by Tore Renberg
‘Told her what?’
‘About…’ She draws a breath. ‘About you and me. That we’re … that we…’
‘Heh heh. So what? Makes no difference to me.’
Makes no difference to me? Why is he talking as though it didn’t mean a thing? Sandra doesn’t like that laughter, doesn’t like those words, but she thinks about how she has to be careful, how she has to respect him for who he is, because that’s what love is: to strive to do your best for the other person.
He laughs and kisses her again.
She pulls away. She doesn’t mean to but she does.
‘But,’ Sandra stammers, ‘but … why did you come here? Why now?’
‘What are you asking me that for? I told you, I had to see you.’
She gives him a quick kiss, to rid his voice of the hurtful tone.’
‘No reason,’ she whispers, trying to bring her lips to his, but he avoids her kiss. ‘No reason,’ she whispers again, ‘I didn’t mean anything by it, I just didn’t quite understand…’
‘What? What the fuck was it you didn’t understand? Me coming here? Me having to see you? What’s so hard to understand about that?’
This can’t happen
‘Nothing,’ she says, seeking out his lips once again, that bright mouth, wanting to kiss away all the bad, ‘I understood, I won’t bug you. You probably have lots on your mind. You’ve probably been through loads of stuff that you don’t want other people to bug you about, I realise that … People say so many weird things after all, but I’ve never asked you about anything … I just don’t always understand what’s going on with you, but I won’t ask any more questions, I won’t—’
He tears himself away. His features are cold. He puts on his helmet. Climbs on to the moped.
‘So shut up, then,’ he says, starting the Suzuki.
Daniel rides out on to the street.
A window opens behind her and a voice calls out: ‘Way to go, Sandra!’, followed by another voice, just afterwards: ‘Joachim! That’s uncalled for. Now, close the window, leave her be.’
Dear Lord, Sandra thinks, I’ve gone and done something really stupid. She feels the oxygen leave her body, as though she were a balloon someone had stuck a hole in. Dear Lord, she whispers, have I ruined the most beautiful thing there is? If I have, I want to die. If that’s what I’ve done then I don’t want to live on this earth. I’m sorry for my horrible thoughts, I’m sorry for being suspicious of the one I love, but love doesn’t tolerate anything at all.
40. BEVERLY HINNA (Jan Inge)
‘Right, I’m heading out for a little while,’ he calls out in the direction of the kitchen.
Jan Inge stands in front of the hall mirror checking his hair. It’s always been thin and now there’s a bald patch to boot. The Haraldsen curse, Dad always called it. My granddad, his dad, the whole bunch, scraggly bird-nests atop the lot of them.
But we make up for it in other ways, Jan Inge!
That’s what Dad always said.
Is that right, what ways were you thinking of, Dad?
He runs a pair of plump fingers through his fringe, trying to work the small tuft into some kind of style, to give it some pizzazz.
‘Hitting the gym, hombre?’ Rudi’s voice is cheery. ‘Probably take a mosey on out myself later, after I’ve removed the skirting boards. Little bit of air under the flippers of the old seal.’
Rudi appears in the kitchen doorway, his hair sticking out in all directions, his eyes lively. He leans his long body against the doorframe, an almost-eaten slice of bread in one hand, the crowbar in the other. ‘Chessi’s at the skincare place. That’s the way things are going – soon she’ll want me to pay for facelifts and botox. But, you know. You’re not a man if can’t meet a woman’s needs.’ Rudy gives Jan Inge a gentle tap on the shoulder with his fist. ‘You and your workouts. Every week. The gym bag is taken out, come rain or shine. Respect, brother. Lift those weights! Work those pedals!’
Jan Inge hooks the bag over his shoulder, the one they found at Metro Bowling in Åsen in 2007. They’d been tipped off that there was plenty of cash in the place. A paltry 3,700 kroner. Max. Might as well face it. There’s less and less real money around. Bloody cashless society. The human factor matters less and less, no matter where you look. The bag had been left behind by a customer. They took it with them. It had been full of kids’ clothes.
Jan Inge nods. ‘We’ll drive over to Hansi afterwards, then.’
Rudi nods in response. ‘Have you talked to Buonanotte, by the way?’
Kein Problem, mein Sohn,’ Jan inges says, opening the front door. ‘All good in the hood.’
