by Tore Renberg
‘No, but they said they’d call back.’
‘The rubbish,’ he hears Malene say, feeling the fog thicken in his head, wishing he could drop everything and collapse on to the floor. ‘Bin collection tomorrow.’
‘Oh, yeah, the rubbish,’ he says, perplexed. ‘What would I do without you?’
Malene stands up, and lets go of the dog. She shrugs. ‘That’d be the end of you, Dad.’
‘Heh heh. Where’s your sister, by the way?’
‘I told you, she’s at work.’
He rolls his eyes and grins at himself.
‘You’ve become such a scatterbrain.’ Malene lets Zitha jump up on her; she takes a paw in each hand and dances with the dog. She sends Pål a playful look: ‘Is it your age? Eh? Is my dad an old fogey now?’
‘No, no.’ He runs his hand over his eyes and laughs awkwardly. ‘Just a lot on my mind. Bit too much going on at work. It’ll be all right though. Your dad always comes through in the end, you know that.’
Malene peers at him, squinting so intently it makes her cheekbones even rounder: ‘Still sore?’
‘Yeah.’ He blinks. ‘Like there’s sand in them.’
‘What can it be?’
‘Dunno. But I’m sure it’ll go away.’
‘Have you been to the doctor?’
She’s got that grown-up look in her eyes. She looks like Christine when she’s like that.
‘No, not yet, but I will, of course.’ He forces a smile.
‘Yeah, well make sure you do, okay?’
Pål suddenly feels his teeth begin to chatter, feels his eyelids close and the oxygen drain from his head. He bends over. Pushes the dog aside, pulls Malene close to him. He swallows a lump in his throat.
He holds her tight, doesn’t say a word.
This is never going to work out, he thinks to himself.
‘Dad?’
They say you love your kids equally, and you do, but it’s different with Malene. He’s never quite understood Tiril, never quite connected, like she’s off somewhere else, in a whole different direction, moving too fast for him. Is it Thursday she’s going to sing?
‘Dad? What is it?’
He holds her tight. Swallows, sniffles, blinks. Then he lets go.
‘Is it Thursday Tiril is singing?’
‘You know it is.’
‘Yeah,’ he says, shaking his head, ‘what are you going to do with me, sentimental fool that I am, eh? Do you know what I was just thinking of? Iron Maiden in Drammenshallen, sure it was good, but Maiden in London, Malene, nothing beats that. Six, six, six, the number of the beast, sacrifice is going on tonight. Heh heh. Your old rocker dad, eh? Your daft dad has gone all soft. How’s your ankle? Soon, Malene, you’ll soon be back on the mat. Now, go and do your homework, and I’ll take Zitha for a walk.’
She looks at him askance. ‘I’ve done my homework…’
Pål tousles her hair. It feels soothing to the touch. What a girl. He’s so proud of having such a great daughter.
Imagine if he told her? Imagine he suddenly told her everything?
‘You know what?’ He strokes her cheek. ‘The two of you should hang up another milk carton for the birds. Autumn’s arrived, you know.’
2. DO YOU WANT ME? (Sandra)
Am I a storm? Am I electric?
She’ll be sixteen in a few months, her forehead is sweaty, under her hairline too. Her mouth is trembling and she knows she needs to hurry up – her knees wobble as she walks. Her heart is wild and emboldened; she feels weak, she feels strong.
One metre sixty-one, two burning eyes, three freckles on her nose, straight blonde fringe and glittering lip gloss.
The white bra, the one she bought without her mother’s knowledge, the one her mother would probably think was tawdry, would he like it?
Is she the one he just has to have? Is she irresistible?
Sandra doesn’t need any sleep, doesn’t need any rest, why sleep the seconds away? She’s never going to sleep again, she’s going to stay awake twenty-four hours a day, because she doesn’t have the time to waste a second of the life she’s living.
Terrorism, environmental disasters, financial crises. They might well exist out there, they might well be important, to Mum, to Dad, to the teachers, to grown-ups, but to her they don’t exist. The world has vanished. All she’s got is heat and dread, haste and apprehension. All she feels is this drizzle within, like a strange rain falling inside her, wonderful and dangerous. Because Sandra is going to meet the one she loves.
