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gossiping as she was at running.
    Joel walked up the hill towards the place where the musician and womanizer Kringström lived. Kringström was the person he was going to visit. He was bald and fat and had his own orchestra. Joel had been to see him theprevious year. He’d wanted to learn to play the saxophone. He could still recall how Kringström had stared at him, with his glasses pushed up onto his forehead, surprised to hear that Joel didn’t want to play the guitar like everybody else.
    But now Joel had changed his mind. That was why he was on the way to Kringström’s flat.
    A rock idol had to be able to play the guitar.
    He continued up the hill. There was no sign of the Greyhound. He couldn’t see her anywhere ahead of him.
    He still wasn’t quite sure what he was going to do, become a rock idol or a trailer salesman. Presumably being a rock idol was more fun. Prancing round a stage with a guitar in your hands. Singing “Hound Dog” into a microphone. And in front of the stage a cheering and whooping mass of people, most of them girls who were dying to pull off your clothes or handfuls of hair.
    But there again, he imagined it would be hard going, never being left in peace. Always having to be photographed. Never having time to sit back on his bed, dreaming.
    He wondered if a rock idol would ever have time to act like a child again. That worried him. He’d have difficulty coping with that.
    Selling trailers was different altogether. It was actually Samuel who’d put the idea into his head. They’d been having dinner in the kitchen. Fried herring, Joel couldstill recall. He’d ventured to ask Samuel if they’d ever be able to afford a motorcar.
    “I doubt it,” Samuel had said. “But you might be able to hit upon a way of earning lots of money.”
    Joel hadn’t risen to the bait.
    “I suppose you earned a lot of money when you were a sailor?”
    “No way!” said Samuel. “But we used to spend a lot of time at sea, where there was nothing to spend our money on. So we’d saved a fair bit by the time we came back ashore.”
    Joel could see that as his dad said that, he started thinking about Jenny. He’d met Joel’s mother while he was a sailor. Samuel’s face clouded over. It seemed as if Joel’s dad was floating away into the clouds. Maybe he looked a bit angry as well. Joel sometimes wondered if Samuel also hated Mummy Jenny—because she’d put him to shame by running away.
    Joel changed the subject. He went back to what they’d started with. Money. How could you best earn a lot of money.
    “Tell me who earns lots of money,” he said.
    “Trailer salesmen,” said Samuel.
    Joel was surprised by the reply. But Samuel went on to say:
    “Ten years from now, every Swede will have a trailer to hitch onto the back of their car. Trailer salesmen are going to get rich.”
    But we won’t be buying a trailer, Joel thought. Or atleast, if we do, Samuel and I will have to become horses and pull it.
    What’s the point of having a trailer if you can’t afford a car?
    As usual at such moments, Joel felt very angry. His anger was always lurking in the background, to emerge whenever he thought about how little money they had. He and Samuel were poverty-stricken. Despite the fact that there were supposed to be no poor people in Sweden anymore. But then his anger was transformed into a guilty conscience. Samuel toiled and slaved for all he was worth. He couldn’t possibly try harder than he did.
    After that conversation in the kitchen Joel spent ages thinking over what Samuel had said. That was how they would be able to afford a car. If Joel sold enough trailers, they’d be able to afford it. They wouldn’t have to pull the trailer themselves.
    But it was only now, when he’d made his New Year’s resolution, that he started to think seriously about the matter. He’d have to make up his mind. Rock idol or trailer salesman. It would be a difficult choice to make.
    There were lots of difficulties. But