Minus Me

by Ingelin Rossland

  ‘No, you won’t, and do you know why?’ says Zak, letting her go.

  Linda shakes her head.

  ‘Because they’re scared of you.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘They’re scared of you because you’re going to die. And looking at you reminds them that they’ll die too one day. You remind them that life is just a matter of chance.’

  ‘You’re not nice,’ says Linda, turning away.

  ‘At least I’m honest.’

  ‘So is Henrik.’

  ‘Sure, but he’s a turd.’

  ‘And you’re not?’

  ‘Do you think I smell bad?’ Zak smiles. He reaches his hand out to her. Linda hesitates before taking it. His hand is cold. He pulls her closer. He’s right; he doesn’t smell the least shitty. In fact, he doesn’t smell of anything at all.

  Alright, she thinks to herself. I’ll go with him. I’ll take the chance.

  Zak has lent her his helmet and now she’s riding on the back of his moped, arms round his waist.

  ‘Can’t you feel it?’ Zak yells over his shoulder. He’s wearing her woolly hat. She doesn’t know any other boys who would casually stick a girl’s hat on their heads.

  ‘Feel what?’ she shouts back, feeling laughter erupting inside her. For the first time since the dive she feels like laughing aloud.

  ‘That life is good! All you have to do is hit the accelerator,’ says Zak, putting his foot down. He leans forward over the handlebars and Linda leans with him.

  ‘Isn’t this fun?’

  Zak laughs. Linda laughs. And their laughter and the hum of the engine fuse as they whizz along the quay.

  Suddenly she realizes that he’s driving straight towards the fjord.

  ‘Watch out for the edge of the quay! Are you mad?’

  ‘What if you didn’t have long left? Wouldn’t you wish you could fly for those last few seconds? Ten, nine, eight, seven . . .’

  ‘Stop! I want to get off.’

  ‘. . . four, three . . .’

  Linda feels her heart spluttering and stuttering again.

  Dunk, de-de-dunk, dunk, de, dunk. She sees the edge coming closer.

  ‘. . . two, one, zero . . .’

  They fly into the air, and the moped disappears from beneath them. Linda shuts her eyes. Her heart is juddering like an old engine.

  Chapter 13

  Linda shoots through the water like an otter. She tries to come to the surface, but there’s a hand clutching at her foot. Linda backs away, trying to get loose. Then she sees Axel’s face in front of her. His lips are moving. Although she can’t hear him, his words reach her: I’ve missed you.

  ‘Hi!’

  It is Zak’s voice. Linda opens her eyes and looks up at him. There are snowflakes floating down from the sky, gently hitting her face and melting, but otherwise she’s completely dry and still in one piece. They haven’t landed in the water after all. Zak has snow in his hair, and he is caressing her cheek.

  ‘Am I dead?’

  ‘What do you think?’ he answers.

  He plonks himself down so hard that the wooden surface beneath them rocks. They’ve landed on a floating jetty below the quay. Did Zak know it was here? Had he planned this? Linda feels her body all over. It doesn’t hurt anywhere. Zak gets up and stretches out a hand to help her up. She pretends not to have noticed and scrambles up on all fours.

  ‘Where did the moped go?’ she asks.

  Zak smiles, and tosses his head back towards the water.

  ‘My God, you’re crazy. I was sure that was the end,’ says Linda, creeping to the edge of the jetty, and looking down into the sea. She breathes in the faint smell of salt and seaweed, but can see nothing other than her own reflection in the still water.

  ‘It was only a moped,’ says Zak.

  He stands behind her on the jetty, legs wide apart and hands on hips.

  ‘You scare me,’ says Linda, sitting back down on the jetty.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Good?’

  ‘Yes. That means you’ll forget to be afraid of all the other stuff.’

  ‘You mean, that I’m going to die.’

  ‘Well, strictly speaking you’ve already been through that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asks Linda, tucking her knees up under her chin.

  ‘In the swimming hall, of course.’

