Minus Me

by Ingelin Rossland

  ‘Hey, that’s not fair—’ says Linda.

  She is interrupted by the door opening.

  ‘I’m not interested in buying lottery tickets,’ says an elderly lady at the door.

  ‘That’s lucky. We’re not selling any,’ answers Linda.

  ‘So what are you after then?’

  ‘Er, we’re doing a school project about the old days, and we wondered if we could interview you?’

  ‘I don’t remember a single thing,’ says the woman.

  Linda pretends not to have heard this last comment. She just walks up the front steps, holding out the flowers.

  ‘Are those for me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The woman hesitates then takes the little bouquet. She sniffs it before fixing Linda with her gaze.

  ‘Hmm. I saw you picking them down there in my garden.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ says Linda.

  A smile spreads over the old lady’s face as she lets the door swing open and disappears into a dark hallway.

  ‘Well, you’d better come in. Don’t bother to take your shoes off. The home help’s coming today and she needs something to do, the lazy creature.’

  Chapter 45

  Zak and Linda are now safely planted on Olga’s sofa. It’s hard to decide whether Olga is a cantankerous old biddy, or just has a unique sense of humour. The living room smells of stewed prunes and biscuits, and the clock ticks loudly.

  ‘Just tuck in,’ she says, shoving a cake towards them. It’s of the shop-bought-with-a-scarily-long-sell-by-date variety.

  Linda shakes her head. She’s already had two whole sandwiches and a big glass of milk. Zak gets up and paces around the room. Linda knows why; the radio is on and the news is blaring out. Then it comes: a thirteen year old girl from Trondheim has been reported missing. Police do not believe there to be any criminal involvement, but people are asked to . . .’ Zak turns off the radio.

  ‘Excuse me! Why did you do that? The weather forecast will be on soon,’ Olga protests.

  ‘Overcast with the possibility of a little rain later this evening. But I can’t see it’ll make any difference. You surely weren’t thinking of going out?’ says Zak.

  ‘No, but it’s good to follow things,’ says Olga, clearly offended, and taking a piece of cake herself.

  ‘I like your house,’ says Linda, trying to avoid any argument. What’s going on with Zak? He seems to be getting increasingly rude and childish. And right now, when they want to borrow the car and everything!

  ‘So, you’re here to interview elderly folk. A kind of school project, you said? The old days, indeed! You youngsters should be more concerned with the future!’ says Olga, taking a bite of her cake.

  ‘Well yes, but . . .’

  Linda starts to clear the plates and glasses; hers dirty, Zak’s unused. She gets up to put them in the kitchen.

  ‘You don’t need to tidy up. The home help is coming today.’

  ‘But it won’t take a minute.’

  Linda signals to Zak that he should follow her out. In the kitchen she grabs his arm.

  ‘What are we going to do now?’ she asks.

  ‘I don’t know. This was your idea!’

  ‘My idea? Hardly! I wanted to take the bus.’

  ‘There are radios on buses, and on the radio there’s news, and today you’re news, or have you forgotten that?’

  ‘Thanks for nothing,’ Linda says, turning on her heel.

  What is it with Zak right now? He’s suddenly so childish. It’s as though he can’t be bothered to help her. She pauses at the doorway to the living room, waiting for Zak to say something. Anything. But he is silent. She turns to him, and he’s just standing there gawping. Okay, she’ll have to deal with this herself somehow. She takes a deep breath and goes into the living room. Olga looks up, before continuing to scrape her plate with her fork. Linda smiles mechanically and crosses the room, past the noisy clock, over to the old piano, on which some photographs are displayed. She leans forward and peers at a picture of a younger Olga standing next to a man in front of a car. It’s the car that Zak found in the barn.

  ‘Can I take this picture down to look at it more closely?’ asks Linda.

  ‘With pleasure,’ says Olga, putting down her plate.

  Linda takes the picture over to the sofa and passes it to Olga, who takes it in both hands. She looks at it and smiles, before wiping some dust off the frame with her sleeve.

  ‘That’s Karl and me on a car trip. Karl loved that car. He spent more time tinkering with that car than he spent with me!’ says Olga, laughing.

  ‘Were you jealous of the car?’ asks Linda.

  ‘Oh no! That was just something we joked about. We had so many lovely trips together. We’re in Balestrand in this picture. We stayed in a lovely hotel, overlooking the fjord. We had plenty of time on our hands, you see, when the children had flown the nest.’

  Olga pauses and gazes at the picture. Then she rubs it again with her sleeve, to remove some invisible dust from the man’s face. Then she traces her fingers over the car.

  ‘I didn’t have the heart to get rid of the car after he died. My kids say I’m a sentimental old fool,’ says Olga, with a little laugh.

