Italian Shoes Read Online Free PDF Page A

you.’
    â€˜You’re not disturbing me.’
    â€˜Of course I am. I’ve simply turned up here unannounced. But that doesn’t bother me.’
    She sat more upright. I could see that she was in fact in pain.
    â€˜How did you get here?’ I asked.
    â€˜Why don’t you ask how I found you? I knew about this island, where you spent your summers, and I knew it was off the east coast. It wasn’t easy to track you down, but I managed it in the end. I phoned the Post Office, because I realised they must know where somebody called Fredrik Welin lived.’
    I began to remember something. Early in the morning I’d dreamed about an earthquake. I’d been surrounded by extremely loud noise, but suddenly everything was silent again. The noise hadn’t woken me up, but I’d opened my eyes when silence returned. I must have been awake for a couple of minutes, listening for sounds outside in the darkness.
    Everything had been as normal. And I went back to sleep.
    I now realised that the noise I’d heard in my dream had been Jansson’s hydrocopter. He was the one who had brought her here, and left her on the ice.
    â€˜I wanted to arrive early. It was like travelling in an infernal machine. He was very nice. But expensive.’
    â€˜What did he charge you?’
    â€˜Three hundred for me and two hundred for the walker.’
    â€˜But that’s scandalous!’
    â€˜Is there anybody else out here with a hydrocopter?’
    â€˜I’ll see to it that you get half of that back.’
    She pointed at her glass.
    I refilled it with water. The crow had flown away from the bacon rind. I stood up and said I would go and fetch her walker. There were large pools of water all over the floor from my boots. The dog appeared from somewhere behind the house, and accompanied me down to the shore.
    I tried to think clearly.
    After close to forty years, Harriet had reappeared from the past. The protective wall I’d erected out here on the island had proved to be inadequate. It had been breached by a Trojan Horse in the form of Jansson’s hydrocopter. He had rammed his way through the wall – and charged a lot of money for doing so.
    I walked out on to the ice.
    A north-easterly breeze was blowing. A flight of birds could just be made out in the far distance. The rocks and skerries were all white. It was one of those days characterised by the mysterious stillness one experiences only when the sea has iced over. The sun was low in the sky. The walker was frozen fast in the ice. I carefully worked it loose, then started wheeling it towards land. The dog was limping along behind me. I would soon have to have him put down. Him and the cat. They were both old, and their ancient bodies were causing them a lot of pain.
    When we came to the shore, I went to the boathouse and fetched a threadbare blanket that I laid out onGrandfather’s bench. I couldn’t go back to the house until I’d decided what to do. There was only one possible reason for Harriet being here. She was going to take me to task. After all these years, she wanted to know why I had left her. What could I say? Life had moved on, that was the way things turned out. Bearing in mind what had happened to me, Harriet ought to be grateful that I had vanished out of her life.
    It was cold, sitting there on the bench. I was about to get up when I heard noises in the distance. Voices and the sound of engines travel a long way over water and ice. I realised that it was Jansson. There wouldn’t be any post today, but he was busy running his illegal taxi service, no doubt. I walked back to the house. The cat was sitting on the steps, waiting to go in. But I shut her out.
    Before entering the kitchen, I examined my face in the mirror hanging in the hall. A hollow-eyed, unshaven face. Hair uncombed, lips squeezed together, deep-set eyes. Not exactly pretty. Unlike Harriet, who looked much the same as she had always