  ‘I don’t really remember much. But I suppose that might be true,’ she says hesitantly, before falling silent and resting her chin on her knees. Even though it’s snowing, she isn’t shivering. ‘But it was as though I saw everything from a bird’s-eye view. And I saw you too. I saw you running towards me, and I saw you smash your fist into my chest. It was that punch in my chest that saved my life,’ says Linda, looking up at him.

  ‘You just left your body,’ Zak says matter-of-factly, as though that was a daily occurrence.

  ‘Was that why you looked up at me? You were the only person who looked up. Everybody else was busy looking down at my body,’ says Linda, aware of her growing curiosity about Zak.

  ‘That’s right. But how did it feel to leave your body?’ he asks enthusiastically.

  ‘It was . . . peaceful. As though everything down there, all the drama, was meaningless and unimportant.’

  ‘Were you frightened?’

  ‘No, not then. Or yes, when I realized I was about to die, I was frightened I might not come down to my body again,’ says Linda, looking down at her hands. She looks at her nails that are bitten right down. Maria is always telling her off about it, but she puts her right index finger in her mouth and chews her nail a bit more, before continuing: ‘And later, in the ambulance, when we were on the way to the hospital, I was terrified.’

  Linda can see the whole scene before her. And she feels the same chill go through her body as she felt when she saw her parents: sitting close together in the ambulance, their faces so thin, their mouths like pale, narrow streaks, her mother’s hand clutching at the edge of the blanket that lay over her, the nervous flashing light and the screech of the siren. Yes, that was when she’d been seriously scared.

  ‘I got frightened when I saw Mum and Dad,’ she says.

  ‘You caught their fear?’

  ‘Yes. And perhaps it sounds stupid, but it was as though there was a wall between us. And that wall seemed to grow even bigger when I was in the hospital. There I was, on one side of it, while Mum and Dad and the rest of the world were on the other.’

  Linda looks down at her shoes. She thinks how there’s no need to worry about their scuffed toes any more. She can only repeat what she has already thought; that she is free to polish them or leave them, because strictly speaking there’s no point any more.

  ‘That wall only exists in your head. You can decide to make it disappear,’ says Zak.

  ‘Yeah, sure. Perhaps you could tell me exactly how I’m meant to do that?’ says Linda, feeling herself get cross. She’s had enough of this Mr Wise Guy act.

  ‘Aha, are you feeling angry, Linda? Good,’ he says, crouching down beside her.

  ‘Hmm. A part of me just wants to lie in bed, pull the duvet over my head, and wait for the day to pass,’ Linda sighs.

  ‘And what if everything suddenly passes by while you’re lying there? Including life itself?’

  ‘I know . . .’

  ‘Do you want to hear a story about a woman I knew?’ asks Zak, continuing without waiting for an answer. ‘Well, this woman had been warned by a fortune teller that she would die in a road accident. At first she was terrified, but then she thought of a way to cheat death. She decided never to go out of the house. She stopped visiting her friends, stopped going to the cinema or the shops. Then one day a truck came speeding along, swerved off the road and plunged into this woman’s house. So she did die in a road accident, even though she was sitting in her own living room.’

  Linda looks down. Zak gives her a little poke in the ribs and laughs.

  ‘So, you see, Linda, there’s no way of cheating
death, and luckily nobody knows exactly when, where or how it’ll happen.’

  ‘That story: I don’t think you really knew that woman,’ says Linda.

  ‘Does that matter?’ asks Zak, getting to his feet again. ‘Haven’t you got a birthday party to get ready for? It seems there’s an awful lot to prepare before Friday.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m the person who’s going to take you home,’ says Zak, stretching out his hand. This time Linda takes it, and he pulls her to her feet.

  ‘You’re so cold,’ she says, pulling her hand away.

  ‘It’s February,’ he teases.

  ‘And it isn’t spring yet, in February.’

  ‘That’s right,’ says Zak, clambering up onto the quay.

  Chapter 14

  Linda is lying on her bed staring up at the ceiling. She is fully clothed. Covering her is a small knitted patchwork quilt. It’s too small, really, since it was made for her by her grandmother when she was a baby. Around her neck is a swimming medal. The one Maria gave her when she was in hospital. Linda looks down at the floor, and at the brown envelope that’s lying there. The X-ray of her heart is sticking halfway out of it. Linda thinks how weird it is that she can’t actually see what’s wrong in the picture. She leans over to pick it up, but a hand reaches it before she does. She looks up and sees her mother standing over her.

