‘I want you to take a pair of Dobber jeans and roll them up so the label doesn’t show. And then pick up some T-shirts and join the queue for the changing rooms. Can you manage that?’
‘What do I do when I get there?’
‘Just go in, close the door behind you and stay in there until I get there and go in the next cubicle. When I knock on the wall, you hand the jeans to me, I’ll give you a pair of reduced-price jeans which you then take out and put back on the pile. It’s foolproof – they can’t nab you for anything because you won’t have anything on you.’
‘What about you?’
‘Don’t worry about me. See you out by the bikes afterwards.’
I watched him slink off towards the jeans display. A shop assistant watched him with a beady eye.
They had the last of the summer clothes on a clearance table. I found a pair of cheap jeans and took them over to the area where the brand-name trousers were. Next I picked up a pair of medium-size Dobbers and a couple of sweatshirts that were hanging on an adjacent rack. Then I went over to the winter coats and pretended to look at the price tags. As far as I could tell, no one was watching us. Store detectives generally attempted to look like ordinary customers, maybe holding a pair of socks in their hand while they discreetly observed people. And they were always dressed in plain clothes. I knew all that even though I’d never been caught myself. I knew about that sort of stuff – who were the thieves and who were the cops out there.
Ten minutes later we were in the changing rooms, in adjacent cubicles. It smelled like the school changing room after PE class: a peculiar mix of sweat and deodorant. I tapped lightly on the divider wall. My brother obediently handed over his jeans and got a pair of cheap ones from the clearance table in return. I pulled on the Dobbers and then my own kecks from the discount store over them. I heard him open the door and knew that the shop assistants would be eyeing him suspiciously, even though he emerged with the same number of items he had gone in with, and that they would continue to observe him as he put them back in their places, the odd little guy with the taped-together glasses, and while that was happening I just had to open my door and walk out as if nothing had happened – they would barely even notice me...
A minute later I was back out on the street. My brother was waiting for me by the cycle racks, just as we had agreed.
‘Where’ve you got the jeans?’ he asked.
‘Under my other ones.’
He gave a whistle.
‘What a pro. So what do we do now?’
‘We carry on until we’re done.’
As we cycled off towards the Kronan shopping centre, I pondered my next move. Cheap or expensive stuff? There were pros and cons with each. Something like bottles of Date perfume, for example, I’d be able to sell with no effort at all. Almost all the girls at school used that. Most mornings in the common room you could hardly breathe for all the Date Anna or Date Natalie the girls had been spraying over themselves. They were in the department stores and were easy to nick. The problem was that they were cheap and wouldn’t bring in more than a tenner for a bottle, which meant that I’d really have to make an effort to accumulate a sizable amount.
Brand-name clothes were a completely different matter. The school snobs were mad for Pringle and Lacoste. They had them at Johansson Brothers, but the shop assistants there kept a close eye on everything that cost over a hundred kronor. Maybe, I thought, it might be worth the risk if my brother went in first and attracted their attention, asked some stupid question about autumn fashions or if he could please use the customer toilet. If I was lucky, nobody would notice me, I could hide behind an older customer, sneak over to the Lacoste sweaters in the corner and get hold of one before they could react.
Actually, I didn’t like nicking stuff. I only did it in emergencies. I could sort of see Dad in myself whenever I stole something, and I didn’t like the idea that we might be similar; that we might feel the same things or think the same way.
There were other ways of getting cash that I found preferable. Like returning empty bottles to collect the deposit, or hunting for certain types of magazines in skips. There was a junk shop down by the docks that paid a krona apiece for old copies of girlie mags or worse stuff. Skips are full of that kind of thing. If people only knew what their old men read when nobody’s looking. But if I spent a whole week going through all the skips in town looking for porn mags, I wouldn’t get seven hundred kronor. It was quicker with clothes and gadgets.
‘Where to now?’ my brother asked.
I had made my choice:
‘Kullens Shoes... ’
Kullens was located in Schubertvägen on the other side of the railway line. They had brand names: pricey trainers and women’s shoes, and a weak point in the building itself that could be exploited. I wondered which would be better: smart shoes or trainers? A pair of Stan Smiths would be easy to flog at school. The lads were mad for them, you could see loads in the schoolyard – ten, fifteen kids, all wearing identical white trainers. With smart shoes I was a bit less sure, especially about what was in fashion just then. The Dobber jeans might bring in fifty kronor, and a pair of shoes the same. The problem was that we didn’t have time to get hold of much more before the shops closed, and we were nowhere near seven hundred kronor. I needed to get hold of more expensive stuff. Unfortunately Gerard wasn’t particularly interested in fashion. It was hard to imagine him in a Lacoste shirt or a lambswool sweater from Lyle&Scott. He might be interested in gadgets, maybe a digital watch. But it was risky. If I got caught, life would be really terrible.
The customer rush at Kullens was over. I wandered among the shelves, trying to seem as if I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. I picked up a pair of trainers in passing, pretended to look at the price tag and put them back. Finally one of the shop assistants came up, a young girl with a gap between her front teeth.
