He feels an urgent desire.

She always wakes when the newspaper arrives. Every single morning. It falls on the wooden floor with a sodding awful thump. Then there're two more thumps, next door, and then the next one along. She has tried to catch him, tell him to stop, but has been too late every time. She caught sight of his back quite a few times. He's young, with his hair in a ponytail. If she gets hold of him she'll explain how people feel at five o'clock on Sunday mornings.

She can't go back to sleep now. She twists and turns, she's sweating. Must go back to sleep, should sleep, but no, it can't be done. She never used to have this problem, it's different now, her thoughts attack her at once and by six o'clock she's really tense, to hell with the paperboy and his ponytail.

The Sunday version of Dagens Nyheter feels as weighty as the Bible. She starts reading part of it in bed, looking at the words and then more words; there are too many. Nothing makes sense to her. Lots of in-depth reports about interesting people, she ought to read them but feels too tired to get her mind round it all. She makes a careful pile, she'll tackle it later. She never does.

She is restless. All these hours. Read DN, then coffee, do teeth, breakfast, make bed, wash up, teeth again. It's not even half past seven yet, a Sunday morning in June with beams of sun piercing the Venetian blinds. She turns her head away, can't face the light yet, too much summer out there, too many people holding other people's hands, too many people sleeping close to other people, too many who're laughing, making love. She can't face any of them, not just now.

She walks down the steps to the basement, to the store. It's dark down there, lonely and untidy. She knows she's got at least two hours of work ahead, sorting and packing. It'll take her to half past nine. Not so bad.