The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules (2 page)

The next day, while the guests, or the ‘clients’, as they were now called, at Diamond House were drinking their morning coffee in the lounge, Martha thought about what she should do. In her childhood home in Österlen, down in the south of Sweden, people didn’t just sit and wait for somebody else to take action. If the hay must be put in the barn, or a mare was going to foal, then you simply pitched in and did what was necessary. Martha looked at her hands. She was proud of them—they were reliable hands, and showed that she had done her fair share of hard work. The murmur of voices rose and fell all around her as she surveyed the rather shabby lounge. The smell was decidedly reminiscent of the Salvation Army and the furniture seemed to have come straight from the recycling depot. The old grey 1940s building, with its asbestos fibre cement cladding, was like a combination of an old school and a dentist’s waiting room. Surely this wasn’t where she was meant to end her days, with a mug of weak instant coffee to go with a plastic meal? No, damn it, it certainly was not! Martha breathed deeply, pushed her coffee mug aside and leaned forward to speak to her group of friends.

‘You lot. Come with me,’ she said and gave a sign to her friends to follow her into her room. ‘I have something to talk to you about.’

Everybody knew that Martha had a stash of cloudberry liqueur hidden away, so they all nodded and got up straight away. The stylish Rake went first, followed by Brains, the inventor, and Martha’s two lady friends—Christina, who loved Belgian chocolate, and Anna-Greta, the old lady who looked so old that
all the other old ladies paled in comparison. They looked at each other. Martha usually had something special on the cards when she invited you in for a glass of liqueur. It hadn’t happened for quite a while, but now it was evidently time.

Once they were in her room, Martha retrieved the bottle, tidied away her half-finished knitting from the sofa and invited her friends to sit down. She threw a glance at the mahogany table with the freshly ironed floral-patterned cloth. She had wanted to replace the old table for a long while but it was big and solid and there was room for everybody around it so it would have to do for now. As she put the bottle on the table she caught sight of her old family photos on the chest of drawers. Framed behind glass, her parents and sister smiled out at her in front of her childhood home in Brantevik, a small fishing village in Österlen. If only they could see her now … they would not approve. They were teetotallers. Defiantly, she set out the liqueur glasses and filled them to the brim.

‘Cheers!’ she said and raised her glass.

‘Cheers!’ her friends responded joyfully.

‘And now for the drinking song,’ Martha insisted, after which they all mimed a silent version of ‘Helan går’. Here at the retirement home, it was necessary to keep your voice down during sessions like this, so as not to be discovered with hidden alcohol. Martha silently mouthed the refrain once more and they all laughed. So far nobody had ever discovered them, and this was all part of the fun. Martha put her glass down and looked at the others out of the corner of her eye. Should she tell them about her dream? No, first she must get them on the same wavelength as herself, then she might be able to persuade them all to go along with her plan. They
were a close-knit group of friends and in their late fifties they had decided they would live together in their old age. So now, surely, they could make a new decision together. After all, they had so much in common. When they had become pensioners, the five of them had performed at hospitals and parish halls with their choir, The Vocal Chord, and they had all moved into the same retirement home. For a long time Martha had tried to get them to pool their funds and buy an old country mansion down in the south instead. She thought this option sounded much more exciting than a retirement home. She had read in the paper how old mansions were extremely cheap to buy and several of them even had moats.

‘If you get some unpleasant visitor from the authorities or your children want to get at their inheritance in advance, then all you have to do is raise the drawbridge,’ she had said in an attempt to convince the others. But when they realized that a mansion was expensive to maintain and required staff, they chose the Lily of the Valley Retirement Home. But their lovely retirement home had been renamed by the ghastly new owners and was now called Diamond House.

‘Did your evening snack taste good?’ Martha asked after Rake had drained the last drops of liqueur from his glass. He looked sleepy but had, of course, had time to put a rose in his lapel and tie a newly ironed cravat round his neck. He was somewhat grey by now but he still retained his charm and was so elegantly dressed that even younger women stopped to look at him twice.