  Her mum takes the heart picture out of the envelope, and looks at it. She has a deep furrow in her brow. It’s not one Linda has ever noticed before. Is it a new wrinkle? Is it because of her? These questions make her feel nauseous, flitting through her mind together with a chilling disquiet. Will her mother wake up one night and start to bleed like last time? Will it be Linda’s fault if there’s no baby again?

  ‘Have I slept for a long time?’ asks Linda, knowing the answer from the darkness outside.

  ‘A while. We’re going to eat soon. Dad’s made his speciality. Spaghetti carbonara!’ says her mother, sticking the picture back in the envelope and putting it on the desk.

  ‘Mum, are you frightened?’ asks Linda.

  Linda suddenly realizes that it frightens her just to ask the question, so she tries to look calm as she folds up the little quilt and puts it on top of the pillow.

  ‘We’ve got to be strong,’ says her mother, staring straight ahead.

  ‘That wasn’t what I asked,’ Linda replies, trying to catch her mother’s eye.

  ‘Okay, yes. Yes, I am frightened. Frightened and angry. Mostly angry. It would have been easier to bear if it had been me instead.’

  ‘But I don’t want you to die,’ says Linda.

  She wants to add that her mother can’t die now. Not when she’s pregnant. But the fact that her mother might be pregnant is the giant elephant in the room.

  ‘Nobody’s going to die, darling. We’ll get through this.’

  ‘Everybody’s going to die. Nobody escapes death,’ says Linda.

  ‘When did you get to be so smart?’ asks her mother, trying her best to laugh.

  ‘After I died.’

  ‘Linda, don’t say that.’

  ‘But it’s true. I died there in the swimming hall. And you mustn’t be afraid if it happens again, because it was peaceful. It wasn’t painful or anything.’

  Linda doesn’t know if she even believes it herself, but she feels responsible for not making her mother too sad.

  ‘It shouldn’t be you comforting me,’ says her mother, perching on the edge of her daughter’s bed. She reaches out to touch the medal that’s hanging around Linda’s neck. Linda sits up and lifts the red-white-and-blue ribbon over her head so her mother can take a proper look at it.

  ‘Maria gave it to me. I don’t suppose there’ll ever be any medals for me; silver or gold.’

  ‘But you have a heart of g—’

  Her mother stops herself mid-sentence. She gives back the medal to Linda and gets up.

  ‘Come and have some supper now.’

  ‘A heart of gold? Is that what you were going to say? It doesn’t help to have a heart of gold when it’s a mangled wreck.’

  ‘Well, you’ve cheated death once. You are Mummy’s little superhero.’

  ‘You know something, Mum. I’m not sure I can cope with all that any more. I’ve been thinking of making a list of all the things in my room, and deciding who should inherit them. Will you help me?’

  ‘Can’t we talk about that later?’ says her mother. Linda can see she’s frightened and upset.

  ‘Do you think everything stops when we die?’ Linda asks more gently.

  ‘Don’t think about that now. Come on, dinner’s ready.’ Her mother stretches out a hand to lead Linda out into the kitchen.

  ‘Five minutes.’

  ‘Are you too tired?’

  ‘I’ll come in five minutes.’

  ‘Okay, see you in five,’ says her mother.

  Linda waits until her mother has shut the door behind her, then swings her feet out onto the floor. She sits with her hands resting on her knees, before pushing herself up. She pauses, standing listening to her body; her heart is still hacking away: no change there.

  She goes over to her desk, opens one of the drawers and takes out a piece of paper. She looks at it. It’s the list she and Maria made; the list of all the things they should do when they get to be teenagers. It’s a good list. Not quite logical, but perhaps she can still achieve some of the items on it? She reads down the list:

  Kiss

  Travel unaccompanied by adults

  Go to parties

  Go to a rock concert

  Bunk off school

  Wear make-up

  Do something (a bit) dangerous

  Dive from the Black Cliff

  Experience real love

  Do something exciting

  Linda takes a felt-tip from her pencil case and puts a ring around ‘Go to parties’. And she’s already bunked off school, so she can cross that off. She folds up the piece of paper and puts it back in the drawer before going to eat her dad’s spaghetti carbonara. Not that she has any plan of showing her parents this list, but it might just be easier for them if they saw her doing some of these things, instead of dwelling on the idea that she’s going to die.

