Read Let the Old Dreams Die for Free Online Page B

stopped and thought about it—rather than automatically getting out of the car and going inside—she had no desire to walk into her own house. Into any house. She just wanted to keep on walking past the lights and the warmth, out into the forest. To push her way through its dark wall and allow herself to be surrounded by the smell of badger, pine needles, moss. Allow the trees to protect her.
    She looked over at the house next door. Should she knock on the door, check that the kids were OK? Nobody had mentioned it, and she didn’t like the idea. The children shunned her because of the way she looked. As if they thought she might do them some harm. No, she would leave it. If they wanted anything they could come to her.
    Roland was indeed watching sport. Ice hockey, even though it was only September. There were no seasons these days. A chemical smell hovered in the air, presumably the ointment Roland had used on the dog. She could also smell the dog from behind the closed door of Roland’s bedroom.
    As she walked through the living room, Roland said, ‘Oh, by the way—someone called round.’
    She stopped. ‘Oh yes?’
    Without taking his eyes off the screen, he went on, ‘Some guy wanting to rent the cottage. Shady-looking character. Said he’d spoken to you.’
    ‘Yes.’ Tina clasped her hands together, tightly. ‘What did you say to him?’
    ‘I told him straight. That we don’t usually rent the cottage out in the autumn. But it was mainly because…’ He glanced up at her. ‘Well, he didn’t exactly look…nice. And you said you didn’t want to carry on renting the cottage out anyway, so…’ Roland shrugged his shoulders, looking pleased with himself. ‘He looked like some kind of arsonist or something.’
    Tina stood there for a while just looking at him. The glow of the television gave his skin a greyish tone, bringing the incipient rolls of fat around his neck into sharp relief and flickering in his eyes, making him look like a monster.
    She shut herself in her room, read
The Old Man and the Sea
and got through the hours until it was time to sleep.
    She started work at ten o’clock the following day, but left home at quarter past nine and drove to the ramblers’ hostel. There was only one car in the carpark: a small white Renault which proudly proclaimed in blue letters that it had been hired from OKQS at a cost of only 199 kronor per day.
    She knocked on the main door of the hostel.
    When nothing happened she opened it and stepped into a small hallway. There was a stand displaying tourist leaflets, and a sign on the reception desk explained that the hostel was open only on request. The building exuded desolation and soap.
    She foolishly pinged the bell on the desk, as if it might magically produce someone who could help her; perhaps the autumn staff, a little old man who slept in a cupboard and woke up only when guests arrived.
    When the bell had no effect, she shouted, ‘Hello? Is anyone there?’
    She knew his name, of course, but she had no intention of shouting it out. The situation was already sufficiently absurd. A police officer shouting for a thief so that she could ask if he’dlike to come and live with her.
    She had just thought
Right, I’m going,
when a door opened along the corridor in front of her.
    Vore emerged from the room and she gasped.
    In the spacious expanse of the ferry terminal he had looked big, but here between the narrow walls of the hostel he was enormous. In spite of the fact that he was wearing only a singlet and pants, he seemed to fill the entire corridor. Tina could understand why Roland had felt a little nervous. Vore looked as if he could crush Roland between his thumb and forefinger.
    When he spotted Tina his beard shot up on both sides of his face in a great big smile. He covered the corridor in a few thundering steps and extended a hairy arm.
    ‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘I do apologise. I was fast asleep.’
    She shook his hand. ‘No, I apologise. I