‘Evening snack? Just something to keep hunger at bay. Not that it worked. The food here is worse than on a ship,’ he said and put down his glass. In his youth he had been at sea, but
after going ashore for good he had trained as a gardener. Now he made do with a few flowers and herbs on the balcony. His greatest annoyance in life was that everyone called him Rake. True, he loved gardening and had once tripped over a rake and done himself an injury, but in his opinion that wasn’t a reason for the nickname to stick for the rest of his life. He had tried suggesting other nicknames but nobody had listened.

‘Why don’t you make yourself a cheese sandwich instead? Quiet food that doesn’t go “ping”?’ came a muttering from Anna-Greta, who had also been woken by the microwave and had found it hard to get back to sleep. She was an assertive woman who knew her own mind, and she was so tall and slim that Rake used to say that she must have been born in a drainpipe.

‘Yes, but you can always smell the delicious food and spices that the staff are cooking from up on the first floor. So that makes me hungry for more than just a sandwich,’ was Rake’s excuse.

‘You’re right; the staff should cook similar meals for us to eat. The food that we have delivered and served under cellophane wrapping isn’t very filling,’ said Christina Åkerblom as she discreetly filed her nails. The former milliner, who in her youth had dreamed of becoming a librarian, was the youngest of them all—only seventy-seven. She wanted to live a calm and pleasant life, eating good food and doing her watercolour painting. She did not want to be served junk food. After a long life in Stockholm’s poshest district, Östermalm, she was used to a certain standard.

‘The staff don’t get the same food as us,’ Martha agreed. ‘The food that we can smell is just for the new owners of
Diamond House, who have their office and kitchen on the upper floor.’

‘Then we ought to install an elevator which can transport their food down to us,’ remarked Oscar ‘Brains’ Krupp, who was the solution-finder of the group and was one year older than Christina. Brains was an inventor and used to have his own workshop in Sundbyberg. He also loved good food, which was apparent in his plump and cuddly figure. He considered exercise to be a recreation for people with nothing better to do.

‘Do you remember the brochure we got when we first came here?’ asked Martha. ‘Good food from the restaurant, it said. And they also boasted of daily walks, visits from artistes, chiropody and somebody to do our hair. With the new owners, nothing works any more. It is about time we made a stand.’

‘Rebellion at the retirement home!’ said Christina in her most melodramatic voice, waving her hand vigorously so that the nail file ended up on the floor.

‘Yes, that’s right, a little mutiny,’ Martha agreed.

‘A mutiny? We’d have to be at sea first,’ snorted Rake in a disbelieving manner.

‘But perhaps the new owners have some financial difficulties? It’ll get better eventually, wait and see,’ said Anna-Greta, straightening her glasses, which dated from the early fifties. She had worked in a bank all her life and understood that entrepreneurs must make a profit.

‘Get better? Like hell it will,’ muttered Rake. ‘Those bastards have already raised the charges several times and we haven’t seen any improvements.’

‘Don’t be so negative,’ said Anna-Greta, straightening her glasses again. They were old and worn out and were
always slipping down her nose. She never changed spectacles and instead just updated her lenses because she thought her frames were timeless.

‘What do you mean, negative? We must demand improvements. Across the board, but starting with the food!’ Martha said. ‘Now listen, the owners must have something nice to eat in the kitchen upstairs. So when the rest of the staff have gone home, I thought we could …’

Enthusiasm spread round the table as Martha talked on. Before long, five pairs of eyes were glowing just as brightly as the water on a lake shore on a sunny summer’s day. They all glanced up, looked at each other and made a thumbs-up sign.

When her friends had left her room, Martha put the cloudberry liqueur back into the depths of her wardrobe and hummed happily to herself. Her dream about the bank robbery seemed to have given her new energy.
Nothing is impossible
, she thought.
But in order to succeed with a change, you must put forward alternatives
. And that was what she was going to do now. Then her friends would think that they had made their decisions all by themselves.

After everyone had stepped out of the elevator and stood outside the Diamond House office, Martha held up her hand and hushed the others. She had inspected the contents of the key cupboard and had chosen one with a triangular bow, the
sort that locksmiths can’t copy. She put the key in the lock, gave it a turn and the door opened.

