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

“How come?”

“They forgot what made them successful.”

“What do you do when that happens?”

“You start again.”

He rents a room from Toad’s parents for the night. Britt-Marie doesn’t ask if he’d prefer to stay in Bank’s house, because Kent admits “that blind old bat scares me a bit.”

The next day they go back to the town hall. And the next. Probably some of the people who work at the town hall believe that sooner or later Britt-Marie and Kent will give up, but these people are simply not aware of the profound implications of writing your lists in ink. On the fourth day they are allowed to see a man in a suit who’s a member of a committee. By lunchtime he has called in a woman and a man, both wearing suits. Whether this is because of their expertise in the relevant area, or simply because the first suited man wants to improve his odds of not being hit in the event Britt-Marie starts lashing out with her handbag, is never clarified.

“I’ve heard a lot of good things about Borg. It seems so charming there,” says the woman encouragingly, as if the village some twelve miles from her office is an exotic island only accessible through reliance on magic spells.

“I am here about a soccer pitch,” Britt-Marie begins.

“There’s no budget for that,” the second suited man informs them.

“As I already said,” the first suited man points out.

“In that case I have to demand that you change the budget.”

“That’s absolutely out of the question! How would that look? Then we’d have to start making changes in all the budgets!” says the second suited man, terrified.

The suited woman smiles and asks if Britt-Marie wants some coffee. Britt-Marie doesn’t. The suited woman’s smile intensifies.

“The way we understood it, Borg already has a soccer pitch.”

The second man in a suit makes a dissatisfied humming sound from between his teeth, and almost yells:

“No! The soccer pitch was sold off for the eventual building of apartments. It’s in the budget!”

“Well, in that case I have to ask you to buy back the land.”

The humming from between the suited man’s teeth is now also accompanied by a fountain of saliva. “How would that look? If that happened everyone would want to sell their land back! We actually can’t just go around building soccer pitches everywhere! We’d be swimming in soccer pitches!”

“Well,” says the first man in a suit and looks at his watch with a very bored expression.

Kent has to grip Britt-Marie’s handbag quite firmly at that point. The suited woman leans forward disarmingly and pours coffee for everyone, although no one actually wants any.

“We understand that you were employed at the recreation center in Borg,” she says with a mild smile.

“Yes. Yes, that’s right, but I have… I have handed in my notice,” says Britt-Marie, sucking in her cheeks.

The woman smiles even more mildly and pushes the coffee cup closer to Britt-Marie.

“There was never meant to be a position there, dear Britt-Marie. The intention was to close down the recreation center before Christmas. The vacancy was a mistake.”

The second suited man is droning like an outboard engine.

“A position not in the budget. How would that look?”

The first suited man stands up.

“You’ll have to excuse us. We actually have an important meeting.”

And on this note, Britt-Marie leaves the town hall. Having come to realize that her arrival in Borg was all a mistake. They are right. Obviously they are right.

“Tomorrow, darling. We’ll come back here tomorrow,” Kent tries to tell her again as they sit in the BMW. Silent and dejected, she leans her head against the window and keeps a tissue under her chin. A sort of determination appears in Kent’s eyes when he sees this, almost like something vengeful, but she doesn’t notice it at that point.

The fifth day at the town hall is a Friday. It’s raining again.

Kent has to force Britt-Marie to go. When she insists that it’s all useless anyway, he has no choice in the end but to threaten to write a lot of mischievous, quite irrelevant things in ink on her list. At this point she snatches back the list as if it were a flowerpot he had threatened to throw off a balcony, and then she reluctantly gets into the BMW, all the while muttering that Kent is a “hooligan.”

A woman is waiting for them when they arrive at the town hall. Britt-Marie recognizes her as the woman from the soccer association.

“Ha. I suppose you’re here to stop us?” notes Britt-Marie.

The woman looks at Kent, surprised. Nervously starts wringing her hands.

“No. Kent here called me. I am here to help you.”

Kent pats Britt-Marie on the shoulder.

“I made a couple of calls. I took the liberty of doing what I’m good at.”

When Britt-Marie steps into the suited people’s office, there are even more suits in there. Under existing circumstances, it seems, the soccer pitch in Borg has become a matter of interest for more committees than just the one.

“It has come to our attention that strong interests are backing the initiative for more soccer pitches within our council boundaries,” says a new suit, with a nod at the woman from the soccer association.

“It has also come to our attention that local business interests are ready to exert a certain amount of… pressure,” says another suit.

“Fairly unpleasant pressure, actually!” a third suit interjects, producing a plastic folder with various papers inside, and putting this on the table in front of Britt-Marie.

“We have also been reminded both by mail and various telephone calls that this is an election year,” says the aforementioned suit.

“We have been reminded in a fairly abrasive and persistent way, in fact!” the latter suit adds.

Britt-Marie leans forward. The papers are headed as “Working Group of Borg’s Official Partnership of Independent Business Interests.” In these papers it can be clearly seen that the owners of Borg’s pizzeria, Borg’s corner shop, Borg’s post office, and Borg’s car repairs workshop have sat down together over the course of the night and signed a collective demand for a soccer pitch. For safety’s sake, the owners of the very recent start-ups, “Law Firm Son & Son,” “Hairdressing and That,” and “Borg Good Wine Importers Ltd.” have also signed this demand. As it happens, all in the same handwriting. The only document that stands out as different is one from a man named Karl, who according to the document has just opened a florist’s.

Everything else is in Kent’s handwriting. He stands behind Britt-Marie with his hands in his pockets, slouching slightly as if he does not wish to make too much of his presence. The woman with a suit serves coffee and nods excitedly:

“Actually, I had no idea there was such a flourishing business community in Borg! How charming!”

Britt-Marie’s common sense has to work hard to stop her running around the room with her arms stretched out like an aircraft, because she’s almost certain this would not be very appropriate.

The first man with a suit clears his throat and wishes to say another few words. He says:

“The thing is, we have now also been contacted by the unemployment office in your hometown.”

“Twenty-one times. Twenty-one times, we’ve been contacted,” another suit points out.

Britt-Marie turns and looks at Kent for guidance, but he’s now standing with his mouth agape, looking just as shocked as she is. An apparently randomly picked suit points at another paper.

“It has come to our attention that you have been employed at the recreation center in Borg.”