Red Wolf_ A Novel - Liza Marklund [97]
She caught her daughter as she jumped at her, astonished at the child’s utter trust, and stroked her straight little legs and arms, her soft shoulders and stiff back, inhaling the divine softness of her hair.
‘I made a sweet machine,’ Ellen said, struggling to get down. She took Annika by the finger and pulled her over to the craft corner.
‘We’ll show Daddy,’ the child said, about to pick up her cardboard creation, as the top swayed disconcertingly and Annika leaped forward.
‘We can’t really take it with us today,’ she said, taking hold of the cardboard, ‘because we have to go into town and buy new shoes for Kalle. We’d better not take the sweet machine with us in case it gets broken.’
She put the contraption back on the worktop. The girl’s mouth fell open, her eyes welled up with tears, her lip starting to quiver.
‘But,’ she said, ‘that means Daddy won’t get to see it.’
‘Yes he will.’ Annika crouched down beside her. ‘The machine’s safe here, and we can get it tomorrow instead. Maybe you could paint it?’
Ellen looked down at her feet, shaking her head and making her pigtails dance.
‘What lovely pigtails you’ve got,’ Annika said, taking hold of one of them and tickling her daughter’s ear. ‘Who did those for you?’
‘Lennart!’ Ellen said, giggling and shrugging to escape the tickling. ‘He helped me with the sweet machine.’
‘Come on, let’s go and get your brother,’ Annika said, and the battle was over, Ellen put on her overalls, hat and gloves, and even remembered to take Tiger home with her.
Kalle’s school was on Pipersgatan, two blocks away. Annika held Ellen’s warm little hand in hers as they carefully negotiated the puddles, singing nursery rhymes.
Kalle was sitting in the reading corner concentrating on a book about Peter No-Tail. He didn’t look up until Annika crouched down next to him and kissed the top of his head.
‘Mummy,’ he said, ‘where’s Uppsala?’
‘Just north of Stockholm,’ she said. ‘Why?’
‘Can we go and see Peter and the other cats one day?’
‘Definitely,’ Annika said, remembering that there were special cat walks where you could follow in the author Gösta Knutsson’s footsteps around the churches, castle and university.
‘I think she’s prettiest,’ Kalle said, pointing to a white cat and slowly spelling out ‘Ma-ry Cream-nose’.
Annika blinked. ‘Can you read?’ she said, astonished. ‘Who taught you to do that?’
He shrugged. ‘On the computer,’ he said. ‘Otherwise you can’t play.’
He stood up, closed the book and put it back on the shelf. Then looked sternly down at her sitting on the red cushion.
‘Boots,’ he said. ‘You promised. My old ones have got a hole in.’
She smiled, caught hold of one trouser leg and pulled him to her, he laughed and struggled, and she blew on his neck.
‘We’ll get the bus to the shops,’ she said. ‘Go and get your clothes on. Ellen’s waiting for us.’
The number one pulled up just as they reached the bus-stop, and the three of them found seats right at the back.
‘Army green,’ Kalle said. ‘I don’t want blue again, only babies have blue boots.’
‘I’m not a baby,’ Ellen said.
‘Of course you can have green,’ Annika said. ‘As long as they’ve got some.’
They got off at Kungsträdgården and hurried across the street between the showers of slush thrown up by the cars driving past. They tugged off their hats and gloves and scarves when they were inside the shopping centre, stuffing them into Annika’s roomy bag. In a shoe shop on the upper floor they found a pair of army-green, lined rubber boots in the right size, tall enough and with reflective patches. Kalle refused to take them off. Annika paid and they took the old ones home in a bag.
They got out in the nick of time, Ellen had got too hot and was starting to whine, but she fell silent again once they were out in the cold and darkness of Hamngatan, quietly walking along with her hand in Annika’s. Annika took Kalle’s hand as well as they went to cross the road by the department store, concentrating on fending off the cascades of dirty water from the cars, when the silhouette of a person