‘M-my girlfriend works in the museum café. Malin – have you met her?’
Titus shakes his head.
‘Well, she works in the restaurant here. Shall we scrounge something tasty?’
‘Okay.’
Titus gets in the queue for the cashier behind a couple of cultured ladies dressed in black. They smile at him and nod very discreetly, as if they knew him. Or had known him a long time ago and now wanted to make themselves known so as to avoid any embarrassment. Has he slept with one of them? Or both? Nothing is impossible, Titus realises, and nods back almost as discreetly before looking away.
The counter is filled with enormous ciabatta sandwiches and cakes and biscuits that are as big as small plates. The sarnies are a bit rustic and look as if somebody had scattered too much flour onto them before they were put in the oven. Houmous, brie, salami, some fancy cabbage leaves and sun-dried tomatoes, the contents are overflowing on all sides.
The giant biscuits have extremely uneven edges. Titus thinks that the person who has baked them must have been a little child or somebody with a serious disability. It’s a very good thing that they employ disabled people at Moderna Museet! The cultural upper class can be in need of a bit of grim reality. To be forced to cope with your own or somebody else’s handicap is an everyday occurrence for many people. It doesn’t really matter what the biscuits look like; it’s the contents and the taste that counts. And the contents are extremely visible since the biscuits are very buckled. Here and there, bits of chocolate, raisins and nuts stick out. Besides, not all the biscuits have been baked properly; some are even burnt at the edges. Titus takes a handicap biscuit and fills a large cup with coffee. He pushes his tray towards the cash register.
‘That will be fifty-nine kronor, please,’ says the cashier and gives him a friendly smile.
‘What, I took one of the failed biscuits! Look, it is almost burnt. Isn’t there a price reduction for these?’
‘Very funny!’ the cashier laughs. ‘No, they are meant to be like that. These are Jamie Oliver’s biscuits. They are really tasty, I promise. We sell his biscuit and cake book in the shop.’
Now Lenny comes up to the cash register. On his tray he has a portion of cake that is the size of a little flower pot. He leans over Titus and makes a kissing sound with his lips.
‘He-hello, Malin.’
‘Hello, Lenny.’
‘H-he is with me. This is the Titus Jensen that I told you about. The festival, you know.’
‘Oh yeah! Eddie’s mate. Right. Hi, Titus.’
Cashier Malin glances at the queue behind Lenny. Some young mothers stand pointing and deciding among the various biscuits and pastries. Their indecision has created a little gap after Lenny and Titus. Malin lowers her voice and gives them a sly look.
‘Okay, coffee and cakes are on me today. Enjoy yourselves. See you!’
‘Oh, thank you very much,’ says Titus, and rather regrets not taking a giant sarnie instead. But they looked so expensive and he hadn’t really trusted in Lenny’s being able to get one for free.
He takes his tray and aims for a couple of empty chairs beside the window facing towards the Vasa Museum. Today, Stockholm is in its very best mood, Titus thinks, when he sees all the people walking in the sunshine on Strandvägen on the other side of the bay. Somebody has just lit a grill on the afterdeck of one of the houseboats moored below the museum. The smoke rises straight as an arrow up into the sky. Even the sea breeze seems to have gone on holiday.
Lenny stays for a while and talks to Malin. Lenny is tall and lanky. His body looks nervous, despite a confident go-to-hell-I-am-a-rockstar attitude when it comes to clothes. A lot of black, a lot of studs. Malin, too, looks like a rock girl with all her rings and her unruly hair, even though today she is disguised in the black and white uniform of the restaurant. Now and then, they look in Titus’ direction.
The two cultured ladies are sitting a few tables away. They, too, look at Titus now and then. Titus pretends to be staring straight ahead. Over the years he has acquired a certain ability to look from the corners of his eyes. He is never able to be fathom whether people stare at him with admiration or contempt.
Lenny gives Malin a kiss and strolls across the limestone floor. The sole of one of his canvas shoes has loosened and when he gets close to the table Titus can hear the squelching sound. Even though Titus’ financial situation is more often than not somewhat precarious, he does at least always have decent shoes. His dad went on about that when he was little. ‘As long as you have decent and polished shoes, you’ll stand firmly on this Earth.’ It was easy for his dad to say that, he was a shoemaker with his own hole-in-the-wall shop on Skånegatan. The shoe repair shop was open six days a week. His dad never did anything other than repair and polish boots and shoes. He had done it since he was fifteen years old. When he became a pensioner, he sold the premises to a paper shop for 15,000 kronor. Then he sat in his kitchen for two months before his heart said stop. He died with his eyes open and his forehead on the kitchen table right next to a cup of coffee, his chewing tobacco and his pools coupons. Death was no sadder that anything else in his quiet life.
‘W-what’s the biscuit like?’ Lenny wonders when he sits down opposite Titus.
Lenny evidently feels comfortable and relaxed. His twitching and stammering is much calmer now than when he and Titus met at the festival.
‘Quite all right,’ Titus answers.
‘M-me, I took a great big cake. Like a lunch in itself.’
‘It’s a muffin.’
‘What?’
‘It’s a muffin, not just a cake.’
‘You’re taking the piss!’
‘No, I am not.’
‘B-but muffin sounds like an insult. “You bloody muffin!” type of thing…’
‘Yeah, I agree it sounds a bit daft. But it is still called a muffin, a sweet muffin.’
They sit in silence for a few moments. Whether it is just a cake or a muffin is hardly a subject of conversation to get people relaxed. Titus feels a gust of anxiety. What was the point of saying what he did? Must he be such a damned know-all? Fuck, now a large cold beer would taste really good instead. His hand trembles a little when he lifts the cup to his mouth. Pull your socks up, Titus, damn it! Better to be obsessed than dependent, he thinks.
‘Did you have fun at the festival?’ Titus wonders in an attempt to jump-start a conversation.
Lenny blows some air out of the corner of his mouth as if he was trying to blow his fringe away from his face. Pfff. Pfff. Twice in quick succession. But his fringe doesn’t move an inch. It never does when Lenny blows air out of the corner of his mouth. Titus realises that Lenny’s tics are more a case of twitches on account of his Tourettes than on account of the irritating fringe.
‘Y-yeah, man. It was a fucking success. It’s always great to play with Eddie. The atmosphere is far out. You can almost touch the love in the air. And touch the heat too. I love playing in a marquee. It’s a bit like lying down and making out with the entire audience in a hot midsummer tent. Everybody sleeping with everybody else, but in a good way. Do you get what I mean?’
Titus looks at Lenny. He doesn’t get it all. It sounds absolutely revolting to sleep in a hot tent and make out with hundreds of teenagers. At the same time, he must keep his end up and be a little accommodating. Lenny has fixed a free café visit after all.
‘Yeah, I think I get it. I agree, there is a special atmosphere around Eddie. I remember the first time I saw him. It was when Stockholm was the Cultural Capital of Europe. They arranged a culture marathon out by the gasometers at Ropsten. A whole week, day and night, with actors, writers and artists who took turns reading classics and newly written works that in one way or another were about love. I was there one night when it was hot, full of people and a really brilliant atmosphere. Then Eddie read I Adore Love. There was only just him and a guy with a double bass. Eddie was wearing a white silk suit, as big as a shift, with the arms rolled up, and he was barefoot. He had feathers in his hair, he looked like a Sitting Bull on a bathing holiday by the Riviera. There must have been five hundred people in there sitting on the floor around him. It was like he had an aura, and he looked bloody handsome too. I’m not usually easy to impress but even I thought it was a bit magical.’