Chapter 30
Britt-Marie is not sure exactly at what point the sun broke through the eternal gray haze of the January sky, but it seems to be looking ahead into the new season.
Borg somehow looks different today. They drive past Toad’s house, the one with the greenhouse outside.
A pregnant woman is moving about inside.
They pass more gardens, with more people in them, which is deeply strange now that Britt-Marie has got used to Borg’s only road always being deserted.
A few of them are young, a few have children, a few of them wave at the car.
A man with a cap is standing there with a sign in his hand.
“Is he putting out a ‘For Sale’ sign?” asks Britt-Marie.
Sven slows down and waves at the man.
“He’s taking it down.”
“Why?”
“Things have changed. They’re going to the soccer cup. They no longer want to go, they want to see what happens next. It’s been awhile since anyone in Borg wanted to know what happens next.”
The white car with the blue door travels through Borg, and only when they go past the sign announcing that they are now leaving Borg does Britt-Marie realize that they are being followed by other vehicles. History will remember this as the first time there’s ever been a traffic jam in Borg.
Max lives in one of the big houses beyond the boundaries of the village, on its own secluded street and with windows so big that they could only have been put there by someone who thought it more important for people to be able to look in than out.
Sven explains to Britt-Marie that the residents here have fought with the local council for years, with mounting hostility, to put them under the jurisdiction of the town rather than remaining a part of Borg.
In the next moment he slams on his brakes as a BMW backs out, without looking, from a garage at the far end of the street.
Fredrik is wearing sunglasses, spinning the wheel as if it’s fighting his efforts to do so.
Sven waves, but the BMW roars past; it might as well have driven straight through them.
“Bloody lemon arse,” mutters Vega and gets out of the backseat.
Britt-Marie follows on behind. Max opens the door before they have even pressed the doorbell, barges his way out and, looking stressed out, closes the door behind him. He’s still wearing the tracksuit top with “Hockey” printed across the chest, but he has a soccer ball under his arm.
“No need to bring a ball, Vega has already put one in the car,” Britt-Marie informs him.
Max blinks uncomprehendingly.
“Surely you don’t need more than one ball?” Britt-Marie goes on.
Max looks at the ball. Looks at Britt-Marie.
“Need?”
As if that’s a word that bears any relation to soccer balls.
“Well I need to use your bathroom,” moans Vega, moving impatiently towards the door. Max’s hand catches her shoulder; she instantly slaps it away.
“You can’t!” he says, looking worried. “Sorry!”
Vega peers suspiciously at him.
“Are you worried I’ll see how bloody over-the-top your house is? You think I care if you’re millionaires?”
Max tries to push her away from the door, but she’s too quick; she slips under his arm and goes in. He bundles in after her, then they stand there, both rooted to the spot. She with her mouth wide open, he with his eyes closed.
“I . . . what the hell . . . where’s your furniture?”
“We had to sell it,” mumbles Max after a moment, closing the door without looking at the room.
Vega peers at him.
“Don’t you have any money?”
“No one has any money in Borg,” says Max, opening the door and stepping out, heading towards the car.
“So why doesn’t your dad just sell his bloody BMW, then?” Vega calls out after him.
“Because then everyone will know he’s given up,” says Max with a sigh, and climbs into the backseat.
“But . . . what the . . .” Vega starts saying as she climbs in after him, until she’s stopped by a hard shove from Omar.
“Drop it, sis, what are you? A cop or something? Leave him alone.”
“I only want to kn—” she protests, but Omar gives her another shove.
“Leave it! He talks like one of them but he plays soccer like one of us. You got it? Leave him alone.”
Max doesn’t say a word on the way into town.
When they stop outside the leisure center, he gets out of the backseat with his soccer ball tucked under his arm, drops it onto the asphalt, and drills a shot into the wall that is just about the hardest Britt-Marie has ever seen a ball being struck.
Britt-Marie lets out the dog and Toad from the trunk.
Bank follows them inside. Dino, Omar, and Vega come behind.
