Britt-Marie Was Here (5 page)

Somebody, who seems to be in her forties, helps her up, assisted by a girl in her early teens who has turned up at their side. Somebody has one of the worst hairstyles Britt-Marie has ever laid eyes on, as if she’s combed her hair with a terrified animal. The girl’s hair is more respectable, but her jeans are torn to shreds across her thighs. Probably modern.

Somebody sniggers, without a care in the world.

“Bloody brats, you know. Bloody soccer. But don’t get angry, they weren’t aiming at you!”

Britt-Marie touches the bump on her forehead.

“Is my face dirty?” she asks, simultaneously reproachful and anxious.

Somebody shakes her head and rolls back towards her pizza.

Britt-Marie’s gaze falls self-consciously on two men with beards and caps, sitting at a table in a corner, with cups of coffee and morning newspapers. It seems abominable to her, lying there passed out in front of people who are trying to have their coffee. Yet neither of the men even glances at her.

“You only passed out a little,” says Somebody breezily, while shoveling the pizza into her mouth.

Britt-Marie gets out a small mirror from her handbag and starts rubbing her forehead. She found it very vexatious passing out, but nowhere near as vexatious as the thought of having passed out with a dirty face.

“How do you know if they were aiming at me?” she asks, with just a touch of criticism.

“They hit you!” laughs Somebody, throwing out her arms. “If they aim, they don’t hit. These kids bloody terrible at soccer, huh?”

“Ha,” says Britt-Marie.

“We’re actually not that bad. . . .” mutters the teenage girl standing next to them, looking offended.

Britt-Marie notices that she’s holding the soccer ball in her hands. The way you hold a ball when that’s what you have to do to stop yourself from repeatedly kicking it.

Somebody gestures encouragingly at the girl.

“My name’s Vega. I work here!” the girl says.

“Shouldn’t you be at school?” asks Britt-Marie, without taking her eyes off the soccer ball.

“Shouldn’t you be at work?” answers Vega, holding the ball as you do when you’re holding on to someone you love.

Britt-Marie grips her handbag more firmly.

“Let me tell you something, I was on my way to work when I was hit on the head. I’m the caretaker of the recreation center, I’ll have you know. This is my first day.”

Vega’s mouth opens in surprise. As if this, in some way, changes everything. But she remains silent.

“Caretaker?” asks Somebody. “Why didn’t you say so, lady! I’ve got one of them, what’s-it-called? Registered letters! With the key!”

“I’ve been informed I’m to pick up the keys at the post office.”

“Are here! They closed down the post office, you see!” shouts Somebody, rolling round behind the counter, still with the bottle of vodka in her hand.

There’s a short silence. There’s a tinkle from the door and a pair of dirty boots cross the unmopped floor. Somebody yells out:

“All right, Karl! I have packaging for you, wait!”

Britt-Marie turns around and is almost knocked to the ground by someone crashing into her shoulder. She looks up and sees a thick beard just below an unreasonably dirty cap, the whole appendage looking back at her.

There’s a growl from somewhere between the beard and the cap: “Look where you’re going.”

Britt-Marie, who wasn’t even moving, is deeply puzzled. Then she grips her handbag even more firmly and says:

“Ha.”

“
You
walked into
her
!” Vega hisses behind her.

Britt-Marie doesn’t like it at all. She gets confused when anyone defends her—it doesn’t happen very often.

Somebody comes back with Karl’s packaging; Karl looks with irritation at Vega and hostility at Britt-Marie. Then he nods grumpily to the two men at the corner table. They nod back even more grumpily. The door tinkles merrily behind Karl as he lopes out.

Somebody pats Britt-Marie encouragingly on the shoulder.

“Never bloody mind about him. Karl has . . . like . . . what do you say? A lemon up his arse, you know what I mean? Pissed off at life and the universe and everything. People around here don’t like visitors from the city,” she says to Britt-Marie, and nods at the men by the table when she says “people.” They keep reading their newspapers and drinking their coffee as if neither of the women are there.

“How did he know I was from the city?”