He hears Rudi’s laughter behind him. ‘Gute Reise, Bruder! The gym awaits, see you in a couple of hours!’
Jan Inge walks out to meet the day. Heads uphill towards the main road, toward Hillevågsveien.
As soon as he rounds the corner and is out of sight of the house, his breathing quickens. Jan Inge walks as fast as he dares without running the risk of sweating – he doesn’t want to arrive with patches under his arms, with sticky hair, as well as being out of breath. He reaches the bus stop in time, waits a few minutes under the shelter. Beside him, an old man in a cap stands staring vacantly into the Stavanger air, on the bench behind them a girl sits with her knees together and her fingers on an iPhone.
Jan Inge sees his face reflected in the door of the bus as it swings open. It looks how it looks, he has the time to think, before ascending the steep steps and paying a bus driver with a hearty Stavanger grin and a large moustache. Never been anything he could do about his face. He’s always had those tiny, little dark eyes. Always had those short, chubby fingers. Always felt there was no getting away from himself.
As the bus sails out on to Hillevågsveien, he settles into one of the seats down the back. Low centre of gravity. Chin resting on his chest. Shoulders hunched over. He takes a quick glance out the window. No one sees him.
A little over a quarter of an hour later, Jan Inge alights from the bus on Randabergveien. At the stop near the filling station, close to that woman Åse’s antique shop, right next to Toril’s Clothes. Nice, that Åse one. Always a smile and a story to tell. He’s been in there a few times. Bought a couple of things. Jan Inge heads into the petrol station. Bending down to the red plastic bucket by the newspaper stand, he picks out a bouquet of flowers.
‘That’ll be sixty-nine, please,’ says the young man behind the counter, a Turk or an Indian or something like that. Jan Inge has never seen him before. There’s usually a woman with a blotchy face behind the till.
‘Sixty-nine it is,’ Jan Inge says, placing a hundred down on the counter.
Five minutes later he’s making his way up the hill behind Tastaveden School. Jan Inge feels hot, but not from sweat or physical discomfort, the warmth is due to other things. Because when all is said and done, this is the high point of his week. Even the street names make him feel happy, as though he were from here, as though he were in the wonderful vale of his happy childhood; Sjoveien, Granlibakken, Soltunveien, Fredtunveien, Høgeveien. So snug, so cosy.
And cosy is underrated.
Within certain circles, at least.
Within metal circles, criminal circles and horror circles, for example.
Maybe not within choir circles, tupperware circles or tweed-cap and waxed-jacket circles.
But in our group. We do underrate it.
Jan Inge has views on the matter. He’s a firm advocate of the fact that cosiness is important, and he’s reminded of that every week as he walks the streets in this area, which he ranks as his favourite in Stavanger. Tasta. Now this is Stavanger, Jan Inge thinks, feeling the warmth in his body, his thoughts flowing fast and philosophical and a firm pounding in his stride. All these ordinary houses. All these ordinary cars.
Jan Inge stops a few metres from the house. In order to swallow.
Will he come closer to his goal today?
Less than a minute later, his podgy index finger releases the doorbel
l and he hears it chime loudly in the hallway. He smiles to himself as he looks at the wavy glass in the panels running alongside the door. He smiles too at the rosemaling on the nameplate hanging under a painted garland: B. HINNA. He smiles again as he looks at the beautiful, flowery mat beneath his feet, and again when he sees the ceramic pot next to the mat with the colourful plants inside. And a shiver passes through him when he hears the familiar footsteps from inside, making such a wonderful shuffling sound, as though they belonged to a domestic angel, and don’t they, after all?
Jan Inge straightens up. He clears his throat. Sucks in his cheeks and runs his tongue over his teeth and gums. Adopts what he thinks of as a handsome, positive and slightly teasing smile – the kind Dad wears so well – and the door opens.
‘Jan Inge! So nice of you to come,’ she says in broken Norwegian. ‘Always nice. Look at you, fresh-faced, rosy-cheeked and darn fine. Come in. Oh now, did you bring me flowers? Oh, the gentleman caller, you didn’t need to do that, bringing flowers along to old Beverly—’
‘You’re not old,’ he says, as she steers him into the hall, which is bursting with the fragrance of perfume and flowers.