‘Just as I thought. The master key. Excellent, in we go, but remember to be quiet.’

‘Look who’s talking,’ muttered Rake, who thought that Martha always talked too much.

‘But what if someone discovers us?’ Christina said, worried.

‘They won’t, we’ll be as quiet as mice,’ Anna-Greta said loudly. Like all those who are hard of hearing she spoke in a resounding voice without realizing it.

The walkers squeaked out of time as the five of them slowly and cautiously entered the room. It smelt of office and furniture polish, and there were folders arranged in a meticulous order on the desk.

‘Hmm, the kitchen must be through that set of doors,’ Martha said, pointing across to the other side of the room.

As they entered the next room, Martha took the lead and closed the curtains.

‘Now we can turn the lights on!’

The lights flickered into action and before them appeared a sizeable room with a fridge, freezer and large fitted cupboards on the wall. In the middle was an island on wheels, and beside the window a dining table with six chairs.

‘A proper kitchen,’ declared Brains as he stroked the fridge door.

‘There will certainly be some good food in here,’ Martha declared as she opened the fridge door. The shelves were filled with chicken and fillet steak, a leg of lamb and several different types of cheese. The drawers below contained lettuces, tomatoes, beetroot and fruit.

The door to the freezer took some effort to open. ‘Elk
steaks and lobster. Goodness me!’ Martha exclaimed, holding the door open for everyone to see. ‘Everything except a Christmas cake! They must have lots of parties up here.’

For a long while they all stared at the contents without uttering a word. Brains rubbed a hand over his cropped hair, Rake put his hand over his heart and sighed, Christina gasped and Anna-Greta grumbled: ‘This must have cost a pretty penny!’

‘Nobody will notice if we help ourselves to a little bit,’ said Martha.

‘But surely we can’t steal their food?’ Christina queried.

‘We’re not stealing. Whose money do you think bought this food? We are simply taking what we have paid for. Here you are, take this.’

Martha held out a leftover piece of cooked chicken and Rake—who always felt peckish in the evenings—was the first to bite.

‘And we need rice, spices and flour so that we can make a sauce,’ said Brains, who had now woken up. He wasn’t just an inventor but a good cook too. Since his ex-wife had only made food that was inedible, he had been forced to learn to cook. Then, in time, he had realized that not only was she incompetent in the kitchen but she also saw life itself as one great problem, and so he had divorced her. Still to this day, he had nightmares about her standing beside his bed brandishing a rolling pin in her hand whilst complaining. But she had given him a son, and for that he was grateful.

‘We must have good wine for the sauce too.’ Brains looked around and caught sight of a wine rack on the wall. ‘Well, I never, look at those bottles …’

‘We can’t take those. We’d be found out if we did,’ said Martha. ‘If nobody notices that we have been here, we can come back a few more times.’

‘Pah. Food without wine is like a car without wheels,’ announced Brains. He went up to the wine rack and pulled out two bottles of the finest wine. Seeing Martha’s face, he put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. ‘We’ll open the wine bottles, drink up the wine and pour beetroot juice into the bottles instead,’ he said.

Martha gave Brains an admiring glance. He always had a solution for everything. He was an eternal optimist who thought that problems were there to be solved. He reminded her of her parents. When she and her sister had dressed up in their parents’ clothes and made a dreadful mess everywhere, her father and mother had, of course, told them that they had been naughty, but then had laughed at the whole thing. Better to have a messy home and happy children then a perfect yard and unhappy children, they thought. Their guiding motto in life was: ‘Everything will sort itself out.’ And Martha agreed. It always did.

The chopping boards, frying pans and saucepans were soon in place and they all got involved in cooking the meal. Martha put a fresh chicken in the oven, Brains made a delicious sauce, Rake prepared a tasty salad and Christina tried her best to be of use. She had gone to a domestic science school when she was young, but since then she had had help in the kitchen all her life, and so she had forgotten everything she had ever learned. The only task she really felt safe doing was slicing a cucumber.

Anna-Greta took charge of setting the table and saw to the rice.

