The water was running in the bath and she was standing by the bedroom window, looking out over the courtyard. Some kids were sitting in the sandpit, making a mess in the wet sand. They had warm caps and waterproofs on and didn’t seem to notice the biting wind and bleak sky. Their mothers sat shivering on a bench, hands in their jacket pockets and collars turned up. Otherwise the courtyard was empty, at this time of day. The bigger kids were at school or nursery.
She had lived here her whole life and never felt any longing to leave. She grew up in one of the buildings on the other side of the courtyard, where her parents still lived. When she and Jörgen moved in together, it never occurred to her to move to a different part of town, and when an apartment became available on the block, they seized the opportunity without hesitation. Being so close to her parents also meant that childcare had never been a problem.
The hours before noon were nice, when she could be by herself and just sit at home and take it easy. Therese, their fourteen-year-old, was in school and Tobias, who was seventeen, worked as a postman and did not come home until after lunch, if he came home at all. Jörgen was at his job in the ball-bearing factory, and she did not have to leave to clean before two o’clock.
She had taken early retirement a few years ago because of chronic pain in her back and arms from her low-paid cleaning job at the hospital. She went to the doctor and was granted extended sick leave, and a few years later she was allowed so-called sickness benefits, without any further discussion. It did not hurt so badly that she couldn’t clean at all, so now she cleaned people’s homes cash in hand in the afternoons and collected a pension too. That way she brought in considerably more money to the household treasury than Jörgen did, even though he worked full-time. They sometimes discussed whether he should do the same thing, but he was not keen on taking cleaning jobs. That was women’s work, he thought.
She went into the bathroom and turned off the tap, brought out the tub of water and set it on the wall-to-wall carpet in the living room. She sank down in the armchair, carefully lowered her feet into the hot water and lit a cigarette. Ricki Lake and a dozen obese Americans were trying to make themselves heard on the topic ‘My partner is unfaithful with my best friend – the lie detector can prove it’. She had never been unfaithful herself, not since she and Jörgen got married anyway, and that was more than twenty years ago. She could well imagine Jörgen having had a fling or two, but, if he had, she didn’t care all that much about it.
They lived under the same roof, but that was about it. They didn’t talk much. He had his interests and she had hers. He had the guys, bandy and football, and she had TV and the kids. Sometimes she went to The Sapphire and danced with a girlfriend, but otherwise it was mostly soap operas, the cleaning job and housekeeping for the rest of the family that occupied her time. Pretty thin gruel, you might say, but she did not complain.
The doorbell rang and she cursed to herself because, as usual, she had forgotten to bring the towel with her from the bathroom. The door was open anyway, so she didn’t have to get up.
‘It’s just me! What are you doing?’
‘Mum, will you get my towel from the bathroom? I’m taking a footbath.’
Her mother was a somewhat overweight woman, about sixty-five, but her dark-brown hair had only minimal streaks of grey. She had just had a perm and looked quite stylish.
‘Your hair looks really nice,’ said Lise-Lott.
‘I just came from the hairdresser. Do you think it turned out okay?’
Her mother handed over the towel and sat down on the couch.
‘I said your hair looks really nice.’
Lise-Lott stubbed out her cigarette and lit another.
‘Would you like one?’ she asked, tossing the pack on to the coffee table, in front of her mother.
‘I’ll put the coffee on,’ her mother said, getting up and disappearing into the kitchen.
The audience was booing and Ricki Lake was shaking her head, gasping in surprise at the evidence of the lie detector. Shaquil looked relaxed in his chair, but he was shaking his head too, and stubbornly maintained that the lie detector was lying, while Cheyenne was jumping up and down in fury, screaming a lot of things that had to be bleeped out. Her best friend, Sarah-O, just sat and smiled in embarrassment, rolling her eyes.
Her mother came in with two cups of coffee and sat back down on the sofa, took a cigarette from the pack on the table and got involved in the programme. They watched a while in silence, until there was an ad break.
‘Was Jörgen at the match yesterday?’ her mother asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t you ever go along?’
‘Why would I?’
‘Irene asked if I wanted to go to the theatre on Sunday. There’s a play at Cosmos.’
‘So, are you going?’
‘Are you nuts? She thinks she’s something, Irene, that’s what I say.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘I guess it’s ’cause of her kid. He’s at college. Whatever good that will do.’
‘What’s Dad up to?’
‘He’s watching Oprah. I think this is more interesting. I bought a chemise for Therese.’
‘Really? Where?’
‘At Åhlén’s, on sale. It only cost a hundred kronor.’
‘Do you think she’ll like it?’
‘Sure, all the girls have them. White, you know, with thin shoulder straps.’
‘Sounds cute. I can take it instead.’
‘You can fight over it,’ her mother laughed and puffed out a large smoke ring that slowly dispersed on its way up to the ceiling.
‘I think she’s the one who’s lying, not him,’ said Lise-Lott about a girl on the TV. ‘I’m sure she’s a lesbian too. There was one on before.’
‘You don’t say.’
‘Yeah, she slept with her boyfriend’s sister.’
‘They’re out of their minds in America.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Dad says that guy in number 10 is a homo. Niklas, you know.’
‘What makes him say that?’ Lise-Lott asked.
‘I don’t know. You can tell by his looks, he says. I don’t think there are any homos in Katrineholm.’
‘There must be homos everywhere.’
‘No, I don’t think so. They all live in Stockholm.’
‘Therese is going to Stockholm.’
‘She is? Why?’
‘Clothes shopping.’
‘Are you letting her do that?’
‘Depends on what you mean by letting her. She pretty much does what she wants anyway. The other girls are going.’
‘Maybe you and I should go to Stockholm and do some shopping.’
‘It’s pretty expensive. You can find good clothes here.’
‘We could go to Norrköping.’
‘Why?’
‘Just to do something.’
‘We could do that. Then we’ll go to McDonald’s,’ Lise-Lott suggested.
‘I don’t like hamburgers.’
‘So what do you like?’
‘Whatever. Chinese food.’
‘You can just as well have that here in town.’
‘But we never do.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s expensive.’
‘Do you think it’s cheaper in Norrköping?’
‘Now just give it up! You think we should take the camping stove and make our own food?’
‘You were the one who didn’t want to go to McDonald’s.’
‘I never said that! I just said I don’t like hamburgers.’
‘It’s the same thing.’
‘No, it isn’t. They have other things.’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know! You’re the one who wanted to go to McDonald’s!’
‘Don’t you want to go there?’
‘Sure. We’ll just have to see what they have.’
‘I’m sure they have the same things they have here in town.’
‘Probably.’
The conversation died out and they finished watching the programme. Her mother got up.
‘Well, I have to get home to Dad. He’ll probably want coffee.’
‘See you. Say hi.’
‘Thanks for the coffee. Bye now, love.’
TV-Shop started and she remained sitting in front of two idiots cheering over a set of frying pans. She wondered whether they were genuinely enthused that the frying pans produced such splendid results or whether they were paid actors. In that case they were almost unbelievably skilful. And the whole audience too, standing up and applauding the great food. She decided they were probably for real, but that there was some trickery with the frying pans. She had never seen such impressive results in real life, either for herself or anywhere else.
She lit a cigarette and switched to another channel, where her favourite British soap opera was just about to start. There was a rustling at the letter box and a dull thud was heard on the hall floor when the post arrived. She remembered that it was Monday and hoped that OK! magazine was waiting for her out there. But first she would see how things were going for the Dingles in Emmerdale.
She never found out. Twenty minutes later she was dead.