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there is out there and how little of it you could possibly know.’
    I dabbed at my eyes with the little paper napkin. It had tiny blue forget-me-nots on it and lacy edges. ‘We don’t make such pretty paper napkins in the UK.’
    ‘They’re very keen on their paper in Sweden,’ he said.
    There was another silence. It was hard to make conversation when there was so much to say.
    I drank some more coffee and my tongue stung from the earlier scalding.
    ‘Ove, that’s the new vicar,’ he said finally. ‘He explained that it’s all about the need for closure.’
    ‘Closure?’ Hearing that particular buzzword from Uncle Ian’s lips was as incongruous as finding him curled up with the latest issue of Hello !
    ‘I’m not a well man.’
    I forgot to be wary of him and reached out and touched his arm. ‘I’m sorry.’
    His gaze met mine. Then he smiled, a pale smile. ‘It’s Ove’s theory that letting go will be a lot easier once I’ve put matters right with you. He says that most people struggle against death, not because of fear of death itself but because of leaving things undone, important things.’ There was another pause as the gilt clock on the bureau struck three. Apart from that and the sound of the old man’s laboured breathing it was quiet.
    Are you really here, Rose? Darling Rose. I rested my head against the back of the chair and my eyes, staring at the ceiling, watered.
    Uncle Ian spoke and I dabbed at my eyes and mimicked a smile before looking at him. ‘I blamed you for what happened,’ he said. ‘And that was unfair.’
    ‘It was entirely fair,’ I said. I turned away, gazing out of the window. It was snowing. Thick fluffy flakes dropped and danced before the outside light like down from an eviscerated duvet.

Seven
    I woke up with a start to a landscape of silence. I had left the curtains open as, when I had gone to bed, there had been nothing to breach the impeccable darkness. It was still dark now so I switched on the bedside lamp to check the time. It was gone seven. There was no hurry to get up so I turned the light off again and lay back down against the pillow, closing my eyes. When next I woke there was noise; purposeful footsteps, water running, muted voices. Late dawn was spreading its rosy light across the sky, melding with the red of the barn opposite to lend the snow drifting against the wall a pink glow. I could smell coffee.
    I threw on my dressing-gown and dashed across the landing to the bathroom, my sponge bag and some fresh clothes in my arms. There was no shower so I ran a bath. I lay back in the hot water feeling worn out, although the day had only just begun.
    Before I went downstairs I checked the mirror. I looked grim, pasty-hued and puffy-eyed, with a tight little mouth on me. I patted on some lip gloss the colour and transparency of red currants and rubbed some more into my cheeks. I walked down the stairs like a small child or someone old, waiting to take the next step until both feet were firmly together on the one above. I studied the pictures running down the wall. They were by a Swedish artist, Ivar Arosenius, a favourite of Grandmother Eva’s. Poor Arosenius had died aged only thirty, at the beginning of the last century. He had known he was going to die young through an inherited illness that had carried away his two brothers. So in his thirty years on earth he painted and married and had a child and his paintings depicted life as a tender tragicomedy and his small daughter as a fragile source of light in a grown-up world of dark and giant objects. If I had been able to paint like Arosenius maybe then I would have deserved my place on earth even after what had happened. But I couldn’t.
    I reached the hall and in the kitchen they had heard my footsteps and Katarina called my name.
    Uncle Ian was sitting at the kitchen table, eating porridge. He had been having porridge for breakfast for as long as I could remember. He said it made you live long. I knew