threw them into a pan of boiling water. Bell sat quietly on the sofa for a few minutes, enjoying her beer and the little moment of peace. She peered over the back of the sofa, towards the kitchen. ‘Hey, Kris, how long do you think it is to Uppsala from here – an hour-ish?’
He nodded in agreement.
‘Right,’ she sighed. That would be an extra early start for her, then. Hanna had asked her to get in early tomorrow so that she and Max could head straight off to the clinic, before the commuter traffic built up.
She’d made light of it to her friends, but she felt rattled by the day’s events. It frightened her when life slipped off its rails like that, the straight tramlines of expectation suddenly hijacked by a too-sharp curve that sent everything flying. Lives could turn on a sixpence, she knew that only too well – the entire reason she was here and living in Sweden was down to one such curve ball – but it was just as unsettling to watch it happening from a close remove. She was near enough to care, but just outside of the involved circle.
‘Come. Eat,’ Kris said, draining the pan so that great plumes of steam billowed in his face. He tonged the food into colourful and artful heaps in the bowls, and slid one towards her on the island.
‘Oh, I’m not sure I ca—’ It was almost ten. Eating late was hardly conducive to whittling out that bikini body she was determined to find.
‘You can and you will,’ he said firmly. ‘You cannot spend all day looking after other people and neglecting yourself.’
‘I really didn’t neglect myself when I was serving the kids their dinner earlier,’ she said, getting up anyway as her stomach growled appreciatively. She took her bowl with a grateful smile and they sat down together at the small circular table that was only big enough for two, or a pot plant. Every third Friday, for Kris’s renowned and sought-after supper clubs, it was moved to the bathroom and set in the bath out of the way, as six trestle tables and benches were carried in, the rest of the furniture hidden in the bedrooms or pushed to the walls.
‘I thought Marc was coming over?’ she said, her mouth full, as they tucked in in appreciative silence, elbows out, heads dipped low, beers fizzing in their bottles.
‘He is.’ Kris’s gaze flickered over to the reclaimed train clock on the opposite wall. ‘After his shift, in twenty minutes hopefully.’
‘Ah.’ Marc was a junior doctor at St Görans Hospital. He was almost the same height and build as Kris, but where Kris was blonde and stubbled and rocking a chiselled indy traveller vibe, Marc was clean-shaven and preppy. Tove had said it was like choosing between Redford and Newman the first time she’d seen them together, and Bell had had to break it to her that she sadly wouldn’t ever get to choose either one of them. ‘Did his consultant apologize for screaming at him?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Outrageous,’ she tutted. Marc had been late to a meeting on account of sitting with a terminal patient, literally holding their hand as they died. She forked another heaped bite and gave an immediate groan of appreciation. ‘Ohmigod, so good.’
His eyes gleamed appreciatively. ‘So how about you? Was Tove right just now? Are you deliberately sabotaging your own dates?’
‘Kris, no one could have foreseen what was coming our way today. Not even Hanna. Long-forgotten husbands waking up from comas is not all in a day’s work for me.’
‘No, I guess not,’ he conceded, looking up at her from beneath his ridiculously long eyelashes as he twirled his noodles. ‘All the same, you really need to start insisting on extra pay if you’re gonna be doing extra hours. You help her out a lot. A lot a lot.’
‘I know.’
‘You know – but you won’t,’ he said, watching her, knowing her too well. ‘You’re too soft.’
‘It’s not a matter of being soft. I just . . . don’t mind if things over-run. It feels sort of wrong monetizing looking after children.’
Kris burst out laughing. ‘But that is the very definition of your job!’
She couldn’t help but crack a smile. She had walked into that one. ‘You know what I mean. Those kids are so cute.’
‘Elise is not cute! She is a diva-in-training. Mariah Carey in miniature and fucking terrifying.’
‘Okay, fine, but Linus then – you haven’t seen his puppy-dog eyes. He didn’t win