My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry(55)

“So the landlords have suddenly had the notion that they might be willing to sell the flats to us? After all the years that Kent has been writing them letters! Now they have suddenly decided! Just like that, easy-peasy? And then they contact you instead of Kent? That’s curious, don’t you find that curious, Ulrika?”

Mum tightens her dressing gown sash. “Maybe they couldn’t get hold of Kent. And maybe since I’ve lived here so long they thought—”

“We’ve actually lived here the longest, Ulrika. Kent and I have lived here longer than anyone else!”

“Alf has lived in the house the longest,” Mum corrects her.

“Granny has lived here the longest,” Elsa mumbles, but no one seems to hear her. Especially not Britt-Marie.

“Isn’t Kent away on a business trip?” asks Mum.

Britt-Marie pauses at this and nods imperceptibly.

“Maybe that’s why they didn’t get hold of him. That’s why I called you as soon as I hung up after speaking to the acc—”

“But surely it’s common practice to contact the chairperson of the leaseholders’ association!” says Britt-Marie with consternation.

“It isn’t a leaseholders’ association yet,” Mum sighs.

“But it will be!”

“And that is what the landlords’ accountant wants to come and talk about today—he says they’re finally willing to convert our rental contracts into leaseholds. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. As soon as I’d hung up the phone after talking to him, I contacted you. And then you woke up the whole house and now here we are. What more do you want me to do, Britt-Marie?”

“What sort of nonsense is that, coming here on a Saturday? Surely one doesn’t have meetings like this on a Saturday, surely one doesn’t, Ulrika? Do you think one does? Probably you do, Ulrika!”

Mum massages her temples. Britt-Marie inhales and exhales fairly demonstratively and turns to Lennart and Maud and Alf for support. Maud tries to smile encouragingly. Lennart offers Britt-Marie a shot of coffee while they are waiting. Alf looks as if he’s now approaching his usual level of ill-humor.

“Well we can’t have the meeting without Kent,” Britt-Marie splutters.

“No, of course, only if Kent can make it back,” Mum agrees exhaustedly. “Why don’t you try calling him again?”

“His plane hasn’t landed yet! He’s actually on a business trip, Ulrika!”

Alf grunts something behind them. Britt-Marie spins around. Alf pushes his hands into his jacket pockets and grunts something again.

“Sorry?” say Mum and Britt-Marie at the same time, but in diametrically opposed tones of voice.

“I’m just bloody saying that I sent Kent a text twenty minutes ago when you started making a bloody racket about this, and he got back to tell me he’s on his bloody way,” says Alf, and then adds, “The idiot wouldn’t miss this for all the tea in China.”

Britt-Marie seems not to hear the last bit. She brushes invisible dust from her skirt and folds her hands and gives Alf a superior glance, because she knows quite clearly that it’s impossible for Kent to be on his way here, because, in fact, his plane hasn’t landed yet and, in fact, he’s on a business trip. But then there comes the sound of the door slamming on the ground floor and Kent’s footsteps. You can tell they’re Kent’s because someone is screaming German into a telephone, the way Nazis speak in American films.

“Ja, Klaus! JA! We will dizcuzz thiz in Frankfurt!”

Britt-Marie immediately sets off down the stairs to meet him and tell him about the impudence that’s been impudent enough to take place here in his absence.

George comes out of the kitchen behind Mum, wearing jogging shorts, a very green sweater, and an even greener apron. He gives them an amused look, while holding a smoking frying pan.

“Anyone want some breakfast? I’ve made eggs.” He looks as if he’s going to add that there are also some newly bought protein bars on offer, but seems to change his mind when he realizes they may run out.

“I’ve brought some cookies,” says Maud expansively, giving Elsa the whole tin and patting her tenderly on the cheek. “You have that, I can get some more,” she whispers and walks into their flat.

“Is there coffee?” asks Lennart nervously, having another shot of standby coffee as he follows her.

Kent strides up the stairs and appears in the doorway. He is wearing jeans and an expensive jacket. Elsa knows that because Kent usually tells her how much his clothes cost, as if he’s awarding points in the final of the Eurovision Song Contest. Britt-Marie hurries along behind him, mumbling repeatedly, “The rudeness, the sheer rudeness of not calling you, of just calling any old person. Isn’t that just so rude? Things can’t be allowed to go on like this, Kent.”

Kent doesn’t really acknowledge his wife’s raving, but points dramatically at Elsa’s mum.

“I want to know exactly what the accountant said when he called.”

But before Mum has time to say anything, Britt-Marie brushes off some invisible dust from Kent’s arm, and whispers to him in a radically changed tone of voice.

“Maybe you should go down first and change your shirt, Kent?”

“Please, Britt-Marie, we’re doing business here,” Kent says dismissively, more or less like Elsa when Mum wants her to wear something green.