‘That’s not fair,’ I said, but she just laughed.
She took the napkin and started rubbing the bottom of her dress with it.
‘Have you spilled something?’ I asked.
‘Well, I didn’t,’ she said. ‘The punch splashed a bit, but I don’t know. It’s hopeless trying to get rid of stains like that. Especially if they’ve been there a while.’
We sat in silence for a time as she rubbed her dress. Eventually she looked up at me.
‘My name’s Margareta, by the way.’
‘Oh,’ I said, then thought that I ought to say something more.
She looked as if she were expecting a reply, but what could I say? What could I possibly have to say about her name? Her name was Margareta. Okay. Good. Nice name.
I looked round the room. People were laughing and it was getting a bit loud. Every so often someone would shout something. The armchair was much less comfortable to sit in than I had imagined. I shifted my buttocks slightly to find a better position. On a small table between me and Margareta there was a large bowl of sweets. I looked at them, trying to work out if I wanted one.
‘Don’t think much of the fairy-lights,’ I said after a while, pointing at the wall.
‘No.’ Margareta laughed. ‘I think it was Jörgen who put them up.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘You seem to know a lot.’
She laughed again. There was something about her laugh that, besides indicating a certain interest in me, also managed to put me in a good mood. It was clear that she was slightly intoxicated, which made her seem – how can I put it? – more physical. It made me think of Marilyn Monroe. But I didn’t think that mattered much at the time.
She raised one of the glasses and sipped the wine.
‘Would you like a glass?’ she asked, passing me the other.
I shook my head and reached for the large bowl of Christmas sweets instead. I fished out a toffee, which I toyed with for a while.
I recalled a man from Denmark who took me on a pub crawl once, and insisted on us drinking spirits all evening. I felt sick for two whole days afterwards.
‘Come with me instead,’ I said, putting the toffee in my pocket and pulling her gently but firmly with me towards the little room beyond the toilets. Somehow it felt like she appreciated the initiative, maybe even the energy behind the decision and its implementation, by which I mean the firm way of taking a decision.
We slid round the corner behind the wall holding Jörgen’s fairy-lights. I flicked the light switch outside and she giggled like a little girl who was being allowed to follow the naughty boy into his secret den.
13
We entered the room just after half past ten in the evening, and I’d guess it was half past eleven by the time we emerged. What happened in between is in many ways still unclear.
Not that I was drunk. I still know what happened, but I’m not entirely sure how to interpret it.
We stood for a long time in front of the mirror. She touched me. I touched her back, but it was like she pulled my arms and hands to her, showing me round. Like a dance. I didn’t have to move a muscle. She did it for me. Naturally it was erotic, but never sordid the way it can so easily be when a man and woman meet. She smiled at me but I can’t remember us saying anything.
She had big, beautiful eyes and shiny hair. It was lovely. I was enchanted.
When we kissed it was as if she was me. I was me, but she was me too.
When we came out again she stood there looking at me for a long time. Charged. Changed. As if I’d shown her something entirely new. Something big. Something she hadn’t quite been prepared for, and didn’t know how to handle. She turned on her heel and walked away. As far as I was aware, she went straight home.
As for me, I stayed for a while sucking the sweet.
14
Someone had made a snowman in the courtyard below my window, but it wasn’t very good at all. The two bottom balls were roughly the same size, and the top one was only marginally smaller, which meant that it didn’t have anything like the traditional snowman-shape that a snowman ought to have. And it didn’t have a nose. Whoever had made the snowman hadn’t bothered to find a carrot or anything else that would have functioned as a nose, and had just left it as it was. Maybe they had lost interest halfway through? Such is life, I thought.
That night I lay in bed and went through the evening, moment by moment. Over and over again. From the frosty greeting and Hannah’s strange comments, via the encounter with Margareta from reception, to my strong sense of having been master of the situation. In some ways it was a novel experience. A feeling of power.
15
Stupid people don’t always know that they’re stupid. They might be aware that something is wrong, they might notice that things don’t usually turn out the way they imagined, but very few of them think it’s because of them. That they’re the root of their own problems, so to speak. And that sort of thing can be very difficult to explain.
I got an email from Karl the other day. It was a group email to the whole department. The introduction alone made me suspect trouble: We will be putting staffing issues under a microscope.
Anyone with even a basic understanding of the language knows that you put things under ‘the’ microscope, with the definite article. (Sadly, this sort of sloppiness is becoming more and more common as text messages and email are taking over.) I let it pass this time, but knew that I would have to act if it happened again. I wondered what suitable comment about the proper use of language I could drop into the conversation next time I spoke to Karl.
16
The morning after the party I got to work early.
A lot of the signs were still there. There was a sour smell, and plastic glasses and napkins on the floor. I wondered what preparations they had made for the clearing up.
