The woman who came to meet him was wearing a knitted hat, with two long, dark brown plaits emerging from underneath it. Her hand was small, her handshake firm.
'Welcome,' she said.
'Thank you.'
'Good journey?'
'Fine, thank you.'
Anna-Greta waved in the direction of the sea.
'There's…rather a lot of water here, as you can see.'
As Simon followed Anna-Greta up from the harbour, he tried to imagine it: that this would be the place. That this was the first of countless times he would walk up this path, see the things he could see now: the jetties, the boathouses, the gravel track, the diesel tank, the alarm bell. The smell of the sea and the particular quality of light in the sky.
He tried to see himself in two years, five years, ten. As an old man, walking along the same path. Could he imagine that?
When they reached the top of the path, Simon kept his fingers crossed that it would be that house. The white one with a little glass veranda looking out over a grassy slope down to the jetty. It didn't look much on a cloudy day like this with not a scrap of green in sight, but he could just picture how it would look in summer.
A boy of about thirteen was standing in the garden with his hands pushed deep in the pockets of a leather jacket. He was slim with short hair, and there was something mischievous in the look he gave Simon, weighing him up.
'Johan,' said Anna-Greta to the boy, 'could you fetch the key for Seaview Cottage, please?'
The boy shrugged his shoulders and ambled off towards a two- storey house a hundred metres away. Simon glanced around the plot, which also seemed to include a cottage on the other side of the inlet. Anna-Greta followed his eyes and said, 'The Shack. There's nobody living there at the moment.'
'Do you live here alone?'
'Well, there's me and Johan. Aren't you going to inspect the property?'
Simon did as he was told and took a random stroll around. Looked at the lid of the well, the lawn, the jetty. It was completely pointless. He had already decided. When Johan came back with the key and Simon saw inside the house, he was even more certain. When they got back outside he said, 'I'll take it.'
Papers were signed and Simon paid the deposit. Anna-Greta offered him a cup of coffee, as it would be an hour before the tender went back. Simon learned that Anna-Greta had inherited her house from her parents-in- law, who had both died a couple of years earlier. Johan answered his questions politely, but said no more than was necessary.
When it was time for Simon to think about leaving, Johan suddenly asked, 'What's your job?'
Anna-Greta said, 'Johan…'
'It's a natural thing to ask,' said Simon, 'if we're going to be neighbours. I'm a magician.'
Johan looked at him with a sceptical expression. 'What do you mean, a magician?'
'People pay to come and watch me do magic tricks.'
'Yes. Really. Well, the tricks aren't real, it's just-'
'I know that. But you're an illusionist, then?'
Simon smiled. Not many people outside magicians' circles would use that term. 'You're very well informed.'
Johan didn't answer. Instead he sat there nodding to himself for a couple of seconds, then he burst out, 'I thought you were just some boring bloke.'
Anna-Greta brought her hand down on the table. 'Johan! That's not the way to speak to a guest!'
Simon got to his feet. 'I am just some boring bloke. As well.' He held Johan's gaze for a few seconds, and something happened between them. Simon sensed that he had just made a friend. 'I'd better be on my way.'
At the beginning of July, Simon hired their usual driver to take him and Marita to Naten with all their luggage. Marita loved the place, and Simon was able to relax. For five days. Perhaps the abstinence got too much for her, or possibly the isolation, but on the morning of the sixth day Marita declared that she had to go into Stockholm.
'But we've only just got here,' said Simon. 'Try to relax a little. Rest.'
'I have rested. It's wonderful here, and I'm going crazy. Do you know what I did last night? I sat out in the garden staring up at the sky and prayed to God that a plane might appear, so that at least something was happening. I can't handle it. I'll be back tomorrow.'
She didn't come back the following day, nor the day after that. When she turned up on the third day, she dragged herself up the hill from the steamboat jetty. She had dark circles under her eyes and she immediately fell into bed and went out like a light.
When Simon went through her overnight bag, he didn't find any inhalers. He was just about to close the bag and thank providence for that small dispensation when he noticed the lining bulging oddly. He pushed his fingers inside and found a slender case containing a syringe and a small tin of white powder.
It was a glorious summer's day. There was a stillness everywhere; only the buzzing of the insects created any movement in the air at all. A pair of swans were teaching their young to look for food in the inlet. Simon sat in the lilac arbour beside the path as if he were in a trance, with a tin and a case in his hand. Yes, they fitted into his hand. Two innocent, trivial-looking objects that contained an army of devils. He didn't know what to do, couldn't summon up the energy to do anything.
When Anna-Greta walked by, there must have been something in his vacant gaze that made her stop.
'How are you?' she asked.
Simon was still sitting there with his hand open and outstretched, as if he had a present he wanted to give her. He had no strength left for lies.
'My wife is a drug addict,' he said.
Anna-Greta looked at the objects in his hand. 'What's that?'
'I don't know. Amphetamine, I think.'
Simon was on the verge of tears, but managed to pull himself together. If Anna-Greta did know anything about amphetamines, it wasn't appropriate to discuss it with her. Johan would sometimes come over for a chat, and Anna-Greta would hardly want her son to be spending time with drug addicts. Perhaps she might not even want to rent the house to him any longer.
Simon cleared his throat and said, 'But it's under control.'
Anna-Greta gazed at him incredulously. 'But how can it be?' When Simon didn't respond, she asked, 'So what are you going to do with that?'
'I don't know. I thought I might…bury it.'
'Don't do that. She'll just force you to tell her where you've hidden it. I've seen how alcoholics behave. I don't think there can be much difference. Throw it in the sea instead.'
Simon looked out towards the jetty, which seemed to be floating on the sparkling water. He didn't want to besmirch the place where he went down to swim every morning. 'Here?' he asked, as if seeking permission.
Anna-Greta also looked at the jetty and seemed to have the same thought. She shook her head.
'I was just going to go over to Naten. If you come with me, you can…dump the rubbish on the way.'
Simone walked down to the jetty with her and stood there at something of a loss as she started up the engine with a practised hand, cast off and told him to climb aboard. Once they had set off he stole a glance at her as she sat by the tiller, gazing out to sea with her eyes narrowed against the sunlight.
She was no great beauty, her cheekbones were far too prominent and her eyes a little too deep-set for that. But she was arresting, and Simon caught himself following a chain of thought like the one he had followed when he came to Domaro for the first time.
He had seen enough of ephemeral beauty in the theatrical world to know that Anna-Greta's looks were the kind that lasted. One of those blessed individuals who actually grow more beautiful with the passing years.
