Missing

along for a drive?’ He was already turning the key.
    She stared at him.
    ‘I’m not sure … I should go back home …’
    The engine was humming. He pressed a button and her window went down.
    ‘Electric circuit operating the windows. You want to check it out?’
    She pressed the button. The window closed smoothly. She looked at him again, meeting his smiling face. Two dimples had appeared in his cheeks.
    He got into gear and put his arm along the back of her seat. Her heart was beating harder now, because his gesture seemed so intimate even though it was probably just practical. Looking out through the rear window, he reversed into the road.
    How come she was suddenly sitting in a suspect-looking car next to a complete stranger? What if anyone saw her?
    ‘I’ll drive you home. Where do you live?’
    Sibylla swallowed.
    ‘No, don’t. Let’s just go for a drive,’ she replied quickly.
    They drove towards the centre. Sibylla was watching him surreptitiously. There were spots of oil in his face.
    ‘I’m Mick, but I won’t shake hands. Unless you want to get oil on yours.’
    ‘Sibylla.’
    ‘Sure. Forsenström’s daughter. That’s right, isn’t it?’
    ‘Yes.’
    He was driving down Tull Street and soon they would be passing the hot-dog stall.
    ‘Hey, listen, isn’t she sounding just great?’
    Fantastic. Sibylla wasn’t going to say the car sounded about as smooth as Gun-Britt’s little Renault. The usual crowd had gathered around the hot-dog stall. Sibylla kept her head down.
    ‘Those are your mates, right?’
    At first she didn’t answer and he looked quickly at her.
    ‘Like, they’re hanging out at your place.’ He was grinning at his own joke.
    She didn’t even smile. Noticing her reaction, he too became serious.
    ‘Come on, I was just kidding. Don’t worry about it.’
    She looked at him, realising that he really had meant it as a joke, not sarcasm aimed at her. The difference was obvious and she smiled back at him.
    ‘No, they’re not my mates.’
    Not much more was said between them at that first meeting.
    He took her back to the YPSMS place and she thanked him for the drive. He pulled the handle that released the bonnet just moments after she’d got out of the car. When she had walked away a bit, she turned. He already had his head down, tinkering with the engine.
    A new, expectant feeling was growing inside her, making her certain that something important had happened, something good. Whatever it was, it mattered to her.
    How right she was.
    Of course, she couldn’t have known that if the car hadn’t been delivered that day, or if the paint had taken just an hour longer to dry so that Mick wouldn’t have been outside working on it or if she’d taken her walk in another direction … or if, if, if … then, if things had happened differently, her life might have turned out quite differently.
    That afternoon she had arrived at one of life’s significant forks in the road, unremarkable-looking at the time, but where the effect of turning one way or the other is fully understood only afterwards. It would take her a long time before she realised it.
    Then – much later on – it would become clear to her how wrong her choice of direction had been on that critical afternoon.

S he walked away from the smart villa environment of the Grundbergs, following directions to the town centre. That night, she slept outside the door to the attics of an apartment block. The entrance door hadn’t been locked. This vulnerability was one of the nice things about trips to the provinces. In Stockholm people were so careful that she usually had to stick to familiar addresses where she knew the score.
    She was woken by some kid screaming further down the stairway, followed by the noise of a door opening and a woman’s voice saying crossly that if he was going to be like that, he couldn’t come along, so there. A little later the main door slammed and the place became silent again. She checked her watch, but it still didn’t work. She really needed a new one, but watches were expensive.
    When she got up from her camping mat, the world went black around her. She had to lean against the wall until the dizziness went away. Food – she needed food at once.
    The station was only a few blocks away.
    She went into the Ladies’ Room to wash, comb her hair and put on mascara and lipstick. The green suit was creased from being in her rucksack, but never mind. Without it she’d go without