The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules (4 page)

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, because 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.

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.

‘Everything green is good for you,’ she claimed, and flashed one of her winning smiles while her eyes glowed. Sneaking out of the retirement home when nobody was watching had turned into a game for Martha, and she was always in a buoyant mood when she returned. Sometimes she would even give them an encouraging little pat on the cheek. If Rake had been a little boy and had fallen off his bike, he probably would have let her give him a hug to make it feel better.

‘We’ll soon have something to show for all this hard training,’ Martha went on. ‘A few vitamins and some carbohydrates on top, and then, my friends, we can conquer the world.’

‘You can go conquer it,’ Rake muttered as his pessimism took over once more. There was something a little bit fishy
about all this. Martha sounded so very
purposeful
. His gut feeling told him that she was planning something, something bigger than he could even imagine.

‘Right, that’s enough for today,’ she called out. ‘And don’t forget to wipe the floor and dry off all the apparatus. Let’s meet in my room in half an hour.’

A little later, when they had showered and freshened up a bit, they gathered together in Martha’s room. She had put out a basket with particularly nourishing bread and some fruit, while Brains had got out some bottles of energy drink. She had a new tablecloth, one with red and white flowers.

‘One more month of training and we ought to be in good enough condition,’ he said.

‘Yes, and by early March the snow will have melted. Then we can set sail!’ Martha filled in.

‘Set sail!’ Rake exclaimed. ‘We’re not out at sea, are we? Anyway, where would we go? For God’s sake, tell us what you’re cooking up!’

‘I want to make you all happier and livelier, and when the day comes that you are in good condition, then …’

‘Then what …?’

‘Then, and not before, you’ll be told the Big Secret,’ Martha answered. It was important that, for now, the plans were only known by herself and Brains. She didn’t want things getting out of control, and as her mother always said, too many cooks spoiled the broth. Besides, she quite liked having a secret that only she and Brains were privy to. It was nice for them both to have a reason to spend time together without the others.
Brains wasn’t exactly the most conventionally attractive man she had ever met, but Martha had started to admit to herself that sometimes brains really were worth more than beauty.

Nurse Barbara put the dumb-bells aside and adjusted her sweatband. It was strange how the gym had a faint smell of smoke. She went over to the treadmill and pressed the button to start it up. In fact, it was just here and in the cupboard with the weights that the smell was strongest. She stepped up onto the treadmill and started to jog. There were no windows in the gym, so the smell could hardly come from outside, unless the ventilation system was faulty.

She didn’t really care for all this gym stuff, but she wanted to make an impression on Director Mattson. He had said that she had a beautiful body, and she wanted to live up to that. If she was going to reel him in, then she must look pretty and have firm thighs. Everything had gone all right so far, although there had been rather a lot of secret meetings lately. Most of the time they had to meet at work, because he had his family. But sooner or later he would leave his wife, Barbara was certain of that. After all, he had told her that his marriage was finished and that he and his wife were married in name only. ‘Since I met you, my darling, I am happy for the first time in my life,’ he had said to her. Nurse Barbara smiled. Director Mattson, or Ingmar, as she called him in their more intimate moments, had told her that they belonged together. She could just imagine what it would be like if they could go off on holiday again, or, even better, if she could live with him. She might even become a partner in
his business. For the time being, she would have to make do with those stolen moments at work and the conference trips that they went on together. But if she could make Diamond House even more profitable than it already was, he might see her worth, and get divorced quicker. She stretched out on the mat and wished that he was lying there beside her. She and Ingmar. An official couple. She must make sure it happened soon.

When she got up from the floor, she caught sight of something. A white hair? Weird. None of the staff had white hair, nor did any of the cleaners. And nobody else used the gym, did they? Barbara almost puzzled over the matter, but instead went back to her dreams of life with Director Mattson.

The next day the friends went across to Martha’s room to have one of their alloted daily coffees. It was easier for them to sneak around now that Diamond House only had three staff members. On arrival, they found the TV turned on. When they had got their cups of coffee and had sat down on the sofa, Brains turned up the TV.

‘You simply must see this program,’ he said. ‘It’s a documentary about Swedish prisons.’ He drew the curtains.

‘Usch, no,’ complained Anna-Greta. This really wasn’t her sort of program.

The five friends drank their coffee with the usual dash of cloudberry liqueur, and had seen little more than the
introduction when the atmosphere in the room became charged with anger.

‘It’s incredible that such things can go on,’ exclaimed Christina, waving her nail file. ‘Just look—the criminals are better off than us!’

‘And besides, it’s our taxes that pay for them,’ Anna-Greta snorted.

‘Now, now, some of the tax money pays for the care of the elderly too,’ Brains pointed out.

‘Oh no, not much. Local councils would much rather build sports halls than retirement homes,’ Anna-Greta countered.

‘Politicians ought to end up in prison,’ said Martha as she dropped a stitch. She found it hard to knit and watch TV at the same time.

