Feeling Homesick

I've recently come back from Tampere in Finland, from a surprise trip arranged at the last minute due to a family crisis. I won't go into what that was, but I ended up being in my hometown for a week, visiting areas of the city which I just haven't had the reason to go to for a long time. Each day of my visit I drove past my old primary school, the woods where we cross country skied in the winter, and the area where our family home was, before we moved to Stockholm. 

During this time in Tampere I also once again marveled at how the city has changed. The two main factories, Finlayson and Tampella no longer produce cotton or machinery, instead the areas have been developed into cultural centres and high quality residential areas. Many old apartment blocks are receiving facelifts; even the train station now has a set of escalators and some lifts. (I know, they've probably been there for a years, but it was the first time I'd noticed them).

When I got back London, after all was OK with family, I found myself thinking how I could arrange my life so that I could live in Tampere. This, from the girl who swore she'd never go back there, or who has for months now been considering applying for British passport (I'm coming clean - I haven't done it yet!).

It helped that the weather in Tampere was glorious. The sun was shining every day, transforming the colour of the lakes into the brightest blue. Each way I looked there was water. One morning I went for a jog and ran past beautiful houses, into the woods along the shores of Lake Näsijärvi, and thought how wonderful it would be to be able to do this every day. The place was so peaceful, so calm, yet it only took a few minutes to reach the city centre by (a regular and not crowded) bus service. To think that I’d be able to have a sauna every day, or that no-one would ask me if I was in bad mood if I didn’t smile all the time!

When I came back to London, on the first morning the tube was hot and packed. On my way home the very same day, our local station was closed due to overcrowding, so I ended up, together with hundreds (perhaps thousands?) of other people, taking the long way round, adding an extra hour to my journey home. Why do I live in a sardine tin of a city like London, I wondered, as I tried to keep my nose out of a particular smelly armpit in another full-to-bursting tube carriage.

At the weekend I went to Harris and Hoole in Crouch End for a coffee and the girl behind the desk asked, after mishearing my name as Elena, if I was Italian. ‘No,’ I said, ‘Are you?’ ‘Yes,’ the girl answered, adding with sad look in her eyes, ‘I’ve just come back.’ I looked at her and replied, ‘I’ve just come back from my home town in Finland and keep wondering what an earth I’m doing living in London.’ She laughed and nodded.

So many of us displaced people feel the same homesickness. Yet, here we stay.

Interview with Swanlake Reloaded Director Fredrik Rydman

Since its premiere in 1895, Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake has been an inspiration for generations of choreographers and directors. Now Sweden’s Fredrik Rydman brings Swan Lake Reloaded - where Tchaikovsky meets Street Dance - to the London Coliseum for seven performances only from 6 – 10 August 2013.

Fredrik Rydman

Those of my friends who've seen Swan Lake Reloaded in Stockholm, tell me Rydman has created an eclectic mixture of street and contemporary dance, which fuses with modern technology to transport Swan Lake into the 21^st century. I've not yet had a chance to see this re-imaginined version of the classic ballet, but knowing as I do Rydman from his time as a member of Bounce, the dance company which staged the Michael Jackson tribute street dance 'Beat It' on Stockholm's Sergel's Torg in 2009, I know I'm in for a treat.

You may imagine, therefore, how delighted I was to be asked to interview Fredrik about the forthcoming debut of Swan Lake Reloaded in London. (He ain't bad looking either, which obviously had nothing to do with  my enthusiasm…) Here's what the man himself said about this extraordinary piece of dance theatre.

1.     What made you want to remake Swan Lake? Was it the story, the music, or something else?

Well it was the idea of how to interpret the classical ballet that made me want to do it. I got the idea in London actually, I was window shopping and saw some furs on display looking very much like the cliché-picture of a prostitute. At the same time they looked like swans and I thought that maybe the swans are prostitutes in Swan Lake… It fitted the story very well and it made the story up to date, and my one main goal has been to make the story clear for the audience, one thing I think is frustrating watching the classical version. Also in the back of my head was the music that I knew was very good, since I danced to it in Mats Eks celebrated version.

2.     How did you come to re-imagine such a romantic tale as Swan Lake into the modern, and  - one might say – scary modern world? Swan Lake is such a classic; changing the story so dramatically must have been risky? Can you tell me a little about this process?

