It smelled good there, not only in the kitchen, where Grandma was making meatballs and gravy, which she did better than most, but everywhere there was a fragrance that underlay all the others and was constant, a vaguely fruity sweetness I associated with this house whenever I met it outside, for example when Grandma and Grandad were visiting us, because they brought the fragrance with them, it was in their clothes, I noticed it as soon as they stepped into our hall.
“Well,” Grandad said as we went into the kitchen. “Was there much traffic on the way here?”
He was sitting on his chair, legs slightly apart, wearing a gray cardigan over a blue shirt. His stomach hung over the waistband of the dark-gray trousers. His hair was black and combed back, apart from one lock, which had fallen over his forehead. A half-smoked, unlit cigarette hung from his mouth.
“No, went like clockwork,” Dad said.
“How did you do with the soccer pools yesterday?” Grandad said.
“Not too well,” Dad said. “Seven right was all I managed.”
“I got two tens,” Grandad said.
“That’s pretty good,” Dad said.
“I slipped up on numbers seven and eleven,” Grandad said. “The second one was annoying. The goal was scored after full-time!”
“Yes,” Dad said. “I didn’t get that one, either.”
“Did you hear what one student said to Erling the other day?” Grandma said from the stove.
“No. What?” Dad said.
“He came into class in the morning, and this student asked, ‘Have you won the pools or what?’ ‘No,’ Erling said. ‘Why do you ask?’ ‘You look so happy,’ the student said.”
She laughed. “You look so happy!” she repeated.
Dad smiled.
“Anyone for a cup of coffee?” Grandma asked.
“Yes, please. I’d love one,” Mom said.
“Let’s sit in the living room then,” Grandma said.
“Could we go upstairs and get some comics?” Yngve said.
“You can,” Grandad said. “But don’t make a mess!”
“Nope,” Yngve said.
Treading carefully, for this was not a house you could run in either, we went into the corridor and up the stairs to the second floor. Apart from Grandma and Grandad’s bedroom there was a big attic room there, and along the wall cardboard boxes containing old comics, going right back to when Dad was a child in the 1950s. There was a variety of other objects as well, among them an ancient mangle for wringing tablecloths and bed linen, an old sewing machine, a number of old games and toys, including a tin spinning top, and something that was meant to be a robot made of the same material.
But it was the comics that appealed to us. We weren’t allowed to take them home with us, we had to read them there, and we read plenty from the time we arrived to the time we left. Taking a pile each, we went downstairs and found a chair, and didn’t look up until food was on the table and Grandma called us to eat.
After the meal Grandma washed up while Mom stood next to her, drying. Grandad sat at the table reading a newspaper, Dad stood by the window in the living room looking out. Then Grandma came in and asked if he would like to join her in the garden, there was something she wanted to show him. Mom and Grandad sat at the table, they chatted a bit, but mostly they were silent. I got up to go to the bathroom. It was on the ground floor, I didn’t like it and I had held on for as long as I could, but now I was bursting. Out into the corridor, down the creaking wooden stairs, a quick dash across the carpeted hall surrounded, as it were, by three empty rooms behind closed doors, and into the bathroom. It was dark. In the seconds before the light came on I was shaking inside. But even with the light on, I was afraid. I peed down the side so that the splash of the pee hitting the water would not prevent me from hearing anything. I also washed my hands before flushing the toilet because the moment I pressed the lever at the side of the cistern I would have to rush out as fast as I could, as the noise was so loud and eerie that I couldn’t be in the same room. I stood at the ready, with my hand around the little black ball for a couple of seconds. Then I flushed, darted into the hall, also scary, because every slightest thing there silently “transmitted itself,” and set off up the stairs, not able to run, of course, with a sensation that something down below was following me, until I entered the kitchen and the presence of the others broke the spell.
Outside, in the lane, the stream of people on their way from town to the stadium had increased, and soon also Dad, Mom, and Yngve would be getting ready to go. Grandad always cycled there and left a little later than the others. He was wearing a gray coat, a rust-colored scarf, a grayish cloth cap, and black gloves, I could see him from the window, as he freewheeled down the hill. Grandma took out some rolls from the freezer, we were going to have them when the others returned home, and put them on the counter.
She sent me a mischievous look.
“I’ve got something for you,” she said.
“What’s that?” I said.
“Wait and see,” she said. “Cover your eyes!”
I covered my eyes, and heard her rummaging about in the drawers. She stopped in front of me.
“Now you can look!” she said.
It was a bar of chocolate. One of those triangular ones you don’t see often that are so good.
“Is it for me?” I said. “All of it?”
“Yes,” she said.
“What about Yngve?”
“No, not this time. He’s been allowed to see the match. You have to have a treat as well!”
“Thank you very much,” I said, tearing off the cardboard packaging to reveal the bar wrapped in silver paper.
“But don’t say anything to Yngve, OK?” she said with a wink. “It’s our secret.”
I munched the chocolate as she sat doing a crossword.
“We’re getting a telephone soon,” I said.
“Are you?” she said. “Then we can talk to each other.”
“Yes,” I said. “We’re actually at the end of the waiting list, but we’re getting it anyway because Dad’s in politics.”
She laughed.
“In politics, Karl Ove?” she said.
“Yes,” I said. “He is, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he is. He is indeed.”
“Are you enjoying school?” she said.
I nodded.
“Yes, very much.”
“What do you like best?”
“The breaks,” I said, knowing that would make her laugh, or at least smile.
When I had finished the chocolate and she was immersed in the crossword again, I went up to the loft and brought down some of the games.
After a while she looked at me and asked me if we shouldn’t go to the match as well. I wanted to go. We got dressed, she took her bike from the garage, I sat on the luggage rack, she sat on the saddle but kept one foot on the ground and turned to me.