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

  Britt-Marie inhales so deeply that her breath starts faltering halfway through.

  “I would appreciate that,” she whispers.

  “Anything for you, darling,” says Kent with a nod, and then stops the waitress to ask for the pepper mill even though he hasn’t tried the food yet.

  It’s normal food, of course, but before common sense puts the brakes on, Britt-Marie briefly considers telling Kent about how she has tried tacos. She wants him to know that there have been a lot of things going on in her life lately. But she stops herself, because it probably doesn’t really matter now, and anyway Kent wants to tell her things about his business affairs with the Germans.

  Britt-Marie orders French fries with her food. She doesn’t eat French fries because she doesn’t like them, but she always orders them anyway whenever she goes with Kent to restaurants; she always worries that he won’t have enough food to satisfy him.

  While he’s reaching across the table for her fries, Britt-Marie peers out of the window and for a moment she has a feeling that there was a police car in the street. But this could merely have been a figment of her imagination. Ashamed of herself, she looks down at her napkin. Here she is, a grown woman, with fantasies of emergency vehicles. What would people think?

  Kent drives her to soccer practice and waits in his BMW until it’s over. Bank is also there, so Britt-Marie lets her take care of the training while Britt-Marie mainly just stands there holding on to the list. When it’s over, Britt-Marie can hardly remember what they did, or if she even spoke to the children, or said good-bye to them.

  Kent drives her and Bank and the dog back to Bank’s house. Bank and the dog hop out without asking how much the car cost, which seems to upset Kent terribly. Bank accidentally taps her stick against the paintwork and it’s almost certainly not deliberate the first two times. Kent fiddles with his telephone and Britt-Marie sits waiting next to him, because she’s very good at doing that. Finally he says:

  “I have to go and see the accountant tomorrow. There are big things in motion with the Germans, you know, big plans!”

  He nods persistently, to show just how big the plans are.

  Britt-Marie smiles encouragingly. She opens the door at the same time as the thought strikes her, and as a result she asks without really thinking it through:

  “What soccer team do you support?”

  “Manchester United,” he answers, surprised, looking up from his telephone.

  She nods and gets out.

  “That was a very nice dinner, Kent. Thank you.”

  He leans across the seat and looks up at her.

  “When we’re home we’ll go to the theater, just the two of us. Okay, darling? I promise!”

  She stays in the hall with the door open until he’s driven off. Then she sees the ancient women in the garden opposite staring at her while leaning against their walkers. She hurries inside.

  Bank is in the kitchen having some bacon.

  “My husband supports Manchester United,” Britt-Marie informs her.

  “Might have bloody known,” says Bank.

  Britt-Marie doesn’t have a clue what that’s supposed to mean.

  25

  Britt-Marie devotes the next morning to cleaning the balcony furniture. She’ll miss it. The women with the walkers on the other side of the road emerge to pick up their newspapers from the postbox. In a sudden fit of wanting to seem sociable, Britt-Marie waves at them, but they only glare back at her and slam the door.

  Bank is frying bacon when she comes downstairs, but obviously she hasn’t turned on the extractor fan. It must be nice for Bank, thinks Britt-Marie, not to be bothered about the smell of burnt pork or concerned about what the neighbors might think.

  Hesitantly she places herself in the doorway between the hall and the kitchen. As Bank seems unaware of her presence, she clears her throat twice, because she has a feeling that she may, after all, owe her landlady an explanation.

  “I suppose you feel you’re owed an explanation about this whole business of my husband,” she says.

  “No,” says Bank firmly.

  “Oh,” says Britt-Marie, disappointed.

  “Bacon?” grunts Bank, and pours a lick of beer into the pot.

  “No thanks,” says Britt-Marie, not at all disgusted by this, and goes on:

  “He is my husband. We never actually divorced. I just haven’t been at home for a while. Almost like a holiday. But now I’m going home, you have to understand. I understand very well that perhaps you don’t understand this sort of thing, but he is my husband. It’s certainly not an appropriate thing, to leave one’s husband at my age.”

