The door of Max’s study was closed; he had been sitting at his thinking desk all day, and didn’t wish to be disturbed. He was charging his batteries before a small book tour which he was due to undertake after Easter, and the first hundred pages of proofs for Good Food to the Max had just arrived from his publisher. Yesterday they had sent the final recipes to the editor, so the project was almost finished. Sooner or later Max would no doubt emerge and ask her to proofread the pages.
The fan was whirring away as the eggs and potatoes simmered on the hob. Vendela thought about Max’s children; they hadn’t even called to wish him Happy Easter.
The kitchen timer started buzzing behind her; the eggs were done. She lifted the bubbling pan off the hob and ran cold water into it.
There were twelve hard-boiled eggs, but Vendela wouldn’t be eating any of them. She had won the struggle against hunger since she came to the island, and as long as she boiled enough eggs, Max wouldn’t be able to keep track of whether she’d eaten any or not.
Vendela saw a small movement out of the corner of her eye, and turned her head. ‘Hello Ally,’ she said.
Aloysius had come into the kitchen – without bumping into the door frame with his nose, as he often did. He shuffled across the floor towards her, slowly but in a straight line.
‘How’s my boy?’ said Vendela, smiling at him. ‘Happy Easter, little one.’
The poodle sat down slowly, his stiff front leg extended to the side.
‘There’ll be something nice for you tonight – you’ll like that, won’t you?’
The dog licked his nose and looked over at Vendela.
It was unbelievable, but Aloysius actually seemed to be looking at her. His gaze seemed to be focused, he could see it was her. She stepped quickly to one side, and watched his eyes follow the movement.
Vendela dropped her pen and whirled around. She rushed over to Max’s thinking room, ignoring the fact that the door was still closed.
‘Max, his eyes are better!’ she shouted, hammering on the door. ‘Ally’s eyes are better, Max, come out and see!’
31
The grandchildren had spent the whole of Easter Saturday painting hard-boiled eggs. There were yellow eggs with blue stripes and red eggs with green spots – but most of them had so many layers of colour they had ended up black.
Gerlof ate a couple with plenty of salt and fish roe, but he preferred spiced herring with potatoes and crispbread. He had a couple of glasses of schnapps too, flavoured with wormwood picked down by the shore, and noticed that no one else at the table was drinking spirits. Good. (From time to time over the years he had been worried about his younger daughter Julia, but this evening she had only milk in her glass.)
After the eggs and the schnapps Gerlof felt so good that he started talking about how miserable life on the island had been back in the old days.
‘Saturday slops, do you know what that was?’
The grandchildren shook their heads.
‘It was a very special dish,’ said Gerlof. ‘The recipe was simple … you just collected a whole week’s worth of leftovers in a wooden bowl, then you put plenty of salt in, boiled the whole thing up in a pan and ate it. The whole family!’
Julia shook her head. ‘You’ve never eaten Saturday slops, Dad. You weren’t that poor!’
He frowned at her. ‘I’m talking about my grandfather, he used to have it when he was little. Things were bad enough when I was little, mind you … We had no running water, we had to pump the water into a bucket out in the yard.’
‘I remember that pump,’ said Lena. ‘It was still there in the sixties … and I thought the water from the well tasted better than tap water, anyway.’
‘Well, yes,’ said Gerlof, ‘but sometimes it was all brown, and you had to pump until it ran clear again. And of course we didn’t have a proper toilet, just the outhouse with a big bucket that had to be emptied into a hole when it was full. It all splashed up your legs if you weren’t careful, and if you slipped you got—’
Lena put down her fork. ‘We are still eating, Dad.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Gerlof, winking at the grandchildren. ‘But in the spring it was the opposite way round, we had far too much water. Sometimes there would be great big lakes out on the alvar … I can remember swimming in them now and again. And once my brother Ragnar and I found an old tin bath; we made a sail from a sheet and launched it in the spring floods.’ He laughed. ‘It got up such a good speed that it capsized – it was my first shipwreck!’