I actually thought it was such a good idea, the way to do it, so I never really saw the risk. You know, when you are “obsessed” with something that you believe in you are highly motivated. Of course there were some obstacles along the way (dramatically and musically), but if you know where to go it is somehow easier to progress. The idea of having new music composed (it is 50/50 Tchaikovsky/newly written) made it also a bit more free to make the ideas to happen. One funny thing is that from the beginning I thought the old music would be most suitable for expressing love and more sensitive feelings, and new music for aggression and power. It ended very much like that, but when the couple fall in love, I used a song originally composed for a scene about heroin abstinence, and for the most powerful scenes, nothing could compare with the original score. There is something so powerful about classical music sometimes, so even if we have all modern technology today it is in the end of the day down to how you write the music.

 

3.     Your work includes being creative director for the Swedish X-Factor and working with the Eurovision Song Contest, which was recently held in Sweden.  How do you find working with both the more commercial side and the more serious - and high-brow - side of dance and choreography?

That is actually something that I try to do. I think it is interesting when those two sides meet and creates a language of its own. It is interesting because there is hopefully something you haven’t seen before. Today watching commercial or the more sophisticated, I very seldom get excited and surprised; even though I am enjoying it and it is perfectly performed and all that, it is like it is stuck in its own format. So trying to find a new context for a type of body language interests me..

4.     There is something of a Scandinavian takeover going on in the UK at the moment. TV series such as Wallander and The Killing, and Stieg Larsson’s novels are very popular. The Abba craze doesn’t show any signs of fading, while new bands such as Icona Pop keep Swedish music in the charts. Did this Scandinavian takeover affect your decision to bring Swan Lake Reloaded to London?

Haha, no but it´s nice to be mentioned in such good company. No London is probably the number 1 city in Europe (or the world) for theatre and that´s why you want to go there.

5.     Finally, since I am a Finn by origin, are there any plans to stage Swan Lake Reloaded in Finland?

Right now there are no plans, but I know we talked with a Finnish promotor some time ago, so hopefully in the future we will go there!

Swanlake Reloaded

6-10 August 2013

The Coliseum

London

Tickets: £10 - 65

A Weekend Reader Offer on Coffee and Vodka!

Coffee and Vodka, dubbed 'Nordic Noir Meets Family Saga' at The London Book Fair, is now on a very special and very limited offer. From today until Sunday (26-28 April 2013) you can download my book for only £1.35  (or $1.99).

Here are more details and links to where you can download the book.

Now Only $1.99 

Was $4.99

Offer Ends Sunday 28th April 13

Buy it Now:

Amazon  iBooks   Kobo   Nook

Readers give Coffee and Vodka  ***** stars

"Compelling Narrative"   "Fabulous reading"

Nordic Noir meets family saga in this heartfelt story of immigration and family breakup set in Finland and Sweden. 

'In Stockholm everything is bigger and better'. 11-year-old Eeva is excited when Pappa decides her family will emigrate to Sweden from Finland. But adjusting to a new language and culture is not as easy as Pappa thought. Thirty years later, when Eeva returns to her home town of Tampere to see her dying grandmother, she is forced relive the dramatic events of her childhood. 

Some prices may change wthout notice, so please make sure to confirm the offer before downloading. 

Have a nice weekend and happy reading!  The sun has come out again in London….(for a brief moment at least).

What's in a cover - receive a free book!

I know some of you are patiently waiting the publication of my next novel. Something which I promised would happen very soon after The Englishman came out.

Alas, there have been some complications (aren't there always?).

Firstly, this next novel is very dear to my heart because it tells the story of a Finnish family who in the early 1970's emigrate to Stockholm. So when it comes out, I want it to look and feel absolutely right.

The heroine of the book is Eeva, who after a long day teaching Swedish to foreign students, receives a phone call from her father. Eeva hasn't spoken with Pappa for 30 years, not since her parents' dramatic break-up. Now Pappa tells Eeva that her beloved grandmother is dying and Eeva makes a snap decision to take the next overnight ferry across from Stockholm to Finland, to her home-town of Tampere. During the course of the journey Eeva remembers the first time she took the same crossing, in the opposite direction, as an excited 11-year-old together with her parents and older sister. Memories which she'd rather forget, flood back. While desperate to be with her grandmother, she doesn't think she can cope with seeing Pappa again. But on the ferry, and in Tampere, several surprises await her.

