Hop in Then!

by Ulla Bolinder

  Monday, 17 August 1964

  Kjell rang yesterday at 3:30 p.m. and wanted for us to go to the movies in the evening, but I wasn’t allowed to go out and told him – what was true – that I couldn’t come because I was sick and had a fever. “We can perhaps see each other some other evening, instead?” I said. But he was so anxious and absolutely determined for us to meet. It sounded like he didn’t really believe that I was sick. Afterwards my temperature was 39.5°C, though I didn’t have more than 38°C when he called (so it might have been just as well if I had gone out). I became so heartbroken when he didn’t believe me. He must have noticed that I liked him, so why would I all of a sudden not want to meet him and even come up with a lie to avoid him? I don’t understand how he could believe that! And if I were not interested I wouldn’t have suggested that we meet another evening, instead. I became so sad when I realized that he doubted me. Afterwards I cried so much that I thought my heart would burst (as it usually is said in short stories and such things). That’s why my fever went up. But now I think, that if he had difficulty understanding me, he wasn’t the person I thought he was, and it was just as well that this came out all at once. But I feel so clearly that I could have fallen in love with him (and he in me) if he hadn’t destroyed everything like that. Because now he will probably never call again.

  I was in town and met Göran. He was riding alone in his pop’s Isabella, and he pulled over when he saw me. I got so surprised that I couldn’t bring myself to go up to the car at first. I thought that perhaps I wasn’t the one he had stopped for. But nobody else was there.

  “Are you going home?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Hop in then.”

  I wondered why he had changed his mind all of a sudden, because it wasn’t very long ago that he pretended not see me when I greeted him. But it was perhaps because I was drunk then.

  It felt a little strange to meet him again after so long, but I knew that I didn’t love him anymore, so I didn’t feel sad. I lit a Virginia, and he glanced at me from the side and said:

  “And you are still walking on Svartbäcksgatan?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Why don’t you go dancing instead?”

  “I cannot dance.”

  “You could learn.”

  “Yes, but you aren’t necessarily worse than those who go dancing just because you walk on Svartbäcksgatan.”

  “Well, I don’t know the reason why you walk here, but it isn’t so damn difficult to figure out why the others do it.”

  “And you drive there,” I said.

  “Yes, but not for the same reason as those who walk there.”

  “Besides, it was your fault, in a way, that I began.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  I didn’t think of it then, but now I wonder why he said that, because I have never told him that I think so. But I have perhaps mentioned it to Uffe.

  When we were going on Munkgatan I felt a desire to laugh.

  “Do you remember when we were at Fågelsången and had coffee?” I said.

  “Yes, those were the days!”

  “It will soon be a year ago.”

  “It will?”

  “Yes, it was in September. But God how silly you must have thought we were!”

  “Why?”

  “As we were running after you and carried on. We were so childish and inexperienced.”

  “But you don’t think you are anymore?”

  “Not as much as I was then, anyway.”

  Because that was when Kicki and I had just started to go out together.

  “You were the first guy I went out with,” I said.

  “I was?”

  “Yes.”

  I felt happy and wanted to talk, but he just sat there and seemed severe.

  “Do you still see Uffe nowadays?” I tried.

  “Yes, it happens.”

  “What have you done tonight, then?”

  “I’ve been to the movies.”

  “Which one?”

  “’The Stage Coach’.”

  He didn’t ask me what I had been up to, but he probably knew anyway.

  He stopped on forest road and kissed me. When he unbuttoned my skirt, I said:

  “Do you know that you will be dead angry with me before this evening is over?”

  “Why? Because I won’t get what I want?”

  “Yes.”

  “But I want to lay you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I feel like it.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you want to lay me?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “But why not? Why can’t I get what everybody else gets?”

  So I was right when I suspected him of thinking that I have sex with all the guys I meet. And now he obviously didn’t mind being one of them himself.

  “There isn’t anyone else who gets to do it,” I said. “You probably don’t believe me, but I’m actually a virgin.”

  “Aha. But sometime has to be the first”.

  “Yes, but then I think that both should want it just as much as the other.”

  “Why don’t you want it, then?”

  “Because it doesn’t feel that way.”

  Then he said that he was in love with me. I don’t understand how he could think that I would swallow it.

  “You are?” I said.

  “Yes, but you aren’t especially in love with me, are you?”

  “No, not now. But I was before.”

  “You were?”

  “Yes, but you were always so nasty to me.”

  “Yes, perhaps I was...”

  “Why?”

  “Perhaps I thought that you didn’t really like me.”

  “But I did.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me, then?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me how you felt?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, you see!”

  “Perhaps we were too young and inexperienced?”

  And then he kissed me again so I felt his wet, cold hair against my forehead.

  “Obviously, you haven’t gotten what I just said,” I said.

  “Would you want to do it if you were in love with me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But human beings are also animals.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Human beings also have their physical feelings and desires.”

  “Yes, but not like animals that cannot think.”

  “One can’t control one’s feelings!”

  “Yes, one surely can.”