‘She’s good at doing what you tell her,’ Martha whispered, nodding towards Anna-Greta. ‘But she is so slow and always has to count everything.’

‘As long as she doesn’t start counting the grains of rice, that’s OK,’ said Brains.

Soon a delicious aroma spread through the kitchen. Rake went around serving wine and looked very much the part in his blue blazer with a crisp cravat around his neck. He had combed his hair and smelled of a nice aftershave. Christina noticed that he had dressed smartly and she in turn discreetly pulled out her powder and lipstick. When nobody was looking, she added some colour to her lips and powdered her nose lightly.

Talk and laughter mingled with the clatter of plates and pans. Admittedly, it did take rather a long time before the food was ready, but what did that matter when everyone was drinking good wine and having a lovely time? Finally, they settled around the table as happy and enthusiastic as youngsters.

‘Another glass?’

Rake poured out more wine and it was just like the old days when he had been a waiter on cruise ships in the Mediterranean. He was a bit slower now, but he held himself with the same dignity. Between mouthfuls they toasted one another and sang aloud from their choir repertoire, and when Brains found an old bottle of champagne, that did the rounds too. Christina raised her glass and knocked back her wine.

‘Wicked,’ she said—an expression she had picked up from her grandchildren. She liked to try and keep up with the times.

Christina put her glass down and looked about her: ‘Now, dear friends, we must dance!’

‘You can do that,’ said Brains, putting his hands on his stomach.

‘Dance, yes, absolutely,’ said Rake, getting up, but he was so unsteady on his legs that Christina had to dance on her own.

‘“It is better to dare to cast the dice, than to fade away with a withering flame,”’ she recited with her arms out wide. Although Christina had never achieved her dream of becoming a librarian, she had always maintained her interest in literature. And what she didn’t know of the Swedish classics wasn’t worth knowing.

‘Here she goes reciting the old favourites again. As long as she doesn’t recite the
Odyssey
too,’ muttered Martha.

‘Or goes on and on about
Gösta Berling’s Saga
…’ Brains added.

‘“It is more beautiful to hear a string that snaps, than never to draw a bow,”’ Christina continued.

‘We could have that as our motto!’ Martha suggested.

‘What, a string that snaps?’ Rake interrupted her. ‘No, the motto should be “It’s better to be in the bed that broke than always to sleep alone.”’

Christina, blushing, came to a halt mid-step.

‘Rake! Must you always be so coarse? Behave yourself!’ said Anna-Greta, pouting.

‘Well, we’ve drawn our bow now, haven’t we?’ said Christina. ‘From now on, we must come up here at least once a week.’ She fetched her glass and raised it.

‘Cheers! Here’s to the next time!’

They all toasted each other and they kept going until their eyelids got heavier and heavier and they started slurring their words. Martha reverted to her old southern dialect, something she only did when she was really tired. It was a warning sign, and she saw the danger.

‘Now, dear friends, we must wash the dishes and tidy the kitchen before we go downstairs,’ she said.

‘You’re welcome to start on the dishes,’ Rake replied, as he filled up Martha’s glass.

‘No, we must tidy up and put everything back in the cupboards so that nobody will see that we’ve been here,’ she insisted, and pushed the glass away.

‘If you’re tired, you can rest on my arm,’ said Brains as he gave her a friendly pat on the cheek.

And so it came about that Martha leaned her head against his arm and fell asleep.

The next morning, when Ingmar Mattson, the director of Diamond House, came to work, he heard strange sounds from inside his private rooms. The heavy humming noise sounded like a group of bears had just escaped from the zoo. He looked around the office and saw nothing untoward, but he noticed that the kitchen door was open.

‘What in heaven’s name …’ he muttered, before bumping into a walker and falling onto the floor. Swearing, he got back on his feet and looked with amazement at the scene before him. The extractor fan was on, and five of the old people from the retirement home were seated around the table, fast asleep. There were dirty dishes and empty wine glasses on the table, and the fridge door was wide open. Director Mattson looked at the mess. The clients in the retirement home evidently had more freedom than he had been aware of. He must ask Nurse Barbara to deal with the matter.