Ten Year Stretch

by Martin Edwards

  At Metro in the Ringen shopping centre, she was able to cash in the receipt from the can-recycling machine for eighteen kronor, and in the alcohol shop on Götgatan, two shiny ten-kronor and four one-kronor coins rattled down into the coin slot of the bottle bank.

  Blomman laid out the change on the counter and then gathered it up into a small package, stuffing it into the roomy pockets of her overcoat as she looked around the brightly lit shop.

  ‘It’s nice here,’ she thought, ‘especially with so many people, like now, in the Friday lunch rush, and with the shining rows of bottles and glass cabinets all along the wall.’

  She stood still for a long while, looking at the expensive fine wines and champagne bottles which passed solemnly by on the display cabinet’s rotating shelves.

  Together with the twelve kronor she already had in her pocket, she now had enough to buy a half-bottle of dessert wine and still have seven kronor left, but after six days sober, her need for alcohol had lessened rather than increased, though the latter would have been more natural. She thought age had something to do with it. Being drunk was more fun when you were young; now you almost got more of a kick from being sober. Often you’d drink just because the alcohol was there, or to keep yourself warm in the cold. Besides, there was plenty of time to change her mind before the shop closed.

  She adjusted the strap on her shoulder bag and went back out into the sleet. Her left sock was soaking wet and her toes were freezing. Blomman decided to do something about that and, since she was feeling exuberant, she was sure it was going to go well.

  With squelching but rapid steps, she crossed the street and went into Åhléns department store. The sock department was on the ground floor and she wandered around there for a while, until she was convinced that the shelves in front of her were unguarded, and quickly yanked down a pair of thick knee-high socks, putting them in her bag.

  It was dangerous to shoplift when you looked poor and unkempt. As soon as she went into a shop, the assistants stiffened and seemed to assume that she was in there to steal. She knew that from experience. So she rarely shoplifted, and only did it when she was absolutely certain that no one could see her.

  On the way out, she stopped here and there and pinched one or two more things as she tried to establish whether she was, after all, being watched. Then, calmly, she went out through the doors and continued across the street, without anyone stopping her.

  Her toes were almost numb with cold, but Blomman was in a good mood now she had figured out how to have warm, dry feet again soon.

  The crowd of people seemed to be all heading in the opposite direction as she trudged north along Götgatan. Youngsters kept pushing into her as they walked past and when one young man, who looked to be twice her height, shoved her so forcefully that she almost stumbled into the street, she yelled after him: ‘Am I invisible or something? Can’t you see me? Bloody oaf!’

  On Åsögatan it was quieter, and she only passed a few people on her way before she arrived.

  Blomman pushed open the door to the doctor’s surgery and went up the stairs. She had made use of the toilets here many times, but on one occasion she had been driven out before she could get to them, and was forced to squat in a nearby doorway.

  A small queue had formed at the reception and the woman in white behind the desk seemed to be fully occupied. At one end of the counter was a chair and two baskets; one for new shoe-covers and one for used ones. Blomman sat down and put the blue plastic covers over her shoes. Then she stuffed another pack into her bag, got up, and walked to the toilet with smacking footsteps. No one in the queue gave her so much as a glance, and the receptionist sat and leafed through her papers.

  Blomman sat on the toilet seat and took off her shoes and socks. She pulled a thick wad of paper towels out of the dispenser and wiped her foot until it was warm and dry. Then she put on the newly stolen socks, put a shoe-cover over each foot and laced her shoes. It felt great to have warm, dry feet, and the bright blue plastic edges which lay in baggy wrinkles around her ankles looked intriguing, she thought.

  When she went out into the street it had stopped snowing, and she stood, hesitating for a moment, before turning right onto Renstiernas Gata. Outside the pharmacy there was a bottle which had contained cherry wine, and she popped it into one of her plastic bags, which she stuffed in her bag. She continued down towards Nytorget where the A Team usually hung out. Not that she in her sober state had any real craving for their rather shameless and drunken company and anyway, they were unlikely to be there in this weather.

