In a posh suburb garden they hold the Queens Birthday Party - a gathering I never want to join, but never miss.
To give our father the treat of showing off his daughters to the British Ex-pats, my sister and I suffer the agony of eating scones with cream and jam while chit chatting to our first school teacher “Mrs Torture”. Later we have strawberries and ice cream paired with a tiny drop of champagne and experience a shaky display of an older generation mumbling ”God Save the Queen” accompanied by a Swede in a kilt(!) playing the bagpipe. (God save her indeed)
I am sitting between two deaf older men under a small and perfectly pruned chestnut tree. With my knees together, feet under the chair, I smile appropriately and nod to strangers with whom the only thing I have in common is being on that spot in that moment.
On my left, my father daydreaming and on my right George, a very thin WWII veteran, clean shaven but with a spot or two of dried blood on his chin where he probably cut himself in the morning process. George looked bored and he declared himself to be bored. With large unshapely lips that never stopped moving he declared his boredom more than once in a very soft voice.
“I'm bored! It was much better in the Fifties when the Ambassador had the party at the Embassy and they handed out free drinks, cigarettes and cigars. Back when my friend who was an anti-royalist always joined me just so that he could stuff his pockets full of cigars before getting pissed and lurching home. But this! This is so dull!”
My father looked up and smiled a lost smile, he had caught the topic of the monologue although not the details “Yes, but they stopped those parties because people got too drunk and destroyed the Embassy garden”
“What was that?” George asked, I repeated my father words but louder to which he replied “Yes, they stopped them. It was too bad and this is really worse!”
“Sorry?” my father questioned and I turned to the left and repeated George’s words but clearer. “Ahh.. yes” my father mumbled.
“Have you been in Sweden long?” George asked my father mouthing each word slowly as if a marble was turning over in his mouth, it was even hard for me to catch his words.
“Mmmm…?” my father said, clearly trying to disguise the fact that he had not heard. I twisted left and repeated George’s words again. “Oh, yes it must be 40 years now” he answered unemotionally.
"Come again?” George said, turning his ear towards my father, I turned (again) to the right and repeated my fathers words. “Ahh, yes… long time. I’ve been here more than 50 years now… on and off…going and coming…” George’s words trailed off into forever.
George looked away for a long while. We all sipped tea. Then George turned to my father and said “Do you ever feel at home here?”
My heart stopped. But I dutifully repeated the question to my left, father looked surprised and laughed that little laugh he does when he is a bit chocked and then said “No, I never felt at home here, but I never felt at home in England either.” My heart sank, I had known the answer but I hadn’t wanted to hear it.
After turning to George and repeating my father words, George looked at him hard, knowingly, searchingly and said. “Yes, I know what you mean. I’ve looked and I’ve looked and I've never found it, I doubt if I will find it either – home I mean.”
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