Initially when I wrote this book I called it Pappa's Girl. When it came to the cover design, I thought I knew exactly how I wanted the novel to look: a black and white image of a young girl, with the title in very similar letterings to that of The Englishman cover. I was even given a fantastic picture to use. With these tools, my wonderful cover designer, Simon, went to work and produced something beautiful (as he always does!). We whittled the options down to one cover (you'd be surprised how hard this is - the colouring, the font, the text, it goes on….). The most difficult item turned out to be the caption. I just could not decide on the wording and asked for help from my fellow Independent Writers.

The result of this unofficial poll was surprising. While many loved the cover, and the captions, almost as a 'by-the-way', it was revealed that all my peers thought Pappa's Girl was a book about child abuse. This is definitely not the case. While the novel deals with issues of displacement and family break-up, it's also funny (I hope!), and ultimately a book about love. It's definitely not a 'misery lit memoir'.

So back to the drawing board. A new name as well as a new cover were needed!

And since you've all been waiting patiently for so long, I decided to give you a sneak-a-peak of what covers we are working on now.

I'd also love your opinion on these three proposed covers for my next novel with the new name - drumroll please -  Coffee and Vodka.

What's more, the first ten voters will receive a free copy of Coffee and Vodka when it's published in March. 

All you have to do is to say which of the three covers below you prefer. Give your name and your favourite of A, B or C in the message section below, and I will contact you to get your details for the free copy of Coffee and Vodka.

Cover A

Cover B

Cover C

I cannot wait to see which cover gets the most votes!

What's your IKEA story?

The new academic year always seems to herald another trip to IKEA to get bright and beautiful bits of pieces for daughter's digs at university. But IKEA and I have a history going much further back than that.

First time ever I visited IKEA was in the round, Guggenheim style, store in Stockholm in 1973. My parents had newly separated and together with my mother and older sister we headed up to IKEA on bus and tunnelbana (tube -you can guess how this is going to end?) in order to look at things we could furnish our new flat with. We came out of the store having purchased two armchairs, complete with brown and orange cushions. Plus some other stuff we couldn't do without - lamp shades, table lamps (in orange and red), rugs (brown and beige stripe) and various bits of bed linen. It was all so cheap and chic (we thought) that we just couldn't resist.

Stockholm IKEA circa 1965

As you may have imagined, the bus and tunnelbana journey home was interesting.

The next time I went to IKEA it was a good twenty years later when, living in Wiltshire, one Sunday morning I announced that we would drive the 70 or so miles up to Birmingham to the newly opened IKEA. The Englishman had no say in the matter - I was obviously still slightly deranged following a second pregnancy. I announced I was homesick and needed to be amongst Scandinavian things. (The presence of an IKEA was still quite a novelty here in Britain). Besides the drive would only take us three or so hours each way. It was circa 1992 and our daughter was a toddler and our son was a wise five-year-old.

That time we bought the children some beautiful pine bunk beds. It was only when we headed for the car park that the wise oldest child asked, 'Is the bed going to fit into the car, daddy?' We looked at each other over the top of the five-year-old's head, and assured him there wasn't going to be a problem. The beds just about did fit, but daughter had to be squeezed in her car seat at the front, and son and I had to share a back seat (and seat belt) in our Ford Mondeo. This arrangement, as he kept telling me frequently during the three hour drive home, was 'against the law'. We became convinced our son would become an Insurance Actuary when he grew up.

The third time that an IKEA visit will never be forgotten in our household was when, in 1995, on our way home after visiting our London friends we thought a trip to a furniture store would be the best hangover cure, or rather a plateful of IKEA meatballs and chips would be.

At Brent Cross we headed straight for the restaurant and after our bellies were full we went to look for the children who by then were 7 (son) and 4 (daughter). They'd been allowed to go to the nearby play area in the cafeteria. But when we looked, we could only see our son there. 'Where's your sister?' we demanded. Poor son panicked - our daughter had left the table after him, so he had no idea where she was.

