The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules Read online

  ‘You know what, I’ve been thinking of something. In prison you are allowed out in the fresh air at least once a day, but here we are hardly ever let out at all.’

  ‘I wonder how fresh the air is around a prison, but yes, I get your point.’

  ‘Prisoners get out for at least an hour every day, and they are given nourishing food and can take classes in a workshop. In fact, they have it better than we do.’

  ‘A workshop?’ That got Brains’s attention.

  ‘You see? I want to live for as long as possible—but I want to live an exciting life for as long as I can too.’ She leaned over and whispered something in his ear. Brains raised his eyebrows and shook his head. But Martha didn’t give up.

  ‘Brains, I have thought this over very carefully …’

  ‘OK, why not, why not …’ he said. He leaned back in his armchair and burst out laughing.

  Four

  The sound of her heels echoed harshly in the corridor as Nurse Barbara hurried along. She opened the storeroom door, wheeled out her trolley and put the medicines on the tray. Each and every one of the twenty-two clients had an assortment of pills that it was her job to keep track of. Director Mattson was fussy about medication, and each of the elderly clients had their personal prescriptions. But some of the pills, like the red ones, were given to all the residents. As were the light blue pills that he had recently introduced. They made the old folks lose their appetite.

  ‘They will eat less and then we won’t have to buy so much food,’ he had said.

  Nurse Barbara wondered if this was ethical, but she hadn’t dared make an issue of it with the director since she wanted to stay in his good books. She wanted to make something of her life. Her mother had been a single mum and had worked as a maid in the posh district of Djursholm. She had never earned very much and they had been quite poor. When Barbara had accompanied her mother to work one day, she had seen fancy paintings, shining silver and patterned parquet floors. She had seen the ‘fancy folk’ her mother worked for dressed in furs and beautiful clothes. That glimpse of a different sort of life was something she had never forgotten. Director Mattson was one of those successful people too. He was twenty years older than her, energetic, quick-witted, and had many years’ experience doing business. Above all, he had a lot of influence and power, and she realized he could help her along in life. She hung on to his every word and she admired him. He might be carrying a few extra pounds, and perhaps he worked too much as well, but he was rich, and with his brown eyes, dark hair and charming manner he reminded her of an Italian. It wasn’t long before she fell in love with him. He was married, but she hoped for more and they soon embarked upon a relationship. And they were going to go on holiday together.

  She hurried down the corridor and distributed the pills to the old people. Then she parked the trolley in the storeroom again and returned to her office. Now all she had to do was tidy up the paperwork on her desk, so that Katia, her replacement while she was on holiday, had a clean desk when she arrived. Nurse Barbara sat in front of her computer with a dreamy look in her eyes. Tomorrow, she thought, tomorrow. At last, she and Ingmar would be able to get away from it all and just be together.

  The next day, Martha observed that Director Mattson picked up Nurse Barbara in his car. Aha! She had suspected that there was something going on between them. The director was going to a conference and was taking her with him. Good. That suited her perfectly. The car was barely out of sight before Martha was gathering all her friends to tell them about the pills, which were promptly discarded.

  A few days later, laughter was heard in the lounge again. Brains and Rake played backgammon, Christina painted her watercolours and Anna-Greta listened to music or played patience.

  ‘Patience is good for keeping your brain in good shape,’ Anna-Greta chirped as she placed the cards out on the table. She was careful not to cheat, and never forgot to tell everyone whenever she solved her card solitaire. Her long, thin face and the bun on her neck made her look like an old school mistress rather than an ex-bank clerk. Some smart investments had made her rich, and she was proud of her ability to do sums in her head so quickly. Once, when the staff at the retirement home had offered to help her with her bank accounts, she had looked daggers at them and nobody had dared ask a second time. She had grown up in Djursholm and had learned the value of money. At school she had always been top of the class in mathematics. Martha looked at her out of the corner of her eye and wondered if it would be possible to get such a correct and proper person to join her on an adventure. She and Brains had concocted a plan and were just waiting for the right opportunity to put it into action.

  The days without Nurse Barbara were the calm before the storm. On the surface, everything seemed normal, but inside each of them, something had changed. The five friends sang ‘Happy as a bird’ and the first movement from Lars-Erik Larsson’s God in Disguise, just as they had done before Diamond House took over, and the staff applauded and smiled for the first time in ages. Nineteen-year-old Katia Erikson from Farsta, Nurse Barbara’s temporary replacement, baked some cakes for afternoon coffee, found some tools for Brains and let everyone get on with their own thing. The guests at Diamond House became all the more self-confident and when the day came for Katia to cycle home for good and Nurse Barbara returned, a defiant rebellious seed had started to sprout.

  ‘Oh well, I suppose we must prepare ourselves for the worst,’ Brains sighed when he saw Nurse Barbara on her way in through the glass doors.

