Rake took the cigarette out of his mouth and did another session with the dumb-bells. It was getting easier now, but then they had been exercising every evening for more than a month, even on weekends. Christina was next to him on the exercise bicycle, and a bit further away Anna-Greta and Brains were busy with those weird contraptions which help you to build up your chest muscles.
‘How are you doing, Rake?’
Martha showed her warm smile and gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder.
‘Fine,’ he said, panting and red in the face. He put the dumb-bells aside and gave her a tired look. At seventy-nine, there she was going from one apparatus to another without a care, and she hardly seemed to be out of breath. When her final moments came, she would walk to the grave, crawl into the coffin and put the lid on herself, he was certain of that.
‘Just one more session, you can manage that?’ she went on. ‘Then we’ll put everything away and tidy up.’
Rake pulled a face.
‘But we mustn’t leave any trace of our being here, Rake, you do understand that? And please, please, cut out the smoking. The smell will give us away.’
Rake thought that Martha reminded him of his aunty in Gothenburg. The old gal was dead now, but she had been a schoolteacher and had weighed in at 150 kg. When her pupils misbehaved she’d threaten: ‘If you don’t keep quiet, I’m going to sit on you.’ She and Martha could have been related. But Martha had another side to her: she cared about other people. She would sneak out to the corner shop as much as possible to buy fruit and vegetables for all of them. And she wouldn’t let them pay for it either.
‘Everything green is good for you,’ she claimed, and flashed one of her winning smiles while her eyes glowed. Sneaking out of the retirement home when nobody was watching had turned into a game for Martha, and she was always in a buoyant mood when she returned. Sometimes she would even give them an encouraging little pat on the cheek. If Rake had been a little boy and had fallen off his bike, he probably would have let her give him a hug to make it feel better.
‘We’ll soon have something to show for all this hard training,’ Martha went on. ‘A few vitamins and some carbohydrates on top, and then, my friends, we can conquer the world.’
‘You can go conquer it,’ Rake muttered as his pessimism took over once more. There was something a little bit fishy about all this. Martha sounded so very purposeful. His gut feeling told him that she was planning something, something bigger than he could even imagine.
‘Right, that’s enough for today,’ she called out. ‘And don’t forget to wipe the floor and dry off all the apparatus. Let’s meet in my room in half an hour.’
A little later, when they had showered and freshened up a bit, they gathered together in Martha’s room. She had put out a basket with particularly nourishing bread and some fruit, while Brains had got out some bottles of energy drink. She had a new tablecloth, one with red and white flowers.
‘One more month of training and we ought to be in good enough condition,’ he said.
‘Yes, and by early March the snow will have melted. Then we can set sail!’ Martha filled in.
‘Set sail!’ Rake exclaimed. ‘We’re not out at sea, are we? Anyway, where would we go? For God’s sake, tell us what you’re cooking up!’
‘I want to make you all happier and livelier, and when the day comes that you are in good condition, then …’
‘Then what …?’
‘Then, and not before, you’ll be told the Big Secret,’ Martha answered. It was important that, for now, the plans were only known by herself and Brains. She didn’t want things getting out of control, and as her mother always said, too many cooks spoiled the broth. Besides, she quite liked having a secret that only she and Brains were privy to. It was nice for them both to have a reason to spend time together without the others. Brains wasn’t exactly the most conventionally attractive man she had ever met, but Martha had started to admit to herself that sometimes brains really were worth more than beauty.
Nurse Barbara put the dumb-bells aside and adjusted her sweatband. It was strange how the gym had a faint smell of smoke. She went over to the treadmill and pressed the button to start it up. In fact, it was just here and in the cupboard with the weights that the smell was strongest. She stepped up onto the treadmill and started to jog. There were no windows in the gym, so the smell could hardly come from outside, unless the ventilation system was faulty.
She didn’t really care for all this gym stuff, but she wanted to make an impression on Director Mattson. He had said that she had a beautiful body, and she wanted to live up to that. If she was going to reel him in, then she must look pretty and have firm thighs. Everything had gone all right so far, although there had been rather a lot of secret meetings lately. Most of the time they had to meet at work, because he had his family. But sooner or later he would leave his wife, Barbara was certain of that. After all, he had told her that his marriage was finished and that he and his wife were married in name only. ‘Since I met you, my darling, I am happy for the first time in my life,’ he had said to her. Nurse Barbara smiled. Director Mattson, or Ingmar, as she called him in their more intimate moments, had told her that they belonged together. She could just imagine what it would be like if they could go off on holiday again, or, even better, if she could live with him. She might even become a partner in his business. For the time being, she would have to make do with those stolen moments at work and the conference trips that they went on together. But if she could make Diamond House even more profitable than it already was, he might see her worth, and get divorced quicker. She stretched out on the mat and wished that he was lying there beside her. She and Ingmar. An official couple. She must make sure it happened soon.
When she got up from the floor, she caught sight of something. A white hair? Weird. None of the staff had white hair, nor did any of the cleaners. And nobody else used the gym, did they? Barbara almost puzzled over the matter, but instead went back to her dreams of life with Director Mattson.