The Fredrik Backman Collection_A Man Called Ove, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry, and Britt-Marie Was Here

by Fredrik Backman

  Somebody mutters and tries to close the door. But, as we already said, Britt-Marie is enthusiastic and will not be deterred. For Britt-Marie now has somewhere to put her balcony boxes.

  Everything changes when you have somewhere to put your balcony boxes. Britt-Marie feels ready to take on the world. Or, at least, Borg.

  Somebody doesn’t seem to respond so very well to enthusiasm at six in the morning, so Britt-Marie asks if Somebody happens to own an electric drill. And in fact Somebody does own one. She fetches it. Britt-Marie takes it with both hands and accidentally turns it on and, as a result of this, happens to drill Somebody’s hand just a little. Somebody then takes back the drill and demands to know what Britt-Marie was intending to do with the drill. Britt-Marie announces that she plans to put up a picture.

  So now Somebody is in the recreation center, hungover and a little irascible, with a drill in her hand. Britt-Marie stands in the middle of the room, looking enthusiastically at the picture. She found it in the recreation center storage room early this morning, because Bank, as we know, had ordered her to make herself scarce in the house in the daytime, and in any case Britt-Marie was having trouble sleeping, what with all the emotions surfacing after the discovery of the balcony. The picture had been leaning up against the wall behind an unmentionable pile of rubbish, covered in a layer of dust so thick that it looked like volcanic ash. Britt-Marie took it inside the recreation center and cleaned it with a damp rag and baking soda. It looks very stylish now.

  “I’ve never put up a picture before, you have to understand,” explains Britt-Marie, very considerately, when she notices that Somebody is looking exhausted.

  Somebody finishes her drilling and then hangs up the picture. It’s not actually a painting, just a very, very old information chart with a black-and-white map of Borg. “Welcome to Borg” it says at the top. For someone who loathes traveling, Britt-Marie has always had a great love of maps. There’s something reassuring about them, she’s always found, ever since Ingrid used to speak to her at night about Paris when they were children. You can look at a map and point at Paris. Things are understandable when you can point at them. She nods soberly at Somebody.

  “We don’t have any pictures at home, me and Kent, you have to understand. Kent doesn’t like art.”

  Somebody raises her eyebrows at the information chart when Britt-Marie mentions “art.”

  “Could we possibly hang it a little higher?”

  “Higher?”

  “It’s very low,” Britt-Marie observes, obviously not in a critical way.

  Somebody looks at Britt-Marie. Looks at her wheelchair. Britt-Marie looks at the wheelchair too. “But obviously it’s fine where it is, also. Obviously.”

  Somebody mutters something best not heard by anyone and rolls off towards the door, back to the pizzeria across the parking area. Britt-Marie follows her because she needs Snickers and baking soda.

  Inside there’s an overwhelming smell of cigarette smoke and beer. The tables are covered in dirty glasses and crockery. Somebody roots around behind the counter, grunting something to the effect of, “Headache tablets . . . where does Vega keep that shit?” She disappears into the kitchen.

  Britt-Marie is tentatively reaching for two dirty plates when Somebody, as if she can sense what she is up to, yells:

  “Don’t touch washing-up!”

  Britt-Marie opens the cutlery drawer and starts arranging the cutlery in the right order. Somebody rolls forward and closes the cutlery drawer. Britt-Marie inhales patiently.

  “I’m just trying to make things look nice around here.”

  “Stop changing! I won’t find a crap!” Somebody exclaims when Britt-Marie turns her attention to the cupboard where drinking glasses are kept, not as if she’s choosing to do it but rather as if she has no choice.

  “It’s quite extraordinary how you manage to find anything here at all,” Britt-Marie informs her.

  “You’re putting in wrong place!” Somebody objects.

  “Ha, ha, whatever I do is wrong, of course, isn’t that always the case?”

  Somebody mumbles something incoherent, throws her arms up at the ceiling as if it’s the fault of the ceiling, and rolls out of the kitchen. Britt-Marie stays where she is and tries to stop herself from opening the cutlery drawer again. It works fairly well for about fifteen seconds. When she goes out of the kitchen, she finds Somebody sitting in the shop eating fist-sized piles of cornflakes straight from the pack.