  Then he sighed and rubbed his forehead.

  “You’re still so young,” he said.

  “Yes, but that’s what I’ll think when I get older, too.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “Yes, I can. And I’m not going to do anything before I feel that I want it both in mind and body.”

  “You may have to wait a long time for that.”

  “Yes, but I can afford it.”

  While I buttoned my skirt, he rubbed his eyes with his thumb and middle finger and sighed again.

  “No matter how long you wait, it won’t make any difference,” he said.

  I didn’t exactly feel sorry for him, but I wanted to cheer him up, because he seemed so tired and downhearted. But I didn’t know what to do.

  He started the car and backed up so fast that I fell forward and nearly bumped into the dashboard.

  “Should we push off?” he said.

  When we came out on the Norrtälje highway we were passed by a big raggarbil, and then it felt like he was thinking of what I usually do again.

  I’m the only one who has changed, I thought. He is the same as he was before. But now I’m not getting sad anymore because he doesn’t understand.

  When we got home, before I stepped out of the car, he embraced me.

  “Promise you won’t ever do anything that you don’t want to do,” he said.

/>   Then I left, and when he was driving away I knew that I would never meet him again.

  Tuesday, 18 August 1964

  Last Sunday E-L was out alone and then she met Göran and rode with him. He drove out in the country somewhere and said he wanted to lay her. (Is this what he has had in mind the entire time?) But she didn’t want to, and said that if it didn’t feel right for her both in mind and body, she wouldn’t do it. “In that case you may have to wait a long time,” he said. He made use of that well- known line, that if you don’t want to, then you must not care about me very much! (And if you do want to, it means that you are a woman of easy virtue and nobody worth having). But she didn’t swallow that. She almost thought that he was a little screwy and clearly felt that she wasn’t interested in him anymore. If she had met him for the first time now, he would have gotten a three and barely that, she said. So in a year, if I randomly meet Kjell again, maybe he will crash down from his five and mean nothing at all to me? But I have my doubts about that.

  Now they are playing “Tell Laura I Love Her” on the radio. It’s at present fourteenth place on “Kvällstoppen”. The lyrics are so exaggerated, I think. He is burnt to death, and before he dies he… It’s just too sentimental to take seriously. This is what he sings at the end: “No one knows what happened that day, how his car overturned in flames, but as they pulled him from the twisted wreck, with his dying breath they heard him say: “Tell Laura I love her, tell Laura I need her, tell Laura not to cry, my love for her will never die!” It’s almost laughable rather than tragic.

  There is another, similar song that I also think is silly. It’s the one Marty Wilde sings that is called “A Teenager in Love”. “Each night I ask the stars above: Why must I be a teenager in love?” Yes, that’s a good question! I wonder how long it will be before I have gotten over Kjell? Deep down I still hope I will hear from him again.

  Thursday, 20 August 1964

  Yesterday evening E-L and I set off for Stockholm. We took the train there, because we wanted to be sure of arriving in time. And then we walked on Kungsgatan. It wasn’t like Svartbäcksgatan at all, because it was so wide, but two guys stopped in any case and we went with them to a house where one of them lived. He had a room with a private entrance to the basement. You went down a small staircase and then through a door, and that’s where he had his room. They offered vodka with lime and small ice cubes, and such drinks are treacherous, because you scarcely feel the alcohol, thinking it tastes good, and I drank a little too much and also got drunk. I almost can’t remember what we did. In any case, my bra came off, but my breasts were very sore because I’ll soon have my period and I didn’t want him to carry on with them so much.

  Then we nearly missed the last train home, but they gave us a ride to Stockholm Central Station so that we made it just in time.

  On the train we first were sitting in a toilet, and I was almost as drunk as E-L, which is unusual for me, because I don’t want to be. I don’t like to lose control, but this time I almost did.

  When we got back to Uppsala (the city of eternal youth), E-L went to Svartbäcksgatan to find someone to give her a lift home, and I took a walk home. Then I thought about Kjell and felt sad.

  When I got home I snuck in and brushed my teeth very carefully with toothpaste and washed my face with soap and water, and then I hopped into bed beside mamma and laid on my side. I realized that she wasn’t asleep, so she must have noticed the alcohol smell, but she didn’t say anything. She has never mentioned anything about the smell of smoke, either. Deep down I would like her to say to me that I shouldn’t smoke, but she doesn’t, even though she doesn’t smoke herself. But she carries on with a lot of other shit, so that’s perhaps why she isn’t able to admonish me. And it probably wouldn’t help, but it would feel better if she let me know that she doesn’t want me to do it. It’s the same with spirits. But when she notices the smell and understands what her daughter is carrying on with, she just lies there, pretending to be asleep.

  Sven Ingvar’s Dance Band, who are going to perform in Ängby Park this evening, is rather good for a Swedish band, I think, but I prefer groups that sing in English, because then it isn’t as clear if the lyrics are silly.