This is how it happens, I thought. We're in London where children, particularly little girls, disappear all the time. Awful, unimaginable things are done to them by cruel, sick people. Cold fear overtook me and with an numbness I haven't felt since, I rushed to talk to the nearest security man, while husband - on a hunch - made his way down to the ground floor. The store was filling up - it was a Sunday in late November, and the early Christmas shoppers were in full force.

We found out later that our daughter, when being told she could go to the play area, decided to make her way down to the 'sea of balls' which she'd spotted on arrival but hadn't been allowed to go into. Luckily she made it there, and the staff realised she wasn't with a parent, and alerted store security. I'm sure both the Englishman and I developed a few wrinkles and grey hairs during the fifteen or so minutes (which felt like years) we lost our daughter at IKEA.

So you can imagine that now every trip to IKEA makes me shudder…

Do you have an IKEA story?

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

I was very sceptical about watching a Hollywood version of the first book in the wonderful Millennium trilogy by Stieg Larsson.  Although I felt the Swedish films left a lot to be desired, mainly because the plot of the books was completely mixed up between the three films, they had some authenticity as films made in the country where the crime novels originated from. Watching the whole action in English would surely take a huge amount away from the Swedish atmosphere?

I also absolutely loved Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander in the three films by Oplev. She seemed to capture Lisbeth's complicated character - and she spoke Swedish. (As aside, I've yet to forgive the actress for leaving her lovely husband, Ola, just because she's become the more successful actress - or at least this is what the gossip magazines in Sweden cite as the reason for the couple's marriage breakdown and I believe them...).

But as the opening credits rolled on The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, I got a feeling that this version by David Finch could be quite good.



And I was right. The relatively unknown actress who portrayed Salander, Rooney Mara, was absolutely brilliant. She completely nailed Lisbeth as the distrustful, vulnerable, yet talented and confident modern sleuth with some serious issues with the 'perfect' Swedish society she inhabits. Lisbeth's apparent lack of social graces became both tragic and funny in Mara's skilled acting hands. There is a moment when watching Blomqvist work his laptop, she shuts her eyes in frustration at his slow speed at the keys. It was both funny and sad.

Just as when reading Larsson's first book, during this first film we all completely fell in love with Lisbeth. We felt sorry for her, we admired her, we worried for her.

The rest of the cast - apart from a couple of dodgy, faintly German-sounding, accents - weren't bad either. Daniel Craig is on top of his game; he totally sold his version of Blomkvist to me. My only beef with the accents was a minor one. Although I wondered why the director felt the need to have any accents at all - neither Craig as Blomkvist or Mara as Salander have Swedish accents. Perhaps the Swedish cast, led by Stellan Skarsgård as Martin Vanger, couldn't do the mid-Atlantic English? I highly doubt it.

In any case, the story's authenticity did not suffer from this lapse in accent discipline, especially as the film was obviously shot in Sweden. In the final scene we even get to Blomkvist's Stockholm stomping ground in Söder, something I was gladdened by.

I now cannot wait for film two in the trilogy. Larsson's second book, The Girl Who Played With Fire is my favourite, mainly I think because it's set in Stockholm, near Blomkvist flat on Bellmansgatan. There is nothing like reading a book, or watching a great adaptation of a favourite book which is set in a city where you grew up. And I hope the disappointing viewing figures in the USA aren't going to stop the sequels. Now that really would be a tragedy.

So if you, like a few other million readers, loved Stieg Larsson's books, do go and see this film. It won't take away from the magic of the novels, on the contrary, it'll add another dimension to the story.

Swedish Sankta Lucia at St Paul's Cathedral

I felt very privileged to be invited to The Swedish Church Sankta Lucia carol service, which this year was held at no lesser a venue but St Paul's Cathedral in London. The service was due to start at 6.30pm, but we were advised by our seasoned London friends to arrive early to get a good seats. So on the dot at five pm, we joined a queue (which to our surprise was already forming!) and shivering in the chill December wind, waited for more than an hour on the steps of the cathedral. By the time the doors were finally opened, the queue behind us snaked well out of sight around the corner.

The queue behind us was impressive.