  Chapter 15

  ‘Is it too salty?’ asks Linda’s father looking over at her. She is pushing her spaghetti round her plate.

  ‘Erik,’ says her mother, placing a hand on his arm. ‘It’s delicious. Absolutely delicious, isn’t it, Linda?’

  ‘Mmm,’ says Linda, twisting some spaghetti round her fork and stuffing it in her mouth. Her father smiles before shovelling some into his own mouth too.

  ‘Was it nice to be back at school today?’ asks her father.

  ‘Hmm,’ says Linda, with her mouth full.

  ‘I expect everyone was glad to see you.’

  Linda swallows her food and rolls her eyes. She reaches for her glass, and takes a massive gulp of water, allowing it to slosh about in her mouth before swallowing.

  ‘Linda, manners!’ her mother reminds her.

  ‘I’m having a party on Friday,’ says Linda, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms.

  ‘Oh?’ says her mother, flashing a glance over at Dad, who in turn looks back at Linda.

  ‘You haven’t forgotten it’s my birthday on Saturday, have you? I’m going to be thirteen!’

  ‘Of course we haven’t. But we thought we’d just have family – and Maria too, of course,’ says her mother, looking over at her father again.

  ‘Yes. And we could rent a good film and make something special to eat. And have a nice cosy time.’

  ‘I don’t want a cosy time, I want a real party,’ says Linda. Her parents’ suffocating care is even worse now. Especially when they’re trying to act so normal. They’re so bad at it, they make it ten times weirder than it needs to be.

  ‘Right. How many people were you thinking of inviting?’

  ‘I’ve already invited my whole class. Plus the other
class in my year.’

  ‘But that’s nearly forty people. How are we going to fit them all in?’ protests her mother.

  ‘We can go down into Granny’s old flat. It’s empty. If we push the furniture to the sides in the library, we can have a dance floor in there, and I want karaoke and not that horrid home-made pizza, but the kind you order from the takeaway and lots of cakes and sweets . . .’

  ‘Yes, but Linda, is this such a good idea?’ says Dad. ‘The doctor said you had to take it easy. Avoid stress.’

  ‘A party isn’t stressful, it’s fun.’

  ‘But forty people! I’m really not sure,’ says her mother.

  ‘Oh, please. I’ll only be thirteen once in my life!’

  ‘Well, it might be nice for all of us,’ says her father, glancing hesitantly towards her mother, ‘. . . to have a party?’

  ‘Mmm, maybe. And the flat has been empty for a long time. And it’s not important, now, exactly when we redecorate it.’

  ‘Is it going to be redecorated? Why? Don’t say we’re getting more of those stupid students in.’

  ‘No,’ says her father, putting his hand on her mother’s shoulder. ‘We’ve other plans for it.’

  ‘Oh? Like what?’ says Linda.

  Why can’t they just hurry up and say it? But no, she’s not getting a straight answer out of them.

  ‘We’ll talk about it another time, Linda. Right now, we have a party to plan. It’s not long till Friday.’

  Her mother doesn’t even look at Linda as she says it. Instead she and her father sit there gazing at each other, so that Linda suddenly feels as if she isn’t in the room at all. It’s as though the wall between them has returned. The wall that Zak says only exists in Linda’s head. So she decides to break through it.

  ‘I need a thousand kroner,’ she says.

  ‘What? A thousand kroner?’ says her father.

  The invisible wall collapses instantly.

  ‘What do you need so much money for?’ asks her mother, taken aback.

  ‘I’ll need to buy loads of stuff for the party; balloons, confetti, snacks, a nice dress.’

  ‘But a thousand kroner?’ her father protests.

  ‘Nice dresses don’t come cheap.’