“What the hell do you mean? Are you referring to anyone in particular, or what?”
He didn’t ask if I wanted to come along, because he probably wanted a girl that he could lay. The first time I met him, when Kicki and I were with him and his buddy in an apartment in Salabackar, I said no when he tried.
“But I can be off, and then you can go out and get yourself another girl,” I said.
“Go just because you are a decent gal? No, that’s wrong, I think.”
But he never picked me up again.
After geography class Holmberg wanted to talk with me. I knew it was about the mathematics examination, but I still got uptight when he told me to remain after the end of the lesson. I waited in my desk until the others had gone out, and when he and I were the only ones left in the room he asked me to step forward to the teacher’s desk. I felt totally shaky, but fortunately he was skimming through some papers as I was on my way up. Then I stood there beside him and felt stupid while he checked my writing results.
“This doesn’t look very good, Eva-Lena,” he said.
“No, I know.”
“What’s the reason for it?”
“I don’t know.”
When he asked he raised his eyes, but I didn’t dare to look back. I looked at his hands that were holding the papers.
“Is there any particular reason, or do you think it’s difficult in general?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it because you have problems at home that things haven’t gone well?”
“No.”
I felt totally empty within me and almost couldn’t answer.
“Because in the present situation, I’m afraid that I won’t be able to pass you in the spring,” he said.
Then there was nothing more, and I was allowed to go. At first I felt relieved and then I felt disappointed. He just did his job. It’s part of his job to talk in private with pupils who are doing poorly and try to find out the reasons. He didn’t do it because he was interested. He asked only out of duty. If I had told him that I have problems I would have forced him to do something against his will, and that would have felt disgusting. If I had been Agneta, or one of the others he likes, there would have been a difference, but I’m only me, and he isn’t interested in me. I know that, and therefore there is no reason to try. Still I can’t stop thinking about what he would say or do if he knew that I am a raggarbrud.
On Wednesday the Streaplers were at Liljekonvaljeholmen. Barbro was there and watched them, she said today.
I’ve bought a marine blue nylon coat for 29.90, so now I have almost no money left. And tonight Kicki and I are going to the movies to see “David and Lisa”, and then 3.75 more will go. Then we hope to meet some nice guys to be together with for a while.
It says in my horoscope that a certain tension fills the air and that I should not make any important decisions until I feel everything is under control. It’s easy for me to make new contacts and I’m not a person who resists taking the initiative, it says. A romance can begin when I meet a person of the opposite sex who makes me feel uncertain because of his sophisticated manner.
We went with two guys in a white VW Beetle. They were called Kenneth and Affe. Kenneth had light hair and blue eyes and was very handsome. But Kicki was the one who got him. Before I knew it, I was sitting right behind him and gazed at his neck and profile. He had a checked shirt with a button-down collar and a dark blue blazer. I knew that Kicki preferred him, because the other guy wasn’t much to look at, but I hoped he would choose me.
He was studying to become a civil engineer he said when Kicki asked him. Then I came to think of Göran, because he is also going to become an engineer.
“What are you doing then?” Affe asked.
“Going to school,” I said.
“Where?”
“At the community girls’ school.”
“Oh, I see, the hen house!”
“The hen house?” Kenneth said, as if he had never heard of it before.
“Yes, girls only,” Affe said.
“What program are you studying?” Kenneth asked.
“Humanities.”
“The six-year program?”
“No, we go for five years.”
“And then you graduate in...?”
“Normalskolekompetens.”
I sat and looked at his hands while he was driving. He had a signet ring with a black stone on his left ring finger, and the cuffs of his shirt were seen just enough below his blazer sleeves. He looked almost perfect.
They asked us what we had done, and when we told them that we had been at the movies, Affe said:
“Haven’t you been to Klockbacken and gotten stockings then?”
“What do you mean?” I said, because I didn’t understand what he meant.
“Yes, all of the girls who go there this evening will get a pair of nylon stockings for free.”
I didn’t know what to believe, but I saw in the newspaper today that it was true.
We rode out to a newly constructed house that Affe had keys to and went into one of the apartments. The house was not finished, and there was no electricity, but a little light came in from outside. Kenneth and Kicki sat in a corner on her coat, and Affe and I went to another room. When he realized that I wasn’t going to let him lay me, he took his thing out of his pants and pulled my hand to it and wanted me to hold it. It was the first time I went along with that, and didn’t know what I should do. I just sat there and held it, until he put his hand over mine and began to pull up and down. After a while he let go of my hand and leaned backwards, and I kept on pulling at the same rate until he told me to go faster. Then he groaned and let it come out in a handkerchief that he drew out. I had my green skirt with a twist fold on, and when I came home I saw that a little smear from him was on it.
