After everyone had stepped out of the elevator and stood outside the Diamond House office, Martha held up her hand and hushed the others. She had inspected the contents of the key cupboard and had chosen one with a triangular bow, the sort that locksmiths can’t copy. She put the key in the lock, gave it a turn and the door opened.
‘Just as I thought. The master key. Excellent, in we go, but remember to be quiet.’
‘Look who’s talking,’ muttered Rake, who thought that Martha always talked too much.
‘But what if someone discovers us?’ Christina said, worried.
‘They won’t, we’ll be as quiet as mice,’ Anna-Greta said loudly. Like all those who are hard of hearing she spoke in a resounding voice without realizing it.
The walkers squeaked out of time as the five of them slowly and cautiously entered the room. It smelt of office and furniture polish, and there were folders arranged in a meticulous order on the desk.
‘Hmm, the kitchen must be through that set of doors,’ Martha said, pointing across to the other side of the room.
As they entered the next room, Martha took the lead and closed the curtains.
‘Now we can turn the lights on!’
The lights flickered into action and before them appeared a sizeable room with a fridge, freezer and large fitted cupboards on the wall. In the middle was an island on wheels, and beside the window a dining table with six chairs.
‘A proper kitchen,’ declared Brains as he stroked the fridge door.
‘There will certainly be some good food in here,’ Martha declared as she opened the fridge door. The shelves were filled with chicken and fillet steak, a leg of lamb and several different types of cheese. The drawers below contained lettuces, tomatoes, beetroot and fruit.
The door to the freezer took some effort to open. ‘Elk steaks and lobster. Goodness me!’ Martha exclaimed, holding the door open for everyone to see. ‘Everything except a Christmas cake! They must have lots of parties up here.’
For a long while they all stared at the contents without uttering a word. Brains rubbed a hand over his cropped hair, Rake put his hand over his heart and sighed, Christina gasped and Anna-Greta grumbled: ‘This must have cost a pretty penny!’
‘Nobody will notice if we help ourselves to a little bit,’ said Martha.
‘But surely we can’t steal their food?’ Christina queried.
‘We’re not stealing. Whose money do you think bought this food? We are simply taking what we have paid for. Here you are, take this.’
Martha held out a leftover piece of cooked chicken and Rake—who always felt peckish in the evenings—was the first to bite.
‘And we need rice, spices and flour so that we can make a sauce,’ said Brains, who had now woken up. He wasn’t just an inventor but a good cook too. Since his ex-wife had only made food that was inedible, he had been forced to learn to cook. Then, in time, he had realized that not only was she incompetent in the kitchen but she also saw life itself as one great problem, and so he had divorced her. Still to this day, he had nightmares about her standing beside his bed brandishing a rolling pin in her hand whilst complaining. But she had given him a son, and for that he was grateful.
‘We must have good wine for the sauce too.’ Brains looked around and caught sight of a wine rack on the wall. ‘Well, I never, look at those bottles …’
‘We can’t take those. We’d be found out if we did,’ said Martha. ‘If nobody notices that we have been here, we can come back a few more times.’
‘Pah. Food without wine is like a car without wheels,’ announced Brains. He went up to the wine rack and pulled out two bottles of the finest wine. Seeing Martha’s face, he put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. ‘We’ll open the wine bottles, drink up the wine and pour beetroot juice into the bottles instead,’ he said.
Martha gave Brains an admiring glance. He always had a solution for everything. He was an eternal optimist who thought that problems were there to be solved. He reminded her of her parents. When she and her sister had dressed up in their parents’ clothes and made a dreadful mess everywhere, her father and mother had, of course, told them that they had been naughty, but then had laughed at the whole thing. Better to have a messy home and happy children then a perfect yard and unhappy children, they thought. Their guiding motto in life was: ‘Everything will sort itself out.’ And Martha agreed. It always did.
The chopping boards, frying pans and saucepans were soon in place and they all got involved in cooking the meal. Martha put a fresh chicken in the oven, Brains made a delicious sauce, Rake prepared a tasty salad and Christina tried her best to be of use. She had gone to a domestic science school when she was young, but since then she had had help in the kitchen all her life, and so she had forgotten everything she had ever learned. The only task she really felt safe doing was slicing a cucumber.
