Saturday, August 24

I feel as though I have fallen into a spy movie.

We have come to visit Aili, to thank her for looking after Sunshine for two weeks, and to have coffee and cake. We have received several warnings about trying to reach her house in our car. These chime vaguely with my memory of visiting her once with Camilla and Ann-Sofie: a visit that ended with me having to reverse Camilla’s car a mile or so up a narrow dirt track.

I stand at a road junction with nothing but trees in any direction. Aili will approach from the right, along Stenholmsvägen. The road to the left has no name. I can hear her car in the distance.

When she arrives we will leap into her little car and race back along the track to her house by the sea.