‘Are you after something special?’
‘Some wellies, actually. Preferably with a lining.’
‘They’re further back. Check on the shelves behind the children’s shoes.’
I nodded in thanks.
‘Is there a customer toilet here, by the way?’
‘In the same direction, go out into the corridor by the emergency exit sign, that’s where they are. And if you need help with the boots, just shout.’
She went back towards the till. I checked out the ceiling: no mirrors as far as I could see. I waited until she had her back turned to me, took a pair of Stan Smiths from the rack and headed off towards the toilet.
Right next to it was a staircase leading upstairs. I stuck a key in the notch in the toilet lock and turned it so it showed red. If she decided to come back here, it would look like I was inside having a pee...
The upper floor was nearly empty, except for a few mirrors fixed to the walls. There was a balcony door in one wall that led out onto a fire escape. I opened the door and placed the trainers on the landing. My brother was standing on the pavement opposite. I waved to him that the coast was clear.
Then I went back downstairs, unlocked the toilet and found the rack of wellies. I tried on a couple of pairs and placed them back on the rack.
‘Didn’t find anything?’ the assistant asked as I walked past the till.
‘No, not the right colour.’
‘We’ll get some new ones in at the end of the month. Red and light blue. You can come back then.’
My brother was waiting over by the railway bridge. He had the trainers strapped onto the parcel rack on the rear of his bike.
‘That was smart with the stairs,’ he said. ‘How did you know about them?’
‘I’d been and done a recce. In Case there was an emergency situation.’
‘These are really nice trainers.’
I nodded.
‘Try them on. They’re your size.’
He looked at me, taken aback, and then at the trainers.
‘Mum will know we nicked them.’
‘She won’t
notice a damn thing. She’s on her way into one of her phases again.’
‘But when she comes out of it?’
‘By then they’ll be so worn out, we can say we found them somewhere. Anyway, you can start off wearing them at school. And then change out of them before you go home. You can keep your old shoes in your locker, and change in the mornings and the afternoons. Nobody will notice anything.’
Robert blushed slightly.
‘They’re really nice,’ he said quietly. ‘Thanks.’
‘I didn’t pay anything for them.’
‘No. But you ought to sell them. Gerard is going to want his money.’
I reached out and stroked his head. His hair was starting to get long. I would have to give him a haircut again soon.
‘Listen, Robert, I’d get maybe fifty kronor for them, at most. That’s small fry. I’m just wasting my time with this.’
He looked both terrified and happy: terrified at the thought of what Gerard would do if he didn’t get his money, and happy about the trainers, a pair of regular trainers that were in style for once.
‘You look like one stylish dude,’ I said. ‘All you’re missing is a pair of cool kecks and you’ll be the king of Year Seven. And who cares if Mum finds out. What can she say?’
I watched as he put the trainers on. His hands were trembling, he was so excited. I took his old ones and put them on top of an electrical enclosure, a pair of brown canvas shoes from the discount store which he had outgrown several months ago.
‘So what are you going to do instead?’ he asked. ‘We need to get the money.’
‘We’ll head to the electronics shop. They’ve got something there I think Gerard’s interested in.’
A few weeks previously when I was in town, I had seen a personal cassette player in the display window of the electronics shop. Just as I had hoped, it was still there. It was the latest model from Sony, which was in a class of its own. No Panasonic or Philips or any of the other makes that were just trying to imitate a genuine Walkman. It was in an open box with the headphones plugged in. There was a price tag on the door of the cassette compartment: 1,199 kronor.
‘Is that the one you’re thinking of?’ Robert asked as we stood outside the shop.
‘Yeah.’
‘Over a grand. Can you get sent to prison for that? If you can, I don’t want you to do it.’
He looked properly scared.
‘Don’t worry. I’m not fifteen yet. That means they can’t do anything.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I just do. Come with me.’
In order to reach the cassette player, you had to bend over a metre-high screen without anyone noticing. There mustn’t be anyone walking past in the street and no one could notice anything inside the shop. The good thing was that the small display window was in a fairly remote part of the shop, behind some shelves of electrical goods that shielded the view from the till.
We cautiously walked past along the outside of the shop. It was half full inside. I was going to need Robert’s help to manage this, but I was no longer sure it was worth the risk. If I got caught, the police would get involved straight away. The thought of a foster home popped up in my mind again – the worst horror scenario: being split up from my brother.
We sat down on one of the park benches outside, and I explained the situation to him.
‘I think we should do it,’ he said. ‘Think about Gerard.’
I was doing just that: thinking about Gerard and his sick mind, where anything at all could happen in a fraction of a second. Gerard on one side of the balance, the cops on the other. I really had no choice.
‘Right, I’ll go in first,’ I said. ‘And then you go in a little later. But don’t wait too long, a minute maximum. And stay right by the door or by the tills. Check out the record players or something. Pretend you don’t know me. Don’t even look in my direction. And when it’s time, you ask the guy at the till if he can help you.’
