Part 14 (1/2)

”Then you can only be one guy.”

”Who's that?” I ventured.

”The one we were talking about.”

”Maybe,” I said, ”maybe not,” and we carried on playing, and when we weren't playing we continued to talk, and I interrogated that guy a bit and found out he was a stockbroker.

It was easy to talk to him, we liked the same stuff. He didn't ask any more about who I was. We talked about other stuff, and sure, I noticed he liked football and fast cars. But he was no tough guy, not at all, more of a sensitive, thoughtful guy, and one day we got talking online about watches, and watches are another thing I'm interested in. D wanted to get this very particular, expensive watch, and somebody else online said, ”There's a huge waiting list for it,” and maybe there is, but not for me. Things are good if you're a footballer in Italy. You can jump all sorts of queues and get a discount on anything, so I interrupted again and said: ”I can get hold of one for you for such-and-such amount.”

”Are you joking?”

”No way!”

”And how is that supposed to happen?”

”I'll just phone a bloke,” I said, thinking, what have I got to lose?

If D didn't want the watch or if he was just talking s.h.i.+t, I could keep it for myself. It was no big deal, and the guy seemed trustworthy, and sure, he talked about Ferraris and expensive stuff. But he didn't seem like a show-off. He just seemed to like those things, so I said, ”Listen, I'm coming to Stockholm soon and I'll be staying at the Scandic Hotel.”

”Okay,” he said.

”And if you're sitting in the lobby at four o'clock, you'll get your watch!”

”Are you serious?”

”I'm a serious guy!”

Afterwards I phoned my contact and got hold of that unique watch, a nice little thing, and then texted my bank details to D via my Xbox account. Not long after that I flew to Stockholm. We were playing a qualifying match for the European Champions.h.i.+p, and as usual we were staying at the Scandic Park Hotel. Lagerbck and I had reconciled, and I arrived at the hotel and said h.e.l.lo to the lads in the team. I had the watch in a box in my bag, and that afternoon I went down to the lobby with it, like we'd agreed. I felt totally relaxed. But I had Janne Hammarbck, the security guard, with me just to be on the safe side.

I had no idea what D looked like or who he was. No matter how nice he sounded, he could've been anyone, a nutter with ten aggressive mates not that that's what I believed. But you never know, and so I looked round down there, left and right, and the only person I noticed was a slight, dark-haired guy sitting in a chair, looking shy.

”Are you here to collect a watch?” I asked.

”Er, yeah, I ...”

He got up, and I saw it straight away. He was confused. I think he'd already realised who I was, but still, only right then did it finally hit home: It's you! I'd seen it before, of course. People feel awkward around me, and in those kinds of situations I become more open and friendly, so I asked a load of questions about the guy's job and where he usually went out, that sort of thing. Eventually he loosened up too, and then we started talking Xbox. What can I say? It was nice. It was something new.

My mates from Rosengrd are lads from the street: they've got buckets of att.i.tude and adrenaline, and there's nothing wrong with that, not at all, that's what I grew up with. But still, this guy, he was intelligent and cautious, he had a different way of thinking, he wasn't macho at all, didn't need to play it c.o.c.ky, and normally I don't let people get too close. I've learnt the hard way that people often want to use me for their own ends like, I know Zlatan, I'm so cool.

But I felt straight away that things just clicked with me and this guy, and I said to him, ”I'll leave the watch at the reception desk, and as soon as I've got the money in my account you can pick it up.”

Half an hour later he'd transferred the cash, and we stayed in contact. We texted, we talked on the phone, and he came down to visit us in Milan. He was a well-brought-up Swedish guy who says things like, ”nice to meet you”. He didn't fit in with my Rosengrd guys. But he did get on with Helena. He was more her type finally, a guy who doesn't chuck firecrackers into kebab stalls! He became a new figure in my life, and Helena likes to call him my internet date.

Remember the Mile at Malm FF, the running route I used to bunk off by taking the bus or nicking a bike? That wasn't all that many years ago, and I'd think about all that stuff sometimes, not only because it was when I'd just been taken up into the first team. So many things were different now. Take those fancy houses in Limhamnsvgen. They'd seemed so unattainable, especially that one pink house that was as big as a castle. In those days I couldn't even imagine what kind of people lived like that. They must be amazingly well off.

I still sort of thought like that. I didn't feel awkward around that sort of people any more, quite the opposite, but I remembered the pain the pain of standing outside that world, knowing that you don't live on the same terms. You don't forget those sorts of feelings, and I still dreamt of revenge of showing them all that I was no longer the kid with Fido Dido in Rosengrd. That I was someone who could own the wickedest house, and Helena and I really needed a home in Malm.

