Drowned by Therese Bohman Page A

forefinger, it is damp, springy. I try to remember when I last felt moss.
    “But what are they for?” I say. “They can’t go in the containers around the town, surely?”
    “No, these are mine. I bought them with my own money, I’m just borrowing a little bit of space for them in here. But I’m sure I can come up with something. They’d make a good present when somebody on the council has a birthday, or retires or something.”
    She sets off again, I follow, past pots of small palms along one wall, Stella says they will stand in the square outside the town hall next summer, then she glances at her watch.
    “I’m going to be late for my meeting, I must dash. Are you coming?”
    We stay together until we reach the pedestrian area in the town center. I don’t know anybody who walks as fast as Stella when she’s in a hurry, I have to break into a trot to keep up.
    “Are you going home now?” she says.
    “I don’t know.”
    “Or do you want to come back with me later?”
    “I don’t know,” I say again.
    “I’m in a hurry.”
    “I’ll come with you later.”
    She nods.
    “I’ll be leaving at quarter to five, see you then,” she says quickly before cutting across the square toward the council offices.
    I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself for a whole afternoon all alone in town, I wander around aimlessly. First of all I go back to the café where Stella and I had lunch, but there’s nowhere to sit. Families on holiday are eating ice cream with strawberries, decorated with little paper parasols, some of the people are speaking German. The center is concentrated around the town hall square, and I spend a few hours in the shopping mall beside it, a depressing concrete structure that looks as if it could be in just about any Swedish town. The same retail chains as everywhere else, the same messy summer sales. I try on a dress in a deserted H&M that is chilly from the air-conditioning, decide to buy it. I had only one dress with me and I’ve worn it virtually every day, washing it in the hand basin at night and pegging it out so that the sun has dried it by the time I get up. The new dress is shorter, made of a light, floral fabric, intertwining stems and leaves.
    Then I find a small library on a side street, there is a sofa in the poetry section and I flop down, pulling out odd books and reading in a vaguely preoccupiedway until half past four, when I head back to the council offices. Stella is already waiting outside even though it’s only twenty to.
    She raises her eyebrows at me by way of a greeting.
    “Did you finish early?” I say.
    “No, we said quarter to,” she says.
    “Yes?”
    “Yes?” she repeats.
    “Is your watch fast?” I say.
    I see the furrow appear between her eyebrows.
    “Maybe your watch is slow?” she says.
    I sigh.
    “Okay, sorry if I’m late.”
    She shrugs her shoulders, I follow her across the square to the car.
    Stella’s mood rapidly improves when we get home. Gabriel compliments her on the skirt she is wearing, and she does a little pirouette in the hallway, laughs, doesn’t get changed as she usually does after work. Instead she ties an apron around her waist and starts to help him with dinner. He is peeling carrots, he grabs hold of her as she walks past, tips her backwards and kisses her quickly, she laughs again. Then she gets a bottle of wine out of the refrigerator and opens it, pours three glasses and puts one on the kitchen table in front of me. Gabriel interrupts his peeling to raisea glass to her. I sit and flick through an interior design magazine Stella subscribes to, I have to look away when she walks behind him and runs one hand along his arm. A quick caress, a gesture that is ordinary and tender at the same time, I feel a stabbing pain in my stomach.
    There is condensation on the outside of my glass, my fingers get damp when I pick it up to take a sip even though I don’t feel like drinking wine tonight. I stare at an article about