Britt-Marie Was Here (30 page)

The group gathered on the landing takes this conclusion into consideration, and when none of them seems able to come up with any rational line of argument to oppose it, there’s not much else to do.

So they play. In the yard outside the apartment block, between the refuse room and the bicycle stand, using three gloves and a dog as the goalposts.

Max tackles Vega just as she’s about to score, and she takes two swings at him with both fists. He backs off. She roars: “Don’t touch me, rich kid!” They all shuffle away. Omar avoids the ball as if it’s frightening to him.

The black car stops on the road just as Toad has hit one of the goalposts on the nose for the third time, and it’s refusing to take part anymore. Omar rushes into Sami’s arms, and Vega turns around and marches into the house without a word.

The goalpost is having some sweets from Bank’s pocket and getting scratched behind its ears as Sami draws closer.

“Hey there, Bank,” he says.

“Did you find him?” asks Bank.

“No,” says Sami.

“Lucky for Psycho!” yells Toad excitedly, waving his thumb and index finger like a pistol, then cutting this activity short when Britt-Marie gives him a look as if he just refused to use a coaster.

Bank pokes Sami’s stomach with her stick.

“Lucky for Psycho. But mainly lucky for you, Sami.”

She heads for home with Max, Dino, Toad, and Ben in tow. Before they go around the corner Ben stops and calls out to Britt-Marie:

“You’re still coming tomorrow, aren’t you?”

“Coming to what?” Britt-Marie wants to know, and is met by a collective stare from the group as if she’s lost her reason.

“To the cup! Tomorrow’s the cup!” thunders Max.

Britt-Marie brushes her skirt so they don’t see she’s got her eyes closed and is sucking her cheeks in.

“Ha. Ha. Obviously I will. Obviously.”

She doesn’t say anything about how it will be her last day in Borg. They don’t say anything either.

She sits in the kitchen until Sami comes out of Vega and Omar’s bedroom.

“They’re sleeping,” he says with a somewhat forced smile.

Britt-Marie stands up, collects herself, and informs him coolly:

“I don’t want to stick my nose in, because I’m certainly not the sort of person who does that, but if it’s true that you were intending to do away with this Psycho tonight for the sake of Vega and Omar, I should like to clarify to you that it’s not suitable for a gentleman to run around doing away with people.”

He raises his eyebrows. She closes her fingers around her handbag.

“I’m not a gentleman,” he says with a smile.

“No, but you could become one!”

He laughs. She doesn’t laugh. So he stops laughing.

“Ah, drop it, I wouldn’t have killed him. He’s my best friend. He’s just so fucking sick in the head, you get what I mean? He owes people money. The wrong kind of people. So he’s desperate. He didn’t think Vega and Omar would be there.”

“Right,” says Britt-Marie.

“That’s not to say you’re not important as well!” Sami corrects himself.

“Sorry. I need a cig,” says Sami with a sigh, and only then does Britt-Marie realize his hands are trembling.

She goes with him onto the balcony, coughing dubiously and not at all demonstratively. He blows the smoke away from her and apologizes.

“Sorry, is this bothering you?”

“I should like to ask if you have any more cigarettes,” says Britt-Marie without blinking an eye.

He starts laughing.

“I didn’t think you were a smoker.”

“I’m certainly not,” she says defensively. “I’ve just had a long day.”

“Okay, okay,” he smirks, handing her one and lighting it for her.

She takes slight, shallow puffs. Closes her eyes.

“I’d like you to know that you’re certainly not the only one with tendencies to live a wild, irresponsible existence. I smoked any number of cigarettes in my youth.”

He laughs out loud, and she feels it’s more at her than with her, so she goes on to clarify her statement:

“For a period in my youth I was actually employed as a waitress!”

She nods with emphasis, just to underline that she’s by no means just making this up off the top of her head. Sami looks impressed and gestures at her to take a seat on an upside-down drinks crate.

“You want a whiskey, Britt-Marie?”

Britt-Marie’s common sense has obviously locked itself in its room, because suddenly Britt-Marie hears herself saying:

“Yes, absolutely, you know what, Sami? I would like one very much!”

And so they drink whiskey and smoke. Britt-Marie tries to blow
some smoke rings, because she knows she wished she could do this at the time when she was working as a waitress. The chefs knew how to do it. It looked so very relaxing.

“Dad didn’t leave, we chased him away, me and Magnus,” Sami tells her without any preamble.

“Who’s Magnus?”

“He likes ‘Psycho’ better, people don’t get as scared of a ‘Magnus,’ ” says Sami with a grin.

“Ha,” says Britt-Marie, but it’s actually more of a “huh?” than a “ha.”

“Dad hit Mum whenever he’d been drinking. No one knew about it, you know, but once Magnus was picking me up to go to soccer training when we were small, and he’d never seen anything like it. He comes from a right nuclear family, his dad worked for an insurance company and drove an Opel, sort of thing. But he . . . I don’t bloody know. He saw me step in between Mum and Dad, and I got a hiding from Dad as usual, and then out of fucking nowhere Magnus was standing there yelling, with a knife at Dad’s throat. And I don’t think I got it until then, that not all kids lived like we did. Not all kids were afraid every time they came home. Omar cried. Vega cried. So, you know . . . it felt like that was enough right there. See what I mean?”

Britt-Marie coughs smoke through her nose. Sami pats her helpfully on the back and fetches water for her. Then stands by the balcony railing, peering over the edge as if he’s measuring the distance to the ground.