‘Were there cars then?’ asked one of the children.
‘Yes,’ said Gerlof, ‘there have been cars as long as I remember. They came to the island quite early on, long before electricity. There were cars up here before the First World War, but some farms didn’t get electricity until the forties. And some people didn’t want it – it cost too much. They carried on using paraffin lamps as long as they could.’
‘At least you didn’t have any power cuts if you were using paraffin lamps,’ said Julia.
‘Yes, and with the electricity everybody was terrified whenever we had a thunderstorm. People would go into each other’s houses, or go and sit in the car until it was over … We just weren’t used to electricity.’
When almost all the eggs had been eaten, the grandchildren left the table. It was much quieter, and Gerlof stayed there with his daughters.
He had something to tell them. Something that felt like a confession. ‘I’ve started reading your mother’s diaries.’
‘They’re in the attic, aren’t they?’ said Julia.
‘No, they were at the back of a cupboard. Do you want to read them too?’
‘I’d rather not,’ said Julia.
Lena shook her head. ‘I’ve seen them lying there, but I’ve never touched them … It felt too private. Wasn’t she going to burn them? I’ve got a feeling she—’
‘Burn them? Not that I know of,’ Gerlof broke in. He didn’t want to feel any worse than he already did, and carried on in his firmest captain’s voice. ‘Well, I’m reading them anyway. It’s not illegal to read another person’s diaries.’
Silence fell around the table. He picked up the last black-painted egg and started to peel it, then added in a quieter voice, ‘She saw strange people around the house, did you know that? She wrote about it in the diaries.’
His daughters looked at him.
‘You mean she saw little goblins?’ said Julia. ‘I know Granny did.’
‘No, not goblins. Ella writes about a “changeling” who came to the cottage sometimes, when she was on her own up here. At first I thought she had some suitor from the village coming to call when I was away at sea …’
‘No chance,’ said Julia.
‘I don’t think so either.’ Gerlof looked thoughtfully out of the window, over towards the grass and bushes beyond their garden. ‘But I do wonder what it was she actually saw. She never mentioned it to me. Did she say anything to you?’
Julia shook her head. She scooped out her last boiled egg and said, ‘Mum was a bit secretive … she was good at keeping quiet.’
‘Perhaps it was a troll from the quarry,’ said Lena with a smile. ‘Ernst used to talk about them.’
Gerlof didn’t smile back. ‘There are no trolls there.’
He started to get up from the table. Both his daughters quickly moved to help him, but he waved them away. ‘I can manage, thank you. I think I’ll go to bed soon. You won’t forget the Easter service tomorrow morning?’
‘We’ll get you to the church, don’t worry,’ said Lena.
‘Good.’
Gerlof still had his own bedroom at the cottage. He closed the door behind him and changed into his pyjamas, even though it was only nine o’clock. He knew he would sleep well, even if all the others were still up and watching TV. He could hear their laughter and loud voices, and closed his eyes.
The grandchildren’s constant rushing about from morning till night wore him out. What would it be like when the summer h
olidays started? He’d better enjoy the peace during the spring, while it lasted.
32
‘Ally?’ Max called. ‘Ally, look at me.’
Max was leaning forward in his armchair in the living room. The little poodle was sitting on Vendela’s knee on the other side of the room, and turned his nose towards the voice.
‘Aloysius? Can you see me?’
Vendela whispered in his ear, ‘Ally, can you see Daddy?’
The dog whimpered faintly and seemed to be sniffing, but in different directions all around the room.
Max sighed. ‘He can’t see me, Vendela. He can hear and he can smell, but he can’t see a thing.’
Vendela stroked the dog’s back. ‘He can,’ she said. ‘He’s much better than he was … he doesn’t bump into the furniture any more.’ She scratched the back of his neck. ‘And he looks at me, he really does. Don’t you, poppet?’
Ally stretched up and licked her throat.