Anna-Greta took charge of setting the table and saw to the rice.
‘She’s good at doing what you tell her,’ Martha whispered, nodding towards Anna-Greta. ‘But she is so slow and always has to count everything.’
‘As long as she doesn’t start counting the grains of rice, that’s OK,’ said Brains.
Soon a delicious aroma spread through the kitchen. Rake went around serving wine and looked very much the part in his blue blazer with a crisp cravat around his neck. He had combed his hair and smelled of a nice aftershave. Christina noticed that he had dressed smartly and she in turn discreetly pulled out her powder and lipstick. When nobody was looking, she added some colour to her lips and powdered her nose lightly.
Talk and laughter mingled with the clatter of plates and pans. Admittedly, it did take rather a long time before the food was ready, but what did that matter when everyone was drinking good wine and having a lovely time? Finally, they settled around the table as happy and enthusiastic as youngsters.
‘Another glass?’
Rake poured out more wine and it was just like the old days when he had been a waiter on cruise ships in the Mediterranean. He was a bit slower now, but he held himself with the same dignity. Between mouthfuls they toasted one another and sang aloud from their choir repertoire, and when Brains found an old bottle of champagne, that did the rounds too. Christina raised her glass and knocked back her wine.
‘Wicked,’ she said—an expression she had picked up from her grandchildren. She liked to try and keep up with the times.
Christina put her glass down and looked about her: ‘Now, dear friends, we must dance!’
‘You can do that,’ said Brains, putting his hands on his stomach.
‘Dance, yes, absolutely,’ said Rake, getting up, but he was so unsteady on his legs that Christina had to dance on her own.
‘“It is better to dare to cast the dice, than to fade away with a withering flame,”’ she recited with her arms out wide. Although Christina had never achieved her dream of becoming a librarian, she had always maintained her interest in literature. And what she didn’t know of the Swedish classics wasn’t worth knowing.
‘Here she goes reciting the old favourites again. As long as she doesn’t recite the Odyssey too,’ muttered Martha.
‘Or goes on and on about Gösta Berling’s Saga …’ Brains added.
‘“It is more beautiful to hear a string that snaps, than never to draw a bow,”’ Christina continued.
‘We could have that as our motto!’ Martha suggested.
‘What, a string that snaps?’ Rake interrupted her. ‘No, the motto should be “It’s better to be in the bed that broke than always to sleep alone.”’
Christina, blushing, came to a halt mid-step.
‘Rake! Must you always be so coarse? Behave yourself!’ said Anna-Greta, pouting.
‘Well, we’ve drawn our bow now, haven’t we?’ said Christina. ‘From now on, we must come up here at least once a week.’ She fetched her glass and raised it.
‘Cheers! Here’s to the next time!’
They all toasted each other and they kept going until their eyelids got heavier and heavier and they started slurring their words. Martha reverted to her old southern dialect, something she only did when she was really tired. It was a warning sign, and she saw the danger.
‘Now, dear friends, we must wash the dishes and tidy the kitchen before we go downstairs,’ she said.
‘You’re welcome to start on the dishes,’ Rake replied, as he filled up Martha’s glass.
‘No, we must tidy up and put everything back in the cupboards so that nobody will see that we’ve been here,’ she insisted, and pushed the glass away.
‘If you’re tired, you can rest on my arm,’ said Brains as he gave her a friendly pat on the cheek.
And so it came about that Martha leaned her head against his arm and fell asleep.
The next morning, when Ingmar Mattson, the director of Diamond House, came to work, he heard strange sounds from inside his private rooms. The heavy humming noise sounded like a group of bears had just escaped from the zoo. He looked around the office and saw nothing untoward, but he noticed that the kitchen door was open.
‘What in heaven’s name …’ he muttered, before bumping into a walker and falling onto the floor. Swearing, he got back on his feet and looked with amazement at the scene before him. The extractor fan was on, and five of the old people from the retirement home were seated around the table, fast asleep. There were dirty dishes and empty wine glasses on the table, and the fridge door was wide open. Director Mattson looked at the mess. The clients in the retirement home evidently had more freedom than he had been aware of. He must ask Nurse Barbara to deal with the matter.