My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry (24 page)

“I’m just bloody saying that I sent Kent a text twenty minutes ago when you started making a bloody racket about this, and he got back to tell me he’s on his bloody way,” says Alf, and then adds, “The idiot wouldn’t miss this for all the tea in China.”

Britt-Marie seems not to hear the last bit. She brushes invisible dust from her skirt and folds her hands and gives Alf a superior glance, because she knows quite clearly that it’s impossible for Kent to be on his way here, because, in fact, his plane hasn’t landed yet and, in fact, he’s on a business trip. But then there comes the sound of the door slamming on the ground floor and Kent’s footsteps. You can tell they’re Kent’s because someone is screaming German into a telephone, the way Nazis speak in American films.

“Ja, Klaus! JA! We will dizcuzz thiz in Frankfurt!”

Britt-Marie immediately sets off down the stairs to meet him and tell him about the impudence that’s been impudent enough to take place here in his absence.

George comes out of the kitchen behind Mum, wearing jogging shorts, a very green sweater, and an even greener apron. He gives them an amused look, while holding a smoking frying pan.

“Anyone want some breakfast? I’ve made eggs.” He looks as if he’s going to add that there are also some newly bought protein bars on offer, but seems to change his mind when he realizes they may run out.

“I’ve brought some cookies,” says Maud expansively, giving Elsa the whole tin and patting her tenderly on the cheek. “You have that, I can get some more,” she whispers and walks into their flat.

“Is there coffee?” asks Lennart nervously, having another shot of standby coffee as he follows her.

Kent strides up the stairs and appears in the doorway. He is wearing jeans and an expensive jacket. Elsa knows that because Kent usually tells her how much his clothes cost, as if he’s awarding points in the final of the Eurovision Song Contest. Britt-Marie hurries along behind him, mumbling repeatedly, “The rudeness, the sheer
rudeness
of not calling you, of just calling any old person. Isn’t that just so rude? Things can’t be allowed to go on like this, Kent.”

Kent doesn’t really acknowledge his wife’s raving, but points dramatically at Elsa’s mum.

“I want to know
exactly
what the accountant said when he called.”

But before Mum has time to say anything, Britt-Marie brushes off some invisible dust from Kent’s arm, and whispers to him in a radically changed tone of voice.

“Maybe you should go down first and change your shirt, Kent?”

“Please, Britt-Marie, we’re doing business here,” Kent says dismissively, more or less like Elsa when Mum wants her to wear something green.

She looks crestfallen.

“I can throw it in the machine, come along, Kent. There are freshly ironed shirts in your wardrobe. You really can’t be wearing a wrinkly shirt when the accountant comes, Kent, what will the accountant think of us then? Will he think we can’t iron our shirts?” She laughs nervously.

Mum opens her mouth to try to say something again, but Kent catches sight of George.

“Ah! You’ve got eggs?” Kent bursts out enthusiastically.

George nods with satisfaction. Kent immediately darts past Mum into the flat. Britt-Marie hurries after him with a frown. When she passes Mum, Britt-Marie looks bothered as she lets slip, “Oh well, when one is busy with a career like you are, Ulrika, there’s no time to clean, of course not.” Even though every inch of the flat is in perfect order.

Mum ties the sash of her dressing gown round her a little tighter, and says, with a deeply controlled sigh, “Just come on in, all of you. Make yourselves at home.”

Elsa dives into her room and changes out of her pajamas into jeans as quick as she can, so she can run down and check on the wurse in the cellar while everyone is busy up here. Kent interrogates Mum in the kitchen about the accountant, and Britt-Marie echoes him with an “mmm” after every other word.

The only one who stays in the front hall is Alf. Elsa sticks her thumbs in her jeans pockets and pokes her toes against the edge of the threshold, trying to avoid looking him in the eye.

“Thanks for not saying anything about the . . .” she starts to say, but she stops herself before she has to say “wurse.”

Alf shakes his head grumpily.

“You shouldn’t have rushed off like that. If you’ve taken that animal on, you have to bloody shoulder your responsibility for it, even if you’re a kid.”

“I’m not a bloody kid!” snaps Elsa.

“So quit behaving like one, then.”

“Touché,” Elsa whispers at the threshold.

“The animal is in the storage unit. I’ve put up some sheets of plywood so people can’t see inside. Told it to keep its mouth shut. I think it got the point. But you have to find a better hiding place. People will find it sooner or later,” says Alf.

Elsa understands that when he says “people” he means Britt-Marie. And she knows he’s right. She has a terribly bad conscience about abandoning the wurse yesterday. Alf could have called the police and they would have shot it. Elsa abandoned it like Granny abandoned Mum, and this scares her more than any nightmares.

“What are they talking about?” she asks Alf, with a nod towards the kitchen, to shake off the thought.

Alf snorts.

“The bloody leaseholds.”

“What does it mean?”

“Jesus, I can’t stand here explaining everything,” he groans. “The difference between a rental contract and a leasehold in a bloo—”

“I know what a bloody leasehold is, I’m not bloody thick,” says Elsa.

“Why are you asking, then?” says Alf defensively.

“I’m asking what it
means
; why are they all talking about it!” Elsa clarifies, in the way one clarifies things without being very clear at all.

“Kent has been going on about these sodding leaseholds ever since he moved back in, he won’t be satisfied until he can wipe his ass with the money he’s shat out first,” explains Alf, in the manner of one who doesn’t know very many seven-year-olds. At first Elsa is going to ask what Alf meant when he said that Kent “moved back in,” but she decides to take one thing at a time.

