Benny & Shrimp by Katarina Mazetti Read Free Book Online Page A

speak to “somebody beginning with D”.
    But I’ll drive in on Friday, in time for lunch.
    Aargh! Friday – I’ve got the test milking and the milk recorder’s coming. Bugger!
    I wake up the next morning on the settee in the sitting room with a half-eaten crispbread in my hand and a grin plastered across my face.

 

     
    The knight has fallen from his horse
the totem poles are worm-eaten
and the steam engine must be constantly reinvented
– only the sunrise is the same as ever
    When I got home, I kicked off my shoes and jumped up onto the sofa and pulled down a Käthe Kollwitz reproduction that used to be Örjan’s pride and joy. It was a charcoal sketch of a tired-looking woman crying. Then I pinned up the poster of the couple in the seashell.
    Next, I took off my dress and put on the Mickey Mouse earrings and the mauve tights and poured a glass of mulled wine (cold) and drank a toast to myself. It was the only alcohol I had in the house.
    And I spent the whole evening in that outfit, trying to teach myself “Jingle Bells” on the mouth organ and letting my thoughts come and go. Finally I went out to the bathroom and took a long, hot bath, splashing around in the water with the red ball and stroking myskin with the butterfly soap.
    I’ve had worse birthdays!
    Then just as I’d dropped off to sleep, the phone rang. How did he get my number? was my first thought. But it was Märta, from Copenhagen. She wished me a happy birthday and said she was sorry she hadn’t been able to ring earlier. Apparently she and Robert had been taken in for questioning by the police for some obscure reason ; she couldn’t go into details because she was still at the police station. I was answering her distractedly and eventually she noticed.
    “So it’s happened!” she said. Märta’s senses are as keen as a foxhound’s, at least where everybody except herself is concerned.
    “I’ve met the boy next door. That’s to say, the grave next door!” I giggled.
    For once she was struck dumb. Then somebody barked something in Danish and the line went dead.
    He didn’t come to the library on Thursday. I dropped a tray of index cards and deleted an important computer file.
    He didn’t come on Friday, either. I took off the Mickey Mouse earrings at lunchtime. Lilian laughed at them and said they weren’t really my style, if I didn’t mind her saying. I laughed too, and said they were a present from one of the storytime children.
    It was almost true.
    About three o’clock on Friday afternoon, Olof handed me a telephone receiver. “Somebody wanting to speak to ‘a Miss Wallin’,” he said. “I suppose that’s you.”
    My stomach cramped as if I’d eaten something that disagreed with me. My fingers were slippery on the receiver.
    “Yes, Desirée Wallin?”
    “Desirée?” he said. He had a strong local accent, so it sounded rather like “deyziray”. But it was definitely him. I recognised the voice now.
    “My name’s Benny. Benny Söderström. I just took a chance on it being Wallin. From the gravestone.”
    “Yes.”
    “Can you meet me tomorrow? At the cemetery gate, about one?”
    “Yes,” I answered in another monosyllable. Quite the chatterbox.
    It all went quiet.
    “I can play ‘Jingle Bells’ now,” I said.
    “Bring the mouth organ with you then, and you can teach me!”
    “Is that allowed, playing a mouth organ in the cemetery ?”
    “The residents don’t tend to complain. And then we can go for something to eat. I haven’t been able to get anything down for two days.”
    “Nor me.”
    “Good!” He rang off abruptly.
    Olof was observing me closely. It must have been rather odd listening to my end of the conversation. Then he smiled sadly and patted me on the cheek. Life has made some impression on him, then. He recognises a confused teenager when he sees one.
    I knocked a box of disks onto the floor and sat down suddenly when I went to pick them up. And just couldn’t stop laughing.

 

     
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