  Bank looks as one does when one doesn’t want to discuss Britt-Marie and Kent’s relationship.

  “Sure you don’t want any bacon?” she mutters.

  Britt-Marie shakes her head.

  “No, thank you. But I want you to understand that he’s not a bad man. He made a mistake, but anyone can make a mistake. I’m sure he had masses of opportunities to make a mistake before, without ever doing it. You can’t write off a human being forever, just for the sake of a single mistake.”

  “It’s good bacon,” says Bank.

  “There are obligations. Marital obligations. One doesn’t just give up,” Britt-Marie explains.

  “I would have offered you eggs if there were any eggs. But the dog had them. So you’ll have to make do with bacon.”

  “You can’t just leave each other after a whole life.”

  “So you’ll have some bacon, then?” Bank establishes, and turns on the extractor fan.

  You might infer from this that she’s more bothered about the sound of Britt-Marie’s voice than the smell of fried bacon. So Britt-Marie stamps her foot on the floor.

  “I don’t eat bacon! It’s not good for the cholesterol. Kent has also cut down, I can tell you. He was at the doctor in the autumn. We have an exceedingly capable doctor. He’s an immigrant, you know. From Germany!”

  Bank turns up the extractor fan to its maximum level, so that Britt-Marie has to raise her voice to make herself heard over all the noise, and as a result she’s almost shouting when she points out:

  “It’s actually not very edifying leaving your husband when he’s just had a heart attack! I’m not that sort of a woman!”

  The plate is slammed down on the table in front of her, so the fat splashes over the rim.

  “Eat your bacon,” says Bank.

  Britt-Marie gives it to the dog. But she doesn’t say anything else about Kent. Or at least she tries not to. Instead she asks:

  “What does it mean when someone supports Manchester United or whatever it’s called?”

  Bank answers with her mouth full of bacon.

  “They always win. So they’ve started believing they deserve to.”

  “Ha.”

  Bank doesn’t say anything else. Britt-Marie stands up and washes her plate. Dries it. Stands there in case Bank has something else to add, but when Bank starts behaving as if she’s forgotten that Britt-Marie is even there, Britt-Marie clears her throat and says with irrepressible emphasis:

  “Kent is not a bad man. He has not always won.”

  The dog looks at Bank as if it feels Bank ought to have a bad conscience. Bank seems to pick up on this, because she continues eating, in an even surlier silence than usual. Britt-Marie has already left the kitchen and put on her coat and neatly stashed her list away in her handbag when the dog growls from the kitchen and Bank groans loudly by way of an answer, and then at long last calls out into the hall:

  “You want a lift?”

  “Excuse me?” says Britt-Marie.

  “Shall I drive you to the recreation center?” asks Bank.

  Britt-Marie goes to the kitchen doorway and stares at her and almost drops her handbag.

  “Drive? How . . . I . . . no, that’s fine . . . thank you. I don’t want to . . . I don’t know . . . I’m certainly not judging, but how . . .”

  She stops when she sees th
e satisfied grin on Bank’s face.

  “I’m almost blind. I don’t drive. I was joking, Britt-Marie.”

  The dog signals its encouragement. Britt-Marie adjusts her hair.

  “Ha. That was . . . nice of you.”

  “Don’t worry so much, Britt-Marie!” Bank calls out after her, and Britt-Marie has absolutely no idea what to say to that sort of absurd notion.

  She walks to the recreation center. Cleans. Polishes the windows and looks out of them. She sees other things now than when she first came to Borg. Faxin can do that for a person.

  She serves up the Snickers by the door. Walks across the soccer pitch that she used to think was just a parking area. Sven’s car is parked outside the pizzeria. Britt-Marie takes a deep breath before she walks inside.

  “Hello,” she says.

  “Britt! All right there!” yells Somebody and rolls out of the kitchen gripping a pot of coffee.

  Sven is standing by the register, wearing his uniform. Quickly he removes his police cap and holds it in his hands.

  “Hello, Britt-Marie,” he says. He smiles, and seems to grow a few inches taller.

  Then comes another voice from the window:

  “Good morning, darling!”