  “You could at least use a plate,” says Britt-Marie and fetches a plate.

  Somebody, extremely displeased, eats fist-sized piles of cornflakes straight from the plate.

  “I don’t suppose you’re having any natural yogurt with that, are you?”

  “I am, what’s-it-called? Lactose intolerant.”

  “Ha,” says Britt-Marie tolerantly, and rearranges a few cans on a shelf.

  “Please Britt-Marie, don’t move shit,” whispers Somebody, like you do when you have a severe headache.

  “You mean my cleaning is wrong as well, is that what you mean?” asks Britt-Marie and goes over to the cash register, where she starts sorting cartons of cigarettes into color-coded piles.

  “Stop!” Somebody yells and tries to snatch them out of Britt-Marie’s hands.

  “I’m only trying to make it a bit nice in here!”

  “Not together!” whines Somebody and points at one brand of cigarettes with foreign letters on the cartons, and another that doesn’t have foreign letters. “Because of tax authority!” says Somebody, looking very serious as she points at the cartons with the foreign letters: “Flying stones!”

  Britt-Marie looks like she needs something to grab hold of so she doesn’t lose her balance.

  “You mean they’re contraband?”

  “Nah, you know, Britt-Marie. These, huh, they fall off a truck,” says Somebody apologetically.

  “That’s illegal!”

  Somebody rolls back into the kitchen. She opens the cutlery drawer and swears very loudly, then a long harangue follows in which Britt-Marie can only make out, “Comes here for to borrow drill and hang picture, I want to sleep but oh no, I’m criminal, Mary Poppins out there is starting recreation center and moving crap around.”

  Britt-Marie stays in the demarcation area between the groceries and the pizzeria, rearranging cans and cigarette cartons. In actual fact she only meant to buy some baking soda and Snickers and then leave, but as it doesn’t seem responsible to purchase baking soda from someone who is clearly drunk, she has decided to wait until Somebody sobers up.

  Somebody seems to have decamped to the kitchen, so in the meantime Britt-Marie does what she always does in these types of situations: she cleans. It looks quite decent when she’s finished, it really does. Unfortunately there are no flowers, but there is a vase on the counter next to the register with a white piece of tape stuck to it, where someone has written, “Tips.” It’s empty. Britt-Marie washes it out and puts it back next to the register. Then she gets all the coins out of her handbag and drops them in. She tries to make them look fluffy, as if they were potting soil. By the time she has finished, the vase looks a good deal more decorative.

  “Maybe you wouldn’t develop so many allergies if you kept things a little more hygienic in here,” she explains considerately to Somebody when Somebody comes out of the kitchen.

  Somebody massages her temples, spins the wheelchair around, and disappears back into the kitchen. Britt-Marie keeps working on the coins in the vase to make them look even more decorative.

  The front door tinkles and the two men with beards and caps step inside. They also look hungover.

  “I have to ask you to wipe your feet outside,” Britt-Marie informs them at once. “I’ve just mopped the floor, you see.” They look bemused, but comply.

  “Ha. How can we help you?” asks Britt-Marie when they come back in.

  “Coffee?” the men manage to say and look around as if they have stepped into a parallel dimension wher
e there’s a pizzeria just the same as the one where they usually drink their coffee, except this one is clean.

  Britt-Marie nods and goes into the kitchen. Somebody is sleeping with a can of beer in her hand and her head resting in the cutlery drawer. Britt-Marie cannot find any tea towels, so she takes two paper towel rolls, carefully lifts Somebody’s head, and pushes the paper towel rolls into the cutlery drawer as cushions, onto which she gently lowers Somebody’s head. She makes coffee in an entirely normal coffee percolator unaffected by flying stones, and serves this to the men with caps and beards. Stands there by their table for a while, in the vague hope that one of them might say that the coffee’s decent. Neither of them do.

  “Ha. Are you intending to solve the crossword?”

