Midwinter Sacrifice

45

Saturday, 11 February

The train moves forward slowly.

Göran Kalmvik is lying on the bunk in his compartment. Letting his thoughts come and go.

When won’t there be anything to come home to? he thinks. You can be away so much that away becomes home. And I, at least, pick up things along the way.

It’s still dark outside the windows of the train, but he can’t sleep, in spite of the carriage’s regular dunking against the joints of the rails, in spite of the fact that he is alone in a first-class compartment, and in spite of the fact that the sheets are crisp, yet warm and soft and smell soporific and freshly laundered.

Statoil is paying the fare.

He wonders how much longer he can do this.

It’s time to pick a life. He’s forty-eight and has been living a double life for almost ten years now, lying right in Henrietta’s face every time he comes home.

But she never seems to suspect anything. She seems happy with the money, pleased at not having to work, just buying things.

It’s worse with the lad. He gets more distant every time he goes away.

And the stories from school. Can it really be him acting up like that?

Little sod, Göran Kalmvik thinks, as he rolls over. Is it really so hard to behave properly? He’s fifteen now, and has always had everything he wanted.

Maybe it would be better to pack up and leave? Move to Oslo. Give it a try.

Work is terrible at this time of year. So cold that something freezes deep inside you even if you’re just moving back and forth in the icy wind on the drilling platform at the top of the rig, and your body never has time to warm up between shifts, and no one can be bothered to talk as they work.

But the pay is good.

It’s worth having experienced people out on the rigs considering how much it costs every time production grinds to a halt. Pipes like cold snakes full of black dreams.

Soon Norrköping. Then Linköping.

Then home.

Quarter to six.

Henrietta won’t meet him from the train. She stopped doing that a long time ago.

Home.

Unless it has now become away.