Anxious People(86)
“Exactly! When the police told me the pistol was real and that they’d heard a shot from inside the apartment, I thought… ugh…” The real estate agent nods, without wanting to finish the thought.
“Who helped her get out if it wasn’t us?” Roger wants to know, eager for correct information.
No one has an answer to that, but Estelle looks down at her phone, reads a text message, and nods slowly. Then she smiles, relieved.
“She says she’s okay.”
Anna-Lena smiles at that.
“Say hi from us.”
Estelle says she will.
* * *
Behind them a woman in her twenties emerges from the police station on her own. She’s trying to look confident, but her eyes are darting about wildly in search of somewhere to go, and someone to go there with.
“Are you okay, dear?” Estelle wonders.
“What? Why are you asking?” London snaps.
Julia looks at the name badge on London’s blouse; she never took it off after she left work for the interview.
“Were you the person working at the counter in the bank that got robbed?”
London nods hesitantly.
“Oh my, were you very frightened?” Estelle wonders.
London nods, not as if she means to, but as if her body is answering for her when her brain doesn’t dare.
“Not at the time. Not… when it happened. But afterward. When I… you know, when I found out that it might have been a real pistol after all.”
The others on the steps nod understandingly. Ro puts her hands in the dress pockets beneath her coat, inclines her head toward a small café on the other side of the street, and says: “Do you fancy a coffee?”
London feels like lying and saying that she has places to be, people to see, because it’s, like, New Year’s Eve tomorrow. But instead she says: “I don’t like coffee.”
“We’ll find something else for you,” Ro promises.
That’s a nice thing to promise someone, so London nods slowly. Ro becomes the first friend she’s had in a long time. Ever, perhaps.
“Wait for me!” Julia says.
“What? Worried I’m going to get robbed if I go on my own or something?” Ro grins.
Julia doesn’t grin. Ro clears her throat and mumbles: “Okay, okay, too soon to make jokes about it, I get it, I get it!”
As they cross the street London whispers to her: “That wasn’t a very good joke.”
“Who are you, the joke police, or what?” Ro grunts.
“Darling! If you get shot, I’m going to give your birds away!” Julia calls behind them.
“Now that was funny!” London chuckles. She hasn’t had anything to laugh at for a long time. Ever, perhaps.
She receives a letter a few days later, written by a bank robber who wants to apologize, which means more to the twenty-year-old than she can admit to anyone for many years. Not until she falls in love, in fact. But that’s an entirely different story.
* * *
Julia hugs everyone on the steps and is hugged back in turn. When she gets to Estelle, the young woman and the much older one look into each other’s eyes for a long time. Estelle says: “There’s a book I’d like to give you. By my favorite poet.”
Julia smiles.
“I was thinking that maybe we could meet up, you and me. Now and then. Maybe we can exchange books in the elevator.”
“How do you mean?” Estelle wonders.
Julia turns to the real estate agent.
“Will you sort out the paperwork?”
The real estate agent nods so enthusiastically that she actually starts to jump off the ground. Roger finds himself grinning as well, suddenly delighted.
“So you and Ro bought the apartment after all? Did you get a good price?”
Julia shakes her head.
“No. Not that apartment. We bought the other one.”
* * *
Roger laughs out loud at that. It’s been a while since he last did that. That makes Anna-Lena so happy that she has to sit down, in the middle of the steps, in the middle of winter.
65
The truth the truth the truth.
* * *
So, Jim came back down to the street and told Jack what had just happened inside the building, after he spoke to the bank robber. But that isn’t quite what happened, not really. Not at all, in fact. In part that was because Jim was bad at telling stories, but it was mostly because he was very good at lying.
* * *
Because it wasn’t Lennart who opened the door when Jim showed up with the pizzas. It was the bank robber, the real bank robber. Both Roger and Lennart had insisted on being allowed to wear the ski mask, but after a long pause she had said no. She had looked at them, her voice gentle with appreciation, then given them a determined nod.
“Obviously I can’t set a good example to my daughters and teach them not to do idiotic things now. But I might at least be able to show them how you take responsibility for your actions.”
So when Jim knocked on the door again, she opened it. Without the mask. Her hair was draped over her shoulders, the same color as Jim’s daughter’s hair. Sometimes two strangers only need one thing in common to find each other sympathetic. She saw the wedding ring on his finger, old and dented, tarnished silver. He saw hers, thin and discreet, gold, no gemstones. Neither of them had taken them off yet.