Let The Old Dreams Die Part 27

I remember when I was...yes, even when I was only...thirteen or fourteen. I started thinking about these things.

What it was really like.

The actual experience. It's much more central than we are really prepared to admit, in fact. Here in Sweden, at any rate.

What?

Yes, they'll get half of what you get. Their task is also quite... unpleasant, after all.

There is one thing I'm wondering about.

Do you find any form of...how shall I put it...moral satisfaction in this?

No. I don't mean it like that.

I mean...

When you're a child. And you're pretending to be someone else. You're pretending to be...Robin Hood. And while you're that person, you can...

No. That's a different matter.

Have you never wondered?

No. Most people don't, after all. Not even in my profession.

You must understand that this is something that has preoccupied me all through my life. In a way which is perhaps...unhealthy. But there's nothing I can do about that. We are how we are.

Some people are driven down into the depths of the sea. Others up to the peaks of mountains. Some study the stars. All their lives. In order to understand. Whatever that means.

For my part...

I saw a man pierced by a scythe when I was eleven years old. In through his stomach and out through his back.

I mean, you might think that would be...enough.

But he died immediately.

What?

No, it wasn't anybody I knew.

Do you have anyone...particularly close?

Why is that, then?

No, I suppose it's these...what are they called...pimples, in that case. Otherwise I think you have a nice face.

No, don't drink any more.

This project...

Right. It's seven o'clock. The others will be here at any moment.

This project has been on my mind for quite a while.

The fact is, I wish I had done it a long time ago.

As things stand now...

Well, it will be more like a last wish.

Not something from which I will be able to...gain any benefit.

And I suppose that's how it should be, in some way.

It's a bell-headed nail. It's used for fixing tin roofs, normally.

Nails with the kind of head you really need for this...you can't buy them. Not any more.

There. That was the doorbell. It's time.

Can you go and answer it, I can't get up.

I think it's best if you...don't get to know each other.

Majken.

My friends.h.i.+p with Majken began with a telephone call.

I'd been annoyed with the Konsum supermarket chain for a long time; they make such a big thing out of being environmentally friendly, but they wrap their turnips in plastic. I can understand them doing that with peppers, or Spanish cauliflowers. But to wrap plastic around whole local turnips and then to call themselves 'Green Konsum' just isn't acceptable. It's hypocrisy, and nothing less.

I'm no expert when it comes to dealing with vegetables, but one thing I do know: turnips keep just as well as potatoes if you treat them the right way. And they don't use plastic on potatoes. So every time I came home with a turnip and had to peel off a layer of thin plastic film before I could use it, I got annoyed.

The earth's finite resources, fossil fuels, oil, plastic. You know all that stuff. I always have a couple of cotton bags with me when I go shopping. Little things, insignificant you might say. But many drops make a huge river, and a few tonnes of plastic will undeniably turn into a mountain eventually. A mountain of plastic. And what do we do with that?

So I made a phone call.

We really want to hear what you think, it says on their blue and white packaging. KF customer services, and the telephone number.

'Majken,' replied a voice on the other end.

I explained why I was ringing, expecting cool approval, an a.s.surance that we are working to make our stores more environmentally friendly, thank you for ringing, your views are important to us. Something along those lines. I've done this before.

But Majken did more than agree with me. She chimed in. Did I know that Konsum spent more money on marketing its environmental policy than on implementing it? Did I know that a significant proportion of the goods labelled 'ecological' are actually produced by workers earning starvation wages, and using methods that would never be accepted in Sweden?

Well yes, I had read something about that, but now I was getting the information from the inside, so to speak, it had a different kind of credibility.

We talked about where all the money goes. Where the profits actually go. I said I always tried to shop at Konsum, because I believe in the idea of a co-operative, even though it's gone a bit off course in recent years.

Majken laughed. 'Gone a bit off course? You could say that. You could also say it's been flayed alive, ripped to shreds and thrown on the rubbish dump. Do you know what the bosses at KF earn?'

I didn't. She told me.