  In my horoscope for this week it says that I could well wind up in the center of attention, and that I feel surrounded by people and happy. There is a possibility of new and exciting contacts with the opposite sex. Moderation with regards to food and drink could be well advised this week, it says. But I’m already looking forward to the next time I’m going to drink. It’s only afterwards, when I have a hangover, that it feels like I never want to do it again.

  On Wednesday night, I got a lift home from a guy in an Austin. It’s so boring with those single guys who are out late when everybody else has gone home and who drive on Svartbäcksgatan because they still hope something will happen. But those are mostly the kind of guys you’ve got to ride with when you are out late. And perhaps they think they get at least something, if you let them kiss you as thanks for a lift. A kiss and an opportunity to drive a girl home is perhaps enough for them not to think that the entire evening has been unsuccessful. And it’s fortunate that there are such guys, because otherwise you would have to walk home every time you haven’t anyone specified to go with.

  Sunday, 23 August 1964

  The guy E-L was with yesterday wanted to see her again, so they will meet this evening, she said today when she called. So I will probably stay at home tonight, because I don’t feel like going out alone.

  First we were at the movies, to see “Viva Las Vegas”, and then we rode with two guys in an Opel. They offered us spirits, and I drank a little, in spite of my good intentions.

  When we got back into town again, E-L was drunk. When we walk like that each one of us has her role. She’s the one who can’t take care of herself and needs help, and I’m the one who takes care of her. It’s something like being an actress and appearing on a show. And I like my roll, because it gives me more contact with the boys. E-L is gone from the world and they stop and say: “She can’t walk around like this, you had better come along with us, otherwise the police will soon be here.” And I agree, even though I know it isn’t really as bad as it looks. (She isn’t any more intoxicated than I am, actually. It just seems that way because she relaxes more.) But okay, let’s go with you! And in that case I get the best boy (the sober one who is driving), because he is the one I have talked with first.

  Yes, and we walked there, and she didn’t want to go with any of the boys who stopped, as usual. I was a little worried that the police would come (I don’t want to go through that again) and thought that we would be sure to get into a car as quickly as possible, but she was so obstinate. Finally, Uffe, Göran’s friend in a dark blue military uniform, pulled over and talked with us. E-L was hanging on the car, and he thought we ought to hop in so that she could sober up a little, and she went along with that. She tumbled down in the back, and I sat in front beside Uffe. He looked good in uniform and was the same as ever. Jolly, with a twinkle in his eye, and that’s what I liked about him, I recalled. He proposed that we go with him to Ängby Park, and I would have been happy to do it, but E-L didn’t want to, so we got out into town again.

  I had my period and felt I needed to go somewhere and change my sanitary napkin, because it had become displaced and chafed the way it sat. Sometimes I have thought that I ought to start using tampons instead, because it can work sometimes even if your hymen is still intact. Because I’m so damned tired of those bloody sanitary napkins! I use Mimosept, and they have a covering net with a knot and a loop on each end to attach to the girdle. But they never sit the way they are supposed to! They either glide up in back or up in front or the other way round. And they are bulky to carry in your purse when you are out someplace.

  In any case, I needed to change it, and in a car it isn’t suitable to do it, so we walked down to the BP gas station. I walked, that is, because E-L didn’t have any stability and was so disorderly
. She went up and flung herself over hoods on cars and I had a proper job keeping track of her.

  And the cars were waiting in a row. There were several cars that had stopped at the same time, because we had suddenly become so dreadfully popular with the boys, and two guys in a Ford Cortina looked meek and mild, I was about to say, but I mean proper, and I pushed E-L into their car and hopped in myself after her. I thought it was a relief to get in somewhere where it wouldn’t be the same misery as last time with the police. But one of them had a bottle, and he sat there drinking out of it and wasn’t at all like I had thought from the beginning. I didn’t like him at all. No, yuck, how I disliked him! I thought he was repulsive in some way and I didn’t understand how the other guy could be a friend of his, because he wasn’t the same type at all. But that’s often the case, that one boy is handsome and nice and the other one is ugly and dumb. On top of that, this guy was drunk. It was very much for that reason I thought he was so disgusting.

  E-L took the bottle from him and provided for herself, but I didn’t want any. She drank straight from the bottle, because she isn’t that fastidious, but I don’t do that since I have some style. I don’t drink from the bottle, because that’s what my papa does. (He plucks the bottle out of a boot and drinks, or out of the clothes pin bag, if he has hidden it there. Sometimes mamma and I find out where his bottles are and take them away.) But at least we got away from the street and got a lift home.

  We got booze from two guys in an Opel Olympia that we rode with for a while. As soon as I felt drunk I wanted to get out into town again. Kicki had to drag me around, as usual. She thought we should go with some other guys, but I didn’t want to come along with anybody until Uffe, Göran’s buddy, came by in an Amazon. When he rolled the window down and I saw that it was him, I was happy.

  “It’s Uffe!” I shouted. “Hi, Uffe!”

  “What sorrows are you now trying to drown?” he said and smiled.

  Then he talked with Kicki.

  “Go with me for a while so that she can sober up. She can’t walk around like this.”