Voyage 2002

"Are you afraid?" he asked, seeing the tears in her eyes. April 2002 / Benny

Silently they sat next to each other in the car. Since they had driven away from Ekerö they had said nothing. Not that it was an unpleasant silence, on the contrary. It had just been a busy day and now they sat quietly for a while. Frida yawned and put her hand on his knee as he drove. He looked at her briefly.

"What's up, Friddle?"

"Nothing," she replied. "Although..."

"Tell me," he said.

She leaned back and laid her head against the headrest. "Well it was a bit of a mind fuck, don't you think?"

"What?"

"Agge and Björn. The fact that they suddenly walked hand in hand."

Briefly, he burst out in laughter. "They had been kissing before, hadn't they? You told me so yourself," he said, looking in his rearview mirror and changing lanes.

She shrugged. "Yes, but I hadn't witnessed that and it's such a strange idea somehow... although they did look very much in love. Didn't you think?"

He chuckled. "Björn has always looked at her like that."

"Well, not that overdone!"

"Yes, he did!"

Frida laughed. "Not at all, Andersson! This is just projection!"

For a moment he looked her way. "Projection? How so? I've never looked at Agnetha like that!"

"No, not at her, no," she said.

"Well, not at Björn either, mind you."

She let hear his favorite laugh. The giggle that sounded too loud and was accompanied by wrinkles at her nose.

"Oh well," he said, thinking for himself, "I find it hard to say anything about it, but for Björn this is huge... I don't know what it's like for Agge. You know more about that."

She jumped up. "But do you realize how crazy this is! If we kiss someday, maybe, will ABBA consist of two couples again? That's just insane, isn't it? I mean, seriously, Benny!"

He laughed out loud. "Yes and no."

Meanwhile, he wondered what she really meant by "maybe someday..." Twenty-four hours earlier she asked when they were going to kiss and now it was "maybe"? What exactly was he supposed to make of this?

"What do you mean 'yes and no'?" she asked, sitting up straight again and seeking his gaze.

He shrugged and searched for a good way to express his thoughts. "Um, how am I going to put this," he said, rubbing his beard. "I think I speak only for Björn and me, but maybe we had a quiet hope?"

"God almighty," she laughed. "From Björn I knew, but from you I really didn't expect it."

He chuckled. "I behaved really well, didn't I?"

"Yeah, I have to say I really never noticed anything."

"That's why you were so startled, I guess?"

"I think so."

"But didn't your own actions scare you? You know what you did, don't you?"

"Yeah, right. Maybe subconsciously I thought it was safe?"

"Safe?"

"Hmm," she hummed.

He sighed internally. They had talked it through, absolutely. Everything was out in the open, wasn't it? So why couldn't he gauge her completely? She sometimes had something unapproachable about her. In and of itself, she had always been like that, but suddenly it made him uncertain again. When he thought back to 1969... He met her after a Charlie Norman show, in which she also participated. Afterwards, Charlie introduced him and her to each other.