He must be there by now?
She clutches the silver cross resting in the hollow of her throat, wipes her damp forehead with her arm. It’s embarrassing, she’s inherited it from her father. He always has patches of sweat under his arms when he hangs up his jacket after work and says, ‘Ah, it’s good to be home’.
Maybe she should get herself a headscarf she could tie from the back of her neck round her forehead. Maybe he’d like that. He wouldn’t have left yet, would he?
Sandra drags the heavy industrial hoover as quickly as she can across the shop floor. She’s not checking the time on her mobile every minute, more like every five seconds and now it’s way too late, 20:50.
He’s going to be waiting for her by the substation in Gosen Woods. Just by Madlavoll primary school. Close to Gosen kindergarten. She’s attended both of them. He’ll be waiting for her. And he’s not lying now is he, because love, that doesn’t lie, does it?
Jesus, imagine if Mum had seen her?
He took her face in those warm hands, his pupils were aglow. She held her breath, felt his thumbs stroke her lips, then he kissed her and said what she wanted to hear: ‘I’ll be there at nine. See you tomorrow.’
Love doesn’t lie.
It’s nice outside now. After a few weeks of rain, the September sky is brightening up even though the temperature has dropped and everybody can feel what’s coming: there’s a nip in the air. Everything living will fade and die.
It’s all the same to Sandra. Come rain, come storm, come everything. War could break out, and that would be fine, as long as she gets to be with him, with him. The girl can hardly understand what she was doing before she met Daniel. All the days and nights spent with her friends, standing around the schoolyard, hanging about outside the shop, walking arm-in-arm, sniggering, and singing out loud in unison. It seems so insignificant, so stupid, so childish. They can go on about how preoccupied she’s become lately. Mira can say it as loud as she likes, Sandra’s let us down, Sandra’s losing it. And Mathilde, poor girl, looks like she lives in squalor, as Mum would say, she can say it too, Sandra’s changed. Makes no difference what they think, it’s air, it’s wind, it’s really less than nothing. All that matters is running towards the one you love and letting your heart melt into his.
A headscarf.
Yes.
That might be nice.
She doesn’t have much left to do now. Vacuum the very back of the shop, then she’s finished. Tiril is dragging her feet, she can do what she wants. Once Sandra has finished hoovering, she’s out of here. Then she’ll hang up her jogging pants and jumper and pull the skinny Met jeans well over her bum, because he’s told her he likes them: I think you’re well sexy in those jeans. She’ll put on more lip gloss, because he’s told her he likes that too: I love it when your lips gleam.
A thousand nervous times she’s stood in front of the mirror, trying to find that expression, the one she evidently has, because he said that too: Oh, you’re well cute when you do that. There’s something about her mouth, something about the way her nostrils flare. She’s asked him plenty of times, what do you mean? She’s smacked him on the arm, smiled at him, but all he said was: I can’t explain it, you’re just so bloody cute when you do it.
Am I? You really think so?
Yes, you are, Sandra, You’re well cute, fucking hell, you’re a flower, you are.
Sandra gets out her mobile again, no messages. 20:52. Hope he hasn’t forgotten the time, hope
he hasn’t grown tired of her, stupid girl, only fifteen.
Ten o’clock, that’s what she told Mum and Dad. Her job will take her until ten, because she has to clean the whole shop on her own. There used to be two of them but not any more, and that means it takes a lot longer. But that’s a lie, because Tiril is here, and the lie hisses in her head, as if it floods up from her midriff towards her throat: one hour. She had managed to wangle one hour. With him.
Sandra’s forehead is sweaty. Yes, Mum, I’ll come straight home after work, no, Mum, I won’t dawdle, no, Dad, I’m not going to drift around at night. No one hung out at night midweek when we were young, things were different back then. Oh, really, so what? If there was one thing she couldn’t care less about, it’s how things were in the stupid seventies and the idiotic eighties, just like she couldn’t care less about the music Dad is always trying to get her to listen to, real music, as he calls it. The Police and Sting and all that stuff. People who could play and didn’t think real music was made with Pro Tools. Or Mum going on about Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Jesus, and all that talk of the cold war and the Berlin Wall – so what? So what? So what?
She’s alive now, don’t they get that?