Sven is at the back. Britt-Marie counts them several times and tries to work out who’s missing, then hears Ben’s voice, sounding rather pathetic, from somewhere around the far corner of the backseat.
“Sorry, Britt-Marie. I didn’t mean to.”
When she can’t immediately locate the voice he manages to say:
“I’ve never played in a cup before. I got so . . . nervous. I didn’t want to say anything when we were at the petrol station.”
Britt-Marie still isn’t quite sure she can hear what he’s saying, so she sticks her head into the car. Sees the dark patch on his trousers and the seat where he’s sitting.
“Sorry,” he says, squeezing his eyes shut.
“Oh . . . I . . . sorry. Don’t worry about it! It’ll come off with baking soda!” Britt-Marie stutters, and goes to dig out some spare clothes from the trunk.
Because that’s the sort of person she’s become in Borg, she realizes. Someone who goes to soccer competitions with spare clothes in the trunk.
She holds the bamboo screen over the window while Ben gets changed inside. Then she covers the seat with baking soda. Brings his trousers into the sports hall and rinses them in a sink in a dressing room.
He stands beside her with an embarrassed pout around his mouth, but his eyes are sparkling, and when she’s done he blurts out:
“Mum’s coming here to watch today. She’s taken the day off work!”
The way he says it, it’s as if the building they’re in is made of chocolate.
The other children are kicking two soccer balls around the corridor outside, and Britt-Marie has to exert considerable self-control not to rush out and give them a stern talking to about the unsuitability of kicking balls around indoors.
She actually feels it’s inappropriate even having sports arenas indoors, but she has no intention of being looked at as if she’s the one with crazy opinions on the matter, so she keeps silent about it.
The sports hall consists of a tall spectators’ stand and a flight of stairs of equal height, leading down to a rectangular surface full of colorful lines running to and fro, which Britt-Marie assumes is where the soccer matches will be played. Indoors.
Bank gathers the children in a circle at the top of the stairs and tells them things that Britt-Marie does not understand, but she comes to the conclusion this is another one of those pep talks they’re all so taken with.
After Bank has finished she waves her stick in the air towards where she’s figured out Britt-Marie is standing, and then says:
“Do you have anything you want to say before the match, Britt-Marie?”
Britt-Marie has not prepared for this sort of eventuality, it’s not on her list, so she grips her handbag firmly and thinks it over for a moment before saying:
“I think it’s important that we try to make a good first impression.”
She doesn’t know what exactly she’s driving at with this; it’s just something Britt-Marie finds a good general rule in life. The children watch her, with their eyebrows at varying heights. Vega keeps eating fruit from the bag and nodding sourly at the spectators in the stands.
“A good impression on who? That lot? They hate us, don’t you get it?”
Britt-Marie has to admit that most of the people in the stands, many of them wearing jerseys and scarfs emblazoned with the name of their own team from their own town, are looking at them as you might look at a stranger on the underground who just sneezed in your face.
Halfway down the stairs stands the old codger from the council and the woman from the soccer association, the same ones that paid a visit to the training session in Borg a couple of days ago.
The woman looks concerned, the old codger has his arms full of papers, and next to them stands a very serious man wearing a jersey on which it says “Official,” and another person with long hair and a tracksuit top with the name of the team from town printed on one side and the word “Coach” on the other.
He’s pointing at Team Borg and bellowing something about how this is “a serious competition, not a nursery!”
Britt-Marie doesn’t know what that’s supposed to mean, but when Toad hauls out a soft-drink can from his pocket she decides that this is certainly not a way of making a good first impression, so she cautions him not to open it.
Toad immediately insists that his blood sugar is a bit on the low side, whereupon Vega gets involved and shoves his shoulder, while hissing:
“Are you deaf or what? Don’t open that can!
” Unfortunately she catches Toad off balance and he falls backwards helplessly.
He tumbles halfway down the stairs, shrieking with every step, until his body thumps into the legs of the woman from the soccer association, the old codger from the local council, the official, and the coach person.
“Don’t open that can!” roars Vega.
Upon which he decides to open the can.
It’s not what you’d in any way describe as a top-notch first impression, it really isn’t.