“Everyone knows that, Dad.”
Dad nods. “I don’t really watch films. But maybe we could see this Harry Potter one sometime, you and me? Is it very long?”
“There are seven books, Dad. And eight films,” says Elsa carefully.
And then Dad looks very, very stressed again.
Elsa hugs him and gets out of Audi. The sun is reflecting off the snow.
Alf is trudging about outside the entrance, trying not to slip in his worn-down shoes, with a snow shovel in his hands. Elsa thinks about the tradition in the Land-of-Almost-Awake of giving away presents on your birthday, and decides that next year she’ll give Alf a pair of shoes. But not this year, because this year he’s getting an electric screwdriver.
Britt-Marie’s door is open. She’s wearing her floral-print jacket. Elsa can see in the hall mirror that she’s making the bed in the bedroom. There are two suitcases inside the threshold. Britt-Marie straightens a last crease in the bedspread, sighs deeply, turns around, and goes into the hall.
She looks at Elsa and Elsa looks at her and neither of them can quite bring herself to say anything, until they both burst out at the same time: “I have a letter for you!”
And then Elsa says “What?” and Britt-Marie says “Excuse me?” at the exact same moment. It’s all rather disorienting.
“I have a letter for you, from Granny! It was taped to the floor under the stroller by the stairs!”
“I see, I see. I also have a letter for you. It was in the tumble-dryer filter in the laundry room.”
Elsa tilts her head. Looks at the suitcases.
“Are you going somewhere?”
Britt-Marie clasps her hands together slightly nervously over her stomach. Looks as if she’d like to brush something off the sleeve of Elsa’s jacket.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know,” admits Britt-Marie.
“What were you doing in the laundry?”
Britt-Marie purses her mouth.
“I was hardly going to leave without making the beds and cleaning the dryer filter first, Elsa. Just imagine if something were to happen to me while I was away? I’m not going to let people think I was some sort of barbarian!”
Elsa grins. Britt-Marie doesn’t grin, but Elsa has a feeling she may be grinning on the inside.
“It was you who taught the drunk to sing that song when she was on the stairs, yelling, wasn’t it? And then the drunk grew completely calm and went to bed. And your mother was a singing teacher. And I don’t think drunks can sing songs like that.”
Britt-Marie clasps her hands together even harder. Nervously rubs the white streak where her wedding ring used to be.
“David and Pernilla used to like it when I sang them that song, when they were small. Of course they don’t remember that now, but they used to like it very much, they really did.”
“You’re not a complete shit, Britt-Marie, are you?” says Elsa with a smile.
“Thanks,” says Britt-Marie hesitantly, as if she’s been asked a trick question.