Harbour

'Let me see, let me see!'

Maja came racing in from the kitchen, and Anders barely had time to open his mouth to warn her for the hundredth time. Then her thick socks skidded on the polished wooden floor and she landed flat on her back at his feet.

In a reflex action he bent down to comfort her, but Maja immediately rolled to one side and wriggled back a metre. Tears sprang to her eyes. She screamed, 'Stupid stupid things!' then tore off the socks and hurled them at the wall. Then she got up and ran back into the kitchen.

Anders and Cecilia looked at each other and sighed. They could hear Maja rummaging in the kitchen drawers.

Whose turn?

Cecilia winked and took on the task of intervening before Maja tipped the entire contents of the drawers on to the floor, or broke something. She went into the kitchen and Anders turned back to the glorious day.

'No, Maja! Wait!'

Maja came running in from the kitchen with a pair of scissors in her hand, Cecilia right behind her. Before either of them could stop her, Maja had grabbed one of the socks and started hacking at it.

Anders seized her arms and managed to get her to drop the scissors. Her whole body was trembling with rage as she kicked out at the sock. 'I hate you, you stupid thing!'

Anders hugged her, holding her flailing arms fast with his own. 'Maja, that doesn't help. The socks don't understand.'

Maja was a quivering bundle in his arms. 'I hate them!'

'I know, but that doesn't mean you have to…'

'I'm going to chop them up and burn them!'

'Calm down, little one. Calm down.'

Anders sat down on the sofa without loosening his grip on Maja. Cecilia sat down next to him. They spoke softly and stroked her hair and the blue velour tracksuit that was the only thing she would consent to wear. After a couple of minutes she stopped shaking, her heartbeat slowed and she relaxed in Anders' arms. He said, 'You can wear shoes instead, if you like.'

'I want to go barefoot'

'You can't. The floor's too cold.'

'Barefoot.'

Cecilia shrugged her shoulders. Maja rarely felt cold. Even when the temperature was close to freezing she would run around outdoors in a T-shirt unless somebody said something to her. She slept eight hours a night at the most, and yet it was rare for her to fall ill or feel tired.

Cecilia held Maja's feet in her hands and blew on them. 'Well, you need to put some socks on now. We're going out.'

Maja sat upright on Anders' knee. 'Where to?'

Cecilia pointed out of the window, towards the north-east.

'To Gåvasten. To the lighthouse.'

Maja leaned forward, screwing her eyes up into the sunlight. The old stone lighthouse was visible only as a vague rift in the sky where it met the horizon. It was about two kilometres away, and they had been waiting for a day like this so they could make the trip they had been talking about all winter.

Maja's shoulders drooped. 'Are we going to walk all that way?'

'We thought we might ski,' said Anders, and the words were hardly out of his mouth before Maja shot off his knee and raced into the hallway. She had been given her first pair of skis on her sixth birthday two weeks earlier, and on only her second practice outing she had done really well. She had a natural talent. Two minutes later she was back, dressed in her snowsuit, hat and gloves.

'Come on then!'

They ignored Maja's protests and made a picnic to eat out by the lighthouse. Coffee, chocolate and sandwiches. Then they gathered up their skiing equipment and went down to the inlet. The light was dazzling. There had been no wind for several days, and fresh snow still covered the branches of the trees. Wherever you turned there was whiteness, blinding whiteness. It was impossible to imagine that there could be warmth and greenness anywhere. Even from space the earth must look like a perfectly formed snowball, white and round.

It took a while to get Maja's skis on because she was so excited she couldn't stand still. Once the bindings were tight and the straps of the poles wrapped around her hands, she immediately slid out on to the ice, shouting, 'Look at me! Look at me!'

For once they didn't need to worry as she set off on her own. Despite the fact that she had travelled a hundred metres from the jetty before Anders and Cecilia had even got their skis on, she was clearly visible as a bright red patch in the middle of all the whiteness.

It was different in the city. Maja had run off on her own several times because she had seen something or thought of something, and they had joked about fitting her with a GPS transmitter. Not that it was all that much of a joke, really; they had given it serious consideration, but it felt like overkill.

They set off. Far out on the ice Maja fell over, but she was back on her feet in no time and whizzing along. Anders and Cecilia followed in her tracks. When they had travelled about fifty metres, Anders turned around.

Their house, generally known as the Shack, lay at the edge of the point. Plumes of smoke were rising from both chimneys. Two pine trees, weighed down with snow, framed it on either side. It was a complete dump, badly built and poorly maintained, but right now, from this distance, it looked like a little paradise.

Anders struggled to get his old Nikon out of his rucksack, zoomed in and took a picture. Something to remind him when he was cursing the ill-fitting walls and sloping floors. That it was a little paradise. As well. He put the camera away and followed his family.

After a couple of minutes he caught up with them. He had intended to lead the way, making it easier for Maja and Cecilia as they followed in his tracks through the thick covering of snow, but Maja refused. She was the guide and group leader, and they were to follow her.

The ice was nothing to worry about; this was confirmed when they heard a roaring sound from the direction of the mainland. A car was heading for Domarö from the steamboat jetty in Nåten.

From this distance it was no bigger than a fly. Maja stopped and stared at it.

'Is that a real car'

'Yes', said Anders. 'What else would it be?'

Maja didn't reply, but carried on looking at the car, which was on its way towards the point on the opposite side of the island.

'Who's driving?'

'Holidaymakers, probably. Wanting to go for a swim.'

Maja grinned and looked at him with that supercilious expression she sometimes wore, and said, 'Daddy. Wanting to go for a swim? Now?'

Anders and Cecilia laughed. The car disappeared behind the point, leaving a thin cloud of whirling snow behind it.

'People from Stockholm, then. I expect they're on their way to their summer cottage to…look at the ice, or something.'

Maja seemed satisfied with this response, and turned to set off again. Then she thought of something and turned back.

'Why aren't we people from Stockholm, then? We live in Stockholm, after all.'

Cecilia said, 'You and I are from Stockholm, but Daddy isn't, not really, because his daddy wasn't from Stockholm.'

'My grandad?'

'Yes.'

'What was he, then?'

Cecilia made a vague movement with her lips and looked at Anders, who said, 'An old fisherman.'

Maja nodded and set off towards the lighthouse, which had now become an extended blot against the bright sky.

Simon was standing on the veranda, tracking their progress through his telescope. He saw them stop and talk, saw them set off again with Maja in the lead. He smiled to himself. That was just typical of Maja. Trying so hard, working, wearing herself out. The child had a dynamo inside her, a little motor spinning away, constantly charging itself. The energy had to go somewhere.

In everything but blood he was her great-grandfather, just as he was grandfather to Anders. He had known them both before their eyes were able to focus on his face. He was an outsider, absorbed into this family that was not his own.

While he was filling the coffee machine he glanced up, from habit, at Anna-Greta's house. He knew she had gone over to mainland to do some shopping and wouldn't be back until the afternoon but he looked anyway, and caught himself missing her already.