She clicks her tongue and bats her eyelids at him, takes his coat and slips it over a coat hanger. ‘Fifty-four next year, and this girl don’t lie about her age, you know that.’
‘I know,’ he says, looking at her admiringly.
It’s unbelievable.
Every time Jan Inge sees Beverly Hinna, he’s struck by an indescribable feeling of awe. He thinks he’s standing at the gates of Heaven, the way he imagines it must be. He can hardly breathe. It’s like he becomes a different Jan Inge as he walks down the hall on the middle-aged woman’s heavily decorated carpet past her baroque-filled walls.
Her big hair, lending her a glorious Elizabeth Taylor style. Her full lips, always looking like they’re anticipating something to eat, or have just eaten. The heavy golden earrings hanging down alongside her neck. Her eyes, with their listless intensity, accentuated by that purple eye shadow. And her outfit? Never easy to predict what Beverly will be wearing when they meet on Wednesdays. He can sit on the bus with his eyes shut and salivate at the mere thought of what kind of exciting ensemble she’ll have on. The woman is a surprise package. On certain days she might open the door in a pair of tight jeans and an elegant blouse, usually with gold sequins and big shoulder pads that are almost lifting her off the ground, other times she’ll stand there in a gorgeous dress and red high-heels, while sometimes there’s the off-chance she’ll turn up in what she’s wearing today. A pink dressing gown with embroidered motifs: pelicans.
‘Well,’ says Beverly, laughing, and speaking in equal parts Norwegian and English, ‘you’ll just have to excuse me, but I have not gotten round to fixin’ myself this mornin’, you’ll have to take me as I am.’
He lets out his reedy laugh but can’t think of anything to say. Beverly reaches out her right hand, the one with big rings on all the fingers and leads him into the richly furnished living room. The deep red sofa with the large flowery pattern and a full skirt, the genteel rugs on the floor – what kind could they be? Persian, Oriental … who knows what a woman will come up with. The beautiful table lamp with the fringe, all the wonderful pictures on the walls; a cosy painting of a typical garden on the south coast, a picture of a girl plucking flowers in a meadow, the framed poster with the image of Jesus and the inscription ‘Lo and Behold! Our Saviour Cometh! Presbyterian Church of Poplarville’. On the corner table, lots of interior design magazines, a novel with a photo of a broken vase on the cover, and little bowls here and there with sweets, Belgian chocolates, small caramels, marzipan and he can only guess what else. Everything is so, it’s…
It’s so…
LOVELY.
LOVELY AND SEXY.
AND FEMININE.
AND COSY.
It makes him want to screw.
To say it straight out.
Not out loud.
But within.
He says it within.
That the combination of all these things – a buxom, plump woman nearly fifty-five years old, with heavy make-up and long painted nails, on both her fingers and her toes, with a lovely twang to her accent, in these ample surroundings, filled with patterned sofas, snacks, interior magazines, pictures of gardens and Jesus and flowers; that the combination of all these things give him an enormous urge to screw. Jan Inge isn’t the type to go around all week thinking about sex, as he has the impression a lot of guys do. He’s been aware of that since he was small, that it’s like that for a lot of boys. Just look at Rudi. He says as much himself: ‘Hell, yeah, I pretty much feel like just one big cock. And I like it.’ But for Jan Inge? All this sex in society today. He thinks there’s something undignified about it. That we, in many ways, live in a society of screwing. He’s sceptical. He wonders if it can be a good thing. In the long run. What about the people who fall outside this society? What about his own milieu, where there’s no shortage of creativity but there is a distinct lack of cosiness. Isn’t there way too much sex in that, too?
Jan Inge feels left out.
He can go a long time without thinking about sex, days can pass where all he thinks about is horror and interpersonal relations. But. When he gets in close proximity to Beverly Hinna he can’t control himself. And the more she offers, the plumper she is, the more of her form being pressed out, the more lace tablecloths lying out, the more ornaments decorating the fireplace, the more Jesus posters covering the walls, the more interior magazines she has lying around, and the more listless her eyes are, the more he wants to get inside.
Her.
If she opens the door someday wearing a Norwegian national costume, he’ll break down in tears.
