The plans for the future that Martha and Brains concocted grew increasingly bolder. Their vision had given them a new energy and they were becoming all the more daring. Meanwhile, the retirement home was still cutting costs. The management stopped providing buns with the afternoon coffee, and coffee was limited to three cups per day. When the old folk came to decorate the Christmas tree, they got another shock. The management would no longer supply the decorations.
‘I bet they have Christmas trees with decorations in prisons!’ Martha said, seething.
‘And not only that. They even let the inmates go out on trips to see the shop windows in the Christmas season,’ said Brains, as he got up and did his best to storm out of the room. After a while, he returned with a Bethlehem star he had made from silver tape.
‘This star is as good as any,’ he said, reinforcing it with some pipe cleaners and then taping it onto the top of the tree. Everyone applauded, and Martha smiled. Brains might have turned eighty but there was still a little boy inside him.
‘Surely a star for the tree can’t cost much, can it?’ said Anna-Greta.
‘They are just stingy people who begrudge everything for others. I can’t see things getting any better here; in fact, it’s the opposite. Brains and I met some other members of the new management yesterday and proposed some improvements, but they wouldn’t listen. If we want our lives to change, we must do something ourselves,’ said Martha, getting up so quickly that her chair fell over. ‘Brains and I are determined to make a better life for ourselves. Are you going to join us?’
‘Indeed!’ cried Brains and he got up too.
‘Yes, let’s meet in your room and enjoy a glass of cloudberry liqueur?’ Christina suggested. She felt a cold coming on and wanted something tasty.
‘Cloudberry liqueur again? Well, I suppose it will have to do,’ muttered Rake.
A few moments later, the five of them entered Martha’s room in single file and squeezed onto the sofa—all except Rake, who chose the armchair instead. The previous day he had happened to sit down on Martha’s knitting-in-progress and he didn’t want to risk a repeat of that experience. When Martha had got out the liqueur and poured it into glasses, the discussion got started. Their voices grew louder and in the end she had to bang her stick on the coffee table.
‘Now listen to me! We’re not going to get anything for nothing; no, we will have to work for it,’ she said. ‘And to do that, we must get into better physical condition. Here is the key to the staff gym. In the evenings we can sneak down there and do some exercises.’ She triumphantly held up the master key.
‘But that won’t work, surely?’ objected Christina, who preferred dieting to exercising in a gym. ‘We’d be found out.’
‘If we tidy up after us, then nobody will notice we have been there,’ said Martha.
‘You said that about the kitchen upstairs too. And my nails will break straight away,’ Christina complained.
‘And I thought I’d be able to take it easy in my retirement,’ moaned Rake.
Martha pretended not to hear, but exchanged a few meaningful glances with Brains.
‘After a few weeks’ exercise in the gym, we’ll be fit for anything and we will all be in a better mood too,’ she enthused, only half-truthfully. Because at the moment she couldn’t share what she really meant: that if you wanted to be a criminal, you had to be fit enough to commit crimes. The previous day she had nodded off in front of the TV, and when she opened her eyes again they were screening a documentary from a prison. This had immediately woken her up. She had snatched up the remote and eagerly pressed record. With growing amazement, she had followed the reporter into the workshop and the laundry and had seen the prisoners showing him their rooms. When the inmates gathered together in the dining hall, they could choose from fish, meat or a vegetarian meal and could even have fries to go with it. And there was salad and fruit too. Martha had then hurried off to see Brains. They watched the recorded program together and, despite the late hour, they talked on until midnight.
Martha raised her voice enough to emphasize her point, but not enough to attract the attention of the three members of the staff at Diamond House.
‘We are going to improve our condition, aren’t we? In that case, we must get fit. And we must do it now! Time is precious for us all.’
Martha knew how important it was to keep trim. In the 1950s, when her family had moved to Stockholm, she had joined the Idla girls. For many years she had exercised regularly to improve her general condition, coordination, speed and strength. Despite the fact that she never managed to be skinny, she still felt healthy. But then she had become careless and put on too many pounds, even though she had tried to diet. Now she had the chance to do something about it.
‘Exercises in a gym! Talk about a slave-driver!’ Rake exclaimed and downed his cloudberry liqueur as if it had been a shot of neat vodka. He started coughing and looked angrily at Martha. But that plump little lady just smiled at him and looked so friendly and sweet that he felt embarrassed. No, she wasn’t a slave-driver, she just wanted what was best for them.
‘Now listen! I think we should give Martha a chance,’ Brains chipped in, because although he didn’t care much for physical exercise, he did know that he wouldn’t get very far from Diamond House if he didn’t improve his physical condition. Martha gave him an encouraging glance.
‘OK, but what are we going to do?’ said Christina and Rake at the same time.
‘Become the most troublesome oldies in the world,’ Martha answered. The word revolution would still have to bide its time.