  Blomman suddenly felt idle and somewhat indecisive after the day’s successful tasks. Had it been a couple of weeks earlier, she would now have started looking for somewhere to spend the night, but she was borrowing the tugboat cabin on Söder Mälarstrand for a few more weeks, and it had been a very long time since she had had such a luxury.

  At the bottle bank on the corner of Skånegatan, she caught sight of Öland. He was standing on tiptoe on an upturned milk crate, his arm deep inside the plastic container as he tried to reach the top layer of bottles. When the discarded bottles began to fill up towards the top, sometimes you could get a whole load of recycled glass, but now it seemed that the bin was probably no more than half full. Öland almost looked as though he was about to disappear down among the bottles as he stood on tiptoe and puffed.

  ‘Hello there, Öland. How’s it going?’

  Öland extracted his arm from the bin and jumped down from the crate.

  ‘Nothing doing. They’re too far down. We’ll have to wait a few days. How are you yourself, my lily, my rose?’

  ‘I’m okay,’ said Blomman. ‘Great, actually.’

  It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him about the tugboat, but she stopped herself. Last winter Öland had found a way in to a property on Kocksgatan and had let Blomman share his bedroom in the house’s utility room for two whole months before they were discovered. If Öland learned of the cabin, he might insist that she let him stay there as a favour, and there was no question of that. When, for once, she had a home of her own—albeit short-term—she didn’t want to share it under any circumstances.

  ‘That’s good, baby,’ said Öland. ‘Fly the flags and sound the trumpets! Great stuff. Got anything to smoke?’

  ‘Nope. And nothing to drink and no dough. So you’ll get nothing, Örjan Lage Andersson . Have you ever been to Öland, by the way?’

  ‘Nah. I got the name in the army. There was a guy we called Gotland too. Though he was from there...What are those weird frills on your feet?’

  ‘Oh, my shoes were leaking so I fixed some insulation.’

  ‘Cool,’ said Öland, and looked down the park. ‘No pals out there today.’

  ‘Nope. They’ll all be sitting at home in their castles and drinking champagne.’

  Blomman also felt like a cigarette and they decided to go to the alcohol shop on Folkungagatan where, in the long queue which was there every Friday, there was always a chance of scrounging a cigarette. They succeeded almost immediately in cadging some fags from a group of construction workers standing outside the shop, waiting their turn.

  After that, Blomman and Öland strolled around Söder for the rest of the afternoon. Blomman gave Öland one of her plastic bags and they shared what they found in the bins and recycling containers between them.

  Blomman usually felt at home in Öland’s company, but when darkness fell after the brief twilight, she began trying to think of an excuse to part ways without needing to disclose that she had somewhere to go. She was hungry and wanted to go home and had no desire to traipse around with him all night.

  The problem was solved at Björns Trädgård. There, Öland met a few friends, equipped with drinks, and Blomman was able to go her own way without any explanation.

  It had grown colder and the sky was starry. The slush had frozen to ice and she walked carefully, taking sh
ort steps on her worn-out soles.

  Below Maria Trappgränd there was an abandoned supermarket trolley. That could come in handy, thought Blomman, so I have something to hold onto on the way home. She put her bag of bottles and glass in the trolley and began to push the rattling carriage in front of her.

  After a successful day she would soon be home.

  Netta was woken by an ache in her arm. She was in Olof’s bed and in his sleep he had rolled halfway over her so that his hard shoulder blade drilled down into her upper arm.

  ‘Ouch,’ said Netta, nudging him while trying to free her arm. ‘Move over, you lump.’

  ‘Whaddisit, whaddisit?’ said Olof, who turned over and went back to sleep.

  Netta looked at the clock. Nearly half past seven, so he wouldn’t get many more minutes’ sleep.

  Although it was Friday, which he usually took off, he had an important meeting at nine and, before they had gone to sleep at four, she had promised to make sure he got there in time.