  ‘She’s probably all set to make even more cuts for Director Mattson,’ said Martha. ‘On the other hand, it might help our cause,’ she added with a barely discernible wink.

  ‘Yes, you can say that again,’ said Brains and he winked back.

  Nurse Barbara had barely been back at the retirement home for a few hours before doors could be heard slamming and her high heels echoed down the corridor. In the afternoon, she asked everybody to come to the lounge. Once she had them there, she cleared her throat and placed a pile of papers on the table.

  ‘Regrettably, we must make some cuts,’ she started off. Her hair was nicely done up and there was a new gold bracelet visible on her wrist. ‘In bad times we must all do our bit. Unfortunately, we must cut down on staff costs, so starting next week there will be only two members of staff. Besides me, that is. This will mean that you can only go out once a week for a walk.’

  ‘Prison inmates can get exercise every day, you know. You can’t do that,’ Martha protested loudly. Barbara pretended not to hear.

  ‘And we must cut costs for food, too,’ she went on. ‘From now on, there will only be one main meal a day. At other times you will be served sandwiches.’

  ‘Over my dead body! We must have proper food and you should buy more fruits and vegetables too,’ Rake roared.

  ‘I wonder if the upstairs kitchen is locked,’ whispered Martha.

  ‘Not that kitchen again,’ said Christina, dropping her nail file.

  Later that evening, when the staff had gone home for the day, Martha went up to the kitchen anyway. Rake would be so pleased if she could get him a salad. He was rather downhearted because his son hadn’t been in touch, and he needed cheering up. Martha often wished that she had a family too, but the great love of her life had left her when her son was two years old. Her little boy had had dimples and curly blond hair, and for five years he was the joy of her life. The last summer in the countryside they had visited the horses in the stable, picked blueberries in the woods and gone fishing down at the lake. But one Sunday morning, while she was still asleep, he had taken the fishing rod and disappeared off to the jetty. And it was there, next to one of the jetty posts, that she had found him. Her life had come to a tragic halt and if it hadn’t been for her parents she probably wouldn’t have found the strength to carry on. She had relationships with several men after the death of her beloved son, but when she had tried to get pregnant again she had miscarried. In the end she grew too old, and gave up on the i
dea of having a family. Childlessness was her great sorrow, even though she didn’t show it. Instead, she hid her pain, and a laugh can disguise so much. She found people were easy to fool.

  Martha shook off her thoughts, tip-toed into Nurse Barbara’s office and opened the key cabinet. She remembered the smell of food and expectantly pulled out the master key. But when she got to the first floor her plans came to an abrupt halt. Instead of the keyhole, there was one of those strange protuberances for plastic cards. Diamond House had transformed the kitchen into an impregnable fortress! Disappointment washed over her and it was a good few minutes before she was able to gather her wits together and leave. But she didn’t give up; instead, she pressed the elevator button to go down. Perhaps there was a larder or storage area in the cellar.

  When the doors of the elevator opened downstairs, she hesitated for a moment, not sure where she was. At the far end of the corridor she could make out a weak light from an old-fashioned door with a pane of glass at the top. This door was also locked, but the master key worked. Cautiously, she pushed open the door and a cold, invigorating winter air blew in. Lovely, here was a way out! The chill helped to clear her mind, and all of a sudden she remembered she had the old key from her parents’ home. It was very similar to the master key with a triangular bow. If she switched keys, she was sure nobody would notice the difference. Martha closed the door to the outside, turned on the light and entered another corridor. On one of the doors was a sign which read: GYM—FOR STAFF ONLY. Martha unlocked the door and looked inside.

  There were no windows and it took a while before she could find the light switch. The fluorescent lights blinked to life and she could see skipping ropes, small weights and exercise bicycles. There were benches beside the walls, a treadmill and weird contraptions she didn’t know the names of. So Diamond House had cut back on prophylactic exercise for the residents, but at the same time had a gym just for the staff! The old people had repeatedly asked to get back their own exercise room, but the new owners had said no. Martha felt like kicking in the door, which would be rather difficult at her age, but instead blurted out all the swear words she could think of, arched her back like a cat and made a threatening gesture with her fist.

  ‘You’ll pay for this, just wait!’

  Back upstairs she put the old family key under her door and pulled it as hard as she could to bend it out of shape. Then she hung the crooked key in the key cabinet, so that nobody would be suspicious if it didn’t fit. She hid the master key in her bra, went to bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. The first step in a revolution was to be able to move about freely. And now they could do just that. Shutting her eyes, and with a smile on her lips, she fell asleep and dreamed of a gang of oldies who robbed a bank and were hailed as heroes when they got to prison.

  Five

  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, becaus
e 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.

  Six

  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.