In the Name of Love by Patrick Smith Page B

the pilot’s jacket and khaki trousers, and said she hoped they weren’t going to run into any combat here on the coast, though no doubt it was always best to be prepared.
    Anders told them all he’d booked a table and the restaurant was almost an hour away on foot so they’d better get a move on.
    By lunchtime they still had a way to go. Ulrika had long since let the dog off the leash. He was having a field day, running about barking, sniffing every trail in what was left of the snow. Now and then he disappeared. Ulrika called. They waited for him to catch up.
    Anders told them again they had to get a move on or they’d be too late to order. Ulrika picked up the dog and carried him in her arms. The dog barked. She put him down. He kept on barking. Lena said the sign said dogs were to be kept on a leash to protect the coastal birds.
    ‘Where?’ Ulrika asked. She looked around. ‘I don’t see any coastal birds.’
    The dog came back and stared up at her expectantly. ‘Do you see them, sweetie?’ she asked. The dog barked.
    ‘Shut up!’ Lena said.
    The dog fell silent. They all did.
    ‘It’s a wildlife reserve,’ Lena said. ‘Dogs aren’t supposed to run around loose in here.’
    Ulrika picked up the dog. ‘The lady thinks we’re not supposed to be here, sweetie,’ she told him.
    Lena kept walking. Anders walked with her. For the first time in their long acquaintanceship Dan saw him lose control of a situation he had set up.
    ‘We need a raft,’ Dan heard him tell Lena, ‘to cross the river.’
    ‘What the hell does that mean?’
    ‘You know,’ said Anders. ‘What I told you.’
    ‘Well, tell me again.’
    ‘Buddha. Don’t you remember?’
    ‘Jesus, you can be so instructive. Do you know that? So goddamned instructive.’
    They gave up before they reached the restaurant and walked back towards Dan’s car. He drove them to where the two other cars were parked. They did not make plans to meet again.
    At home he saw the card Lena Sundman had sent with the flowers. He should, of course, have thanked her when he saw her today. On impulse he crumpled it and threw it in the wastepaper basket. When he saw the crumpled card from the advertising agency he picked it up and looked at it again.

9
    The woman he talked to at the ad agency party wore black silk trousers and a red silk shirt. Their dialogue hovered around separate poles of interest. She wanted to know if he hadn’t once worked with Henrik. Henrik who? he asked her. Never mind, she said, it’s not an experience you’d have forgotten.
    People dropped in, dropped off. By two o’clock those who were still there were on first-name terms. A while later the twenty-four-year-old chief executive suggested they all go sailing. Dan looked out. A drizzle of rain fell past the streetlamps. Someone asked the CEO where his boat was. He said he’d just made a new friend who had a yacht. They’d been out last weekend. From Saltsjöbaden. Most people thought Saltsjöbaden was too far away for what was by now three o’clock in the morning. The CEO said that was all right. He’d ring his friend and ask him to bring the boat in on a trailer to Skeppsbron, within walking distance of the office. They’d go sailing all Sunday morning, have Sunday lunch on some island in the archipelago. He rang his friend. When he put down the receiver he stood still. They all waited. Dan thought of charades when he was young. You had to mime something and, at a given signal, freeze until those watching guessed what you were. He always said yes quickly to get it over with.
    ‘He screamed at me,’ the CEO said. ‘Isn’t it incredible? Screamed.’
    They all left. On the street he and the woman in silk found themselves walking in the same direction towards their cars. She picked up their small talk where they’d left it. Dan was relieved that she chatted effortlessly on. At one point, though, she stopped and regarded him under a street light and said grey at the temples