  She sat for a moment on the edge of the bed, aware of the pounding in her head, before she got up, pulled on her dressing gown and went downstairs to the kitchen.

  It didn’t look too bad. The dinner dishes were stacked on top of the dishwasher and she had at least brought the cups, cognac glasses, and ashtrays from the living room and put them on the kitchen table, among the peanut bowls and glasses.

  She washed up one of the glasses and filled it with cold water and two aspirin tablets. As the water settled, she cleared the kitchen table, wiped it down, and started putting things in the dishwasher.

  When the tablets had fully dissolved, she drank the liquid in one go, filled it with water and aspirin again, and sat with her head in her hands, waiting for the throbbing headache to subside.

  It had started when the neighbours, Sivan and Klutte, had come over with a lot of curious bottles, offering them one of the drinks they had learned to mix in Jamaica. At first, it tasted really good, with rum and fruit juices and ice and berries and God-knows-what, but after the third glass it just felt gooey, and it was decided that Sivan and Klutte would stay for dinner. Then they drank beer and snaps with warm anchovy canapés while they waited for the lamb gratin to cook. And then they drank that new Médoc wine, which Olof had brought home a whole crate of; at least a bottle, she thought. And coffee and cognac, and after Sivan and Klutte had tottered home, Netta and Olof had carried on drinking the cognac and then they had started arguing about something, she couldn’t remember what, and then they had made up, but no sex—they hadn’t been up to it. No wonder she felt as she did.

  The headache began to subside a little and Netta turned on the coffeemaker, squeezed four oranges into two glasses, knocked back one of them and took the other with her, the glass of aspirin in the other hand, as she went upstairs to wake Olof.

  It wasn’t easy, but in the end he got up, downed both glasses, and went to the bathroom. Meanwhile, Netta sat at the dressing table and began to remove the remains of yesterday’s makeup, which in the light of day hardly made her any more attractive.

  ‘Fifty-five years; fuck, it shows,’ she said to her reflection. ‘Bitch.’

  Olof came back and began getting dressed.

  ‘How the hell can I be so stupid, having a load of booze a day before an important meeting.’

  ‘Do those Japanese men have to meet you again today?’ said Netta. ‘You’ve had meetings all week. Do they never take a day off in Japan?’

  ‘No, they’re always working.’

  ‘You’ve only got yourself to blame. I, on the other hand, have promised to go to my mother in Äppelviken to see Aunt Sara who’s back from Italy. That’s at least as tough as a bunch of Japanese businessmen.’

  ‘This suburban social life is starting to get on my nerves,’ said Olof as he picked out a tie.

  Now Netta remembered what they had argued about. Olof wanted to sell the house and move to the city now that the children had left home, but Netta didn’t. Think of the grandchildren, she had said. They need to get out into the countryside. What grandchildren? Olof had asked. Well, we’ll have grandchildren one day, Netta had argued and Olof had responded in his dry way: I don’t think so. Both Madeleine and Chris are just too selfish to have children. And so the quarrel had started.

  But now Netta had neither the energy nor the desire to argue, so she kept quiet while she applied a fresh coat of mascara to her eyelashes.

  ‘I have to hurry now,’ said Olof. ‘It’s almost time for lunch with the Japanese, and then we’re going out to look at the new warehouse in Stuvsta all afternoon.’

  ‘So when will you be home?’

  ‘I’ll definitely be back by six. At the latest. Let’s have something light for dinner today, shall we? And we’ll draw all the curtains and lock the doors and let no fucker cross the threshold.’

  ‘Yes, and unplug the phone,’ said Netta. ‘Lobster. It’s cheap now. The fresh American one they cook themselves on Borgmästargatan. I’ll get it.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Olof. ‘And champagne—only champagne. No syrupy cocktails. Put a couple more bottles in the fridge, please.’

  He patted Netta on the cheek, which made her eyeliner slip and draw a dash up to her hairline.

  ‘Look what you’ve done,’ she said, but Olof was already on his way down the stairs.

