The Nightmare

Viola nods and puts her glass down.

‘How well?’ Penelope asks, nudging her in the side.

‘Top marks,’ Viola says, looking down.

Penelope lets out a shriek of joy and hugs her sister hard.

‘You know what this means, don’t you?’ Penelope says excitedly. ‘You can study anything you like, you can have your pick of the universities, you can chose whatever course you like, business studies, medicine, journalism.’

Her sister blushes and laughs, and Penelope hugs her again, knocking her hat off. She strokes Viola’s head, then arranges her hair just as she always did when they were little, takes the clasp with the dove from her own hair and uses it to fasten her sister’s, then looks at her and smiles happily.

3 (#ulink_3c746983-e137-508c-95f6-6abe297ec3a8)

A boat is left adrift in Jungfrufjärden (#ulink_3c746983-e137-508c-95f6-6abe297ec3a8)

The fore cuts the smooth surface of the water like a knife, with a sticky, liquid sound. They’re going very fast. Large waves hit the shore in their wake. They turn steeply and bounce across breaking waves, spraying water around them. Penelope heads out into the open water with the engines roaring. The fore lifts up and plumes of foaming white water spread out behind them.

‘You’re crazy, Madicken!’ Viola shouts, pulling the clasp from her hair, just like she always did as a child when her hair was finally neat.

Björn wakes up when they stop at Gåsö. They buy ice-creams and have coffee. Then Viola wants to play mini-golf, and it’s already late in the afternoon by the time they get going again.

The sea opens up on their port side, like a dizzyingly large stone floor.

The plan is to reach Kastskär, a long, narrow-waisted island that’s uninhabited. There’s a lush bay on the south side where they’re going to drop anchor, swim, have a barbecue and spend the night.

‘I think I’ll go down and have a rest,’ Viola says with a yawn.

‘Go ahead,’ Penelope smiles.

Viola goes down the steps and Penelope looks ahead of them. She lowers their speed and keeps an eye on the electronic depth sounder that will warn them of reefs as they approach Kastskär. The water very quickly gets shallow, from forty metres to just five.

Björn comes into the cabin and kisses Penelope on the back of her neck.

‘Shall I go and start the food?’ he asks.

‘Viola probably ought to sleep for an hour.’

‘You sound like your mother,’ he says gently. ‘Has she phoned yet?’

‘Yes.’

‘To see if we let Viola come with us?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you have an argument?’

She shakes her head.

‘What is it?’ he asks. ‘Are you upset?’

‘No, it’s just that Mum …’

‘What?’

Penelope smiles as she wipes the tears from her cheeks.

‘She doesn’t want me there for Midsummer,’ she says.

Björn hugs her.

‘Just ignore her.’

‘I do,’ she replies.

Very slowly, Penelope manoeuvres the boat as far into the bay as she can. The engines rumble softly. They’re so close to the shore now that she can smell the plants.

They drop anchor, and the boat swings closer to the rocks. Björn jumps ashore onto the steep slope and ties the rope around a tree.

The ground is covered in moss. He stops and looks at Penelope. Some birds move in the treetops when the windlass rattles.

Penelope pulls on a pair of jogging bottoms and her white trainers, jumps ashore and takes his hand. He wraps his arms round her.

‘Shall we go and take a look at the island?’

‘Wasn’t there something you were going to try to persuade me about?’ she teases.

‘The advantages of the Swedish “right to roam”,’ he says.

She nods and smiles, and he brushes her hair back and runs a finger across her prominent cheekbone and thick, black eyebrow.

‘How can you be so beautiful?’

He kisses her softly on the lips, then starts to walk towards the low-growing woods.

In the middle of the island is a small glade with dense clumps of tall meadow grass. Butterflies and small bumblebees are drifting about above the flowers. It’s hot in the sun, and the water sparkles between the trees to the north. They stand still, hesitate, smiling as they look at each other, then turn serious.

‘What if someone comes?’ she says.

‘We’re the only people on the island.’

‘Are you sure about that?’

‘How many islands are there in the Stockholm archipelago? Thirty thousand? More, probably,’ he says.

Penelope takes off her bikini top, kicks her shoes off and pulls down the rest of her bikini with her jogging bottoms, and is suddenly standing completely naked on the grass. Her initial feeling of embarrassment is replaced almost at once with sheer delight. She can’t help finding the sea air on her skin and the heat radiating up from the ground intensely exciting.

Björn looks at her, mutters something about not being sexist, but that he just wants to look at her for a bit longer. She’s tall, her arms simultaneously muscular and soft. Her narrow waist and powerful thighs make her look like a playful goddess.