Fredrik Backman - Britt-Marie Was Here [Britt-Marie var här]

Britt-Marie doesn’t know when their marriage slipped out of her hands. When it became worn and scratched up no matter how many coasters she used. Once he used to hold her hand when they slept, and she dreamed his dreams. Not that Britt-Marie didn’t have any dreams of her own; it was just that his were bigger, and the one with the biggest dreams always wins in this world. She had learned that. So she stayed home to take care of his children, without even dreaming of having any of her own. She stayed home another few years to make a presentable home and support him in his career, without dreaming of her own. She found she had neighbors who called her a “nag-bag” when she worried about what the Germans would think if there was rubbish in the foyer or the stairwell smelled of pizza. She made no friends of her own, just the odd acquaintance, usually the wife of one of Kent’s business associates.

One of them once offered to help Britt-Marie with the washing-up after a dinner party, and then she set about sorting Britt-Marie’s cutlery drawer with knives on the left, then spoons and forks. When Britt-Marie asked, in a state of shock, what she was doing, the acquaintance laughed as if it was a joke, and said, “Does it really matter?” They were no longer acquainted. Kent said that Britt-Marie was socially incompetent, so she stayed home for another few years so he could be social on behalf of the both of them. A few years turned into more years, and more years turned into all years. Years have a habit of behaving like that. It’s not that Britt-Marie chose not to have any expectations, she just woke up one morning and realized they were past their sell-by date.

Kent’s children liked her, she thinks, but children become adults and adults refer to women of Britt-Marie’s type as nag-bags. From time to time there were other children living on their block; occasionally Britt-Marie got to cook them dinner if they were home alone. But the children always had mothers or grandmothers who came home at some point, and then they grew up and Britt-Marie became a nag-bag. Kent kept saying she was socially incompetent and she assumed this had to be right. In the end all she dreamed of was a balcony and a husband who did not walk on the parquet in his golf shoes, who occasionally put his shirt in the laundry basket without her having to ask him to do it, and who now and then said he liked the food without her having to ask. A home. Children who, although they weren’t her own, came for Christmas in spite of everything. Or at least tried to pretend they had a decent reason not to. A correctly organized cutlery drawer. An evening at the theater every now and again. Windows you could see the world through. Someone who noticed that Britt-Marie had taken special care with her hair. Or at least pretended to notice. Or at least let Britt-Marie go on pretending.

Someone who came home to a newly mopped floor and a hot dinner on the table and, on the odd occasion, noticed that she had made an effort. It may be that a heart only finally breaks after leaving a hospital room in which a shirt smells of pizza and perfume, but it will break more readily if it has burst a few times before.

Britt-Marie turns on the light at six o’clock the following morning. Not because she’s really missing the light, but because people may have noticed the light was on last night, and if they’ve realized Britt-Marie has spent the night at the recreation center she doesn’t want them thinking she’s still asleep at this time of the morning.

There’s an old television by the sofas, which she could turn on to feel less lonely, but she avoids it because there will most likely be soccer on it. There’s always soccer nowadays, and faced with that option Britt-Marie would actually prefer to be lonely. The recreation center encloses her in a guarded silence. The coffee percolator lies on its side and no longer blinks at her. She sits on the stool in front of it, remembering how Kent’s children said Britt-Marie was “passive-aggressive.” Kent laughed in the way that he did after drinking vodka and orange in front of a soccer match, his stomach bouncing up and down and the laughter gushing forth in little snorting bursts through his nostrils, and then he replied: “She ain’t bloody passive-aggressive, she’s aggressive-passive!” And then he laughed until he spilled vodka on the shagpile rug.

That was the night Britt-Marie decided she had had enough and moved the rug to the guest room without a word. Not because she’s passive-aggressive, obviously. But because there are limits.

She wasn’t upset about what Kent had said, because most likely he didn’t even understand it himself. On the other hand she was offended that he hadn’t even checked to see if she was standing close enough to hear.

She looks at the coffee percolator. For a fleeting, carefree moment the thought occurs to her that she might try to mend it, but she comes to her senses and moves away from it. She hasn’t mended anything since she was married. It was always best to wait until Kent came home, she felt. Kent always said, “women can’t even put together IKEA furniture,” when they watched women in television programs about house building or renovation. “Quota-filling,” he used to call it. Britt-Marie liked sitting next to him on the sofa solving the crossword. Always so close to the remote control that she could feel the tips of his fingers against her knee when he fumbled with it to flip the channel to a soccer match.

Then she fetches more baking soda and cleans the entire recreation center one more time. She has just sprinkled another batch of baking soda over the sofas when there’s a knock at the door. It takes Britt-Marie a fair amount of time to open it, because running into the bathroom and doing her hair in front of the mirror without functioning lights is a somewhat complicated process.

Somebody is sitting outside the door with a box of wine in her hands.

“Ha,” says Britt-Marie to the box.

“Good wine, you know. Cheap. Fell off the back of a truck, huh!” says Somebody quite smugly.

Britt-Marie doesn’t know what that means.

“But, you know, I have to pour into bottle with label and all that crap, in case tax authority asks about it,” says Somebody. “It’s called ‘house red’ in my pizzeria, if tax authority asking, okay?” Somebody partly gives Britt-Marie the box and partly throws it at her before she forces her way inside, the wheelchair slamming across the threshold, to have a look around.

Britt-Marie looks at the goo of melted snow and gravel left behind by the wheels with only marginally less horror than if it had been excrement.

“Might I ask how the repair of my car is progressing?” asks Britt-Marie.

Somebody nods exultantly.

“Bloody good! Bloody good! Hey, let me ask you something, Britt-Marie: do you mind about color?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You know, the door I got, huh. Bloody lovely door, huh. But maybe not same color as car. Maybe… more like yellow.”

“What’s happened to my door?” Britt-Marie asks, horrified.

“Nothing! Nothing! Just a question, huh! Yellow door? Not good? It’s, what’s-it-called? Oxidized! Old door. Almost not yellow anymore. Almost white now.”

“I will certainly not tolerate a yellow door on my white car!”

Somebody waves the palms of her hands in circles.

“Okay, okay, okay, you know. Calm, calm, calm. Fix white door. No problem. Don’t get lemon in arse now. But white door will have, what’s-it-called? Delivery time!”

She nods at the wine in a carefree manner.

“You like wine, Britt?”

“No,” answers Britt-Marie, not because she dislikes wine, but because if you say you like wine, people may come to the conclusion that you’re an alcoholic.