There they sit, the widow feigning interest and the little girls unnaturally well-behaved. They produce a dejection among the women that feels like shame. Their sympathy has been exhausted, and people don’t like to look their own inconstancy in the mirror. On board the steamer, they get through the night sighing, and in the morning they watch as a truck backs down to the edge of the pier and the poor cow is dragged ashore and furniture and packing crates are reloaded. Goodbye, they say, with relief, as they start towards the city, goodbye and goodbye. When they’ve rounded the corner, the truck disappears from view along with the vicar’s widow and children, and when the women come back in the afternoon, the surface is clean and unruffled. It was best for everyone that they left.
Copyright
Ice
Copyright © Ulla-Lena Lundberg, 2012
Translation © Thomas Teal/Sort Of Books, 2016
First published by Sort Of Books 2016
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher except for the quotation of brief passages in reviews.
Sort Of Books, PO Box 18678, London NW3 2FL
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1908745477
eISBN 978-1908745422
Ice Page 41