The service itself was a combination of English carols and Swedish traditions. There was an excellent speech by the Swedish Ambassador, who true to form is a young woman with long blonde hair (these Swedes!).  She talked about the importance of traditions, and made the audience laugh when she revealed one of the more curious Swedish Christmas Eve customs: for the past fifty years the Swedish TV has broadcast a set of Disney cartoons at the same time in the afternoon. Over 4 million people - half of the Swedish population - tune in each year.

The Swedish Lucia Choir at St Paul's. Image from The Shine Project  

But, for me, the best part of the service came when the lights were lowered and a procession of The Ulrika Eleonora Church Choir and the Bromma Vocalis, all glad in white robes, holding a candle each, and led by Lucia herself with a crown of live candles in her hair, made their way down the aisles of the cathedral. The slowly advancing tunes of Sankta Lucia hymn filled my ears and senses and swiftly took me back to my school days in Stockholm's Johannes skola. I was thirteen again and singing (badly) with the other children.

Johannes skola Lucia procession

The hymns the choir sang were all familiar- although long forgotten - to me. The singing was absolutely beautiful and when the last hymn, Silent Night was sang in Swedish I have to admit to having a need for a hankie or two. And when the choir filed past us back down the isle, I felt like clapping, but obviously that just was not appropriate.

Instead we made our way out of the magnificent cathedral and went across the road for a well deserved burger.

It's funny how feeding the soul makes you incredibly hungry for big eats.

A true story: me as mission control

Last night I got a call from Son, 'Have you got mummu's (Granny in Finnish) telephone number?'

I was in London, he was in Sweden, with my mother - or so I thought.

'Yes, but persumably you're on the same ferry with her and can locate her without having to use your mobile?' I asked, drily. My clever son is not known for caring much about life's boring little practicalities. I knew he was travelling from Stockholm to Mariehamn with my mother. The cost of mobile telephone calls between Swedish and English phones are astronomical so we try to avoid calling each other when on holiday.

'No, I'm on the side of the road and they've driven off!' said Son.

I listened in stunned silence (Husband told me later my jaw literally dropped). My son, mother and step-father had been driving along the road from Stockholm to the port of Kapellskär when the engine made an unusual noise. They stopped at the side of the road. Son decided to get out of the car and investigate. When the door slammed shut my mother drove off.

'Didn't you try to wave?' I managed to say. I know this is bad of me, but I was trying to stifle a giggle.

But Son was more than a little perturbed, 'Of course I did - like mad! I'm on the side of the road somewhere in the middle of bloody Swedish countryside and they've driven off without me!' he repeated.

He had a point; I could picture the deserted road, the dark woods all around him. (My novelist brain was in overdrive).

It had become serious. Thinking about it, the situation wasn't funny anymore.

And my mother wasn't answering her mobile. I later found out it was because she'd had it on silent after the funeral they'd attended that morning. (Another story) I quickly penned a text that I'm sure I'll not see the like of in the history of texting: 'Mum, look behind you, you grandson's not in the car!'

On the sofa opposite me in London, the Englishman and Son's Girlfriend (who happened to be with us) stared at each other, then both turned to look at me. 'How do two adults manage to leave the third on the side of the road without meaning to?' said The Englishman.

Girlfriend, who luckily for my son has a strong practical streak, said, 'Do you think he has his wallet with him?' Her thinking was that if my mother didn't realise Son was missing, she could easily drive onto the ferry and sail off to Mariehamn without him.

I saw what she meant; they were late for the last Ålandsfärjan already. We've made the same ferry by the skin of our teeth many times; there's not even been time to get out of the car before the bow doors have been shut. What if this happened now? At least if Son had money and credit cards he could walk to the nearest house, or village, and get help. But was Sweden as safe as it used to be? Would anyone let him in at seven in the evening? He was in the countryside and spoke no Swedish. An episode of Wallander began to play in front of my eyes.

Girlfriend and I stared at each other when there was another call, 'They've just driven past me, not spotting me!'

Then my mother called, panicked, 'This is terrible, I can't believe it. We thought he just opened the car door to look at the wheels, and was back in the car, and the sun is so low, and I can't see through my windscreen, and there's something wrong with the wipers, and the water won't come out, and I had my phone off because of the funeral, you know...'