  ‘Is that because you loved Karl so much?’ asks Linda, hesitantly.

  ‘Mmm,’ says Olga, pausing. Linda can see Olga’s eyes are moist. ‘I still love him. Love is stronger than death, you know. Karl lives as strongly in my heart as he ever did. We were meant to be, right from the start. Karl said he fell in love with me when he was just a lad. His father was doing a carpentry job at the farm where I lived, and Karl came along too. Our cat had just had kittens, and my mother told me to show them to the little boy who was visiting. Karl told me later that he’d decided there and then that he would marry the little girl with the long red plaits. We both grew up, and as youngsters we’d go to dances. I liked to dance and flirt with the other boys, but Karl was always the one who walked me home. And, just as he decided as a little boy, I became his wife, and we got our lovely bunch of children too.’

  Olga smiles at the picture in her lap. Then she hands it to Linda, who walks over and puts it back on top of the piano.

  For a moment Linda stands with her back to Olga.

  ‘I told you a lie,’ she says, with her gaze still fixed on the picture. ‘We’re not doing a school project at all. I was on my way to see a boy called Axel. We’ve known each other forever. And last summer I did something really stupid.’

  Linda closes her eyes. Not that it helps to close them, since what she’s seeing is inside her head. She sees herself in Axel’s room, sitting in there alone. She gets up from the bed and goes over to the desk. She opens the drawer. It’s the drawer where Axel hid the notebook that he hadn’t wanted her to see. And even though she knows it’s wrong, she takes the notebook out. She sits down at his desk and reads it. It is full of poems:

  There’s a girl I know who glides through the sea.

  Like a dolphin she darts, bringing summer to me.

  Soon she’ll be here, in my heart I feel sure.

  I hope and I wonder, are we friends or more?

  Linda leafs on, and finds another poem.

  ‘What are you doing?’ says Axel.

  Linda freezes. She hadn’t heard him come in.

  ‘Do you write poems?’ she says.

  She can hear that her voice is so harsh that it sounds like an attack.

  ‘Give me that book,’ says Axel.

  ‘No,’ says Linda, reading aloud from it sarcastically:

  Cowboys and Indians was the game we’d play,

  And we played together every day . . .

  Axel walks towards her. But Linda is quick, and climbs up onto the desk and reads on scornfully:

  It was always summer when you were near,

  In the winter the snow came, and . . .

  Linda stops. She’s frightened that he’ll grab her and pull her down from the desk. Her stomach is churning madly. But he does
n’t move. He just stands there and looks up at her.

  ‘Do you think I’m daft for writing poetry?’

  She hasn’t got an answer. So she just laughs. And then laughs some more, to cover up the horrible feelings of shame she feels inside.

  ‘I thought I could trust you,’ says Axel, as he walks away.

  ‘Well, my dear,’ says Olga, rescuing Linda from her embarrassing memory. ‘We all do things we regret.’

  ‘And that’s why we came. We need your car,’ says Linda, pointing at the car in the picture, with her gaze fixed on Olga. ‘We’ve got to get to the south coast quickly. I have to see Axel. A few weeks ago I found out that I might not live as long as I thought, so I don’t have much time.’

  ‘Are you hoping Axel will be your sweetheart?’

  ‘Yes. I think he will be. And it would be such a great help if you could—’

  ‘Do we get the car or not?’ Zak interrupts.

  Linda looks at him. Oh my God! He’s probably ruined everything now!

  Chapter 46

  It is late afternoon and beginning to get dark. Zak and Linda are now driving along in their own car, and fast approaching their goal. Zak’s outrageous cheek had resulted in Olga fetching the car keys. And then he’d laughed disdainfully all the way back to the barn: as if he didn’t know how to hotwire a car!

  ‘How did you learn to drive a car?’ asks Linda.

  Zak doesn’t answer. He just swings into an open space, puts the car in neutral and pulls on the handbrake.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asks Linda.

  ‘I’m not doing anything . . . you are,’ he says.

  He gets out of the car, and leaving his door open runs to the passenger side.

  ‘Come on out,’ he says, opening her door.

  Linda gets out, and Zak sits in the passenger seat. As she stands hesitating, he rolls the window down.

  ‘Do you want to get there, or what?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘Well, get a move on. We can’t leave the engine running. Think about the environment,’ he says sarcastically, winding the window back up.

  ‘Alright,’ Linda says, mostly to herself.

  She walks round the car and sits behind the wheel.

  Zak helps her to adjust the mirror. Then he shows her the brakes and the clutch and the accelerator.

  ‘We’re in neutral now,’ he explains. ‘To start driving you have to press your foot down on the clutch, put the car in first gear, put your foot on the brake, then take off the handbrake and gently press on the accelerator.’