Max shook his head. ‘Eyes don’t heal themselves, I’ve never heard of that happening. I don’t think sight can just come back …’
‘Yes, it can,’ said Vendela. ‘Here it can. Here on the island.’
‘Really?’
Vendela put the poodle down on the stone floor. ‘It’s healthy here,’ she said. ‘I think it’s the water and the earth … There’s so much lime in the ground.’
‘Right,’ said Max, getting up from his chair and heading towards the hallway. ‘I’m going to put the summer tyres on the car. Can you make me a snack to take with me later – some pasta salad?’
Vendela went into the kitchen and put the water on to boil. In a couple of hours she would be alone in the house. She was looking forward to it.
But the Easter weekend had gone well; they had eaten good food, and Vendela had helped Max with the proofreading of his cookery book. Now, on Sunday evening, he was getting ready to leave the island for a five-day promotional tour of southern Sweden; he would be away until Friday. He would talk about his previous self-help books and, of course, would give as much publicity as possible to his forthcoming venture, Good Food to the Max.
‘Anticipation,’ he said. ‘You have to create the anticipation.’
He was stomping around the house, excited one minute and irritated the next, but Vendela knew he was always like that when he was due to go off and meet the public. There was so much that could go wrong; perhaps nobody would turn up, or his microphone might not work, or the organizers might have forgotten to order his books or arrange the venue. He was always more relaxed when he came home from his tours.
In the beginning Vendela had gone with him and they had enjoyed intimate dinners in various city hotels, but now they had an unspoken agreement that she would stay at home.
Once the pasta started boiling she went back into the living room, and stopped dead. There was a milky-white puddle on the dark stone floor. Vendela realized what had happened and hurried off to fetch some kitchen roll before Max saw the puddle, but it was too late.
His call came as she stood by the sink: ‘Vendela!’
She went back, her expression blank. ‘What is it, darling?’
‘Have you seen what he’s done on the floor? Your dog?’
Now he was her dog.
‘Yes, I’ve seen it.’ She hurried in with kitchen paper in both hands. ‘He’s just got a bit of an upset tummy.’
She knelt down. Max stood behind her, his back ramrod straight as he watched her clean up the mess. ‘It’s not the first time.’
‘No. But he does eat grass sometimes, it could be that,’ said Vendela. ‘But he’s been much better this last week.’
Max said nothing, he just turned away. Vendela wiped up the last of the mess and got to her feet. ‘There, all gone!’
The front door slammed; Max had gone out. Ally had crept under the kitchen table and was lying with his paws over his nose as if he were ashamed of himself, and she bent down. ‘Don’t do that again, poppet.’
Max had enjoyed spending time with Ally through all the years he could take the dog for long walks, or throw sticks and balls for him to fetch. But now Ally wasn’t very well, he was obviously worthless.
She would go out to the stone with another coin this very evening. She would stay and pray – not only for Aloysius to get better, but also for Max to start liking the dog as he was, young or old, cute or ugly, healthy or sick. He was their Ally, after all.
‘We’re not finished yet, poppet,’ she said, straining the pasta through a colander. ‘We’ll show him!’
Öland 1957
When the winter storms come, the fresh snow drifts to form metre-high frozen waves out on the alvar. Vendela can no longer walk across it, so for several months she has to take a long detour in order to get to school.
At the end of March the sun comes back and her father gives her a pair of boots made by the old village cobbler, Shoe-Paulsson. The stitching is poor and they let the water in, but she can walk across the alvar again between the melting snowdrifts.
She can go to the elf stone.
That spring Vendela takes her mother’s jewellery, piece by piece, and on her way to school she leaves each item as an offering to the elves. Her father doesn’t seem to notice that things are going missing; when he isn’t working in the quarry, he’s too busy looking at the starlit sky and working out the orbits of the man-made satellites. The farm is going to rack and ruin, and he seems to have forgotten the Invalid, but none of this bothers him.
