeping?”

“Not all that well. He’s on his own now.”

“Oh? I didn’t know. What happened to your mother?”

“I’ll tell you about it another time.”

They fell silent a while and let their thoughts roam. To a stranger they didn’t seem to belong together at all, it needed a sharp eye to perceive the bonds that existed.

“In work terms we’re both outsiders,” Maja said, “but at least I’m making money, and that’s why we work, after all, isn’t it? If I didn’t have enough for a slice of cake in a café I couldn’t survive. I mean, what does it do to your self-respect?”

Eva had to smile at her own line being thrown back at her. “It makes me feel lousy,” she said suddenly. She couldn’t be bothered to pretend any more. “I’ve got 140 kroner in my wallet and unpaid bills amounting to ten thousand in the drawer at home. They’re cutting off the phone today, and I haven’t paid the house insurance. But I’m expecting some money, any day now. I get a grant,” she said proudly, “from the Arts Council.”

“So you’re on handouts?”

“No! Good God, of course I’m not!” Eva’s composure evaporated. “It’s money I get because my work is considered to be important and promising! It gives me the chance to carry on and develop so that sooner or later I’ll be able to stand on my own artistic legs!”

That hit home.

“Sorry,” Maja said lamely. “I’m just not very familiar with the terminology here. So really it’s something positive, this grant?”

“Of course! It’s what everyone hopes for.”

“Well, I don’t get a state subsidy.”

“That would look good,” said Eva grinning.

“I’ll get some more coffee.”

Eva fished out another cigarette and followed the full figure with her eyes. She couldn’t take in the fact that Maja had done this. The Maja she thought she knew so well. But earning a couple of million, that wasn’t exactly peanuts — could it really be true? Was it that easy? She thought of all the things she could do with two million. She could pay all her debts. Buy a small gallery. No, two million couldn’t be right, she was probably laying it on a bit thick. But she didn’t usually tell tall tales. They never used to lie to each other.

“There you are! I hope your coffee won’t go down the wrong way, now that you know where the money’s coming from.”

Eva had to laugh. “No, it tastes just as good,” she said, smiling.

“That’s just what I thought. It’s strange, isn’t it, Eva? To put the whole thing in a nutshell: we’re driven on by the things we need, the things we want. And when we achieve our aims we’re satisfied for a short while, and then we set ourselves new objectives. At least, I do. And in that way I feel I’m alive, that something’s happening and that I’m getting on. I mean, how long have you been stuck in the same rut? Artistically and financially?”

“Ah, quite a long time. At least ten years.”

“And you’re not getting any younger. I don’t think that sounds too good. What is it you paint? Landscapes?”

Eva drank some coffee and prepared herself for a long defense. “Abstracts. And I paint in black and white, and the shades in between.”

Maja nodded patiently.

“I’ve got a special technique that I’ve developed over the years,” Eva said. “I stretch a canvas of the size I want, paint it with a white foundation, and add a coat of light gray, quite a thick coat, and when it’s dry I continue with a darker gray. And when that’s dry, I add an even darker layer, and I go on like this until I end up with pure black. Then I let it dry. Really thoroughly. Eventually, I’m standing in front of a large, black surface, and now I have to delve into it to bring out the light.”

Maja was listening with a polite expression.

“Then I get to work,” Eva went on, and now her enthusiasm began to show, it was so rare for anyone to sit and listen like this, it was glorious, she had to make the most of it. “I scrape out the picture. I work with an old-fashioned paint-scraper, and with a steel brush, or possibly with sandpaper or a knife. When I scrape gently I find shades of gray, and if I scrape hard, I get right down to the white and bring out a lot of light.”

“But what’s it supposed to represent?”

“Well, I don’t know if I can answer that. The viewer must decide what they see. It kind of forms by itself. It’s simply light and shadow, light and shadow. I like them, I think they’re good. I know I’m a great artist,” she said defiantly.

“Well, that certainly wasn’t particularly modest.”

“No. It was ‘the productive egoist’s essential brutality.’ As Charles Morice called it.”

“I’m not quite with you. It all sounds very exciting, but it’s not much good if no one wants to buy them.”

“I can’t paint the pictures people want,” Eva said despairingly. “I have to paint the pictures I want. Otherwise it wouldn’t be art. It would just be doing things to order. Illustrations that people wanted to hang over their sofas.”

“I’ve got some pictures in my apartment,” Maja said with a smile, “I’d love to know what you think of them.”

“Hmm. If I know you, they’ll be pretty, colorful paintings of birds and flowers and things.”

“They are. Should I be embarrassed about them, d’you think?”

“Maybe, especially if you paid a lot for them.”

“I did.”

Eva chuckled.