My mother speaks little English and my son basic Finnish, which make communications a little difficult at times.

'Calm down, mum,' I had to hide my own growing panic, 'Just turn around and try to find him again.' Son on the other line said - rather quick thinking of him in the circumstances - that he could see a road sign for the next village. I repeated the name to my mother. 'Ah, I know where he is,' she said, a little more calmly.

A few minutes later I had a text from son saying he was back in the car.

'Have a schnapps with your smörgåsbord on the ferry,' I texted back.

'Thanks, Mission Control,' came the reply.

Mary Queen of Shops and My Mother

Mary Portas. Photo: Telegraph.com

I am extremely happy to see that Mary Portas new collection at House of Fraser is aimed at the over 40's. As she says, it's this market segment that has money to spend - not the one populated by the 20-somethings. (Sad as that may be). So why are the models in magazines so young? Maybe, like sex, youth sells?

I thought it was interesting that at the same time as Mary has began a crusade for women looking beautiful at any age, my mother has been approached to model clothes for a fashion boutique in Stockholm. In spite of being in her seventies, she was told she is the perfect shape to take part in their fashion shows.

In a way this came as no surprise to me; she follows the trends - in a grown-up way. Also, in addition to dressing fashionably, she's always looked much younger than her age. When we're out together, I am often (in fact almost every time) mistaken for her sister. People are genuinely astonished to find that there is an age gap of over twenty years between us. When I was a teenager this was intensely annoying, now I am rather flattered and hopeful those same genes will serve me well too. (I am an optimist by nature).

So here's to older women looking beautiful. I will check out Mary Portas collection at House of Fraser on Oxford Street as soon as I can. In the meantime, here are a few pictures of The Mannequin, a nickname my step-father has coined for my mother.

My mother in Östermalmshallen in Stockholm

On her 70th Birthday

With me, in the kitchen, preparing for some party or other....

Pappa's Girl: Jävla Finnar

It was exactly four weeks after our move to Rinkeby in Sweden in the autumn of 1971, when Pappa took me to Stockholm Stadium to see Finland play Sweden. I’d not been to an ice-hockey match since Ilves played Tappara in the Jäähalli in Tampere the previous winter. My team lost to their local rivals. The boys at school who wore the black and orange Tappara scarves laughed at me. But I didn’t give up my green and blue Ilves scarf just because of one game.

In Sweden nobody knew of the Finnish league, but this annual tournament was a question of pride for the two countries. Pappa had been given the tickets by his boss in the factory because he couldn’t go himself.

‘You have no idea how expensive these seats are,’ he said. ‘And how difficult to get hold of,’ he continued. He was talking to Anja. ‘And I’m not going to waste them on a person who ruins beautiful new sofas.’

My sister Anja just shrugged her shoulders. ‘It wasn’t me,’ she said, and looked down at her feet. A few days ago Pappa had found a cigarette burn on one of the velour cushions. I looked at Anja and wondered how she could be so brave. If Pappa found out about the party she had in the flat he’d hit the roof.

‘What did you say?’ Pappa said, taking hold of Anja’s arm.

‘Ouch, you’re hurting me!’ Anja freed herself and ran out of the hall.

‘Hadn’t you better be leaving?’ Mamma said.

I was very proud to be taken by Pappa to the match instead of Anja. In Tampere I went to ice-hockey matches with my friend, Kaija. We both played on the ice-rink two blocks from our flat with the boys from our school. To be allowed to play, we had to wait till there weren’t enough boys to make up a team. One boy, Jussi, who was in my class and had curly brown hair and short stumpy legs, shouted, ‘Do your figure skating in the corner, girlies!’ He had all the latest gear, fancy leather gloves much too large for his hands, pads for his knees and a shiny new stick, which he rolled around with one gloved hand often dropping it with a bang on the ice. Kaija sat next to Jussi in class and said he was really sweet, but she only said that because she had a crush on him, had had for ages. They lived close to each other too, and often walked home together. She’d told me that if there were no other boys around Jussi would hold her hand. Kaija was a short girl with round face and straight thin hair. Pappa called us ‘Pitkä ja Pätkä’ after a Finnish version of Laurel and Hardy. Getting ready for the match I decided to write to Kaija about it later that evening. I wondered who her new best friend might now be. I’d received one letter from her but she said nothing about school in it. It was already October so she must have found someone by now. I wished Kaija would be coming to see Finland play Sweden with me.