We couldn't stay with Mum in Svgertorp any longer. We had another baby on the way. I wanted a fence of my own to wreck, so Helena and I would drive around here and there and rate the houses. It was this fun thing we did. We made Top 10 lists, and which house do you think came in at Number 1? The pink one in Limhamnsvgen of course, and it wasn't just because of my old dreams. That house was really brilliant. It was the nicest one in Malm, but of course, there was one problem.

There were some people living there and they didn't want to sell, and what can you do? That was the question. We decided not to give up. Maybe give them an offer they couldn't refuse. Not that I was going to send some Rosengrd lads round their way, exactly. This had to be handled with style, but even so, we decided to go on the offensive, and one day Helena was at IKEA.

She b.u.mped into a friend there, and they got talking about the pink house.

”Oh, some good friends of mine live in that pile,” her friend said.

”Set up a meeting. We want to speak to them,” Helena told her.

”Are you joking?”

”Not at all,” and so she did.

The friend rang and explained the situation, and was told that the couple really didn't want to sell, no way. They liked living there and the neighbours were so nice and lovely and the gra.s.s was green, and the view towards Ribersborg Beach and the resund Strait was terrific, blah blah blah. But the friend had been given her instructions and told them that we weren't going to take that as an answer from her. If they wanted to stay there, no matter what we were willing to pay, they'd have to tell us to our faces, and wouldn't it be fun to meet Zlatan and Helena over a cup of coffee? Not everyone got to do that.

They clearly thought that would be fun, so Helena and I went over, and I knew straight away that I had the upper hand. I am who I am, we'll sort it, but even so, I was in two minds. As I walked through those gates, I felt big and small at the same time, both the kid who gawked at those houses during the Mile and the guy who was a huge star. At first I just went round with Helena and checked it out, ”Very nice, very nice, what a lovely place you've got here.” I behaved and was polite and all that. But over coffee I couldn't restrain myself any longer.

”We're here because you're living in our house,” I said, and the man started laughing, like, how funny, and sure, I had a gleam in my eye. It was a sort of joke, a line from a movie. But I continued: ”You can take it as a joke if you want. But I'm serious. I intend to buy this house, I'll make sure you're happy, but we're going to have it,” and then he went on, saying it wasn't for sale, not under any conditions.

He was adamant, or rather, he pretended to be, but now I could hear it. It was like on the transfer market. It was a game. The house had a price for him. I could see it in his eyes and I could sense it in the atmosphere, and I explained my thinking: I don't want to do things I don't know how to do. I'm a footballer. I'm not a negotiator. I'll send a guy to do a deal.

Not Mino, if that's what you're thinking. There's got to be a limit somewhere. I sent a lawyer, and don't think I'm a fool who just p.i.s.ses his money away. I'm a tactician. I'm careful. There was no, ”Get it at any price,” none of that. It was, ”Make sure you get it for as little as possible.” Afterwards, we sat at home waiting. It was a bit of a drama. But then the call came. ”They'll sell for thirty mil,” and there was nothing to discuss. We bought it for thirty million kronor, and honestly, for that kind of money I bet that couple went skipping out of the house.

I'd done it. Sure, it wasn't free. We'd paid to be able to kick them out. But this was just the beginning. We went mad with renovating the place. We didn't cut any corners. We couldn't make the garden wall higher. The council said no. What could we do? We wanted a higher wall so no fans or stalkers could stand out there and look in on us. So we dug ourselves deeper instead. We lowered the level of the plot. There were loads of things like that. We really went to town, and that wasn't always popular.

The houses in that neighbourhood are usually pa.s.sed down as inheritances. Daddy's money pays, and n.o.body from my sort of background had moved in before. It's all posh people, and there's n.o.body who speaks like me, who says stuff like 'the wickedest house' and that. Here they use words like 'distinguished' and 'extraordinary'.

But I wanted to show that a bloke like me could get in here with his own money. That was important to me right from the start, and I hadn't expected everybody to give me a round of applause. But I was still surprised. What, they're going to do this and that? They carried on like that constantly. They moaned. But we didn't care, and made that house just the way we wanted it.

It was Helena who worked at it. She was incredibly thorough and got help from various museums and whatever. I wasn't as involved as she was. I don't have the same instinct for those things, but there was one thing I contributed. On the red feature wall in the foyer I hung a big picture of two dirty feet. When my mates turned up, they were all like, awesome, wicked, cool place you've got here.

”But what are these disgusting feet doing here? How can you have this s.h.i.+t on your wall?”

”You idiots,” I said. ”Those feet have paid for all of this.”

18.

I REMEMBER WHEN I SAW HIM at the training ground. It was pretty nice, I have to say a sense that something was still the same, even after all the changes from one club to another. But I couldn't come up with anything better than yelling: ”Hey, you following me or something?”

”Of course. Somebody's got to make sure you've got cornflakes in the fridge.”

”But I refuse to kip on a mattress on your floor this time.”

”If you're nice, you won't have to.”