英语小说网

Omar sees her go into the pizzeria or the corner shop or car workshop or whatever it is, and after a while come out again with one bag that seems to contain chocolate and another that seems to contain beer. Omar elbows Toad in the side and says:

It so happens that Bank, in an even blacker mood than usual, comes walking across the parking area with her white dog in the middle of a training session.

"You think she has superpowers?"

In the children's defense, they didn't do it on purpose. Or rather, it was obviously done on purpose but none of them believed Toad would actually hit the mark, so to speak. They never hit anything they aim at. Especially not Toad, who's the youngest and worst player in an already dismal team.

"You know, what the hell, in films blind types get superpowers! Like Daredevil!"

Toad answers with a sound made by children whose mouths are full of goalpost. Omar gestures in an explanatory way to Britt-Marie, as if Britt-Marie might be more receptive to his line of reasoning, which must be reckoned as fairly exaggerated optimism.

"I'm not familiar with Daredevil," explains Britt-Marie with as much amicability as she can drum up, considering how enormously stupid this conversation is.

Bank moves across the parking area with her stick in her hand, next to and slightly behind the white dog. Omar points at her exultantly:

"Daredevil! Is a superhero! Except blind! So he has super-senses instead. You think she does? Could she sort of sense it if you shot a soccer ball at her head even though she couldn't see it?"

"Do it, Toad!"

Toad, who happens to have the ball at that moment, doesn't seem to think it's a very good idea. But then Omar utters those golden words that have the magical power to obliterate every child's self-restraint anywhere in the world:

"She is not blind. She merely has impaired vision," says Britt-Marie. Omar, who has long since stopped listening to Britt-Marie, turns around and says:

"You don't have the guts to do it!"

In fairness to Toad, he obviously never thought he'd hit her. They're all quite surprised that he does.

Most surprised of all, obviously, is Bank.

"What do you mean not on purpose? He was aiming, wasn't he?" yells Omar confidently, while at the same time moving out of cleaving range behind Britt-Marie.

"Was that funny? Brats!"

"Whatthebloody…!" she roars.

Toad, paralyzed, nods and backs away. Britt-Marie enthusiastically clasps one hand in the other, and doesn't quite know what to do with herself.

The children stand still at first, their mouths agape. Like you do. Then Omar starts tittering. Then Vega follows suit. Bank storms towards them, incandescent, her stick cleaving the air.

"Please… Bank, he didn't mean to, he obviously wasn't aiming at you, he obviously wasn't. It was obviously an accident."

"Accident! Accident, yeah!" howls Bank, and it's a little unclear what she means by this.

Britt-Marie clears her throat and almost holds out her arms.

"Did you really?" Britt-Marie asks Toad in astonishment.

"Who did this?!" yells Bank, her entire face throbbing like a single thick vein emerging from her throat.

"What are you saying, you old bat?" howls Bank.

"But… it's absolutely marvelous!" she manages to blurt out.

"It's obviously not marvelous that he hit… you. That is obviously not what I mean. But it is excellent that he hit… anything at all."

"They never hit anything they aim at, you see. This is really an excellent sign of progress!"

Bank leaves the parking area in a hailstorm of the ugliest and most colorful words Britt-Marie has ever heard. Britt-Marie actually didn't even know it was possible to combine words for genitalia with words describing other parts of the body in that way. You don't even come across that level of verbal innovation in crosswords.

At this stage, everything that's reasonable inside Britt-Marie insistently tries to curb her enthusiasm, but clearly it doesn't have much success, because Britt-Marie leans in and whispers chirpily:

A thoughtful silence envelops the parking area. Obviously, it's the voice of Somebody that breaks it.

Bank stares at Britt-Marie. At least she seems to be staring. It's difficult to know for sure, with those sunglasses. Britt-Marie gulps hesitantly.

"I wouldn't want to suggest that you're wrong, I certainly wouldn't. But I do really think that on this occasion Bank's problem was not a lemon in the arse, but a soccer ball in the head."

The boy looks down at his pizza box.

Vega clenches her fists but doesn't say anything else. The boy squeezes past Somebody in the doorway and runs out towards the road. The BMW is parked three hundred feet down the road, with its engine running.

"Don't you have pizza in town, or what?"

"What are you doing here?" she calls out.

