My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry(22)

Dad offers a tentative hello, but Britt-Marie interrupts him.

“Do you know whose this is?” she says, pointing at a stroller padlocked to the stair railing under the noticeboard.

Only now does Elsa notice it. It’s odd that it should be there at all, because there are no babies in the house except Halfie, and she/he still gets a lift everywhere with Mum. But Britt-Marie seems unable to attach any value to this deeper philosophical question.

“Strollers are not allowed in the entrance vestibule! They’re a fire risk!” she declares, firmly clasping her hands together so that the crossword magazine sticks out like a rather feeble sword.

“Yes. It says on the notice here,” says Elsa, nodding helpfully and pointing at a neatly written sign right above the stroller, on which it is written: DO NOT LEAVE STROLLERS HERE: THEY ARE A FIRE RISK.

“That’s what I mean!” Britt-Marie replies, with a slightly raised—but still well-meaning—voice.

“I don’t understand,” says Dad, as if he doesn’t understand.

“I am obviously wondering if you put this sign up! That’s what I’m wondering!” says Britt-Marie, taking a small step forward and then a very small step back as if to emphasize the gravity of this.

“Is there something wrong with the notice?” asks Elsa.

“Of course not, of course not. But it’s not common practice in this leaseholders’ association to simply put up signs in any old way without first clearing it with the other residents in the house!”

“But there is no leaseholders’ association, is there?” asks Elsa.

“No, but there’s going to be! And until there is, I’m in charge of information in the association committee. It’s not common practice to put up signs without notifying the head of information in the association committee!”

She is interrupted by the bark of a dog, so loud that it rattles a pane of glass in the door.

They all jump. Yesterday Elsa heard Mum telling George that Britt-Marie had called the police to say that Our Friend should be put down. It seems to have heard Britt-Marie’s voice now, and just like Granny, Our Friend can’t shut up for a second when that happens. Britt-Marie starts ranting about how that dog needs to be dealt with. Dad just looks uncomfortable. “Maybe someone tried to tell you but you weren’t home?” Elsa suggests to Britt-Marie, pointing at the sign on the wall. It works, at least temporarily. Britt-Marie forgets to be upset about Our Friend when she gets re-upset by the sign. Because the most important thing for her is not to run out of things to be upset about. Elsa briefly considers telling Britt-Marie to put up a sign letting the neighbors know that if they want to put up a notice they have to inform their neighbors first. For instance, by putting up a notice.

The dog barks again from the flat a half-flight up. Britt-Marie purses her mouth.

“I’ve called the police. I have! But of course they won’t do anything! They say we have to wait until tomorrow to see if the owner turns up!”

Dad doesn’t answer, and Britt-Marie immediately interprets his silence as a sign that he’d love to hear more about Britt-Marie’s feelings on the topic.

“Kent has rung the bell of that flat lots of times, but no one even lives there! As if that wild animal lives there on its own! Would you believe it?”

Elsa holds her breath, but no more barking can be heard—as if Our Friend has summoned some common sense at last.

The entrance door behind Dad opens and the woman in the black skirt comes in. Her heels click against the floor and she’s talking loudly into the white cord attached to her ear.

“Hello!” says Elsa, to deflect Britt-Marie’s attention from any further barking.

“Hello,” says Dad, to be polite.

“Well, well. Hello there,” says Britt-Marie, as if the woman is potentially a criminal notice-poster. The woman doesn’t answer. She just talks even louder into the white cable, gives all three of them an irritated look, and disappears up the stairs.

There’s a long, strained silence in the stairwell after she has gone. Elsa’s dad is not so good at dealing with strained silences.

“Helvetica,” he manages to say, in the middle of a nervous bout of throat-clearing.

“Pardon me?” says Britt-Marie and purses her mouth even harder.

“Helvetica. The font, I mean,” says Dad skittishly, nodding at the sign on the wall.“It’s a good . . . font.”

Fonts are the sort of thing Dad finds important. One time when Mum was at a parents’ evening at Elsa’s school and Dad had called at the very last possible moment to say he couldn’t make it because of something that had come up at work, Mum, as a punishment, signed him up as a volunteer to do the posters for the school’s tag sale. Dad looked very doubtful about it when he found out. It took him three weeks to decide what sort of font the posters should have. When he brought them in to school, Elsa’s teacher didn’t want to put them up because they’d already had the sale—but Elsa’s father had apparently not understood what this had to do with it.

It’s a little like Britt-Marie not really comprehending what the Helvetica font has to do with anything at all right now.

Dad looks down at the floor and clears his throat again.

“Do you have . . . keys?” he asks Elsa.

She nods. They hug briefly. Relieved, Dad disappears out the door, and Elsa darts up the stairs before Britt-Marie has time to start talking to her again. Outside Our Friend’s flat she stops briefly, peers back over her shoulder to make sure Britt-Marie is not watching, then opens the mail slot to whisper, “Please, be quiet!” She knows that it understands. She hopes that it cares.