I stand there with the mother’s phone in my hand and wait.

‘Come on,’ the mother says. ‘Don’t create a drama out of nothing.’

‘I don’t want a fucking picture!’ the girl shouts, on the verge of tears. 110

The swear word rings out around us, she’s young and lanky, wearing pink trainers, she might be nine or ten. I don’t know where to look, her siblings smirk.

‘Malin!’ her mother says. ‘Stop that.’

‘Malin, you’re making an idiot of yourself,’ her brother says.

They smile again, I take the picture, then one more, there, I say, showing them, and the mother thanks me with a wide smile. I wait for her to tell the girl off for her bad language, but she lets it go. Mum and I laugh about it on the way back downhill.

‘I felt bad for the little one,’ Mum says. ‘But she was a tough nut. There was an air of Pippi Longstocking about her.’

‘Yes,’ I say, but I think about the fact that I hadn’t felt bad for her at all, I’d felt just as delightfully furious as her brother, as if I were an older sibling too, furious that she couldn’t behave, that she just stood there worrying about her hair and whinging and moaning and wasting everybody else’s time, including two random women, everybody standing there waiting for her. I’d never have done anything like that, I think to myself, I’d have done as Mum told me to, smiled at the woman taking the picture, and quietly relished hearing my little sister being told off.

111

Chapter 16

I’ve got a missed call on my phone, it’s a Swedish number. My mouth goes dry and my pulse pounds in my palms as I close the bedroom door and return the call. I get through to a switchboard and ask to be connected to Dr Ljungstedt, telling the woman on the end of the line that I think he’s tried to call me to give me some test results. Please hold, the Swedish woman on reception tells me, I’ll see if he’s free.

‘Hello,’ I say as the doctor is connected, and I give my name, feeling my heart thump in my chest and ears.

‘Hello there, Ida,’ he says.

He pronounces my name the Swedish way again, just as he did when I visited his clinic.

‘How are things, Ida?’ he asks.

‘Well, thank you,’ I reply.

‘Enjoying the summer?’ he asks.

‘Yes, thank you,’ I reply.

‘Drawn any more lovely houses lately?’ he asks.

‘Oh yes,’ I reply, shuffling impatiently on the bed.

His voice is a little unclear on the phone, but I hear him 112say that the results of my tests are back, and that things unfortunately don’t bode too well.

‘I must say, I think…’ he says, and then he says something I don’t catch.