“I thought artists used paintbrushes,” Maja said suddenly. “Don’t you ever use a brush?”

“Never. The way I do it, it’s all there ready when I begin to scrape. All the light, all the darkness. I just have to reveal it, seek it out. It’s thrilling, I never quite know what I’m going to find. I’ve tried painting with a brush, but it didn’t work, it was like an artificial extension of my arm, I couldn’t get close enough. Everyone finds their own technique, and I’ve found mine. And they don’t look like anyone else’s pictures. I’ve got to go on with it. Sooner or later I’ll break through with somebody. Some art dealer who’s excited by what I do and who’ll give me a chance. And lets me have a one-woman exhibition. I need a couple of good reviews in the papers and perhaps an interview, and then the ball will be rolling. I’m sure of it, I’m not going to give up. Not on your life!”

Her own stubbornness grew as she talked, it made her feel good.

“Can’t you work a bit, I mean, at an ordinary job, so that you’d get a regular income, and then paint in the evenings or something?”

“Two jobs? And looking after Emma alone? I’m not someone with a vast amount of surplus energy, Maja.”

“I’ve got two jobs. I have to put something on my tax return.”

“What do you do?”

“Work at the Women’s Refuge.”

The absurdity of the situation made Eva laugh.

“There’s no clash of interests in that. I do a good job,” Maja said stoutly.

“I don’t doubt it. I bet it’s right up your street. But I don’t suppose your colleagues have an inkling about what you do.”

“Of course not. But I’m better equipped than most girls. I understand men, and I understand their motives.”

They carried on drinking coffee and took no notice of what was going on around them, the people who came and went, the tables that were cleared and retaken, the traffic that hummed outside. It was the way it had always been when the two of them were together, they forgot everything else.

“D’you remember when we sprayed hairspray into Mr. Strande’s beehives?” said Maja. “And you got stung seventeen times?”

“Yes, thank you,” Eva said smiling. “And you pushed me all the way home in a wheelbarrow, shouting and telling me off because I was howling so loudly. Those were the days. I got a temperature of forty-one. It was about that time that Dad contemplated keeping us apart. Anyway, I don’t know how you managed to put up with me, why you didn’t get fed up towing me around. I couldn’t even manage to get my own boys.”

“No, you made do with the ones I managed to find. Maybe they weren’t all of the best quality.”

“Course not. You took the best-looking one yourself, and I got his friend. But if it hadn’t been for you, I’d probably still be a virgin.”

Maja gave her an appraising glance. “You’re really pretty good-looking, Eva. Perhaps you should be an artist’s model, instead of painting yourself?”

“Ha! Have you any idea what they get paid?”

“At least it would be a regular income. You certainly wouldn’t have any problems getting customers, if you were to succumb to the temptation of joining forces with me. I’ve never seen a girl with such long legs before. How do you find trousers long enough?”

“I only wear skirts.” Suddenly Eva began to giggle hysterically.

“What is it?”

“Do you remember Mrs. Skollenborg?”

“Talk about something else!”

There was complete silence.

“Must you do this hotel thing in Normandy?”

“Yes, there’s no point in doing anything here in this narrow-minded country.”

“Then I’m going to lose you again. Just now, when I’ve found you.”

“You could come along too, you know. France is the right place for an artist like you, isn’t it?”

“You know I can’t.”

“I know no such thing.”

“I’ve got Emma. She’s six, nearly seven. She’s at playschool now.”

“Don’t you think children can grow up in France too?”

“Of course, but she’s got a father as well.”

“But aren’t you the one with custody?”

“Yes, yes,” Eva gave a little sigh.

“You make everything so difficult,” Maja said quietly, “you’ve always done that. Of course you can come to France if you want to. You can work at the hotel. Five minutes every night, padding down the corridor in a white nightie and holding a five-branched candelabra. I want to have my own ghost. Then you could paint the rest of the day.”

Eva drained her coffee cup. For a while she’d forgotten about reality, but now it came surging back.

“Have you got any dinner plans today?”

“I never have dinner. I eat bread and cheese, I’m not that bothered about food.”

“I’ve never heard anything like it. It’s hardly surprising you’re in such poor shape. How can you ever produce anything decent if you’re not getting the nourishment you need? You need meat! We’re going to get some dinner, we’ll go to Hannah’s Kitchen.”

“But that’s the most expensive place in town.”

“Is it really? I don’t need to worry about that kind of thing, I only know they’ve got the best food.”

“I’m so full of cake.”

“By the time the food is on the table it will have gone down a bit.”

Eva surrendered and followed Maja. It was the way it had always been. Maja had all the ideas, Maja made the decisions and led the way and Eva trotted after her.