Stallo by Stefan Spjut Page B

her life according to it, always producing food or asking questions about food. But perhaps she thought he had already made himself something to eat because he had been looking in the larder earlier. But he really could not be bothered. Beef soup would have been perfect. It only needed warming in a saucepan.
He sat by the window and looked at the pale facade of the building looming out of the darkness on the far side of the yard. It was still snowing but now strong winds were pulling the flakes along with them, lit up by the powerful lamp on the barn.
On the rare occasions she went in there during the evening she used to put a kerosene lamp on the draining board and the beam from her head torch would flash over the walls. But now the windowpanes were completely dark and shiny as steel.
He must have stood there waiting for fifteen minutes, but the ray of her head torch did not appear, and that could only mean she had gone downstairs. Probably because Lennart had forbidden it.
He looked at the clock again. Nearly six. Now he simply had to get himself something to eat. He opened the fridge and found a ring of Falu sausage. A tube of mustard. Margarine. He gotout a slice of bread, spread it with the margarine, cut a few slices of sausage and lay them on top. He decorated the sausage with mustard, coarse-grained and strong, and ate while standing at the window, his hand cupped beneath his chin to catch the crumbs.
Shouldn’t Börje and Signe have been back by now? He was still chewing his last mouthful as he went to the telephone hanging on the wall. Both the flat receiver and the wall mounting were made of the same ivory-coloured plastic, which had turned a shade of yellow. The spiral flex had coiled itself into a hard tangle.
He licked mustard from his thumb before tapping in the number.
‘We’re on our way,’ Börje said. ‘We’re just passing the flooring factory.’
‘Ejvor went into Hybblet and she’s been there for almost three hours.’
‘Then she’s probably doing some cleaning. She said she was going to do that.’
‘No, she went in because they called. She’s already done the cleaning.’
Börje mumbled something that Seved did not catch. It was probably to Signe.
‘We’ll be home soon. Don’t do anything until I get there.’
‘I’ll go in and have a look.’
‘All right, do that. But stay in the hallway.’

Cecilia was sitting in a corner of the sofa wearing jogging pants and watching television when Susso stepped through the door, cold and out of breath. She dropped the car key onto the small, round glass table in the hall, making a demonstratively loud clatter. Ever since she left Vaikijaur she had been longing for a tissue, so she went straight to the bathroom and blew her nose. At the precise moment she flushed the paper away she remembered no one was allowed to make a noise because Ella woke up at the slightest sound.
‘Don’t flush!’ demanded a voice from the sitting room.
All she could do was shut the bathroom door quietly and pull an apologetic face, which her sister did not even notice. With the tips of her boots on the metal strip between the hall floor and the parquet flooring of the sitting room she stood leaning against the door frame, looking at the TV screen.
‘I’ve left the car in the square.’
Her sister nodded without taking her eyes from the screen. It was obvious she was pissed off. Susso tried to think of something to say to soften her up, but could think of nothing.
Finally she said: ‘Have you spoken to Mum?’
Cecilia picked at the hem of her trousers and sighed.
‘Not today.’
With a tug she removed a piece of thread, which she rolledbetween her thumb and forefinger. On the table stood a thick purple candle on a pottery dish filled with shells.
‘I don’t think she’s well.’
‘Not her as well?’ Susso said. She breathed in through her nose, making a sniffling sound. Cecilia looked at her with interest and asked:
‘Can you work in the shop on