Somebody rolls her eyes. “Come on! I’ll show you the recreation center, huh!” she shouts and rolls off towards the door.

Britt-Marie looks at a section that leads off the pizzeria, health care center, post office, or whatever it is. There are shelves of groceries in there. As if it were a mini market.

“Could I ask, is this a grocer’s?”

“They closed down the supermarket, you know, we do what we can!”

Britt-Marie remembers the dirty windows in the recreation center.

“Might one ask if you have Faxin available here?” she asks.

Britt-Marie has never used any other brand than Faxin. She saw an advertisement for it in her father’s morning newspaper when she was a child. A woman stood looking out of a clean window and underneath was written:
FAXIN LETS YOU SEE THE WORLD
. Britt-Marie loved that picture. As soon as she was old enough to have her own windows, she polished them with Faxin, continued doing so daily for the rest of her life, and never had any problems seeing the world.

It was just that the world did not see her.

“I know, you know, but there’s no Faxin now . . . you know?” says Somebody.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asks Britt-Marie, only a touch reproachfully.

“Faxin is not anymore in manufacturer’s . . . what’s-it-called? Product range! Not profitable, you know.”

Britt-Marie’s eyes open wide and she makes a little gasp.

“Is . . . but how . . . is that even legal?”

“Not profitable,” says Somebody with a shrug.

As if that’s an answer.

“Surely people can’t just behave like that?” Britt-Marie bursts out.

Somebody shrugs again. “Never mind though, eh? I have another
brand! You want Russian brand, good shit, over there—” she starts to say, and gestures at Vega to run over and get it.

“Absolutely not!” Britt-Marie interrupts, walking towards the door as she hisses: “I’ll use baking soda!”

Because you can’t change Britt-Marie’s way of seeing the world. Because once Britt-Marie has taken a position on the world there’s no changing her.

B
ritt-Marie stumbles on the threshold. As if it’s not just the people in Borg who are trying to push her away, but also the actual buildings. She stands on the wheelchair ramp leading up to the door of the pizzeria. Curls her toes, making her foot into a little fist in her shoe to dull the pain. A tractor goes past on the road in one direction, a truck in the other. And then the road lies desolate. Britt-Marie has never been in such a small community, only driven through places like this sitting next to Kent in the car. Kent was always very sneering about them.

Britt-Marie regains her composure and grips her handbag more firmly as she steps off the wheelchair ramp and crosses the large graveled parking area. She walks fast, as if she’s being chased by someone. Somebody rolls behind her. Vega takes the soccer ball and runs towards a group of other children, who are all wearing jeans that are torn across their thighs. After a couple of steps, Vega stops, peers at Britt-Marie and mumbles:

“Sorry the ball hit your head. We weren’t aiming at you.”

Then she says quite curtly to Somebody:

“But we could have hit it if we’d been aiming!”

She turns around and shoots the ball past the boys into a wooden fence between the recreation center and the pizzeria. One of the
boys is at the receiving end, and he fires it into the fence again. Only then does Britt-Marie realize where the thumping sounds in Borg come from. One of the boys takes aim at the fence but instead manages to shoot the ball right back to Britt-Marie, which, if you consider the angle, is quite an impressive feat as far as underachievements go.

The ball rolls back slowly to Britt-Marie. The children seem to be waiting for her to kick it back. Britt-Marie moves out of the way as if the ball was trying to spit at her. The ball rolls past. Vega comes running.

“Why didn’t you kick it?” she asks, perplexed.

“Why on earth would I want to kick it?”

They glare at each other, filled with mutual conviction that the opposing party is utterly deranged. Vega kicks the ball back to the boys and runs off. Britt-Marie brushes some dust from her skirt. Somebody takes a gulp of vodka.

“Bloody brats, you know. Crap at soccer. They couldn’t hit the water from, you know? A boat! But they don’t have nowhere to play, right? Bloody crap. The council closed down the soccer pitch. Sold the land and now they’re building flats there. Then the financial crisis and all that shit and now: no flats like they said, and no soccer pitch either.”

“Kent says the financial crisis is over,” Britt-Marie informs her amicably.