‘Make yourself comfortable now,’ says Beverly, who had come to Norway arm-in-arm with Alfred Hinna, an oilman from Tasta. He had found her behind the counter of a Shell station in Poplarville when he was working for that very same oil company back in the early eightes.
Beverly sashays to the kitchen, her hair dancing in the air. ‘You ready to boogie, boy?’ Jan Inge sees that powerful behind of hers under the terrycloth gown and feels almost fatigued with admiration. He hears the tap run and a few seconds later she returns with the flowers he’s purchased standing up in a pretty crystal vase. ‘Wasn’t it you who gave me this vase, Jan Inge? Last year?’
He nods, happy she remembers. ‘That’s right,’ he says, as politely as he can, ‘that’s right. I bought it from Åse on Randabergveien – it’s from Hadeland, early nineteenth-century.’
‘Beautiful,’ Beverly says, leaning in captivating fashion over the table, allowing one breast to come into full view in the plunging neckline of her morning gown. ‘Howdy, girl,’ she says, laughing as she tucks it back into place. ‘So,’ – she fixes those sultry eyes on Jan Inge – ‘how are things with you this week? Business okay?’
‘Oh, business is booming, the money’s rolling in, lots of new ventures I can tell you—’
‘Lovely, and pleasure?’ Beverly moves closer to Jan Inge. She takes his hand in hers, continues making small talk while slowly entwining her fingers in his – ‘Hm? Jan Inge? How is my boy?’ – and pretty soon she’s massaging his middle finger as though it were a pastry she was kneading. ‘Hm? Tell Beverly how my Ramblin’ Man is.’ She’s right up against him now and he can’t manage to reply, he can’t manage to think. What is it she’s asking? Jan Inge isn’t able to hear her voice, he can only see that beautiful skin, feel that increasing warmth, her hand, her fingers kneading his finger, the breasts he glimpsed a moment ago, the breasts he’s seen every week for over a year now, which prove just as exciting every Wednesday, as though he’d never seen them before, and he can’t control himself.
‘Beverly,’ he says, his voice cracking, ‘I worship you. You’re the whole of America, you’re fifty states and then some.’
‘Oh,’ she waves off the comment in mock embarrassment, before gently buffing her perm with t
he heel of her hand, ‘now you’re exaggerating. It’s just my ass you like, Old Hinna liked it too. Yeah, wouldn’t like to bet against it being what tipped the scales when he saw me bend down behind the counter back there in Poplarville.’
Jan Inge doesn’t like her talking about Old Hinna, but he manages to push him from his thoughts and he continues: ‘Don’t talk like that, Beverly, don’t put it like that, you mustn’t trample on my love – it’s huge, it’s overwhelming. I’m asking you, marry me. Make me the happiest man in the world.’
‘Now, now, now, you know we’ve talked about this—’
‘I mean it, Beverly, I have a well-run business, I can increase the staff, I could be a good husband to you, I can provide considerable sums of money, I—’
She pouts and slaps her tongue against the roof of her mouth, as though there were poultry in the room. She tilts her head slightly forward and Jan Inge sees her eyelashes quiver. Beverly undoes her dressing gown. It feels like womanhood itself issuing forth and filling up the whole room as he watches her breasts spill out from behind the terrycloth; he gasps and forgets what it was he was going to say.
‘Shh,’ she says, ‘you need to be released from whatever it is which is stirrin’ up such a thunderstorm in you. Come now and let Beverly from Louisiana take you for a little stroll into the master bedroom.’
Jan has begun to cry, like he does every Wednesady. He sniffles and nods to Beverly, and she takes a gentle hold of his left hand, guides it to one of her naked breasts. He puts his other hand in his pocket, pulls out fifteen-hundred kroner which he places on the coffee table, while his left hand still rests on her breast. Beverly closes her eyes, brings her hand down to his crotch, and Jan Inge takes a big gulp as she takes her hand away, as he watches her walk across the floor towards the bedroom.
41. AND THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE A RECORD SHOP?! (Rudi)
Rudi parks the Volvo outside Food Story in Hospitalsgata. Free parking for a quarter of an hour.
He removed five skirting boards. It’ll be nice for Jani to be able to wheel freely through the house. You have to respect him for exercising as much as he does, hauling himself off, week after week. Although it’s sad never to see any results. Just as flabby and overweight.