She’s alive now and she’s lying through her teeth. It’s risky. Mum and Dad could easily find out. They could run into Tiril’s dad. They know who he is. They could run into Tiril. The lie is far from watertight. ‘Hi Tiril, nice to see you, shame you quit your cleaning job at the shop.’
Dozy Tiril, only fourteen and thinks she is something. She’s by the frozen foods with a cleaning spray. Tetchy brat. Sulky and grumpy, always has been. Her sister’s not quite as bad, a little quiet maybe, a little serious. The gymnastics talent, Malene, but she’s injured her ankle. They’re so different, those two. But they’re both odd, each in their own way. Everybody knows, knows they’re a bit weird. Maybe Mum’s right when she raises her eyebrows and says: After all, they haven’t grown up with a mum and a dad.
It’s so hot.
Sandra sticks out her bottom lip, blows up at her fringe.
It’s so unbelievably hot.
The lie is a risk she’s willing to take. If they find out they can say what they like, even though they’ll probably cut her pocket money and ground her, because what do they know about love? They sit watching box sets on Blu-ray, night after night of Mad Men and The Killing. Is that love? What do they know about a boy’s mouth against hers and his hands on her body, what do they know about the intensity in his eyes when he gazes at her in the darkness of the forest?
Sandra is lying, but it doesn’t matter, because she’s a child of Heaven. Her willingness to lie attests to the truth of what she’s doing. When that’s how it is, then it’s right, then it’s the heart that acts. If love wasn’t right, what would be right in this world?
Her hand goes to her throat, to her silver cross, the one she got from Aunt Astrid and Uncle Frank for her confirmation, the one with the diamond inset. She squeezes it hard, again.
She’s nervous about what’s going to happen.
You’re precious, Sandra. Remember that.
You won’t give yourself to just anybody. Will you, my love?
No, Mum.
She’s not just sweaty under her hairline, but on her neck, between her shoulder blades and on her palms. She represses thoughts of her mother and thinks instead about what it says in First Corinthians, about love enduring, believing, hoping for, tolerating all. And she thinks about what the Bible says, that when you were a child, you spoke as a child, thought as a child, and understood as a child, but when you became a man, you put away childish things. That’s the way she feels. Everything childish feels so stupid, feels so far away it is inconceivable that it could have been her.
Sandra vacuums as quickly as she can. Tiril glowers at her from under her headphones, with her thick black mascara, listening to Evanescence or My Chemical Romance. Sandra’s skin tingles. His hands, his eyes, his voice: Do you want me? Sexy?
She hurries, she is close to the bottle return machine and the entrance to the back room, but just before she finishes, she knocks down a display of honey next to the spices. The pyramid collapses, honey jars tumble to the floor and roll in all directions. Sandra’s pulse is up under her chin, she curses to herself and quickly falls to her knees to put them back.
‘Hey, Tiril? Can you give me a hand?’
She’s losing time now. She’s losing seconds with him.
Do you want me, Sandra?
‘Tiril, give me a hand, will you.’
I’m precious.
I don’t give myself to just anyone.
I want you. Take me. Open me. Now. Tonight.
3. VIVA LA VIDA (Rudi)
‘Hey, Chessi? You there, baby?’
Rudi’s coffee-brown eyes move to glance in the rear-view mirror.
‘Hey, Chessibaby?’
No reply.
The old Volvo splutters out of the roundabout at Åsen, daylight streaming in the windscreen, and Rudi puts his foot on the pedal. If this is supposed to be a company, and this is a company car, then things are bad. When did they buy it again? Ninety-two. From an old farmer on Finnøy. The Volvo was in a field, under a tarpulin, sheep sniffing around at the edges. It only had 19,000 on the clock. That’s how old people are with cars, they treat them as carefully as they would money. Now it had done 270,654 and should have been on its way to Knoksen’s knackers yard.
But the Volvo is the same as all the other rubbish you lug around with you year in, year out; you grow so damned attached to it.
‘Hey, Chessi?’
Rudi takes another look in the rear-view mirror. She’s just sitting there. You’d be hard pressed to find a more pig-headed woman. One little row, Jesus, not even a row, and she won’t budge an inch.
