The hands that had caressed the same woman.

His own in unconditional love, the other man's in unconditional betrayal.

And yet it was he, the other man, who had the right to touch her.

He pushed aside the menu on the table, not wanting to touch it. He tried to remember the name of some type of pizza from the text he had read on the placard outside the front door.

Then the man with the foreign appearance went back to the kitchen and the others started talking to each other. Without straining he could hear every word of their conversation even though they lowered their voices. And suddenly it was all so clear. Why everything had happened. Why it was predestined that he should catch sight of her when she was sitting under the red awning the evening before last, why the two of them should meet.

He had been given a task to perform.

He who believed that she had been sent to save him. It was precisely the opposite! He was sent to save her. Their deceitful, merciless judgement over two mediocre Quattro Stagioni pizzas. She, who wasn't even here to speak for herself.

He couldn't eat the pizza he had ordered. He left it untouched and asked for the check.

Their voices echoed in his head during the trip back towards Nacka.

'When do you intend to tell her about us? I just can't stand to go on like this much longer.'

'I know. But there's also Axel to consider. I have to arrange for a flat first so he can live with me as well.'

And that was when he had understood that some-where in the midst of all this self-absorption there was a son.

There was a son.

And here at a suburban pizzeria, hidden away in fear that someone might see him, sat his father with a whore eating pizza.

It was dark by the time he turned onto the street where he knew she lived. He stood outside the car and watched in fascination the play of lights from the top of the Nacka Masts a few hundred metres off. The sweeping lights that branched like straight streets through the cloud cover to vanish softly into infinity. Of course she lived underneath a searchlight, but all she had to do was head towards the light.

This time he walked straight onto the property, stopping at each window to peer cautiously through the darkened panes on his way round the house. He didn't see her anywhere. Then he reached the back yard and saw the glow of a lamp through the big window next to the balcony door. He walked out onto the lawn so he wouldn't come too close, not wanting to risk her catching sight of him. Not yet. Not until he was ready.

Then he finally saw her. With only a reading lamp lit she was sitting in an easy chair right next to the window. For a second or two he thought she was staring straight at him, but then he realised that her eyes were staring into the darkness surrounding him. He couldn't resist moving closer. Step by step, with infinite slowness, he approached the balcony. Three steps up the stairs and then he was close to her. Right up close. Only a window-pane prevented him from reaching out and touching her. A book lay unopened on her lap, and he looked at her hands lying folded on top of it. The same hands that had caressed him and made him come alive. He had only one wish: to feel those hands against his skin once more. He had to subdue his desire, give her a chance to try and understand. He raised his gaze to her face. It was utterly devoid of expression, but then he saw that tears were running down her cheeks like white tracks against her skin.

O beloved, if I could only hold you in my arms. Don't be afraid, I'm here with you, I'll watch over you. I will prove my love to you. And when you understand what I'm prepared to do to win your love, then you will love me in return. Forever. And I shall never leave you. Never.

He suddenly felt his own eyes brimming over with gratitude. The two of them, together in tears, only a few metres apart.

Not even the thought of a night alone in the flat could frighten him now.

Secure in this knowledge he backed away, rounded the corner of the house and returned to his car.

Who knew better than he what betrayal could do to a woman? Or what was required in order to save her.

This time he would not fail.

He had been given one more chance.

She hadn't slept a wink when she finally heard his key in the front door. In the dark she had restlessly paced back and forth past the windows facing the garden. She had sensed not a movement, not a sound, only pale shadows from the trees when the moon peeked out occasionally from the banks of clouds. And then the veiled, sweeping glow of the lights from the Nacka Masts.

As soon as she heard him coming she hurried into the bedroom and got in bed next to Axel. It was past four o'clock.

He was taking his time in the bathroom. Almost half an hour passed before she heard him come up the stairs and a minute later he lay down on the other side of the double bed. Only then did she turn over and pretend to be waking up.

'Hi.'

'Hi.'

He turned over on his side with his back to her.

'Did you have a good time?'

'Mmm.'

'How was it with Micke?'

'It was OK. Good night.'

By Sunday morning she noticed that there was something he wanted to say. His restless pacing from room to room continued, but he spent more and more time outside his office and actually in the same room as her. She didn't intend to help him start the dialogue; she enjoyed watching him struggle. Finally, at the kitchen table over a quickly prepared lunch-time omelette, he summoned his courage. Axel, in his special chair at the end of the table, would serve as a shield in case of any conflict.

'I thought about what you said, that maybe I should go away for a few days.'

She chose to sit in silence, taking Axel's knife and helping him to scrape up the last remnants on his plate into an easily attacked pile.

'I'm leaving on Monday morning if that's OK. Just a couple of days.'

'Of course. Where are you going?'

'I'm not quite sure. I'll just take the car and drive.'

'Alone, or . . .'

'Yes.'

Lying 101: To lie successfully, don't answer a question too quickly. What an idiot.

She got up and began collecting the dishes.

'You know there's a meeting at day-care this evening, don't you? I thought I'd ask Axel to stay with Mamma and Pappa so the two of us can go together.'

She saw him swallow.

'I talked to Kerstin. Linda is apparently quite beside herself, poor thing. She has assured everybody that she wasn't the one who sent those emails.'

He picked up his water glass and took a sip as she continued.

'Do you know how that stuff works? Can someone else really go in and use her email programme?'

He got up and went over to put his glass in the dishwasher.

'Evidently.'