Vendela places the pieces of jewellery in the hollows on the stone, and they disappear. Sometimes they stay there for a few days, but sooner or later they vanish. She never sees them again.
When she makes a wish it is almost always granted, sometimes in the strangest ways.
She wishes for a best friend in her class, someone who is hers alone and who doesn’t care about the farmyard aroma surrounding her. Two days later, Dagmar Gran asks if Vendela would like to come to her house after school. Dagmar’s family is rich; they have a big farm near the church with several tractors and more than forty cows – so many that they are known only by a number rather than a name. Vendela can’t go, because she has to see to Rosa, Rosa and Rosa, but she asks if she could perhaps come over a bit later on. Dagmar says that’s fine.
The following week Vendela asks the elves if they could sort out something other than boiled eel for dinner; Henry has discovered cheap eels from the east coast, and has cooked them for ten consecutive days by this stage.
‘We’re having chicken tonight,’ says Henry that same evening. ‘I’ve just wrung the neck of one of them.’
Once she and Dagmar Gran have become best friends, Vendela asks if she can move to an empty seat next to Dagmar, but fru Jansson says that she is the one who decides where her pupils will sit, and Vendela is to sit by the window, next to Thorsten Hellman, who needs someone who has a calming influence on him.
So the next day Vendela stops at the elf stone and places a fine gold chain in one of the hollows. Then she wishes for a new teacher, someone nicer and kinder than fru Jansson.
Three days later fru Jansson catches a cold and stays at home. The cold turns into a chest infection which almost kills her, and she has to go to a sanatorium on the mainland. She is replaced by fröken Ernstam, a young supply teacher from Kalmar.
The pupils pick spring flowers by the roadside and give them to fru Jansson’s husband, who is the school caretaker. Vendela curtsies extra deeply and says quietly that she hopes fru Jansson will soon be better.
On her way home that day she dare not even look at the elf stone.
33
Jerry Morner’s belly was large and white and not remotely muscular. It had swollen with the consumption of wine and cheese and Cognac, year after year. And for the last week it had had a long dressing across it, but Per pulled it off on Easter Sunday morning. With one quick yank.
Jerry grunted on the kitchen chair, but didn’t move.
‘There,’ said Per, folding up the dress
ing. ‘Does that feel better?’
Jerry grunted again, but Per thought the wound in his stomach looked as if it had healed. It had knitted together, and now there was just a pink line.
‘Do you remember what happened?’ he asked.
There was a long pause, then Jerry answered, ‘Bremer.’
‘Bremer was holding the knife? He stabbed you and hit you?’
Jerry nodded. ‘Bremer.’
‘OK. But I mean, you were friends … Do you know why he did it?’
Jerry shook his head. He was sticking to his story – perhaps that made it more credible, Per thought, but it was still very odd. Why would Hans Bremer attack his colleague with a knife, lock himself and some woman in the house and then set fire to it?
Per could only hope that the police would go through the film studio, find some answers soon, and pass them on to him.
There were several mysteries to puzzle over. He had searched for Nilla’s lucky stone both last night and this morning, but it just wasn’t in the house. He also searched the car, but with no luck. He tried to stay out of sight of his father, because as soon as he showed himself the hoarse cries started up: ‘Pelle? Pelle!’
When he had removed Jerry’s dressing, Per straightened up. ‘Now you’re better, I thought it was time we got you home. I’ll drive you down to Kristianstad this evening. What do you think about that?’
His father said nothing.
‘OK, that’s decided then. You can sit here and rest, and we’ll have something to eat in a little while.’
An hour or so after lunch Per went out for a run, partly to clear his head and partly to get away from Jerry for a while.
Easter Sunday was chilly and bright, with just a few wispy clouds visible over the mainland. He ran north along the coast, and when he’d gone so far that he could see the little island of Blå Jungfrun as a black dome out in the sound, he stopped and took in the view. The rocks, the sun, the sea. For a few seconds he was able to forget everything else. Then he turned around and ran back.
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