My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry(88)

“We can’t have Christmas dinner at half past eight, Kent.”

“I know that! So the kids will just have to eat when they damn well get here, won’t they!”

“There’s no need to get short,” said Britt-Marie, sounding a bit short.

“Where are my damn cuff links?” asked Kent, and started tottering around the flat with his half-knotted tie trailing behind him.

“In the second drawer in the chest,” Britt-Marie replied.

“Aren’t they usually in the first?”

“They’ve always been in the second. . . .”

Elsa just stands there. Not eavesdropping, obviously. But there’s a big mirror hanging in the foyer just inside the front door, and when Elsa stands on the stairs she can see Kent’s reflection in it. Britt-Marie is neatly turning down his shirt collar over the tie and gently brushing the lapel of his suit jacket.

“When are you coming home?” she asks in a low voice.

“I don’t bloody know, you know how the Germans are, don’t wait up for me,” Kent answers evasively, extricating himself and heading for the door.

“Put the shirt directly in the washing machine when you come in, please,” says Britt-Marie, and comes padding after him to brush something from his trouser leg.

Kent looks at his watch the way men with very expensive watches do when they look at them. Elsa knows that because Kent told Elsa’s mum that his watch cost more than Kia.

“In the washing machine, please, Kent! Directly, as soon as you come home!” Britt-Marie calls out.

Kent steps onto the landing without answering. He catches sight of Elsa. He doesn’t seem to think she’s been eavesdropping at all, but on the other hand he doesn’t look very pleased to see her.

“Yo!” he says with a grin, in that way grown men say “yo” to children because they think that’s how children talk.

Elsa doesn’t answer. Because she doesn’t talk like that. Kent’s telephone rings. It’s a new telephone, Elsa notices. Kent looks as if he’d like to tell her what it cost.

“That’s Germany calling!” he says to Elsa, and looks as if he’s only just remembering that she was very much implicated in the cellar-stairs-related incident yesterday that resulted in his last phone being put out of action.

He looks as if he remembers the poison as well, and what it cost. Elsa shrugs, as if she’s challenging him to a fight. Kent starts yelling “Yez Klaus!” into his new phone as he disappears down the stairs.

Elsa takes a few steps towards the stairs, but stops in the doorway. In the hall mirror she sees the bathroom. Britt-Marie is standing in there, carefully rolling up the cord of Ken’s electric shaver before putting it in the third drawer.

She comes out into the hall. Catches sight of Elsa. Folds her hands over her stomach.

“Oh, I see, I see. . . .” she starts.

“I wasn’t eavesdropping!” says Elsa at once.

Britt-Marie straightens the coats on the hangers in the hall and carefully brushes the back of her hand over all of Kent’s overcoats and jackets. Elsa shoves the tips of her fingers into the pockets of her jeans and mumbles: “Thanks.”

Britt-Marie turns around, surprised.

“Pardon me?”

Elsa groans like you do when you’re almost eight and have to say thanks twice.

“I said thanks. For not saying anything to the police about—” she says, stopping herself before she says “the wurse.”

Britt-Marie seems to understand.

“You should have informed me about that horrible creature, young lady.”

“It’s not a horrible creature.”

“Not until it bites someone.”

“It never will bite anyone! And it saved you from Sam!” growls Elsa.

Britt-Marie looks as if she’s about to say something. But she leaves it. Because she knows it’s true. And Elsa is going to say something, but she also leaves it. Because she knows that Britt-Marie actually returned the favor.

She looks into the flat through the mirror.

“Why did you put the razor in the wrong drawer?” she asks.

Britt-Marie brushes, brushes, brushes her skirt. Folds her hands.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, even though Elsa very well sees that she does.

“Kent said it was always in the first drawer. But you said it was always in the second drawer. And then after he’d gone, you put it in the third drawer,” says Elsa.

And then Britt-Marie looks distracted for just a few moments. Then something else. Alone, perhaps. And then she mumbles: “Yes, yes, maybe I did. Maybe I did.”

Elsa tilts her head.

“Why?”

And then there’s a silence for an eternity of fairy-tale silences. And then Britt-Marie whispers, as if she’s forgotten that Elsa is standing there in front of her: “Because I like it when he shouts my name.”

And then Britt-Marie closes the door.

And Elsa stands outside and tries to dislike her. It doesn’t go all that well.





29





SWISS MERINGUES


You have to believe. Granny always said that. You have to believe in something in order to understand the tales. “It’s not important what exactly you believe in, but there’s got to be something, or you may as well forget the whole damned thing.”