  The men stare at her as if she has just addressed them without using vowels, then go back to their newspapers. Britt-Marie nods helpfully.

  “If you don’t have the intention of solving it, may I?”

  The men look a little as if she has asked whether they’re planning on using their kidneys in the foreseeable future or if she can take them.

  “Who are you, anyway?” asks one of the men.

  “I’m Britt-Marie.”

  “Are you from the city?”

  “Yes.” She smiles.

  The men nod, as if this explains everything.

  “Buy your own bloody newspaper, then,” says one of them. The other grunts in agreement.

  “Ha,” says Britt-Marie and decides not to offer them a top-up.

  Somebody keeps sleeping in the kitchen; possibly it is Britt-Marie’s fault because she’s made her too comfortable, but nonetheless Britt-Marie feels obliged to take care of the customers until Vega comes in. Not that there’s a particularly large number of customers. Or any at all, you might say, if you were being pedantic about it. The only one who comes in is the ginger-haired boy whose name is Pirate, even though that’s not a name. He diffidently asks if Britt-Marie has time to do his hair. She informs him that she is terribly busy right now. He nods, excited, and waits in a corner.

  “If you’re just going to stand there you may as well help out,” says Britt-Marie eventually.

  He nods so eagerly it’s a wonder he doesn’t bite his tongue.

  Vega shows up. She stops in the doorway and looks as if she’s come to the wrong place.

  “What’s . . . happened here?” she pants, as if the pizzeria has been burgled in the night by a group of pedants who have cleaned it up as a way of making a political statement.

  “What are you trying to say?” says Britt-Marie, a bit offended.

  “It’s so . . . clean!” She heads for the kitchen, but Britt-Marie stops her.

  “She’s sleeping in there.”

  Vega shrugs.

  “She’s hungover. She always is when soccer’s been on.”

  Karl, who always seems to have some parcel to pick up, walks in.

  “Can we be of assistance?” asks Britt-Marie, in every way mindful of providing good service, without any hint of incrimination.

  “I’m picking up a parcel,” says Karl, not at all mindful of anyone’s good service.

  His sideburns reach all the way to his chin, Britt-Marie notes. They look like snowdrops—one of Britt-Marie’s favorite flowers—except in his case the snowdrops are upside down.

  “We haven’t had any parcels today,” says Vega.

  “I’ll wait, then,” says Karl, and goes over to the cap-wearing men.

  “And obviously you are not ordering yourself anything. You’re just going to sit here,” says Britt-Marie in a thoroughly, thoroughly friendly way.

  Karl stops. The men at the table look at him as if to clarify that, as far as they are concerned, he should not be negotiating with terrorists.

  “Coffee,” Karl rumbles at last.

  Pirate is already on his way with the jug.

  The next person who steps inside is Sven. A smile lights up his round little face when he catches sight of Britt-Marie.

  “Hello, Britt-Marie!”

  “Wipe your shoes.”

  He nods eagerly. Goes outside and then comes back inside again.

  “Nice to see you here,” he says.

  “Ha. Are you working today?” asks Britt-Marie.

  “Yes, yes, of course, of course.” He nods.

  “It’s not so easy knowing, you seem to keep your uniform on whether you’re working or not,” says Britt-Marie, not at all critically.

  Sven doesn’t entirely look as if he’s sure what she’s talking about. Instead, his gaze alights on what is clearly a foreign carton of cigarettes, left on the counter next to the register after Somebody and Britt-Marie’s argument about smuggling.

  “Interesting letters, those . . .” he says inquiringly.

  Britt-Marie and Vega’s eyes meet, and the girl’s sense of panic transmits back.

  “Those are mine!” Britt-Marie exclaims and snatches up the cigarettes.

  “Oh,” says Sven, surprised.

  “It’s certainly no crime to smoke!” says Britt-Marie, although she certainly thinks it ought to be.

  Then she makes herself exceedingly, exceedingly busy with rearranging a shelf in the grocery section.

  “Has everything worked out with the room at Bank’s?” asks Sven behind her, but to Britt-Marie’s relief he’s interrupted by Vega groaning:

  “Nooo, not him . . .”

