Britt-Marie Was Here Read Free

for dinner, he just mumbles that it doesn’t matter, without even taking his eyes off the page.
    Britt-Marie has never forgiven soccer for that. For taking Kent away from her, and for depriving her of her crossword supplement.
    She rubs the white mark on her ring finger. She remembers the last time the morning newspaper replaced the crossword supplement with a soccer section, because she read the newspaper four times in the hope of finding a small, hidden crossword somewhere. She never found one, but she did find an article about a woman, the same age as Britt-Marie, who had died. Britt-Marie can’t get it out of her head. The article described how the woman had lain dead for several weeks before she was found, after the neighbors made a complaint about a bad smell from her flat. Britt-Marie can’t stopthinking about that article, can’t stop thinking about how vexatious it would be if the neighbors started complaining about bad smells. It said in the article that the cause of death had been “natural.” A neighbor said that “the woman’s dinner was still on the table when the landlord walked into the flat.”
    Britt-Marie had asked Kent what he thought the woman had eaten. She thought it must be awful to die in the middle of your dinner, as if the food was terrible. Kent mumbled that it hardly made any difference, and turned up the volume on the TV.
    Britt-Marie fetched his shirt from the bedroom floor and put it in the washing machine, as usual. Then she washed it and reorganized his electric shaver in the bathroom. Kent often maintained that she has “hidden” his shaver, when he stood there in the mornings yelling “Briiitt-Mariiie” because he couldn’t find it, but she’s not hiding it at all. She was reorganizing. There’s a difference. Sometimes she reorganized because it was necessary, and sometimes she did it because she loved hearing him call out her name in the mornings.

    After half an hour the door to the girl’s office opens. People emerge; the girl says good-bye and smiles enthusiastically, until she notices Britt-Marie.
    “Oh, you’re still here. So, as I said, Britt-Marie, I’m really sorry but I don’t have time for . . .”
    Britt-Marie stands up and brushes some invisible crumbs from her skirt.
    “You like soccer, I see,” Britt-Marie offers, nodding at the stickers on the door. “That must be nice for you.”
    The girl brightens. “Yes. You too?”
    “Certainly not.”
    “Right . . .” The girl peers at her watch and then at another clock on the wall. She’s quite clearly bent on trying to get Britt-Marie out of there, so Britt-Marie smiles patiently and decides to say something sociable.
    “Your hairstyle is different today.”
    “What?”
    “Different from yesterday. It’s modern, I suppose.”
    “What, the hairstyle?”
    “Never having to make up your mind.”
    Then she adds at once: “Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. In fact it looks very practical.”
    In actual fact it mainly looks short and spiky, like when someone has spilled orange juice on a shagpile rug. Kent always used to spill his drink when he was having vodka and orange juice during his soccer matches, until one day Britt-Marie had enough and moved the rug to the guest room. That was thirteen years ago, but she still often thinks about it. Britt-Marie’s rugs and Britt-Marie’s memories have a lot in common in that sense: they are both very difficult to wash.
    The girl clears her throat. “Look, I’d love to talk further, but as I keep trying to tell you I just don’t have time at the moment.”
    “When do you have time?” Britt-Marie asks, getting out her notebook and methodically going through a list. “Three o’clock?”
    “I’m fully booked today—”
    “I could also manage four or even five o’clock,” Britt-Marie offers, conferring with herself.
    “We close at five today,” says the girl.
    “Let’s say five o’clock then.”
    “What? No, we close at