“Won’t we all make money? You and Mum and George and all of us?”

“If we sell the flats and move, yeah,” grunts Alf.

Elsa ponders. Alf creaks his leather jacket.

“And that’s what Kent wants, the bastard. He’s always wanted to move out of here.”

That is why she’s having all these nightmares, she realizes. Because if the creatures from the Land-of-Almost-Awake turn up in the house now, then maybe the house will start to become a part of the Land-of-Almost-Awake, and if they all want to sell their flats, then . . .

“Then we won’t be escaping Miamas. We’ll be leaving of our own free will,” says Elsa out loud to herself.

“What?”

“Nothing,” mumbles Elsa.

The door slamming at the bottom of the house echoes through the stairwell. Then discreet footsteps, heading up. It’s the accountant.

Britt-Marie drowns out Kent’s voice in the kitchen. She doesn’t get any response from Kent insofar as the shirt change goes, so she compensates with a lot of indignation about other things. There is a rich supply of such topics. It’s difficult for her to decide which is most upsetting, of course, but she has time to run through several matters, including her threat to call the police if Elsa’s mum doesn’t
immediately
move Granny’s car from Britt-Marie’s space in the garage, and also that Britt-Marie will make the police break the lock of the stroller that’s still chained up by the entrance, and that she won’t hesitate to put pressure on the landlord to put up cameras on the stairs, so they can stop the vile malpractice of people coming and going as they please and putting up notices without first informing the head of information. She’s interrupted by the very short man with the very friendly face now standing in the doorway, knocking tentatively against the doorframe.

“I’m the accountant,” he says amicably.

And when he catches sight of Elsa, he winks at her. As if they share a secret. Or at least Elsa thinks that’s what he means.

Kent steps authoritatively out of the kitchen with his hands on his hips over his overcoat and looks the accountant up and down.

“Well, well? What about these leaseholds, then?” he demands at once. “What price per square foot are you offering?”

Britt-Marie storms out of the kitchen from behind and points at the accountant accusingly.

“How did you get in?”

“The door was open,” says the accountant amicably.

Kent breaks in impatiently. “So about the leaseholds: what’s your price?”

The accountant points amicably at his briefcase and makes an amicable gesture towards the kitchen.

“Should we sit down, perhaps?”

“There’s coffee,” Lennart says expansively.

“And cookies,” Maud says with a nod.

“And eggs!” George hollers from the kitchen.

“Please excuse the mess, they’re all so preoccupied with their careers in this family,” says Britt-Marie well-meaningly. Mum does her absolute best to pretend she didn’t hear that. As they all head into the kitchen, Britt-Marie stops, turns to Elsa, and clasps her hands together.

“You do understand, dear, I would obviously never ever think you and your grandmother’s friends had anything to do with junkies. Obviously I’m not to know if the gentleman who was looking for you yesterday took drugs or not. That’s not at all what I mean to say.”

Elsa gawks at her, puzzled.

“What? What friends? Who was asking for me yesterday?”

She almost asks, “Was it Wolfheart?” and then stops herself, because she can’t imagine how Britt-Marie could possibly know that Wolfheart is her friend.

“Your friend who was here looking for you yesterday. The one I jettisoned from the premises. There’s a smoking ban on the stairs, you can tell him that. That is not how we behave in this leaseholders’ association. I understand that you and your granny have very curious acquaintances, but rules apply to everyone, they really do!” She straightens an invisible wrinkle in her skirt and clasps her hands on her stomach before continuing: “You know who I mean. He was very slim and stood here smoking on the stairs. He was looking for a child, a family friend, he said, and then he described you. He looked exceedingly unpleasant, actually, so I told him that in this leaseholders’ association we do not allow smoking indoors.”

Elsa’s heart shrinks. Consumes all the oxygen in her body. She has to hold on to the doorframe to stop herself collapsing. No one sees her, not even Alf. But she understands what’s about to happen in this adventure now.

Because every fairy tale has a dragon.

19

SPONGE CAKE MIX

F
airy tales from Miamas tell of an infinite number of ways to defeat a dragon. But if this dragon is a shadow, the most evil kind of being one can possibly imagine, and yet it looks like a human, then what? Elsa doubts that even Wolfheart could defeat something like that, even when he was the most renowned warrior in the Land-of-Almost-Awake. And now? When he’s afraid of snot and can’t wash away the thought of blood from his own fingers?

Elsa doesn’t know anything about the shadow. Only that she has seen it twice, the first time at the undertaker’s and then from the bus that day on her way to school. And that she’s dreamed of it, and now it’s come to the house looking for her. And there’s no coincidence in Miamas. In fairy tales everything is always exactly as it’s meant to be.

So this must have been what Granny meant by “protect your castle, protect your friends.” Elsa only wishes that Granny had given her an army to do it with.

She waits until late at night, when it’s dark enough for a child and a wurse to pass unseen under Britt-Marie’s balcony, before she goes down to the cellar. George is out jogging; Mum is still out preparing everything for tomorrow. Since the meeting with the accountant this morning she’s been talking endlessly on the telephone with the whale-woman from the undertaker’s and the florist and the vicar and then with the hospital and the vicar again. Elsa has been sitting in her room reading
Spider-Man
, doing her best not to think of tomorrow. It hasn’t gone very well.