Read Drowned for Free Online Page A

really supposed to water the garden, but Stella does the rounds with her big watering can every evening anyway. She has taught me that you shouldn’t water during the day, because the water evaporates straightaway, before it’s had a chance to get beyond the surface, and it does no good. I’d still like to give the weary nasturtiums a good shower.
    When I look closer I can see that the undersides of the leaves are covered in aphids, great black clumps of them, they are on the stems bearing the flower heads too, covering them completely so that the stems look thick and black, uneven. The more I look, the more aphids I see. In the end I almost believe they’remultiplying before my very eyes, that the clumps on the underside of the leaves are slowly swelling, expanding. I turn away in disgust.
    Gabriel hands me a towel.
    “There’s blackfly on the nasturtiums,” I say.
    “Happens every year.”
    The car is as hot as a sauna. The sun has been shining on the seats and they burn my thighs through my skirt, it smells of hot plastic, stuffy. When Gabriel turns the key, nothing happens. He tries several times, but the car refuses to start.
    “What the fuck?” he mumbles crossly.
    After at least fifteen attempts he gives up, leaves the keys dangling in the ignition and leans back in his seat with a resigned expression.
    “Shall we walk to the lake instead?” I say.
    He looks at me, gazes at me for several seconds, but doesn’t reply. I look him straight in the eye, I haven’t thought about the color of his eyes before, it’s difficult to tell what it is. I hear him take a deep breath, then he leans over, places a hand behind my head, pulls me firmly toward him and kisses me. His kiss is also firm, he nearly forces my lips apart, hungrily, and I allow him to do it, I let his tongue into my mouth, he tastes of coffee and he smells good this time too, the same smell as when I wiped the paint off his forehead. I put my arms around him. He is breathingheavily now, I feel his hand through the fabric of my dress, feel it move across my back and I shudder with pleasure, press myself closer to him. Then he stops himself, places a hand on his forehead, looks almost tormented. His face is shiny, it must be 100 degrees in the car, 110, maybe more.
    “We …” he begins, but breaks off.
    He opens the door and gets out, running his hand through his hair.
    “I’ll call Anders and see if he’s got time to come and take a look at the car.”
    “Okay,” I say.
    Gabriel is halfway up the path now, walking quickly. I open my door and realize my legs are shaking as I put my feet on the gravel next to the car. He stops and turns around.
    “It’s not difficult to find your way to the lake if you want a swim,” he says. “You just follow the gravel road, then there’s a path through the forest on the right, maybe five minutes away. You can’t miss it.”
    “Okay,” I say again.
    Gabriel disappears into the house. I take my towel and set off toward the road.
    It’s a small lake, the trees around it are tall and straight and the water looks black from a distance, but it’s actually yellowish and quite warm. There’s a little sandybeach, but the sand gives way beneath my feet and I can tell there is mud underneath, a thin layer of pale sand on top of thick black mud. Perhaps that’s what quicksand feels like, I think, and I am afraid to stand in the same spot for too long, afraid that the ground will give way beneath my feet, trapping me, dragging me down. There isn’t a soul in sight, everything is still and silent apart from a bird repeating its long, drawn-out scream, I wonder what it might be, a black-throated diver perhaps, I’m really bad at recognizing bird calls. It sounds horrible. I’m sure there must be crayfish in the lake, I can see them in my mind’s eye, their black shapes crawling along the bottom, big clumps of them, like the blackfly.
    We learned to swim quite late, Stella and I. Somehow it seemed to me