Sunday, 24 May 1964
I’ve been babysitting for my sister. On the bus home, there was a guy who sat and blurted out four-letter words, which I find it so hard to say. I don’t care what others do (though I don’t like it), but I cannot bring myself to utter those words. I don’t say fuck and horny and I don’t say cock. (It’s almost as hard for me to write them.) Instead of fuck I say sleep with or make love (if it’s appropriate), instead of horny I say turned on, and instead of cock I say thing or below the waist. Because these other words stand for the kind of sex I don’t want to have, and therefore I don’t want to use them.
I met Kenneth again and rode with him.
“Are you alone this evening?” he said when I sat down in the car.
If he had said that to Kicki she would have begun to sing “Are You Lonesome Tonight”.
“You had a peculiar friend,” he said.
“They say we are very much alike.”
“Yes, possibly in the way you look, but not in the way you act. What a catch I have made! I thought last night.”
It felt as if I wanted to come to Kicki’s defense, but I didn’t know what to say. And if he didn’t like her, he didn’t. But she liked him.
“Where do you go if you want to practice some petting?” he said as we were on our way upwards the Carolina Hill.
“I don’t know. Up to the castle, maybe.”
“To the left here, you mean?”
“Yes.”
But he didn’t turn, and we passed the Carolina Library and the Botanical Gardens.
“What did you think of Affe then?” he asked.
“Nothing special.”
“You let him go rather far, didn’t you?”
“No, on the contrary.”
I noticed that he didn’t know what to believe, but I didn’t explain anything.
The whole way between S1, the Signal Regiment, and out past Ultuna, the University of Agricultural Sciences, we sat in silence. Then he said:
“It’s so difficult to know what to say to you.”
“I think it’s difficult to talk with you too,” I said.
I glanced sideways at him, and he look
ed as perfect as he did the previous evening and felt equally unreachable, though it was me and not Kicki he was with now.
At the gas station, just before Flottsundsbron he turned right onto a side road and stopped. I had buttoned up my coat and when he turned towards me he saw my silver cross that I had on a chain around my neck.
“Is it from your confirmation?” he asked as he lifted it up.
“Yes, it is hand wrought.”
Then it was quiet again. He dropped the cross and pulled back my hair and stroked my cheek.
“You have pretty eyes,” he said.
“That’s what you said to Kicki as well,” I said, because she had told me that.
“Ah, that’s how girls talk to each other!”
He didn’t hold me and he didn’t try to kiss me.
“Do you have perfume on?” he said.
“Yes, why do you ask?”
“No, I just wondered… But it’s best in appropriate amounts.”
I leaned my head against the window and closed my eyes so that he wouldn’t notice that I was hurt. Then he started singing.
“Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you, tomorrow I’ll miss you, I send all my loving to you,” he sang.
When I opened my eyes again, I saw that he was watching me.
“You are so secretive that I don’t know what to do with you,” he said.
He didn’t say anything about wanting to see me again. When I asked how often he was in town, he said it depended on how much he needed to study and how much he felt like going out. I think he understood that I wanted to see him again and that he felt superior to me because of that. Anyway, I can’t stop hoping that he will be out on Saturday night and pick me up. I have told Kicki that we decided to see each other again on Saturday, so that she won’t come out, because if I am with her and he drives by himself, he probably won’t stop. I don’t like lying to her, but I need to know if he wants to see me again and why it was so difficult to talk with him.
Monday, 25 May 1964
Yesterday, when E-L went to town she met Kenneth and rode with him. I was a bit disappointed when she told me, because I actually thought he preferred me since he chose me on Saturday. But it evidently didn’t make any difference to him who he was with. Or he preferred E-L, because he wanted to see her again next Saturday. And when they sat in the car he said to her: “You had a peculiar friend!” Though he could have said this to come closer to her. He possibly believed that he could butter himself up with her by putting me down. But he put himself in a worse light with her by saying it like that. He evidently didn’t get that, though he was supposed to be so smart. He hadn’t needed to mention me at all, unless he had some ulterior motive. I’m a bit disappointed in E-L also, because she is going to see him again. But I would most likely have done the same thing myself, because it’s always the boys who come first.
I have bought a nylon coat for 39.90 kronor. I was with mamma when I bought it, and she was the one who influenced me to choose one with a leopard pattern, even though everyone else has a blue or a brown one. I possibly liked it at first, but now I don’t think it’s nice. Though now I’m forced to have it in any case.
I think it’s difficult with clothes. I think I never manage to find something pretty. Partly because I don’t really know what I want, partly because I don’t have much money to spend. In any case, I have bought a pair of shoes. They are the same kind that E-L has, with narrow toes and high, sharp heels that you almost can’t walk in. They are beige with a tendency to be lion yellow, and they have a leather bow in the front. I needed new shoes, because my black high heels that I use in the fall and spring, are broken since I got one of the heels stuck in the foot scraper outside of Tempo. You can get caught and fall and break your neck in that scraper, if you aren’t careful. You need to go on your toes over it, if you aren’t to get caught in one of the gaps.