  Kent is sitting at a table, drinking coffee. He has taken off his shoes and has one of his feet propped up on a chair. It’s one of his main talents. He can sit anywhere drinking coffee and looking as comfortable as if he was in his own living room. No one is quite his equal when it comes to making himself at home anywhere, without being invited to do so.

  Sven shrinks again. As if he’s leaking air. Britt-Marie tries not to look as if her heart has jumped twice inside of her.

  “I thought you were going to your accountant,” she manages to say.

  “I’m going in a minute, that kid Omar just wanted to show me a couple of things first,” says Kent, smiling as if he has all the time in the world, and then he winks playfully at Sven and points out loudly:

  “Don’t worry, Sheriff, I haven’t parked illegally today. I’m on the other side of the road.”

  Sven wipes the palms of his hands on his trouser legs and looks down at the floor as he answers:

  “You can’t park there either.”

  Kent nods with feigned seriousness.

  “Does the sheriff want to issue a fine? Will the sheriff accept cash?”

  He takes out his wallet, which is so thick that he has to have a rubber band around it to get it into his trouser back pocket, and puts it on the table. Then he laughs as if all this is just a joke. He’s good at that, Kent—good at looking as if everything is just a joke. Because if it is, then no one can take offense, and then Kent can always say: “Ah, come on, don’t you have a sense of humor?” The person with less of a sense of humor always loses in this world.

  Sven looks down at the floor.

  “I don’t issue parking fines. I’m not a traffic warden.”

  “Okay, Sheriff! Okay! But the sheriff himself obviously parks wherever the sheriff feels like parking.” Kent grins and nods at the police car, which can be seen through the window.

  Before Sven has time to answer, Kent hollers at Somebody:

  “Don’t worry about the sheriff’s coffee, I’ll pay for it! I mean it’s us taxpayers who pay the sheriff’s salary anyway, so just put it on our bill!”

  Sven doesn’t answer. He just puts some cash on the counter and says in a low voice to Somebody:

  “I can pay for my own coffee.”

  Then he glances at Britt-Marie and mumbles:

  “I’ll have it to take away, if that’s all right.”

  She wants to say something. Doesn’t have time.

  “Check this out, darling! I had these printed for Omar!” yells Kent and waves a fistful of business cards.

  When every available person in the pizzeria does not immediately run to his table, Kent stands up very elaborately and sighs as if none of them have a sense of humor. Then he walks up to the counter in his socks, which makes Britt-Marie scream inside, and hands Sven a business card.

  “Here, Sheriff! Take a business card!”

  Then he grins at Britt-Marie and shows her one of them, on which it is written: OMAR—ENTREPRENEUR.

  “There’s a printing place in that town place. They printed these on the bloody double this morning, over the moon they were, poor things don’t get any customers!” Kent tells them jovially and makes emphatic quotation marks in the air when he says “town.”

  Sven stands there swallowing hard. As soon as Somebody has poured his coffee into a paper mug, Sven takes it and walks directly towards the door.

  When he passes Britt-Marie he slows down and meets her eyes very briefly.

  “Have a . . . have a good day, won’t you,” he mumbles.

  “You . . . well, I mean . . . you too,” says Britt-Marie, sucking in her cheeks.

  “Be careful out there, Sheriff!” Kent yells in an American accent.

  Sven stands still, with his gaze focused on the floor. Britt-Marie has time to see his fist, clenched until his knuckles turn white, before he forces it into his trouser pocket like an animal into a sack. The door tinkles cheerfully behind him.

  Britt-Marie stands in front of the register, feeling at a loss. One curious thing Kent can do is that he can feel so at ease in a place that Britt-Marie immediately feels like a stranger. He thumps her back and waves the business cards around.

  “Please, Kent. Could you not at least put on your shoes?” she whispers.

  Kent looks at his socks in surprise. Waves his big toe through a hole in one of them.

  “Sure, sure, darling. Of course. I have to get going now anyway. Give these to the kid when he comes in!”

