Chapter 15
Half an hour later, Andreas was back in Emelie’s kitchen.
“What did you want to ask me about?”
He took off his cap, drying the sweat from his forehead. Emelie told him the story about the Christmas decorations and Astrid and finished by with telling him about the baking book. Andreas looked at her with tear-filled eyes.
“I didn’t know about Astrid and my grandfather, but there was always a certain chemistry between them.
I’ve often wondered if Astrid could be an illegitimate child that my great grandfather had fathered, and if she could be my granddad’s sister, but I guess that wasn’t the case.
Can you believe that she could forgive granddad, letting us into her home? ”
He shook his head and slumped down onto one of her chairs. Emelie sat down across from him, taking his hands in hers.
“Everyone is talking about what a lovely person Astrid was, and this really proves it.”
He looked up at her, smiling sadly and wiping away a couple of tears from his cheek with his sleeve.
“You are right, love works in mysterious ways, huh?”
Emelie got a lump in her throat looking into his beautiful, teary eyes and she couldn’t say a word. Then he smiled at her.
“But what was it you said about the baking book?”
Emelie got up, leaning against the countertop.
“Yes, turns out that Astrid used to keep he baking book hidden on the planks under her mattress. I mean, in one of the old beds that I asked you to toss when we bought new ones. Does that mean that they are in the dump and that the baking book is lost forever? I don’t know how to tell Linn that we have thrown the book out… ”
She looked desperately at Andreas who scratched his head.
“Yes, I did what you asked me to…”
Emelie interrupted him, dropping down onto on the chair again.
“Yes, I get it. Shit. Linn is going to be so disappointed.”
Andreas sat down next to her.
“But I saved one of the beds. If we’re lucky it’s the right one” he said slowly.
Emelie looked up at him.
“What? Where is it?”
He got up, walked towards the back of the house and looked out into the garden. He pointed, grinning.
“It’s over there.”
Emelie squinted, looking for something that resembled like a bed, but couldn’t see anything.
“There where? It’s not in the garden, is it?”
“I use it as a frame for flowers. Or I intend to, right now it’s behind the guesthouse. We’ll see if it’s the one,” he said, walking towards the door.
Emelie followed him and, behind the cottage, she saw a bed standing on the headboard leaned towards the outer wall of the house. It was an ordinary bedframe in pinewood and with sturdy bed rails and with a couple of moisture stains from having been out in the summer rain.
“Let’s turn it over,” Andreas said, grabbing one of the short sides of the bedframe.
Emelie grabbed the other, and together they managed to turn the bed upside down. And there they were, two rows of planks on top of each other.
“Goodness me, how tiny can that book be? It’s really tight between the planks,” Emelie said, looking at the bedframe from all angles.
“Can you see anything?”
She shook her head, putting her hand in as far as she could between the boards and feeling her way.
“Yes, wait a second, bloody hell, I think I actually found something…Help me get this board off. Do you have a crowbar?” Andreas disappeared into the cottage and came back with a crowbar which Emelie tucked between two of the boards, pushing.
The old pine wood creaked and Emelie pushed harder.
Sweat was running down her face and she tried again.
Eventually the wood cracked and Emelie fell backwards on the lawn.
“Are you okay?”
Andreas helped her get back on her feet.
“Yes, I’m fine. You see, it must have slid in and gotten stuck when you put the bed on the headboard.”
All the way in, behind the board, she could see something red. Emelie managed to get ahold of the book and pulled. She lost her grip, tried again and this time she was more successful. Slowly she pulled out a red notebook with an angel bookmark glued to the front. She frowned.
“Is it this small thing?”
“I believe so,” Andreas said.
Carefully she opened the first page and read: ‘Astrid’s top secret baking book’.
“It’s the one!”
In her excitement the threw herself around Andreas’ neck, giving him a giant hug. He laughed, spinning around with her.
“Yeees, you really are the best”, she cheered, before realising what she had just said and pulling away from him.
He smiled at her, and his beautiful eyes were glittering.
“Linn will be thrilled, is what I meant to say,” she said, looking down at the ground.
Emelie walked around smiling to herself all afternoon.
They had actually found the book. She had scrubbed the kitchen, making it sparkle, and made sure that there was plenty of flour, eggs and sugar so that Linn could start baking the moment she came home.
Emelie didn’t want to call her and tell her the news, because she knew that Linn wouldn’t be able to focus on work if she did.