  ‘Good-bye,’ he called. The front door slammed shut.

  ‘Bye bye,’ said Netta through gritted teeth, rubbing her temples with a cotton swab. ‘Men.’

  Since she could take the car and stay indoors for most of the day, Netta wore her short coat and, even though it seemed slushy outside, she pulled on her new, tall, mahogany-coloured boots with the high heels; they squeezed her toes a little but looked very chic.

  On the way to Äppelviken, she went into the fish shop and bought two huge freshly cooked lobsters that she had wrapped up neatly and put them in the boot of the car.

  The afternoon with her mother wasn’t as dull as she had feared. Aunt Sara, a sprightly seventy-three-year-old, had met a man in Bologna and she told funny, self-deprecating stories about the two-week romance. And her mother was in a good mood for once and managed not to complain about anything; she handed round sherry and small pastries and even shared a couple of really quite funny stories about the love affairs of her youth.

  When Aunt Sara had to go to meet a friend on Kungsholmen at five o’clock, Netta offered her a lift.

  She dropped off her aunt at Fridhemsplan and squeezed into the queue towards Vasterbron. It seemed to take an eternity to get over the bridge, but once she was on the other side, she saw that it was only ten past five. Despite the traffic, she should be home before six. And she was excused from cooking today, because they were having lobster.

  The queue thinned out and the road looked dry, so she began to speed up as she went down on to Söder Mälarstrand.

  Suddenly, as if from nowhere, something appeared in front of her. Something that glistened, and Netta stepped on the brakes, when she felt something hit the car and heard a rattling noise. The traffic light she had just passed had changed to red, so thankfully the road was clear behind her. She came to a stop and pulled up, with the right-hand wheels on the cycle lane, then got out of the car and began to jog back.

  As she got closer, she saw what she had hit. There was an overturned shopping trolley on the carriageway, and a bent-over figure seemed to be struggling to turn it upright. Between the trolley and the gutter, some bottles and cans lay scattered. Netta saw that the traffic light was still red and she ran as best she could in her high heels to reach the trolley, tipped it right side up and had just enough time to bring it over to the sidewalk before the cars started coming. She even managed to kick away a few of the bottles lying in the middle of the road.

  ‘How did that happen?’ she asked the woman who was still bent over, gathering up bottles and cans and throwing the
m into the cart. ‘You’re not hurt, are you? I didn’t see you or the trolley. It was suddenly just there.’

  The woman put the last bottle in the cart and straightened up. She was wearing a big, bulky man’s overcoat, and had a knitted grey cap pulled down to her eyebrows. On her feet, she had running shoes which had probably been white once, and a couple of strange blue plastic bags wrapped around her ankles.

  ‘Well, I’m okay. Just bashed my knee a little when I fell over, I was terrified, but it’s not too bad. And the trolley’s sorted.’

  ‘I don’t understand how I didn’t see it,’ said Netta.

  ‘I was standing there waiting to cross when, well, it just slipped away from me and began to roll by itself. God, I was scared. I thought the car would skid. But it seems you’re a good driver.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus, that could have gone badly. But no harm done, luckily,’ said Netta, looking back at her car. She hoped the paint hadn’t been scratched, but the bumper had probably taken most of the force.

  Then she saw that the woman, who was a head—or rather a high heel—shorter than Netta, was staring at her strangely. She gaped, mouth open so Netta could see that some of her lower teeth were missing. The woman pointed at her and said:

  ‘It’s never Netta? Agneta Ljung?’

  Netta stared back. How could this person know who she was?

  ‘Ye-es,’ she said hesitantly. ‘That’s me. But how...?’

  ‘Yeah, long time, no see,’ said the woman. ‘Girls’ School. We were in the same class. Don’t you remember me? Blomman. Rut Blomberg.’

  In Netta’s mind, she saw a round, cheerful girl with rosy skin and curly hair and ugly, ill-fitting clothes.

  ‘Blomman,’ she said in amazement. ‘Is that true? Is it really you?’