The boy with the tracksuit jacket with "Hockey" written on it walks out of the pizzeria with a pizza box in his hands. He fails to hide his interest in the soccer training, realizes his mistake, and tries to quickly get moving, but Vega has already seen him.

She's sitting in the pizzeria doorway, grinning in the direction of Bank.

"Buying pizza," says the boy in the tracksuit repentantly.

Britt-Marie brushes her skirt down.

They all laugh. Britt-Marie doesn't get angry about it. It's a new feeling for her.

"I like the pizza here."

"Like I said about that one. Lemon. Up the. Arse."

"Here. This change, and this receipt, huh."

"Come! Have something for you!"

Somebody turns to Vega with a grimace.

Vega looks as if the words have wounded her. She turns around and kicks the ball so hard that it flies over the fence into the darkness.

Somebody rolls a few feet towards Britt-Marie, nods at the pizzeria.

"He's not his dad. Dad can be pig, kid could be good. You should know if anyone."

By this stage, Toad has drunk all the goalposts and Vega kicks off a noisy dispute with Sami, of which Britt-Marie can only distinguish something about "Psycho' and "owes money," by which she comes to the conclusion that the training session is over. She's unsure whether she should be doing anything in particular, such as blowing a whistle or something similar, but she chooses not to. Mainly because she doesn't have a whistle.

Inside the pizzeria, Somebody slides a fistful of money and a piece of paper across the counter.

She gestures towards the bottom of the door, where Britt-Marie pushed the money through last night.

When Britt-Marie doesn't seem to know what to say, she adds:

"Next time, you can, what's-it-called? Come in!" She grins.

She nods cheerfully. Britt-Marie mumbles "Ha" repeatedly. Neatly folds the receipt and puts it in her handbag. Takes the change and puts it in the vase for tips. Somebody rolls half a turn forward, then half a turn back.

"You left too much money for cigarettes, Britt-Marie. You are, what's-it-called? Either your maths is crap or you're very generous, huh? I think: Britt-Marie is generous, huh? Not like that Fredrik, for example, he's so mean he yells every time he takes a shit!"

"It looked nice, you know. Looked nice when you… cleaned, huh. Thanks!" she says.

"It was not my intention to hide your belongings so you could not find them," says Britt-Marie, directing her voice into her handbag.

Somebody scratches her chin.

Britt-Marie sucks in her cheeks. Goes to the door. She has reached the threshold when she stops and summons her strength and says:

"The cutlery, huh. Fork, knife, spoon. That order. I can, what's-it-called? Get used to it!"

Somebody looks out of the door at the children and their soccer pitch. She nods. Britt-Marie also nods. It's the first time for as long as Britt-Marie can remember that she has had a friend. The children take off their dirty jerseys and drop them off in the recreation center, without Britt-Marie even having offered to wash them. There's no one left in the parking area by the time she's washed and tumble-dried the jerseys and put them in a neat pile, ready for tomorrow's training. Borg is empty except for a lone silhouette by the bus stop on the road. Britt-Marie didn't even know there was a bus stop there until she saw someone waiting by the streetlight.

"I should just like to inform you that there's no urgency, at the moment, to have my car repaired."

She doesn't recognize Pirate until she's just a few feet away. His red hair is tangled and muddy and he stands motionless as if trying to ignore that she's there. Her common sense tries to make her walk away. But instead she says:

"I was under the impression that you lived in Borg."

"It says here you have to have both your parents' signatures. So I have to go and ask my father to sign it."

"Ha. Have a good evening, then," she says and starts walking towards the darkness.

He keeps a firm grip on the note that Britt-Marie handed out at the start of the training session.

Britt-Marie nods.

"You want to come with me?" he calls out after her.

She turns around as if he's out of his mind. The paper in his hands is stained with sweat.

"I… it… I think it would feel better for me if you were there," he manages to say.

It's obviously wholly ludicrous. Britt-Marie is scrupulous about telling him that throughout the whole bus journey.

Which takes almost an hour. And ends abruptly in front of an enormous white building. Britt-Marie is holding on to her handbag so tightly that she gets a cramp in her fingers. She is, in spite of everything, a civilized person with a normal life to get on with.

Civilized people with normal lives are actually not in the habit of visiting prisons.