Читать книгу Shadows of Sören - Nicola Stöhr - Страница 18

Clarice was having an unusually long day at the university. Normally she was only there to deliver her lectures followed by a bit of a question and answer session with the students and some more detailed follow up discussions in her office. She preferred doing all her paper work and research at home. She really didn´t like being around so many people all the time, it made her nervous and restless.

And she hated long, boring meetings spiked with unnecessary detailed discussions about issues that didn´t really concern her. But she had noticed that Swedish people loved boring, prolonged meetings and discussing every point on the agenda to death.

Due to her little scene with Sören that morning she had missed breakfast and since she hated canteen food she had skipped lunch too, thinking she would be going home soon and would cook something there. This was a relic from her past. She had grown up learning to cherish good food. Which was why she was always happy to join Sören at any given meal he invited her to share with him, because Nanna was an excellent cook.

And she also enjoyed his company, but would rather hack of her right hand before admitting this to anyone but herself. Clarice was a very accomplished cook too but since she lived alone and never invited anyone home, her cooking skills had remained as yet undetected by anyone who knew her. That was fine with her.

So she had been packing up and just about to leave when the department secretary had informed her about the meeting with the other faculty members.

“Shit” she had thought, rather uncharacteristically, since she rarely cursed, “Now I´m going to have to get something from the canteen.”

She had bought herself a prawn sandwich, which the woman in the canteen had to prepare freshly for her, since the lunch time crowd had already been and gone and prawn sandwiches were very popular. Preparing the sandwich took an unduly long time, but Clarice was used to this by now. Swiftness of service was not a common thing anywhere outside of Stockholm. When she had first moved to Kalmar she had paid a visit to McDonalds. All she had wanted was a cappuccino to go, since she never ate fast food. The place had been packed but the staff behind the counter had carried on serving people at their usual calm and unhurried pace and Clarice had waited in line a good thirty minutes before she was served. What had fascinated her most was that not a single person in the seemingly endless queue complained. Everyone had just stood patiently and quietly in line until it was their time to be served. Clarice had visited many countries where the slowness of the staff would have resulted in a riot. But this was Sweden and slow service was a way of life.

Clarice was eventually presented with a prawn sandwich and prepared for a long afternoon locked up in the faculty meeting room. As expected every point on the seemingly endless agenda was magnified from every angle and her mind began to wander. Usually she was always caught up in her work, pondering mathematical theories while giving the impression of being an avid listener. Today her mind kept going back to Rettinge and her little home there. She loved the gård and she loved Vickleby, it was the most beautiful place she had ever lived in. Well, maybe not ever, but for a long time anyway. And she had lived in quite a lot of places in the past few years, never staying long. As soon as people got too close or inquisitive she had packed up and left. She hadn´t even always been employed in her line of work, which meant academic work. Once she had worked at a Vineyard in the south of Germany, picking grapes and generally helping with the busy time of autumn harvesting. She knew about wine, another relic from her past.

Sören was not inquisitive and neither were any of the other people on the gård. Swedish people were in general not inquisitive. They liked to keep to themselves.

And that suited her very well.

Sören had instinctively known when to stop asking questions. And Tilda, Magnus and Alma were too wrapped up in their own life to be bothered about Clarice.

She thought about Tilda and her little son. She had grown very fond of the little chap. He was adorable with his shock of brown hair and those glasses. He looked like the little professor. She liked children because they took everything in their stride and always lived in the present with no concept of tomorrow. And they soaked up information like a sponge.

She knew that Tilda was a little weary of her and didn´t quite know what to make of Clarice and of course she had this huge minority complex, because she was just a cleaning lady.

Clarice didn´t give a toss about anyone´s line of work as long as they were good people and didn´t intrude on her life. She actually liked and admired Tilda.

Sören had filled her in on the sorry details of Tilda´s life and considering what she had gone through, she was holding up really well and doing a great job on the kid.

At least Clarice had had a happy and privileged childhood, regardless of what had happened later. She wished that horrid old man, Tilda´s father would just go up in smoke. He was a real pest; if not for him life on Rettinge would be perfect.