  Britt-Marie looks out of the window. A BMW has stopped in the parking area. Britt-Marie knows that because Kent has a BMW. The door makes a tinkling sound and a man more or less the same age as Somebody and a boy more or less the same age as Vega come walking in.

  It is unclear which one of them Vega doesn’t want to see. The man is wearing a very expensive jacket. Britt-Marie knows this because Kent has one just the same. The boy is wearing a beaten-up tracksuit top, on which the name of the town twelve miles away is written followed by the word HOCKEY. He looks at Vega with interest and she looks at him with contempt. The man smiles jeeringly at the men in the corner, and they look back at him as if hoping that by doing so they’ll eventually set him on fire. He looks away and starts jeering at Vega instead.

  “Frantic business activity here, as usual?”

  “Why? Are you here to give someone the sack?” Vega answers acidly, then, pretending to have suddenly realized something, slaps her forehead dramatically: “Oh no! That’s right, you can’t because you don’t work here! And where you work there’s no one left to sack, because you already sacked them all!”

  The man’s eyes go black. The boy looks spectacularly uncomfortable.

  The man thumps two soft-drink cans on the counter.

  “Twenty-four kronor,” says Vega indifferently.

  “We’re having pizzas as well,” says the man, trying to regain the upper hand.

  “The pizzeria is closed,” says Vega.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The pizza baker is temporarily out of order.”

  The man snivels disdainfully and slaps a five-hundred krona note on the counter.

  “A pizzeria without pizzas, seems a pretty effective business venture you have here.”

  “A bit like a trucking company with one manager and no drivers,” Vega responds sarcastically.

  The man clenches his fist on the counter, but from the corner of his eye he sees Karl getting out of his chair, though the other two men are doing their best to make him sit back down.

  “I’m six kronor short here,” he says grimly at Vega, after examining the change she’s flung back.

  “We don’t have any coins left,” Vega says through her teeth.

  Sven is standing beside them now. He looks unsure of himself.

  “It might be best if you leave now, Fredrik,” he says.

  The man’s gaze moves from Vega to the policeman. It stops on the vase, where the tips are kept.

  “No problem,” he says, his face cracking open in a scornful smile as he stuffs his hand into the vase and fishes out si
x kronor.

  He grins at Sven, then at the boy with the ice hockey tracksuit top. The boy looks down at the floor and walks back to the door. Sven stays where he is, beaten. The man with the expensive jacket makes eye contact with Britt-Marie.

  “Who are you?” asks the man.

  “I work at the recreation center,” says Britt-Marie, glaring at the fingerprints on the newly polished vase for the tips.

  “I thought the council had closed it down? Bloody waste of taxpayers’ money if you ask me. Invest it in juvenile detention centers, that’s where the kids end up anyway!”

  Britt-Marie looks helpful.

  “My husband has a jacket like that,” she says.

  “Your husband has good taste,” says the man with a grin.

  “Except his is the right size,” says Britt-Marie. There’s a long, long silence. Then Vega first, and Sven after, burst into peals of laughter. Britt-Marie can’t think what they’re laughing about. The boy runs out, the man marches behind him and slams the door so hard that the fluorescent tube on the ceiling flickers. The BMW does a wheelspin as it leaves the parking area.

  Britt-Marie doesn’t know where to look. Sven and Vega are still laughing loudly, which makes her uncomfortable. She assumes it must be at her expense. So she also hurries towards the door.

  “I have time for your hair now,” she whispers to Pirate and then flees across the parking area.

  The door closes with a merry tinkling.

  14

  All marriages have their bad sides, because all people have weaknesses. If you live with another human being you learn to handle these weaknesses in a variety of ways. For instance, you might take the view that weaknesses are a bit like heavy pieces of furniture, and based on this you must learn to clean around them. To maintain the illusion.

  Of course the dust is building up unseen, but you learn to repress this for as long as it goes unnoticed by guests. And then one day someone moves a piece of furniture without your say-so, and everything comes into plain view. Dirt and scratch marks. Permanent damage to the parquet floor. By then it’s too late.