sent Nico the smile of a fellow sufferer and … was that interest? She was pretty but not, he found himself thinking, as pretty as Hannah.
‘You bet!’ Lars answered in his ear. ‘Come and meet the team. Show them a few things?’
‘I’m rusty,’ Nico protested. But, added, ‘My skates are in your garage.’
‘I’ll dust them off,’ Lars promised. He paused to cough. ‘We’ll find skates for Josie, too. And it’s snowing. We could take her skiing.’
‘That would be great,’ Nico agreed. Then, because he’d already told his mother Carina, he told Lars about how he’d ended up looking after Maria.
‘Vad i helvete!’ Lars exclaimed. What the hell! ‘That poor little girl. I know you have a nanny but it’s a big responsibility. Loren’s lucky you’re a good man.’
Nico caught Maria’s balloon as she flung it at some innocent passing lady. ‘I don’t have a nanny right now.’ He spent the next half hour explaining his change of lifestyle.
‘But anyway,’ he rounded off, when Lars had finished exclaiming and worrying. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing you next week in Sweden. Josie will have some Farfar and Farmor time and maybe I’ll get a beer with my brother.’ Or who knew? He was feeling so much better that he might ask a girl out and take his mind off Hannah Anna Goodbody, who had turned up so inconveniently in Middledip.
After signing off with his dad, he telephoned Carina, deciding he’d better get in quick with the leaving work news before it filtered back to her. She greeted his explanation with a pregnant pause. Then sighed. ‘Nico.’ She sighed again. ‘You’re all right, aren’t you?’
‘The best I’ve been for ages, Mamma. Honestly. Life had become pretty hectic.’
‘I know.’ She sounded close to tears. ‘You had too much, with your job and Josie and what happened with Loren. Where is Maria?’
‘Still with us.’ He glanced at the girls. Josie was trying to write in wax crayon on Maria’s hand and Maria was snatching her pudgy little digits away and giggling. ‘Tickles, Yozee! Tickles!’
‘Still? Her mother can’t have her?’ demanded Carina, sounding troubled.
‘Should be this week,’ he said. He was speaking in Swedish but somehow he didn’t want to invite discussion of Maria going back to Loren in the noisy, public environs of McDonald’s. He switched to English. ‘Josie can’t wait to bake with you next week.’
‘Saffron buns,’ Josie said, glancing up with a grin that showed the gaps where her grown-up teeth met her remaining baby ones. The last of her summer freckles spangled her nose and Nico’s heart contracted with love.
‘Saffransbullar,’ he promised. ‘Do you want to talk to Farmor?’ He took over entertaining Maria by drawing around her hand with a crayon while Josie excitedly told Carina about their new bedroom and the purple satin curtains they’d bought from Dunelm at the weekend. ‘Dad chose the kind with eyelets so he could just stick the curtain pole through them because he said he doesn’t like all that pratting around with hooks.’
Once the call was over he took the girls home and spent the evening being a dad, watching Josie on TTRockstars, the online times-table resource Barrack Road didn’t seem to have cut her off from yet, and playing counting games with Maria. One and two remained her favourite numbers. After a dinner of steamed chicken and vegetables – Nico couldn’t help compensating for the burgers a little bit by preparing the healthiest meal he knew – Josie sighed, ‘I wonder what Tilly’s doing?’
Nico gave her a hug. ‘Maybe she’d like to FaceTime. Why don’t you message her and ask?’
‘Yeah!’ cried Josie. It transpired that Tilly was missing Josie so they were soon chatting, Josie carrying the tablet around to show Tilly the house and Maria trying to touch Tilly’s on-screen image and breathing in astonishment, ‘It Tilly! Look!’ Then Josie FaceTimed Emelie and Maria got excited, trying to force her head in front of Josie’s and shouting, ‘Em’lie! Em’lie!’
When the girls had finally snuggled down in bed, Josie with a book and Maria with a toy unicorn, Nico went downstairs. The earlier conversations with his parents had made him conscious of the passing of time. He needed to gently remind Vivvi that soon he was going home to Sweden. This time, it wouldn’t be for meetings in glass offices in Stockholm but a week with his family in Småland, the province of southern Sweden where he’d grown up. He could almost see the forests, fields and lakes.
Vivvi answered neither mobile nor landline.