The match was played in the evening in the large stadium in the centre of Stockholm. We wore our warm coats and I put on my Ilves scarf and hat.

‘There’ll be lots of people but very few Finns, so best keep together, OK?’ Pappa said as we parked the new Volvo. Pappa had washed it earlier that morning and its bonnet gleamed under the streetlights. I turned to look at the dark, round building in front of me. There were people hurrying towards it. We were late. Pappa took my hand and we started running. He looked at the tickets and then up at the signs on doors. I held tightly onto Pappa’s hand when we walked up steps and saw the vast ice rink in front of us.  People had to stand up to let us in, we were right in the middle of the row.

‘Tack, tack,’ Pappa said and I smiled. But nobody looked directly at us. They just stared at the rink in front of them.

The players were already out warming up. They smashed the bucks against the solid white edges, snapping their sticks fast and hard.

‘There’s Harri Linnonmaa, look, number 75!’ Pappa said pointing at a player in blue and white with a picture of a lion on his chest. ‘The Finnish Lions will beat the Swedish wimpy white-bread men,’ he whispered into my ear when the players skated up to the side and disappeared underneath us. Soon after they all came out again in a line and stopped dead when the Swedish national anthem was played over the Tannoy. Everybody stood up. Pappa and I were the only people not singing. After the Swedish anthem I felt awkward knowing the words to ‘Our Land’, but Pappa sang loudly, clearly pronouncing each Finnish word.

When the Finnish national anthem was over, the game started with the two attackers fighting for the puck in the middle of the rink. Pappa rubbed his hands together and muttered, ‘C’mon Finnish Lions!’

The Swedish players wore their blue and yellow shirts with an emblem of three crowns on them. They all had very blonde, long hair which escaped from underneath their helmets. Pappa had told me the crowns represented the three monarchies Sweden had once ruled.

‘Now they don’t even dare take part in wars, let alone win them, the cowards!’ he’d said. He told me Finns had earned their emblem through having to fight for their independence. ‘Like lions we are fearless and proud,’ he said.

‘I think we’ll win, Lissu, because the Swedes are scared,’ Pappa now said. ‘Finland won the first leg of the tournament in Helsinki. If only they can hold until half time, they’ll win.’ He smiled and nudged me with his elbow.

The whole of the stadium exploded when the first goal came. But Pappa and I sat still. By the end of the second period, Finland was 9 goals down and Pappa had an Elefanten beer in the dark, cold hall downstairs. People around us were standing in groups laughing and smoking. They were mostly Swedish men, like my father drinking beer.

‘Can I have a tunnbrödsrulle Pappa?’ I said. He looked at me and without saying a word gave me the money. I ran to a food stall and back again as quickly as I could. Thankfully Pappa was still there when I came back. He’d finished his beer and the bell was sounding for the start of the third period.

‘Never mind,’ Pappa said when we sat down again, ‘We have time to come back.’

But it got worse. Time after time Finnish players were sent to the sin bin, leaving the Swedish blondes free to score more goals. Three more times the buck ended up in the Finnish net. The Swedish players hugged each other and the crowd cheered. Pappa said nothing. The Finnish goalkeeper hung his head, while his teammates got angry with the Swedish players. Yet another Finn was sent to the sin bin. At one time there were two Lions sitting there, holding their sticks between their knees, staring ahead at the terrible result on the board opposite them.

‘Let’s go,’ Pappa said suddenly. The game wasn’t finished yet and people looked angrily at us when they had to move up from their seats. One man with a huge belly and a round face said, ‘Jävla Finnar’ when I passed. I didn’t look at him.

The dark streets outside were completely empty. We heard another loud cheer rise up from the vast stadium. Pappa walked fast to the car and quickly started the engine. He was quiet all the way home. When we pulled into the car park outside our block of flats I said, ‘Can we go again?’

Pappa looked at me and said, ‘No.’

This is an excerpt from my novel Pappa's Girl. If you liked the story, you can find more here.