Now he had obviously said all he was going to say. She realised that if she wanted him to say anything else she would have to do it now. Before he managed to take those twelve steps to his office.

'But why would anyone want to do such a thing to her? The whole thing is just unbelievable, I mean she could lose her job over something like that. If someone's playing a joke, then I have to say she must have odd friends.'

He didn't intend to discuss the matter any longer, that was clear. The first seven steps across the floor towards sanctuary were already taken.

Her parents offered to come and fetch Axel, and the thought that Henrik might be forced to have a cup of coffee with his in-laws appealed to her. She baked a sponge cake and set the table in the living room to make it extra festive.

It took a while before Henrik joined them. He stayed behind his closed door as long as he could, and when he finally came and sat down his coffee was already cold. He went to the kitchen to empty his cup and then came back and sat down.

'I suppose congratulations are in order.'

Her father had Axel on his lap.

'Eva tells me you're writing a big article for some magazine.'

Henrik gave his father-in-law a blank look.

'Well, we heard that you celebrated the other day,' her father continued in explanation.

Henrik glanced at Eva. She didn't intend to help him out.

'Oh yes, that one. Of course.'

'Which magazine is it for?'

'Oh, it's a new one. I'm not sure of the name.'

And with that the topic was exhausted. Henrik drank his fresh coffee in silence, and her parents did their best to keep the conversation going. Eva mostly sat in amazement at the situation. This might be the last time they all sat here together. The last time.

Soon she would have to tell them, talk to them about money. She would need their help when she threw him out of the house.

But it wasn't quite time for that yet.

'Well, I suppose we should be heading home.'

It was not a question but a statement. She realised that they had all been sitting in utter silence at the table for quite a while, and when she glanced up her mother was looking at her. Her father's chair scraped against the floor when he got up.

'What do you say, Axel, would you like to come home with us while Mamma and Pappa go to a meeting?'

Eva began gathering up the coffee cups.

'Axel, if you want to take something with you for Grandma and Grandpa, please go and get it. You can take the rucksack if you like.'

She picked up the plate with the sponge cake, which only Axel had sampled, and went out to the kitchen.

She heard Henrik take the opportunity to flee once more.

'I'd better go back in and do some work. Bye, Axel, we'll see you this evening.'

He passed by her outside the kitchen doorway without giving her so much as a glance.

It was a couple of hours until the meeting started. She sat down at the kitchen table with one of the stacks of papers from the kitchen counter. Unsorted mail, mostly in window envelopes, most of them to Henrik. It was a long time since he had opened any of them himself. Afraid that they would sit too long and that a bill might be paid late, she had started doing it for him. Neither of them had ever mentioned it. As with so much else. She would never dare relinquish control when it came to the bills, firmly convinced that he wouldn't pay a single one on time. How could he if he didn't even manage to open his own mail? And yet there was an unspoken desire that he should take greater responsibility for paying them.

Should have taken greater responsibility, that is.

That problem, like so many others, would soon be moot.

She looked around. She had expended so much effort, so much energy. The old drop-leaf table: how many antique shops had she visited before she found exactly the one she wanted? The pot on the floor that she managed to drag home from a holiday in Morocco. It had seemed so insanely important that she even paid an excess baggage fee because her suitcase was too heavy. The painting from her childhood home, the chairs that had cost a fortune, the canisters on the kitchen shelf that she never used but that stood there to add a homely touch. Everything suddenly felt spoiled. As if the familiar objects had been transformed and she was seeing them for the first time. Not one item moved her any longer. She couldn't even remember how it had felt when they were important. All she had taken for granted was herself. Everything she had thought and valued, everything that had moved her, none of it was right any longer. It was as if a lens had been slid into place for her alone, making everything look different. Only she could see how meaningless it actually was. She was completely alone, her own world right next to the one that belonged to everyone else. And yet she sat there as usual and paid bills to the world outside.

The door to the office opened. He went into the living room but came right back, picked up a toy from the floor and put it on the kitchen counter and disappeared into his office again.

She glanced through a brochure from the Council, put it in the pile to recycle, and opened the next envelope.

Then he came out again and made another round for no apparent reason. When he did it the third time a few minutes later she couldn't restrain herself any longer.

'Are you restless?'

She tore out the window from the envelope and put what was left in the recycling pile.

He probably imagined she said 'Hurry back into your office and don't come out again until it's time to leave,' because that was exactly what he did.

Evidently it was too much to expect an answer to her question.

Then it was finally time. She felt in unusually high spirits, as if they were on their way to some long-anticipated celebration.

He drove and she sat next to him in the Golf; it was more practical. For that matter, he could take it with him; the Saab was hers and had been paid for by the firm.

'By the way, I'm sorry I made you lie to Pappa. About the job. That's not what I intended.'

He didn't answer. His eyes were fixed straight ahead, his hands on the wheel at ten to two.

She continued.

'I just didn't feel like telling him what was going on last Thursday when Axel slept over. That we needed to have some time alone, you and I.'

Some sort of sound came out of him this time, no words but more like a grunt.

She smiled slightly into the darkness and put her hand familiarly over his on the gearstick.

You're so good at lying. I had no idea.'

The playroom was already filled with parents with light-blue plastic booties pulled over their shoes. Chairs had been set out on the green floor, but most of the parents were standing in groups and talking in low voices. Neither Kerstin or Linda could be seen. Henrik went over and took a chair by the door. His fingers were drumming nervously against the side of the chair.

Eva went over to Jakob's mother and looked around.

'It seems as if most people thought it was a good idea to have a meeting.'