His rasping voice reaches a higher pitch: ‘Hey, Chessi, are you there, or are you just sitting dreaming about rock ballads and my cock?’
She turns her head and looks out of the window.
That’s gratitude for you. A joke, and she looks out the window. Great idea bringing her along to work. It’s true what Jani says, that girl was born difficult. She shot out of her mum in December 1972, covered in spikes. She’s downright spiny. She’s always been pale and freckly, rough and sickly and as ugly as an uprooted tree, but she has beautiful big hair, chestnut colour, and hips like shelves, as well as an ass that can make your head spin. Living without her would be utterly impossible.
‘Chessi?’ Rudi tries to make his voice sound like cotton wool. ‘Honeybunch? Only jokin’, you know that. Eh? Will we check if there’re any concerts coming up? I think Europe are playing at Folken soon!’
He allows her time to compose herself. But no. Her cantankerous gaze is fixed on the air in front of her. Those wide-set eyes, which make her resemble some kind of subterranean animal, seem to move even further apart. What about some compassion? Yourboyfriendoftwentysevenyears, thebaronoflove, is sitting here and she knows he hasn’t slept all night, she knows he has had awful nightmares, but is there an ounce of compassion to be had? Is there the merest hint of a smile? The smallest, kindly word?
Cecilie continues staring out the window while she takes out a pack of cigarettes. Fantastic. Now she’s going to punish him. She knows all too well he can’t bear anyone smoking in the Volvo. And she knows he’s just quit. And she knows how hard it is to kick the habit. Fantastic.
Rudi makes a show of rolling down the window.
They’re up and down, these moods of hers. You haven’t got a hope in hell of keeping track of them. Yesterday? Yesterday it was super smooth. Movie night in Hillevåg, good old I Spit on Your Grave and Nightmare in a Damaged Brain. Lo-fi classic night, said Jani, and put out crisps and coke. Classic Night. Jani has a way with words. They watched movies, good times and blood and gore it was, even Chessi was in a pretty good mood, lying there in an old pair of jogging bottoms, cuddled up in the crook of his arm. And then, next day? In a rotten mood. Everything’s shitty, pissy and
crappy. When he’s the one, not her, who’s had a rough night. He hugged her, but her body was as stiff as a board. He tried to make eye-contact, but her eyes were yellow and fiery. And eventually he lets her know, that she needs to get a fucking grip and be a bit nicer. That was when the storm broke.
But, you got to go to work. No matter how menstrual the weather.
Rudi leans towards the open window, breathes in and out. Chessi sits in the back seat puffing away as if it were the last cigarette she was ever going to have, won’t be able to make out her head soon for all the smoke.
He drives through Auglend and takes a left at the southern end of Mosvannet lake, putting the car in a low gear, to get a bit of traction on the uphill climb at Ullandhaugsbakken.
Nicest place on Earth, as Granny used to say. God rest the old bag of bones, as Granddad said when cancer got her. She lay in her sickbed like a crumpled leaf. It was hard seeing her like that. Hi Granny, are you in there? Ah, Rudi, my boy, there’s not much left of me, you’ll have a slice of cake, won’t you? Come to visit your grandmother and get a slice of cake? It was always good to visit Granny. Shoot over to Stokka. He could drive there at any time, pull the Volvo up in front of the house, toot the horn, while it still worked, get inside the house and she would totter into the room wearing that blue dress, radiant as a wrinkly sun. Swiss roll and caffeine-free instant coffee. Yeah, you can laugh, be my bloody guest, but it was one thousand per cent genuine. If there were more people like Granny in the world, you’d hear a lot less about arguments, or the internet or war, that’s for sure.
Afeckingworldoffeckinglove.
That’s old times for you. They can really take hold.
Sometimes it’s a pleasure. Other times it’s a pain and they refuse to let you sleep. And you can’t do anything but curl up into a ball and wait for it to end, and as for a hug from your girl, well, you can forget about that.
The Volvo hauls itself up the hill in low gear. Rudi feels the hairs on the back of his head crackle as they near the top, as he sees cows grazing in the fields, sees the Ullandhaug Tower stretching up into the sky, and as he gets to the summit: the world opens up to the fjord below. He feels his stomach plummet and his head soar.