Somebody snorts.

“Maybe that Kent bloke has, what’s-it-called? His head up his arse, huh?”

Britt-Marie doesn’t know if she’s more offended because she doesn’t know what this means, or because she has an idea of what it means.

“Kent probably knows more about this than you do. He’s an
entrepreneur, you have to understand. Incredibly successful. Does business with Germany,” she says, putting Somebody to rights.

Somebody looks unimpressed. Points at the children with her vodka bottle and says:

“They closed down the soccer team when they closed down the pitch. Good players moved to crap team in town.”

She nods down the road towards what Britt-Marie has to assume is “town,” then back at the children.

“Town. Twelve miles that way, huh? These are, you know, the kids left behind. Like your what’s-it-called? Faxin! Discontinued product line. You have to be profitable. So this Kent, huh, he may have his arse full of head, huh? Maybe financial crisis cleared out of the city, you know, but it likes Borg. It’s living here now, the bastard!”

Britt-Marie notes the clear distinction between how she speaks of the “town” twelve miles away and the city Britt-Marie comes from. There are two different levels of contempt. Somebody takes such a big hit on her bottle that her eyes tear up as she goes on:

“In Borg, everyone drove trucks, you know. There was, what’s-it-called, a trucking company here! Then you know, the bastard financial crisis. More people in Borg now than trucks, and more trucks than jobs.”

Britt-Marie keeps a firm grasp on her handbag and feels a need, for reasons that are not entirely transparent, to defend herself.

“There are rats here,” she informs Somebody, not at all unpleasantly.

“Rats have to live somewhere, don’t they?”

“Rats are filthy. They live in their own dirt.”

Somebody digs in her ear. Looks at her finger with interest. Drinks some more vodka. Britt-Marie nods and adds in a tone that, in every possible way, is extremely helpful:

“If you got involved in keeping things a bit cleaner here in Borg, then maybe you wouldn’t have so much of a financial crisis.”

Somebody doesn’t give the impression that she’s been listening very carefully.

“It’s one of those, what’s-it-called? Myths? Dirty rats. It’s a myth, huh. They’re, what’s-it-called? Clean! Wash themselves like cats, you know, with tongue. Mice are crappy, crap everywhere, but rats have toilets. Always crap in same place, huh.” She points at Britt-Marie’s car with her bottle.

“You should move the car. They’ll shoot the soccer ball at it, huh.”

Britt-Marie shakes her head patiently.

“It certainly cannot be moved, it exploded as I was parking it.”

Somebody laughs. She pushes her wheelchair around the car, and looks at the soccer ball–shaped dent in the passenger door.

“Ah. Flying stone.” She chuckles.

“What’s that?” asks Britt-Marie, reluctantly following behind and glaring at the soccer ball–shaped dent.

“Flying stone. When the car workshop call insurance company, huh. Then the workshop say, ‘flying stone,’ ” chuckles Somebody.

Britt-Marie fumbles after her list in her handbag.

“Ha. Might I ask where I’ll find the nearest mechanic?”

“Here,” says Somebody.

Britt-Marie peers skeptically—at Somebody, obviously, not at the wheelchair. Britt-Marie is not one of those types who judges people.

“You repair cars, do you?”

Somebody shrugs.

“They shut down the car workshop, huh. We do what we can. But never bloody mind that now! I show you the recreation center, yeah?”

She holds up the envelope with the keys. Britt-Marie takes it,
looks at Somebody’s bottle of vodka, and keeps a firm grip on her handbag.

Then she shakes her head.

“That’s perfectly all right, thank you. I don’t want to create any bother.”

“No bother for me,” says Somebody and nonchalantly rolls her wheelchair back and forth.

Britt-Marie smiles superbly.

“I wasn’t alluding to your bother.”

Then she briskly turns around and marches off across the graveled courtyard, in case Somebody gets the idea of trying to follow her. She lifts out her bags and flowerboxes from the car and drags them over to the recreation center. Unlocks the door and steps inside, and locks it behind her. Not that she dislikes this Somebody person. Not at all.