‘And what was the conflict with her parents about?’ she asked.
‘Well it was so stupid, really,’ Maria sighed. ‘Her parents had always been quite liberal although they were such believers. They didn’t mind us going out or anything like that. But in the few years they were part of that new group, they changed, got more radical. They were much more restrictive about clothes, music, parties and so on. And Sara couldn’t cope with the change. She refused to take part in anything to do with the church, which her parents accepted even though the pastor tried to force them to be stricter in their parental role. But that wasn’t enough for Sara; she wanted to push the boundaries even more.’
‘With more booze and boys?’
‘With more booze and boys, and sex,’ sighed Maria. ‘It wasn’t too early for it, really, we must have been seventeen when she got going, so to speak. But it was a bit worrying that she seemed to be trying to go with boys just to annoy her parents.’
Fredrika found herself crossing her legs under the table. She hadn’t been with a boy until she was well over eighteen.
‘Anyway,’ Maria went on, ‘she met a really nice boy the year after that. And I got together with the boy’s best friend, so we were like a little gang, always going round together.’
‘How did Sara’s parents take it? Her having a boyfriend, I mean.’
‘They didn’t know at first, of course. And when they found out… Well, I think they thought it was quite okay. Sara calmed down a bit, and they genuinely had no idea about all the boys she’d been with before that. If they had known, I think it would have been a different story.’
‘And what happened?’ asked Fredrika, who was really caught up in the story.
‘Then time passed and spring came,’ said Maria, who was a good storyteller and knew when she had a good listener in front of her. ‘Sara suddenly felt a bit unsure about the relationship. They were spending more time apart, and our little group wasn’t together so often. Then I split up with the other boy, and after that Sara didn’t want to be with hers, either.’
Maria took a breath.
‘He made a bit of a fuss at first, Sara’s boyfriend. He didn’t want it to be over. Kept ringing her and wouldn’t give up. But he found a new girl not long after, and then he left Sara in peace. It was only a few weeks before we finished college, and Sara had already booked us on the writing course in Umeå. There were so many things I was looking forward to. College-leaving celebrations, the writing course, starting at university.’
Maria bit her lip.
‘But there was something worrying Sara,’ she said softly. ‘At first I thought it must be because that boy wouldn’t leave her alone, but then he backed off. And then I thought she must have fallen out with her parents again, but it wasn’t that either. I could see there was something, though. And I was terribly hurt that she wouldn’t confide in me.’
Fredrika made some notes on her pad.
‘So you went off to Umeå?’ she prompted quietly, realizing Maria had lapsed into total silence.
Maria gave a start.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ she said. ‘We went off to Umeå. Sara kept saying things would be better once she got away. And then she just came out with something on the way: said it was all arranged that she would be staying up there all summer, and we wouldn’t be coming back together. I was really upset; it felt like an insult and a betrayal.’
‘You didn’t know she’d applied for a summer job up there?’
‘No, I had no idea. Nor did her parents; she rang them a few weeks later to tell them. Made it sound as if it was an opportunity that had just come up, when it wasn’t at all. Sara knew when she left that she’d be there all summer.’
‘Did she explain at all?’ Fredrika asked reflectively.
‘No,’ Maria said with a shake of the head. ‘She just said it had been a difficult year and she needed to get away. Told me not to take it personally.’
Maria leant back in her seat and folded her arms on her chest. She looked steely.
‘But I couldn’t really get over it,’ she said, sounding almost defiant. ‘We did the course and then I went home by myself. We’d planned to share a flat or something in Uppsala when term started there, but over the summer I decided I’d rather be on my own, in student accommodation. Sara got in quite a state about it and thought I was letting her down, but she let me down first. And then…’
She lapsed into silence. A big red car went past in the road outside. Fredrika’s eyes followed it while she waited for Maria to go on.
‘And then everything was sort of fine again,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Not really, not like it had been before. We saw a lot of each other in Uppsala, and we shared the same interests and confided in each other to some extent, but… no, it was never like before.’
Fredrika felt a strange, gnawing feeling inside her. How many people had she grown apart from over the years? Did she grieve over it the way Maria seemed to regret the loss of Sara?
‘Let’s just go back to the time in Umeå,’ Fredrika said briskly.
Maria blinked.
‘How were things there? Did anything particular happen?’
‘Things were… Well, fine, I think. We stayed at a course centre and got to know some people.’
‘Anyone you’re still in touch with?’
‘No, no, no one at all. It felt like drawing a line under it all when I came home. The course was over and I was going to work for the rest of the summer. Work, and then move to Uppsala.’
‘And Sara? Did she have anything to say for herself when she got back?’
Maria knitted her brow.
‘No, scarcely a thing.’
‘Was there anyone else she was as close to as she was to you?’
‘No, I’m sure there wasn’t. She had friends, of course, but no one that close. It felt to me as if there were lots of things she just wanted to put behind her when we moved to Uppsala. Before she met Gabriel, then she was pretty much on her own again, I suppose.’
Fredrika snapped this up at once.
‘Were you seeing much of Sara when she met Gabriel?’
‘Yes, we seemed to be starting to find each other again properly just about then. It was a few years since the Umeå thing, and we were soon going to be taking our exams and looking for jobs. We were on the brink of a new phase in our lives, a more adult one. But then Sara met Gabriel and everything changed again. He took over her life completely. At first I tried to stay in touch to…’
Maria stopped, and Fredrika was in no doubt this time. Maria was crying.
‘To… what?’ Fredrika asked quietly.
‘To save her,’ Maria sobbed. ‘I could see how she was getting knocked about in that relationship. And then she got pregnant. After that we lost contact completely, and we haven’t been in touch since. I couldn’t bear seeing her with him. And to be honest, I couldn’t stand seeing the way she just gave up and died when she was with him, and didn’t lift a finger to break free.’
Fredrika instinctively disagreed with Maria about Sara Sebastiansson not lifting a finger to break free from Gabriel, but she kept it to herself. Instead she said:
‘Well, she’s definitely broken free now. In fact, she’s desperately alone.’
Maria wiped away a tear from her cheek.
‘How does she look?’
Fredrika, who was just packing away her things to get up and go, raised her head.
‘Who?’
‘Sara? I wonder how she looks today.’
Fredrika gave a slight smile.
‘She’s got striking red hair, long. Beautiful, you could say. And her toenails are painted blue.’
The tears rose in Maria’s eyes again.
‘Just like before,’ she whispered. ‘That’s the way she’s always looked.’
Peder Rydh was reflecting on life in general and his marriage to Ylva in particular. He scratched his forehead, as he always did when he was stressed and unsettled. He discreetly scratched his groin, too. He itched all over this morning.