  He shakes his wrist in a dramatic way, so that his watch makes a rattling sound. It’s a very expensive one, Britt-Marie knows that, and everyone who’s ever run into Kent while queuing up to pay at the petrol station knows it. Then he presses the business cards into her hand and kisses her cheek.

  “I’ll be back this evening!” he cries on his way out of the door, and the next second he’s gone.

  Britt-Marie stands there, more at a loss than ever. When she doesn’t know what to do with herself, she deals with it in her usual way. She cleans.

  Somebody lets her get on with it. Either because she doesn’t care or precisely because she does care.

  Omar turns up at lunchtime. He immediately starts chasing Britt-Marie around the pizzeria as if they were the last two people on the planet and she was holding the last bag of crisps.

  “Is Kent here? Is he coming? Is he here?” he hollers, tugging at her arm.

  “Kent is with his accountant. He’ll be back this evening.”

  “I’ve fixed him the coolest rims for his BMW! Wicked! You want to check them? He’s getting a special price for them . . . you know!”

  Britt-Marie doesn’t ask what this means, because she assumes that some truck or other, despite never being scheduled to stop in Borg, has left the community slightly lighter than when it pulled in.

  When Britt-Marie gives the boy the business cards he goes abruptly silent. Holds them as if they were made of priceless silk. The door tinkles and Vega comes in. She doesn’t even look at Britt-Marie.

  “Hello, Vega,” says Britt-Marie.

  Vega ignores her.

  “Hello, Vega!” Britt-Marie repeats.

  “Check these ultimate business cards, they’re wicked. I got them off Kent!” Omar yells, his eyes glittering.

  Vega takes in this information with indifference and storms into the kitchen. Soon you can hear that she’s washing up. It sounds like something is crawling about in the sink while she attempts to beat it to death. Somebody rolls out of the kitchen and shrugs apologetically at Britt-Marie.

  “Vega very angry, you know.”

  “How do you know?” asks Britt-Marie.

  “Teenager. Washing up without being told. Bloody angry when that happening, huh?”

  Britt-Marie has to adm
it there’s a good logic to that.

  “Why is she so angry?”

  Omar answers eagerly:

  “Because she knows Kent’s been here, so she’s twigged you’ll be clearing out!”

  He doesn’t sound too upset about it himself, because the opportunity of exchanging a soccer coach for an investor in tire rims seems like an acceptable deal to him.

  “I’m staying in Borg until after the competition,” says Britt-Marie, directing this as much to herself as to anyone else.

  The boy doesn’t look as if he’s been listening. He doesn’t even bother correcting her by saying it’s called a “cup.” Britt-Marie almost wishes he would. The men with beards and caps come in, drink coffee, and read newspapers without any acknowledgment of Britt-Marie, but there’s a certain ease about them today, as if they know that soon they won’t have to pretend not to notice her.

  Evidently Vega has run out of things to slam about, so she comes storming out of the kitchen towards the front door.

  “Ha. I suppose you’re leaving?” says Britt-Marie in a well-meaning way.

  “As if you’re bothered,” hisses Vega.

  “Will you be back in time for training?”

  “Bloody difference does it make?”

  “At least put a jacket on? It’s cold out ther—”

  “Go to hell, you old bat! Go back to your crappy life with your shitty bloke!”

  The girl slams the door, which tinkles cheerfully. Omar gathers up his business cards and runs after her. Britt-Marie calls out to him but he either doesn’t hear, or doesn’t care.

  After that, Britt-Marie cleans the entire pizzeria in grim silence. No one tries to stop her.

  When she’s done she sinks onto a stool in the kitchen. Somebody sits next to her, drinking a beer and watching her thoughtfully.

  “Beer, Britt-Marie. You want?”

  Britt-Marie blinks at her.

  “Yes, you know what? Absolutely. I think I’d absolutely like to have a beer.”

  So they drink beer without saying anything else. Britt-Marie must have had two or three sips of hers when the door tinkles again.

  She just about has time to see the young man coming inside, and she’s certainly not used to having alcohol levels of this magnitude in her blood at this time of the afternoon, which may be the reason why she does not immediately notice that the man is wearing a black hood over his head.