As soon as Linn stepped inside the door, Emelie was standing in the hallway prepared with the baking book behind her back.
“Hello mum. Christ, I’m so tired, we got new dairy products today – it’s really heavy,” Linn said while untying her Converse trainers.
“I can imagine,” Emelie said, unable to stand still.
“But will you let me in, or are you just going to stand there?” Linn said, in an irritated voice.
“I’ve got something for you, guess what?”
“But mum, I don’t have the energy for guessing games,” Linn said, looking tiredly at her.
“Come on, just guess!”
Linn sighed.
“Er, well, perhaps you have found another box of Christmas things. Maybe in the attic this time?”
“Close, but not quite right,” Emily answered mischievously.
Linn squeezed by her mother and Emelie turned around in order to hide what she was holding behind her back.
“I don’t have the energy, okay? If it’s more Christmas things it really isn’t funny, mum,” she said harshly on her way up the stairs to her tower.
Emelie pulled out the book.
“Tata! Do you see what it is?”
Her daughter gave her a tired look, but then her eyes grew wider.
“Is it the baking book? Is it really?!”
She snatched the book from Emelie and opened it.
“It’s the one! Where did you find it? Oh, my goodness, this is so much fun!”
Emelie felt like the best mum in the world. She quickly explained that her and Andreas had found the book because of Jenny’s story about Astrid and Karl-Axel.
“Okay mum, it’s really exciting and all, but now I have to get to reading and then bake!
Listen to this, sugar kelp crispbread. That’s so cool, we must go and pick seaweed and then I have to call Oskar and see where you can get a hold of all these ingredients.
And listen here: potatoes in a cream cake, how strange is that? ”
Linn mumbled to herself all the way up to her room, making little cheerful grunts.
The following day, Linn was singing from another song book.
She was stomping around in the kitchen, trying to make the oven work as she wanted to, while reading Astrid’s intricate, cursive writing in the baking book.
Sometimes she was completely quiet, sometimes she cursed like a sailor and when Emelie peeked into the kitchen to offer to help her, she got a hand in her face and understood that she wasn’t welcome.
“I don’t understand these measurements!” Linn yelled from the kitchen.
“Perhaps you can ask Jenny,” Emelie carefully suggested. “She has grown up with those strange measurements.”
“Nice idea, mum, do you have her number?”
Emelie shook her head. But perhaps Andreas did? She offered to call him, and Linn was happy to accept at least that help.
“Nursery ‘The Perennial’, Andreas speaking”, he answered.
“Yes, hello, it’s Emelie,” she said.
“Hello there, fun to hear from you! What can I do for you?”
A warm sensation filled her chest when she heard his voice. Wasn’t it a bit tender and warm? But then she remembered why she had called and pulled herself together.
“I wonder if you have Jenny’s number. Linn was thrilled about the baking book, but she has some issues with the measurements, and we figured that perhaps Jenny could help”, she said.
She got the number and had almost hung up when Andreas asked her what Linn was baking and Emelie had to admit that she didn’t know since she wasn’t allowed in the kitchen.
“But I will have to cook dinner at some point, so by then I hope she has cleaned up and perhaps we’ll get something freshly baked after dinner,” she said.
“Is that an invitation?”
“Invitation?”
“Yes, for dinner. I’d love to try out some new desserts,” Andreas answered cheerfully.
Of course he did, when it was Linn baking. But a dinner was rather harmless, she decided.
“If you can eat sausage and macaroni, you are welcome to join us,” she said shortly.
“I eat everything – it sounds delicious” he said, and they hung up.
Emelie gave Linn Jenny’s phone number, and she called her up and was soon wrapped up in a conversation about different measurements and ingredients.
Was it possible to put potatoes in a cream cake, and what was a currant?
When she was finished talking, she came into the living room where Emelie was sitting.
“Where are Liv and Linnea?”
“Liv is with Kajsa and Linnea with Tore, as always. I guess Liv is a horse girl now and Kajsa’s parents own a stable,” Emelie said.
“Really? Hey, there’s a recipe for mulled wine in this book. Do you think we should make some for the market?”
Emelie looked up from her newspaper.
“Doesn’t that take a while? And maybe we’ll have to do a test round so we know for sure that it’s drinkable?”
“Exactly. We’ll need malt beer, potatoes, yeast, cloves, cardamum seeds, ginger, cinnamon stick, sugar and raisins. And weren’t there some bottles in the cellar?”