“Magnus helped chase Dad away. You don’t find friends like that just anywhere.”

“Where’s your mother, Sami?”

“Just away for a while, she’ll be coming back soon,” Sami attempts.

Britt-Marie collects herself and points her cigarette at him menacingly.

“I may be many things, Sami, but I’m no idiot.”

Sami empties his glass. Scratches his head.

“She’s dead,” he admits at last.

Exactly how long it takes Britt-Marie to get absolutely clear about the whole story, she can’t say. Night has fallen over Borg, and she thinks it may be snowing. When Sami, Vega, and Omar’s father left, their mother took on more driving work with the trucking company. Year after year. When the trucking company fired all its drivers she started working for foreign companies, whenever she could find them, to the best of her ability. Year after year, as mothers do. One evening she got caught up in a traffic jam, got delayed, and her bonus hung in the balance. So she drove through the night in bad weather, in a truck that was too old. At dawn she met an oncoming car, the driver of which was reaching for his cell phone, so that he’d veered onto the wrong side of the road. She swerved, the tires of the truck lost their purchase on the road in the rain, and the whole thing overturned. There was a deluge of blood and glass, and three children sat waiting two thousand miles away for the sound of a key in the front door.

“She was a bloody good mum. She was a warrior,” whispers Sami.

Britt-Marie has to refill her glass before she manages to say:

“I am so very, very sorry, Sami.”

It may sound paltry and less than you might expect. But it’s all she’s got.

Sami pats her on the arm understandingly, as if he’s the one to console her and not the other way around.

“Vega’s afraid, even though she mainly seems angry. Omar is angry, though you’d probably think he was afraid.”

“And you?”

“I don’t have time to feel things, I have to take care of them.”

“But . . . how . . . I mean . . . the authorities,” Britt-Marie starts, in a welter of disconnected thoughts.

Sami lights her another cigarette, then one for himself.

“We never informed anyone that Dad cleared off. He must be abroad somewhere, but he’s still registered at this address. We had his old driving license, so Omar bribed a truck driver at the petrol station to go to the police in town pretending to be him and signing some papers. We got a couple of thousand on Mum’s insurance. No one else ever asked anything about it.”

“But you can’t just . . . Good God, Sami, this is not
Pippi Longstocking
, is it! Who will take care of the children—”

“I will. I will take care of them,” he says simply, cutting her short.

“For . . . how long?”

“As long as I can. I get the fact they’ll catch us out pretty soon, I’m not an idiot. But I only need a bit of time, Britt-Marie. Just a bit. I have plans. I just have to show that I can support them financially, you understand? Otherwise they’ll take Vega and Omar and put them in some fucking children’s home. I can’t let them do that. I’m not the type that just walks out.”

“They might let you take care of the children. If you explain it exactly as it is, they might—”

“Look at me, Britt-Marie. Criminal record, unemployed, and mates with people like Psycho. Would you let me take care of two children?”

“We can show them your cutlery drawer! We can explain that you have the potential to become a gentleman!”

“Thanks,” he says and puts his hand on her shoulder.

She leans against him.

“And Sven knows everything?”

Sami runs his hands over her hair to calm her.

“He’s the one who took the international call from the police who found the truck. He came here to give us the news. Cried as much as we did. It’s like having a parent in the army, you know, when your mum drives a truck. If someone in uniform comes to your door you know what it’s about.”

“So . . . Sven . . .”

“He knows everything.”

Britt-Marie’s eyes blink very hard as they stare at his shirt. It’s a curious thing to do. A grown woman on a young man’s balcony in the middle of the night, just like that. What on earth would people think about that?

“I was under the impression that one became a policeman because one believed in rules and regulations.”

“I think Sven became a policeman because he believes in justice.”

Britt-Marie straightens up. Wipes her face down.

“We’re going to need more whiskey. And if it’s not too troublesome, I should like to ask for a bottle of window-cleaner as well.”

After a considerable amount of reflection she adds:

“Under present circumstances I could see myself making do with any old brand.”

B
ritt-Marie wakes up with a headache of the most spectacular kind. She’s lying in her bed in Bank’s house. A neighbor seems to be drilling the wall. The whole room sways when she gets up. She’s sweating, her body aching and her mouth laced with a sort of sharp bitterness. Britt-Marie is obviously a woman with a certain amount of life experience, so she understands her condition immediately. The day after she has drunk more alcohol in Sami’s home than her total intake in the last forty years there can only be one reasonable conclusion:

“I’ve got flu!” she explains to Bank in a knowing sort of way, when she comes down to the kitchen.

Bank is making bacon and eggs. The dog sniffs the air and moves a little farther away from Britt-Marie.

“You smell of spirits,” Bank states, without quite managing to stop herself looking amused.

“That’s right. Which is obviously why I feel the way I do today,” says Britt-Marie with a nod.

“I thought you said you’d come down with flu,” says Bank.

Britt-Marie nods helpfully.

“But my dear, that’s precisely what I’m saying! It’s the only reasonable explanation. When you drink alcohol your immune system
is knocked out, you have to understand. And that’s why I’ve got the flu.”

“Flu, right then,” mumbles Bank and puts the eggs on the table for Britt-Marie.

Britt-Marie closes her eyes, holding back her nausea, and gives the eggs to the dog. Bank puts a glass of cold water in front of her instead. Britt-Marie drinks. Flu makes people dehydrated. She’s read all about it.