As the conversation went on I got a strange, sinking feeling in my stomach. Majken was the last person I would have expected to talk like this. I mean, she was the face of the company-or rather its voice-as far as the public was concerned, and her job was to deodorise and sanitise anything shady rather than highlighting it. I asked her why she was so critical.

'Is there any other way to be?' she asked. 'I know how things are, and I can't just sit here and lie to you, can I?'

I had also expected the conversation to be short. A couple of minutes at the most. But I think we talked for over half an hour. I ended up telling her quite a lot about my life and my job as well. Twenty years as a cleaner and five as a carer for my husband, Borje.

'How much do you earn?' asked Majken.

'Ten seven.'

'After tax?'

'No. Before.'

A long sigh.

'Can you manage on that?'

'Yes and no,' I said. 'It's...well, that's why I buy turnips. As I said. Some months are a bit tight. If it weren't for Borje's disability pension, I don't know what we'd do.'

There was a brief silence.

'Why don't you do a bit of shoplifting?'

The feeling in the pit of my stomach, which had disappeared while we were talking about other things, came back again. But still I answered, quietly, 'I do.'

Majken laughed again, and a doubtless foolish smile spread across my lips. It was an appreciative laugh.

'I'm pleased to hear it,' she said. 'Shoplifting is the only reasonable answer.'

'Hm,' I said. 'But what was the question?'

I really liked her laugh. It came so easily, bubbling out. Her voice was an old person's, if women of my age are old, but her laugh was something different, it came from a different source. The picture of her I had in my mind grew younger. I saw big blue eyes, a sparkle.

'The question every store, every aspect of the consumer society asks us,' she said. 'Have you earned this?'

'Oh,' I said. 'That one.'

'Sorry,' said Majken. 'Am I getting confused, or didn't I get your name?'

'You don't sound confused to me. My name is Dolly.'

'Goodness. After Dolly Parton?'

Now it was my turn to laugh. 'I'm not that young, 'I said. 'It says Dolores on my birth certificate.'

'That means sorrows.'

'It does.'

It was only now, as the conversation was drawing to an end, that I realised how much I wanted it to continue. I wanted her to ask me how I came to be called Dolly, anything at all. At the same time a rational voice told me that it was Konsum customer services on the other end of the line and not an old friend, even if it felt that way. She must have lots of calls waiting.

Does she talk to everybody like this? I wondered, but I just said, 'Anyway, thanks for the chat. I enjoyed it.'

'Me too,' said Majken.

There was silence for a few seconds. I studied the pattern on the rag rug in the hallway, let my gaze wander along to the front door, battered from all the b.u.mps with Borje's wheelchair. Let my thoughts carry on out into the silence of the stairwell. The silence everywhere that would return when I put the phone down.

Majken said, 'Maybe we could do it again.'

'Yes,' I said. A little too eagerly, perhaps, but goodness me, we were two mature ladies, not shy teenagers. Our integrity might grow over the years, but we can do without superficial prestige. I was very lonely and Majken was a little breath of life. No point in pretending otherwise.

'In that case I'll give you a ring one day, if that's OK,' said Majken.

'Yes. My phone number-'

'I've got it here on my monitor.'

'Right. Of course, yes.'

I still haven't got used to the technological advances when it comes to communications. I find it difficult to speak to an answering machine.

I got her private number too, one of those that begins with 070, which I have learned means it's a mobile phone. Majken was obviously more modern than me. We exchanged farewell phrases and hung up.

The silence wasn't as deafening as I had feared; it was as if there was a little song inside my head. Which one? Oh, maybe one of those Svante Thuresson hits from the sixties. The ones that paint pictures in pastel shades, giving you the feeling that the world has just been created.

Do you know what I mean?

A couple of months ago there was an exhibition of photographs up in the library here in Blackeberg. It was about the first ten years, 195464. A lot of the pictures were black and white, but when it came to the colour photos you could kind of hear 'You're a Spring Breeze in April' playing as background music.

The sensibly arranged shops, the subway station. People in the square: women in plain coats, men in hats. A kind of freshness mixed with emptiness, as if the people had just discovered that this place existed, were trying to get their bearings. In some ways that's exactly how it was, I'm sure.