My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry(6)

“Hello? A little privacy, perhaps?”

Mum massages her temples again, takes a deep breath, and rests her hand on her belly. Granny nods intently at her, waving her cigarette at the bump.

“You know stress isn’t good for my new grandchild. Remember you’re worrying for two now!”

“I’m not the one who seems to have forgotten,” replies Mum curtly.

“Touché,” Granny mumbles and inhales deeply.

(That’s one of those words Elsa understands without even having to know what it means.)

“Does it not occur to you how dangerous that is for the baby, not to mention Elsa?” Mum says, pointing at the cigarette.

“Don’t make such a fuss! People have been smoking since the dawn of time and there have been perfectly healthy babies born the whole way through. Your generation forgets that humanity has lived for thousands of years without allergy tests and crap like that before you showed up and started thinking you were so important. When we were living in caves, do you think they used to put mammoth skins through a scalding-hot machine-wash program?”

“Did they have cigarettes back then?” asks Elsa.

Granny says, “Don’t you start.” Mum puts her hand on her belly. Elsa is unsure if she’s doing it because Halfie is kicking in there or because she wants to cover her/his ears. Mum is Halfie’s mum but George is Halfie’s dad, so Halfie is Elsa’s half sibling. Or she/he will be, anyway. She/he will be a proper full-size human; a half sibling, but not in any way half a person, Elsa has been promised. She had a couple of confused days until she understood the difference. “Considering how smart you are, you can certainly be a bit of a thickie sometimes,” Granny burst out when Elsa asked her about it. And then they bickered for nearly three hours, which was almost a new bickering record for them.

“I only wanted to show her the monkeys, Ulrika,” mumbles Granny as she extinguishes the cigarette in the sink.

“I don’t have the energy for this. . . .” Mum answers with resignation, although she’s absolutely controlled about it, and then goes into the corridor to sign a piece of paper covered in numbers.

Granny really did want to show Elsa the monkeys. They’d been arguing on the phone last night about whether there was a certain type of monkey that slept standing up. Granny was wrong, of course, because it said on Wikipedia and everything. And then Elsa had mentioned the scarf and what had happened at school, which was when Granny decided that they were going to the zoo, and Elsa sneaked out while Mum and George were sleeping.

Mum disappears down the corridor, her head buried in her phone, while Elsa climbs into Granny’s bed so they can play Monopoly. Granny steals money from the bank and, when Elsa catches her out, also steals the car so she can skip town. After a while Mum comes back looking tired and tells Elsa they have to go home now, because Granny has to rest. And Elsa hugs Granny for a long, long, long time.

“When are you coming home?” asks Elsa.

“Probably tomorrow!” Granny promises chirpily.

Because that is what she always says. And then she pushes the hair out of Elsa’s eyes, and when Mum disappears into the corridor again, Granny suddenly looks very serious and says in their secret language: “I have an important assignment for you.”

Elsa nods, because Granny always gives her assignments in the secret language, only spoken by initiates of the Land-of-Almost-Awake. Elsa always gets them done. Because that is what a knight of Miamas has to do. Anything except buying cigarettes or frying meat, which is where Elsa draws the line. Because they make her feel sick. Even knights have to have certain principles.

Granny reaches down next to the bed and picks up a big plastic bag from the floor. There are no cigarettes or meat in it. Just sweets.

“You have to give the chocolate to Our Friend.”

It takes a few seconds before Elsa understands exactly what friend she is referring to. And she stares at Granny with alarm.

“Have you gone MAD? You want me to DIE?”

Granny rolls her eyes.

“Don’t faff about. Are you telling me a knight of Miamas is too scared to complete a quest?”

Elsa gives her an offended glare.

“That’s very mature of you to threaten me with that.”

“Very mature of you to say ‘mature.’?”

Elsa snatches up the plastic bag. It’s full of small, crinkly packets of Daim chocolate. Granny says, “It’s important that you remove the wrapper from each piece. Otherwise he gets cross.”

Elsa peers sulkily into the bag.

“He doesn’t know me, though. . . .”

Granny snorts so loudly that it sounds as if she’s blowing her nose.

“Course he knows! Good God. Just tell him your granny sends her regards and says she’s sorry.”

Elsa raises her eyebrows.

“Sorry for what?”

“For not bringing him any sweets for days and days,” Granny replies, as if this was the most natural thing in the world.

Elsa looks into the bag again.

“It’s irresponsible to send out your only grandchild on a mission like this, Granny. It’s insane. He could actually kill me.”

“Stop faffing about.”

“Stop faffing about yourself!”

Granny grins; Elsa can’t help but grin back. Granny lowers her voice.