In any case, my shoes match my new, charming coat, because it has a little beige in its pattern. But I wonder if I will wear it very often when I go out. And in school I never use high heeled shoes.
Sunday, 31 May 1964
Yesterday evening, I stayed at home, because I didn’t feel like going out by myself. I took the opportunity to play records, since mamma and papa were in the country.
We have a big radio gramophone with the radio in the front on top, and if you open a hatch in the middle, there is a turntable inside. You can put on up to ten singles or EP records at a time, and then the records drop down one by one from a suction cup. It becomes a little wobbly towards the end, so it isn’t so good to put ten records on, but it works.
I have records with Cliff Richard, The Beatles, Jim Reeves and Chuck Berry. Yes, and with Elvis, of course! My favorite singles with Elvis are: “Any Way You Want Me”/ “Love Me Tender”, “I Want You, I Need You, I Love You”/ “My Baby Left Me”, “Rock a Hula Baby”/“Can’t Help Falling in Love”.
Mamma and papa have some traditional jazz and some records by Martin Ljung and Hasse Alfredsson, for example “Rock-Fnykis” and “Ester” and “Guben i låddan”.
E-L, for her part, met Kenneth, I suppose. I guess I’ll get to know how it turned out when she calls.
First I saw Kenneth’s car on St Persgatan and later a several times when he drove on Svartbäcksgatan, and he must have seen me, but he neither greeted me nor stopped. There were loads of other guys who asked if I would like to go with them, but I couldn’t stop hoping for Kenneth and said no to all of them. Then I saw that he had stopped in the corner by the police station, and I went ahead and tapped on his side window and asked if I could go with him.
“Certainly,” he said.
I heard that he said it only to be polite, but I climbed in anyway.
“Where do you want to go then?” he asked and started the engine.
“Any place.”
When he had driven from the square and had to stop at a red light on Kungsgatan he said:
“What have you been up to this evening?”
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
“For me?”
“Yes, I saw you earlier and then I didn’t want to go with anyone else.”
“So you turned them down?”
“Yes, I said no to seven guys, I think.”
Then he gave me a surprised look.
“So you are that popular!”
After Kungsgatan he continued on the E4 towards Stockholm. I hoped that we would go far, but in the woods on the other side of the plain, he slowed down and stopped on the roadside. We got out there and laid down on the plaid car blanket in a glade between the pine trees. It was windless, and the sky was very clear.
“Look at how many stars there are,” I said.
“Yes, they are shining for you.”
“And for you.”
“Yes, for you and me.”
He started to undress me, and when I only had my panties and bra left he looked at me from top to bottom and said:
“You have a nice body.”
Then he tried to pull my panties off.
“Do you think you are going to get to lay me?” I said.
“I don’t know...”
“Anyway, you won’t.”
Then he laid down on the blanket and put his right arm over his forehead and sighed.
“Are you angry?” I said.
“No.”
“What is it then?”
“I’m possibly a little confused...”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t figure you out.”
While I was putting my clothes back on he was watching me without saying anything. Then he got up and shook off the blanket. It was full of needles on the underside which didn’t loosen.
“Why did you come to my car this evening?” he asked when we sat in the front seat again.
“Because I wanted to see you.”
Why else would I have done it, did he think? Because I think it’s so frigging wonderful to ride in a Volkswagen?
“But you did
n’t want to see me, did you?” I said.
“No, I prefer to decide myself if, and when, I will meet a girl.”
“Why didn’t you say no when I asked you then?”
Then he was quiet for a while, as if he were thinking about it, and then he said: “If a girl seems interested and willing, you certainly give it a try.”
So just because I came up to his car, he thought that I meant that I wanted to lay him.
“I came up to you because I’m in love with you,” I said.
But he wasn’t in love with me.
“We aren’t going to see each other again, are we?” I said.
“No, I don't think so...”
What a catch you have made! I thought.
“Would you have wanted to see me again if I had not come up to you as I did this evening?”
“I don’t know...”
“I knew I did wrong, but I couldn’t resist.”
Then I didn’t know what else to say and lit a cigarette and began smoking. I felt that he was watching me from the side.
“They really dig you, don’t they?” he said.
“Who?”
“The guys.”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, I think they do.”
He gave me a lift straight home. When we got there and he had stopped the car I couldn’t go, though I knew that’s what he wanted me to do.
“If you don’t throw me out you will never get rid of me,” I said.
“I won’t throw you out,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t think it’s necessary.”
I didn’t know how to be off.
“Start pawing me so I get angry!” I said.
But he just sat there and looked superior.
“You are rather experienced, aren’t you?” he said.
And when I told him that I would never be able to forget him, he said:
“You sure will. You’ll soon meet some other guy. Someone who is just as much in love with you as you are with him.”
“Nobody like you.”
“No, but someone who is even better, possibly.”
I don’t remember all we said. In the end he began to read a poem about love, as to show that he knew how I was feeling.
Hop in Then! Page 8