Escape from Sunset Grove by Minna Lindgren

Author:Minna Lindgren
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK

Chapter 20

The evening-shift caregiver was washing Anna-Liisa in the spa, and Margit was solving her crossword on the sofa – pondering the answers volubly, as always. She readily took up the substantial space her ample presence required. At first Siiri had found Margit’s habit of talking to herself irritating, but she didn’t let it bother her any more – nor the fact that Margit never cleaned up after herself, wandered around in various states of undress, suffered from flatulence, and forgot barely chewed wads of gum on the coffee table. But Siiri still couldn’t get over the way Margit used any old toothbrush she happened to come across in the bathroom. Siiri had started keeping hers in her bedroom closet, which induced Irma to accuse her of being paranoid, in other words, practically senile. Irma hadn’t noticed that Margit had ever used her toothbrush.

The Ambassador had escaped for an evening walk well before the caregiver’s arrival. Before leaving, he had sung the praises of Siiri’s blood pudding, which had taken him back to the 1970s and his suspenseful years as a diplomat during the Cold War. The compliment irked Irma, who had been skipping out on kitchen duty to an inexcusable extent, and Anna-Liisa, who had often cooked for her husband during their time in Sunset Grove without receiving any particular thanks.

‘Stop scrubbing me with that potato brush! My skin is very dry; you’re going to tear it!’

It was Anna-Liisa’s voice. The amount of noise coming from the bathroom tonight was altogether peculiar. Anna-Liisa had already told the caregiver to close the window, because otherwise she’d catch pneumonia and die. The sound of the running shower was accompanied by a hissing and rasping and the occasional loud bang, along with groans from Anna-Liisa. Irma and Siiri were sitting on the sofa; Siiri was reading Buddenbrooks and Irma was playing Sudoku on her green flaptop. They glanced at each other, unsure if the situation were dire enough to call for intervention. Margit appeared to have forgotten her hearing aid on her nightstand. She paid no attention to the racket coming from the bathroom, just wondered out loud, coughing and clearing her throat, whether Jari Litmanen was a soccer star and if the answer for ‘Eeva and Jari’ might be ‘Litmanens’.

‘I HAVE THE RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION!’

The shout cut through the living room’s diversions like the crack of a whip. Even Margit stopped talking for a moment. Anna-Liisa’s voice was tremendously defiant, furious. What on earth was going on in the bathroom?

‘It’s spelled out in the European Union Convention on Human Rights, haven’t you ever heard of that? I get to decide what anyone does to me! You cannot force me to do this! An elderly person needs to be treated with as much respect as anyone else!’

Anna-Liisa’s voice slid into despair. Siiri set aside her family of bourgeois Lübeckers and ran to the bathroom door, but it was locked. She knocked powerfully, and felt calm and confident.

‘Anna-Liisa, it’s Siiri. Can you open the door?’

Another knock, firm and clear, like one of Anna-Liisa’s.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.