‘Things don’t just clear themselves up, do they?’ I said to Hannah with the ponytail when she arrived, still looking sleepy, a couple of minutes later. She glanced at me with annoyance, and I know she was impressed that I was there first, even though I wasn’t part of any cleaning team. I sat down on the sofa by the kitchen and looked at a few newspapers, so that she would realise I had chosen to come on my own initiative rather than because I was told to.
After a while I noticed that she had chosen to start clearing up in a different part of the office, rendering my presence pointless. I folded the newspaper and went over to the lift.
I went down to reception and caught sight of Margareta hanging up her outdoor clothing in the little cloakroom behind the desk. I stopped beside the plastic Christmas tree and waited. From the other side of the counter I could see her standing in the little cloakroom adjusting her hair and clothes in a small mirror. Her skirt was nice, but she was wearing a dull-coloured blouse that wasn’t at all attractive. I’d have to remember to tell her not to wear it when she was with me if the two of us were going to get together, I thought. She must have felt she was being watched, because suddenly she started and turned towards me.
‘Goodness, you startled me,’ she said.
‘Did I?’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to.’
She gathered her things and came over to the counter.
‘Early,’ she said, meaning me.
‘Yes,’ I said, thinking that she seemed a little odd. She was being snappy in a way that I didn’t appreciate at all.
I wondered whether I should say anything about events in the room the previous day, but decided that it would be best to maintain a certain distance at first, and simply ride the wave of the impressions I had been given yesterday. I tried to remember what we had said to each other. What kind of agreement we had reached, so to speak. Eventually I said: ‘You too.’
We stood there in silence for a while. She was arranging some papers on her side of the counter. Opening a large diary. Pulling a page off the calendar. People started to stream in. Margareta greeted almost all of them in an equally warm and friendly way, which put me in an even worse mood seei
ng as she really ought to realise that she was devaluing the impact of her smile if she used it on everyone. Didn’t she know that she ought to hold back a bit?
I tried to look as though I had business down there. Started to leaf through a trade magazine that was on the counter, and after a while I went over to the coffee-machine and pressed the button to get a cup. I stood there for a long while waiting for the coffee to start trickling down into the cup. I pressed the button a few extra times, and had managed to get fairly annoyed by the time I realised that I hadn’t put any money in.
I couldn’t help noting how much better the organisation worked down here, where you had to pay for coffee, compared to the lax coffee-drinking that pertained up in my department where anyone, at any time, could scuttle off and get coffee without any restrictions at all.
When I was putting the coins in I realised that I was a couple of kronor short. I went back to Margareta and asked if she could lend me two one-krona coins. She was standing talking to a woman in a suit and didn’t answer me at first, so I asked again. Slightly louder. Then she turned towards me with irritation and said that she could. She went into the little cloakroom and got her handbag, took out her purse and passed me the coins. I thought it impractical to keep her handbag containing her purse so far from the counter, but said nothing. Partly because I didn’t think her behaviour deserved to be rewarded with my advice, and partly because I didn’t want to appear too superior to her at such an early stage of our relationship. Instead, I merely smiled and decided to counter her irritation with a forgiving, worldly attitude.
‘After all, two kronor isn’t the end of the world,’ I said, glancing towards the woman in the suit, but there was no conspiratorial smile.
They resumed their conversation and I went back to the coffee-machine, put my money in, got my coffee, then went and stood beside the plastic Christmas tree again. By now most people had arrived and the reception area resumed its usual deserted appearance. I was left alone again with Margareta on the other side of the counter.
‘Well,’ I said after a while, sipping the hot coffee and wondering what I ought to say.
She looked up at me from her papers, but I saw none of the respect you might expect from a receptionist of her level. It made me slightly annoyed. Maybe she was one of those people who thought it was acceptable to set aside all politeness and manners once you’ve been introduced and become acquainted.
‘Yes?’ Margareta said.
I decided to sit her out. Let her catch up and realise the situation she was in. Any moment now everything ought to click into place, I thought, but she just went on looking at me with that indirectly arrogant expression, rather like a mother looking at her teenage son.
When she didn’t say anything, I felt obliged to speak: ‘Well, I thought it was nice, anyway.’
She took a paperclip and fastened several documents together, then put them on a new pile.
‘I have to ask you something personal,’ she said after a while, as she pushed the papers away. ‘Is that okay?’ I nodded and she looked round. I could see she was gathering herself.
‘Are you on drugs?’
At first I thought she was joking. I laughed, but then I saw that she was serious. I took a couple of steps back and noticed that I’d spilled some coffee on the sleeve of my jacket. What did she mean? Why would she ask that? Was she on drugs? Did she want me to join her on some sort of junkie adventure?
I must have looked angry because suddenly she got that scared look in her eye that I recognised from the night before. I wasn’t used to people looking at me that way. It unsettled me, and made me even more angry.
‘What do you mean?’ I tried to say in my usual voice, but I heard it come out much more strained than I had intended.
It annoyed me that she had so suddenly managed to throw me off-balance. I wasn’t remotely enjoying the confusion she was spreading, and felt the need to create more distance. I backed away another couple of steps.