‘Prison? But that’s where we’re going,’ exclaimed Brains, and Martha had to give him a quick kick on the shin. They had agreed not to proceed with too much haste. If they did, they would never get the others to go along with them. But during the entire program, sharp comments could be heard and finally Anna-Greta couldn’t keep silent. She rearranged the bun on her neck, put her hands on her knees and looked around her with a stern expression.

‘But if prisoners are better off than us, why on earth are we sitting here?’

A deathly silence ensued. Martha looked at her in amazement, but soon adapted to the situation.

‘Exactly. Why don’t we do a little burglary tour and end up in prison?’

‘No, you are joking, aren’t you?’ Anna-Greta answered, giggling strangely. It didn’t sound like her usual horse-like neigh.

‘Burglary tour? Over my dead body!’ exclaimed Christina, her Free Church upbringing having left its mark. ‘Thou shalt not steal, amen, and that’s that!’

‘But just think. Why not?’ said Martha, getting up and turning the TV off. ‘What have we actually got to lose?’

‘You’re crazy. First you make us all do physical exercise, and now you want us to become criminals. Is there no end to this folly?’ said Rake.

‘I just wanted to see your reaction,’ Martha lied.

A collective sigh of relief could be heard all round, and soon the conversation moved in other directions. But when the others had left, Brains stayed behind a few moments with Martha.

‘I think that gave them something to ponder,’ he said. ‘Now they’ve seen another world outside the retirement home.’

‘Yes, this was the first step. Now we leave the dough to rise,’ Martha replied.

‘You know what, we’ll soon be on the run from here.’

‘Yes, we will,’ said Martha.

A week went by without anybody mentioning the TV program. It was as if the subject frightened them, and nobody really dared bring it up again. But while Martha read her new crime novel,
Murder in the Retirement Home
, Brains was busy with preparations. He had made reflector arms to attach to their walkers so that they wouldn’t get run over in town—and he was also adding the final touches to his invention of the week.

‘Have a look at this, Martha,’ he said, handing her a red cap with five small holes at the front. ‘Press the peak and then you’ll see.’

Martha took the cap and pressed, and a bright ray of light shone across the room.

‘Better than a headlamp. Caps with LED lights are just what you need for robberies.’

Martha burst out laughing.

‘You are clever,’ she said, not without some tenderness in her voice.

‘But now we need some more LED lights.’

‘Well, if I can buy fruits and vegetables in the corner shop, then I’m sure I can sneak round to the hardware store too. But really, it is crazy that we have to do our shopping in secret,’ she said. ‘Do you remember the advertisement for the retirement home?
A gilt-edged life after seventy.’

‘If everything goes according to plan, then we’ll do better than that,’ said Brains as he put his cap back on again. ‘And in prison they’ll certainly be nice to us because we are so old!’

‘It does sound exciting to become a thief, doesn’t it? First you have to plan and carry out the crime, which is a thrill in itself, and then there will be all the new experiences in prison.’

‘Exactly. We aren’t fit enough to do parachute jumps or to travel around the world, but with this we will make things happen anyway.’ Brains looked out of the window with a dreamy look on his face.

‘But we must find an innocent crime that doesn’t hurt anybody,’ Martha went on.

‘Economic crime is serious enough to warrant a prison sentence, and then we’d probably get the others to go along
with it,’ said Brains. ‘Ideally, we ought to steal from people who are
extremely
wealthy.’

‘That will increase our personal funds,’ Martha mused. ‘We won’t touch nice rich people, the kind who donate money to research and charity. But we’ll target those who don’t pay tax and always want more. We can steal from them.’

‘The capitalist predators, the extortionists and …?’

‘Yes, those greedy money-grabbing types. Have you thought about how wealthy people always compare themselves to others who are even richer? And then they want more. If they don’t understand how to share, then we can help them. Quite simply, we’d be doing them a service.’

‘They might not see it like that,’ Brains answered, ‘but you are right, of course.’ He had had very little money when he was young, a fate shared by many of his childhood friends in Sundbyberg. His father had worked at the Marabou factory, and Brains had earned some extra money as an errand boy. The factory had, in fact, been well managed. It had a park where the workers and their families could relax. Brains thought that was great, and he had felt considerable respect for the old men in their bowler hats. They had understood how to share with others. In fact, he had liked it so much in Sundbyberg that he had stayed there despite offers of jobs and a place to live in Stockholm after he had graduated as an engineer. At first he had worked for a firm of electricians, but after his parents had died he had opened his own workshop on the ground floor of the building where the family lived. His first major move in life had been to Diamond House.

‘Everything we steal will go into the Robbery Fund,’ Martha went on. She picked up the knitting that was in her
lap, untangled the ball of wool on the sofa and started knitting the back panel of a cardigan.

‘Robbery Fund?’ Brains wondered.

‘We can collect the money and dole it out to culture, care of the elderly and everything else that the state neglects. That will work well, don’t you think?’

Brains agreed, and as the evening wore on they aired many different ideas between them. When it was finally time to go to bed, they had decided to target the place in the country where the very richest people were to be found. They had planned a real robbery—of the type that they had only ever seen at the cinema before.