Emelie shivered.
“I don’t care for that cellar, sometimes at night I can swear I can hear something from down there”, she said.
Linn sighed.
“But come on? Like a ghost? Not very likely, is it?”
“No, I get that, but it’s still a bit scary, but it’s okay. I’ll get them when we have bought everything else. Andreas is coming for dinner by the way,” she said, glancing at Linn to see her reaction, but she only nodded and went back into the kitchen.
When Andreas came through the backdoor Emelie was sitting in the living room with all her to-do-lists for the Christmas market.
“Hello?”
She looked up and straight into a pair of glittering eyes and a broad grin. Blimey, what time was it? She fumbled in the sofa to find her phone and Andreas giggled.
“I’m a bit early, I’m sorry. It’s only five o’ clock,” he said. “Can I come in?”
She put one hand to her chest, letting out a relieved sigh. She waved for him to come in and sent a text message to Liv and Linnea telling them that it was time to come home and eat.
“Are those for the market?”
Andreas pointed at the lists and the notes that were spread over the table and Emelie nodded.
“Yes, it’s a bit much now. But I know everything will work out just fine in the end. At least I hope so,” she said, smiling.
He smiled back and for a moment she lost herself in his eyes, before looking in the other direction.
“I can help you”, he said and sat down next to her in the sofa.
She could feel the heat from his arm and felt a tickling sensation. Oh, this was just too tragic. Why did she have to feel like this for him when he was only interested in Linn. It was just so stupid.
“Tell me about your plans,” he said.
She showed him the sketch she had made of the outside. How many tables were needed and their sizes, and then the same for the inside. Where the Christmas tree would go and where Santa Claus – Stig – would be sitting.
“And this is where the church choir will perform. Do you know how many members there are?”
“No clue, but not that many I believe,” Andreas answered.
“I really can’t do that much more now, because I haven’t started marketing the event yet and I don’t know if I’ll get any response at all. What if no one wants to come?”
“I don’t think that will be a problem, it used to be a very popular market back in the day. How do you plan to advertise for it?”
She told him about the website, and he nodded and suggested that she should put up an old-fashioned note in the shop as well, perhaps one in the community centre too, and maybe also saying something about it at the next line dance rehearsal at the pier.
She wrote it down on the list and they continued discussing prices and whether to arrange a lottery and quiz for the kids.
Emelie jumped when her phone beeped, realising that 45 minutes had passed. Linn came out of the kitchen, said hello to Andreas and announced that she was finished for today.
“We’re having cream cake made with potatoes for dessert,” she said, smiling.
An hour later they had eaten sausage and macaroni and enjoyed the potato cake with coffee for dessert.
“That’s the best cake I have ever eaten”, Andreas said.
Emelie nodded, she was stuffed, and the younger girls were really excited. They ran upstairs to play a while before bedtime.
“Who’d have thought that potatoes can be so delicious in a cake?,” Linn exclaimed with wonder. “I think I’m starting to understand all the measurements. Tomorrow I’m making cream rings and fruitcake.”
Emelie frowned.
“Not one of those British ones? With a lot of dried fruit and that weighs ten kilos?”
“Yes, something like that. There’s just one problem; I need to drench it in rum. Do we have that at home?”
Emelie laughed.
“I don’t, that’s for sure. But perhaps there is some in the cellar? I haven’t been down there cleaning at all, just put a lot of boxes down. As I said, I think it’s haunted…”
Linn rolled her eyes.
“Come on mum! Can you come with me and look for bottles, Andreas?”
Emelie froze. She didn’t want him in the dark cellar alone with Linn. But before she had time to protest, Andreas replied:
“I have some rum at home, you can have it. I got a bottle as a gift from a customer, but it’s not a favourite of mine,” he said.
Emelie exhaled.
“Then you and I can take a trip down into the cellar when it’s time to start on the mulled wine,” she told him, leaving no room for discussion.
“I don’t mind going into dark spaces with you,” he said, winking at her.
Emelie quickly got on her feet and started clearing plates and cake off the table with rapid movements as she called upstairs:
“Girls, are you done with your showers?”
She excused herself, rushing up the stairs. As she got up, she stood still for a moment, pressing her hand towards her chest. Christ, he was only 31. This was impossible. She was awoken from her thoughts by Liv who was calling for her.
“Mum, I’m finished, would you dry me off?”