‘I just mean,’ Margareta began uncertainly, ‘well, what are you doing down here now, for instance? In work time?’
I looked at the large clock on the wall behind the desk and saw to my surprise that it was already twenty-five to ten. How could it be so late? So quickly?
17
I left at once. Without a word I hurried across the granite floor and went up in the lift. I got off at the fourth floor and made an effort not to run to my desk. I slipped onto my chair and leafed quickly through my diary to check that I hadn’t missed a meeting, but there was nothing written down. I glanced over at the glass doors where Karl sat, but couldn’t see him. I took a deep breath and suddenly realised how tired I was. I tried to remember when I had last slept.
I should have seen through her earlier. Obviously she was a junkie. All that smiling. That optimistic outlook. It was a chemically produced friendliness. I’d walked straight into the trap. Being taken in by the surface appearance of a drug-user was one of the dangers of being an open, honest person. Never suspecting anything.
I realised that I would have to stay away from her in future.
I raised my head and tried to look straight ahead, but it was hard to get my gaze to settle on anything. I have to find somewhere I can pull myself together, I thought. I got up and felt my whole body aching with tiredness.
Without knowing how it had happened, I felt something warm and wet on my legs. I looked down and saw the remains of the coffee on my jacket and trousers. The empty plastic cup upside down in my hand. Slowly but surely I made my way towards the corridor with the toilets, then in to wipe off the coffee. I pulled out a bundle of paper towels and pressed them against my jacket and trousers.
The room, I thought. I’ll go into the room for an hour. I crept out into the corridor, past the big recycling bin, switched on the light and opened the door for the seventh time.
18
I could feel the clean white wall against my back. The gentle texture against the palm of my hand as I placed it against the wallpaper. The cool steel against my cheek as I leaned my head against the filing cabinet. The soft motion of the drawers as they slid in and out on their metal runners. Order.
I counted the lengths of wallpaper on the long wall. Five, I made it.
After a short while I felt brighter. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw that I was my old self again. I looked better than I deserved to. I adjusted my tie and went back out to the office.
19
I sat down in my place and looked at the time. I had about fifteen minutes left until a new fifty-five-minute period started, so I leaned back and stretched my arms up in the air. Then let them fall and folded them behind my head. I glanced over at Karl’s glassed-in office. I didn’t mind if he did see me now. See me taking time for myself. I sat for a while going through various replies to things he might say. Little hints that would slowly but surely make him realise that I was a man of the future. Someone worth keeping in with. Not the sort of person to pick unnecessary arguments with. About trivial things.
I looked over towards the little kitchen with the broken light above the stove that still hadn’t been fixed. It seemed astonishing that it was still like that. Was it really so hard to screw in a new bulb?
I sighed, tilted my head back, gazed up at the ceiling and looked at the various fittings. The cables for the fluorescent lighting were attached to the outside of the ceiling tiles, fixed in place by little clamps that made the whole thing look rather provisional. A sausage-like cornice between the ceiling and the walls. I counted the lengths of wallpaper along the wall by the toilet corridor, and made it sixteen.
For some reason I thought that was rather low, so I counted them once more. And made it sixteen again. I spun gently on my chair and wondered how that could be right. Each length must be about half a metre wide. Making eight metres for the whole wall. I looked down at the bookcases and cabinets lined up against it and tried to work out the distance. Yes, eight metres – that could be about right. But there were five len
gths inside the room alone? How narrow could the toilets be, lined up alongside it? I wondered. They couldn’t be less than one metre? Not when you took the walls into account?
I got up from my chair and went over to the wall. I stood there for a while looking at it. Three bookcases, a filing cabinet and a photocopier were lined up against it. I went round the corner into the toilet corridor. There were the three toilets. The first one was vacant and I stood in the doorway and held my arms out to measure it. It must be at least a metre, I thought. I went back out into the corridor, past the room and the big green recycling bin, and reached the lift. I looked at it.
Then I went round the far corner and came to the wall with the bookcases and cabinet again. I backed away slightly and counted the lengths of wallpaper again. Sixteen.
I went up to the wall and put my lower arm against the wallpaper. I had heard somewhere that a grown man’s lower arm and hand together make up about half a metre. That seemed to fit.
Once again I went back round the corner to the toilet corridor. Three toilets, a recycling bin and a lift, all of which combined came to about eight metres. So what about the room?
I went back and sat down at my desk. Took out a pad of squared paper and did a simple sketch of this part of the fourth floor.
Impossible, I thought, as I looked at the sketch. There’s something that doesn’t make sense.
I put down the pad and went round to the lift. I went down and got out on the third floor. It was almost as empty as the fourth floor. A man in a cap said hello to me as I went round the corner into their toilet corridor. I didn’t bother to respond. I was taken by surprise, and because I didn’t know him I didn’t think there was any reason for us to waste time saying hello to each other. Besides, I was busy with this peculiar discovery, and I wasn’t about to be sidetracked. I was on the trail of something. I could feel it in my whole body.
The Room Page 3