Red Wolf_ A Novel - Liza Marklund [122]
She crept through the hall on shaky legs, and into the children’s room and their living warmth.
Ellen had put her thumb in her mouth, even though they had cajoled, threatened and bribed her to stop. Annika took the little hand and pulled out her thumb, saw the girl’s mouth searching for what it had lost for a few seconds before sleep forgot it. She watched the sleeping child, marvelling at her complete unawareness of how precious and beautiful she was, feeling a great loss for the sense of the clarity of life that her daughter still possessed. She stroked her soft hair, feeling its warmth through the palm of her hand.
Little girl, little girl, nothing is ever going to happen to you.
She went over to her son, lying on his back in his Batman pyjamas, his hands above his head, just as she used to sleep as a child. Thomas’s blond hair, and already his broad shoulders, he was so like them both.
She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. The child took a deep breath and blinked up at her.
‘Is it morning?’
‘Soon,’ Annika whispered. ‘Sleep a bit longer.’
‘I was having a nasty dream,’ he said and turned onto his side.
‘Me too,’ Annika said quietly, stroking the back of his head with her hand.
She looked at the luminous face of her watch; it was about an hour before the alarm would go off.
She knew she wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep.
She walked like a lost soul out into the living room. The draught from the window was moving the curtains. She went over and peered through the gap, Hantverkargatan was slowly coming to life below, the yellow streetlamp swinging in eternal isolation between the buildings. She warmed one foot against the radiator, then the other.
She went out into the kitchen, lit the stove and filled the pan with water, measured four spoonfuls into the coffee-pot, and looked out on to the frozen desert of the courtyard as the water came to the boil, the thermometer outside the window showed minus twenty-two degrees. She poured the water on the coffee and stirred, turned on P1 at low volume and sat down at the kitchen table. The burble from the radio drove out the demons from the corners. She sat quietly with frozen feet as the coffee slowly cooled.
Without her hearing or sensing him, Thomas came into the kitchen, bleary-eyed, hair all over the place.
‘What are you doing up so early?’ he said, taking a glass from the draining-board and filling it with water, drinking in deep gulps.
She turned her face away and stared at the radio without replying.
‘Okay, don’t then,’ he said, and went back into the bedroom.
She covered her eyes with a hand and breathed through her mouth until her stomach had calmed down and she could move again. She poured the coffee down the sink and went into the bathroom. She showered under scalding water and dried herself quickly. She dressed in her skiing outfit, thermal long-johns and vest, two layers of wool jumpers, thick jeans and a fleece top. She dug out the keys to the cellar and went out onto the empty street and through to the courtyard, down the steps, and undid the lock on their storeroom in the cellar.
Her ski-boots were in a Co-op bag next to Thomas’s old college textbooks. Her polar jacket was dusty and dirty. It had been hanging abandoned here since Sven died. She hadn’t needed it – those endless evenings standing round freezing ice hockey rinks were over for good.
She took the boots and jacket outside and brushed them off, then carried them up to the flat. She hung the jacket up and studied it critically. It was really hideous, but it was going to be even colder in Piteå than it was in Stockholm.
‘When will you be home?’
She turned and saw Thomas standing in the bedroom door pulling on his underwear.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Do you want to know when to have dinner ready?’
He turned away and walked into the kitchen.
She suddenly felt that she couldn’t stay a moment longer. She pulled on the polar jacket, laced the ski-boots and checked that she had her keys, purse,