‘With what?’
Anything. A record needle. The price of a tape deck.’
He nodded earnestly.
‘If they spot me, you run like hell. Don’t think about me, just get out of there, as fast as you can. Then I’ll see you at home.’
There was music playing over the loudspeakers as I stepped over the threshold. An assistant was bending over a cabinet, getting something out for a customer. Some kids were crowded round the ghetto blasters. There was an older man standing at the cash desk, talking on the phone. The manager, I thought. He looked like one anyway, dressed in a suit and tie, with a name badge on his chest.
Just behind him, in a glass display case, was where the portable cassette players were kept. The one in the window, I thought, was the only one in all of Falkenberg that it was possible to nick without having to break in.
I waited for him to hang up, and then I went up to the counter.
‘Have you got any ordinary extension leads? I’m supposed to buy one for my dad... ’
He nodded towards the smaller display window. Thick black strands of hair stuck out from his shirt cuffs: he was hairy all the way down to his fingers.
‘Three-way plugs and cables are on the bottom shelf.’
There was a ding from the door as I went over towards the corner. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my brother come into the shop.
I was over in the electrical department now, right by the display window. The guy behind the counter could still see me. But he only had to move a metre and the coast would be clear – if he turned his attention to Robert, or if some other customer waved him over. I picked up an extension lead, pretended to look at it doubtfully, as if I were hoping to discover some defect that might make them reduce the price. The hairy bloke cast a glance in my direction.
Then I heard my brother say something, and the manager left his station and went over to him. Nobody would see me now, as long as no customer suddenly turned up by the shelves to pick up a cable. I went up to the window. The pavement outside was deserted. I bent over the screen, stretched my arm out as far as I could, got hold of the cassette player, straightened up and jammed it down inside my waistband.
It was over in a couple of moments. I stood completely still, like an animal that stops in its tracks to check for enemies, scents, spies. A single movement in the vicinity, a single hostile face and I would dash through the shop to the exit and vanish into the crowd. But nothing happened. I heard my brother ask something about the gadgets that were in the display case, and the manager hummed and hawed in reply. I took the extension lead and went over to the till. The fatty who rented out videos turned up and put it in a bag. I paid with money from my envelope: eight seventy-five.
The shops were about to shut. New rain clouds had scudded in from the coast, it was drizzling a bit, and if the temperature fell there would be fog. We cycled past the cinema and checked out the film posters. Flashdance would be coming in two weeks’ time – six months after its premiere in the rest of the country. There was a notice for something called the ‘Up With People Show’ on the door of the theatre. You could go along on a journey round the world and dance and sing in a youth performance, but the deadline for applications had expired a month ago. I didn’t have anything to compare it with, but everything felt a bit delayed in this town, as if time lagged a bit just on our latitude, an hour or so a day, so that we unavoidably got a little further behind every year. ‘A bright spark in Falkenberg.’ That was the new slogan the tourist information office had come up with for the coming tourist season. That was the very last thing I felt like: a bright spark.
But my brother seemed happy as he rode round on his bike in his new trainers. I got a huge lump in my throat just looking at him, as if a piece of apple had got stuck in there. I had to swallow several times to get rid of it.
We stopped at the chemist’s and bought some hand cream. Robert needs a special type that’s really expensive. A cheaper one would have made him scratch his hands until they bled. I rubbed some i
nto his hands on the pavement outside. The skin on the back of them was rough and covered in sores. His fingers were completely chapped, and a sort of white scaling had formed between them.
My envelope had been emptied of cash, slightly but cruelly. The hand cream cost thirty. Now I needed 738 kronor to make Gerard happy. I hadn’t a clue what the cassette player would fetch. The best thing would be if he accepted it instead of the money.
‘I’m not going to go back to school,’ said Robert. ‘Not as long as Peder and those guys are there.’
‘You mean until the end of spring term?’
‘Yeah. And I don’t care what they say.’
‘If we don’t go, we’ll just get them even more het up. And anyway, I’m going to get the money together. I promise.’
My brother looked at his hands as if they were some kind of strange creatures that had attached themselves onto the ends of his arms and refused to let go.
‘Do you think my eczema will ever go away?’
‘One morning you’ll wake up and it’ll be gone. You’ve got really nice hands... ’
‘They’re disgusting. Ola and Peder are right: I look like a leper.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘You’re only saying that because you’re my sister.’
‘Well, maybe... ’
‘But I’m happy you are. Otherwise everything would feel even more worthless. Like it’s not worth the effort. School. Mum and Dad. All that crap.’
My brother gave a guilty smile. A black Peugeot with ‘Stop Union Bullying Tactics’ stickers in the rear window was parked right in front of us. There was a handbag on the passenger seat. The door was not locked; someone had dashed into the chemist’s a minute before closing time and left their handbag there. A woman stood at the till and was about to pay. Soon, at any moment, she would realise she had forgotten her money.
The Merman Page 6