  Linda follows his instructions. The car lurches forward and stalls.

  ‘Try again. On with the handbrake, in with the clutch, turn the ignition, foot gently down on the accelerator, and now take off the handbrake, and bring your foot off the clutch – slowly.’

  This time the car starts rolling. Not fast, but she’s driving! Oh my God! She’s got butterflies in her stomach. Zak says she should move into the next gear. And that goes like a dream too.

  ‘I’m driving!’ she says, looking at Zak.

  ‘You certainly are,’ he says, turning on the radio.

  ‘Now try to move into third gear,’ he shouts through the music.

  Linda obeys. Driving is easy. It’s going brilliantly. A car comes towards them, and Zak brings his hand up to the wheel and helps her steer.

  ‘You have to fix your gaze on the approaching car, then you’ll steer better. Yeah, yeah, sweet baby, gotta live life!’ sings Zak.

  ‘It so strange that they keep playing that song on the radio,’ says Linda, turning towards Zak.

  Suddenly the car swerves towards a ditch. Zak grabs the wheel and helps her to pull the car back straight.

  ‘You mustn’t turn the car and your head at the same time,’ laughs Zak.

  He suddenly grows very serious.

  ‘Turn into that road into the forest,’ he says.

  ‘Which road?’ she asks.

  ‘That one.’

  This time he grabs the wheel with both hands and turns it so violently that, in spite of the loud music, Linda can hear the wheels screech. There’s a smell of burned rubber. Stones hit the belly of the car, and it shudders. Linda screams and shuts her eyes. Instinctively she lifts her feet, bringing her knees up and protecting her head with her arms. Despite the seatbelt digging into her right shoulder, she is thrown into the wheel and then back into her seat. She brings her hand to her nose, and feels warm blood running through her fingers. It’s trickling down into her mouth too. She’s in such pain, she can’t even scream. There are stars in front of her eyes. It’s silent, after the crash, apart from the wheezing of the engine. And as the stars in front of her eyes begin to disappear, she looks straight into Zak’s face.

  ‘Damn!’ he whispers.

  ‘Ow,’ she whimpers.

  ‘Are you mad?’ he yells. ‘You can’t just take your feet off the pedals like that!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ says Linda, on the edge of tears.

  When she sees that they’ve crashed into the trunk of a tree, the tears start rolling down her face. There’s smoke coming from the bonnet, which is completely smashed.

  ‘We could have died,’ Linda says, and as the words come out of her mouth the bonnet flies open, making her jump.

  ‘Stop whining, you stupid little girl!’ Zak yells.

  Linda gets the urge to whack him over the head, as he leans forward to open the glove compartment. He is totally callous and vile. She’s the one with the injuries. He hasn’t got a scratch on him. Besides, he was the one that grabbed the wheel and turned it. It’s as much his fault. Zak rummages around. He finds a pair of sunglasses and a roll of tissue paper. He takes them and gets out of the car, slamming the door so Linda jumps again. She tries to wipe the tears and blood away with her sleeve. Zak kicks one of the tyres and stares at the bonnet. He shakes his head. Then he walks around and opens the door on the driver’s side. He leans in and undoes Linda’s seatbelt, before grabbing her legs and swinging them out of the car.

  ‘Are you alright?’ he asks gently.

  He tears off some tissue paper and carefully wipes the area around Linda’s nose.

  ‘Thanks,’ she says.

  Zak doesn’t answer. He just strokes her cheek. Then he twists a little bit of tissue into a point, and very carefully pokes it up her nostril.

  ‘Relax completely,’ he says, putting a hand on either side of the bridge of her nose.

  ‘What happening?’ she says, feeling frightened.

  ‘Shh. Just relax,’ he says, looking deep into her eyes.

  Suddenly Linda can feel his gaze making her very calm. So calm that she barely shudders when he wrenches her nose so hard it cracks.

  ‘It was a bit crooked, but now it’s straight again,’ he says.

  Zak takes one hand away from her nose, but let’s the other rest there. Linda closes her eyes. A soft warmth replaces the pain.

  ‘What . . . ?’

  ‘Just sit calmly,’ says Zak, placing his free hand in hers. ‘It’ll be alright.’

  ‘Okay,’ she whispers.

  ‘There now,’ he says, giving her hand a squeeze,

  She feels herself getting sleepy. Zak puts her in the front seat of the car and adjusts it to a lying position.

  ‘You just rest, Linda, and I’ll watch over you,’ he says.

  Linda has barely closed her eyes before Zak shakes her and says that she’s got to get out of the car.

  ‘What? Why?’ she says, looking round.

  Linda lifts her hand to her nose. Amazingly it only feels a bit sore. She sits up and tries to look at herself in the driver’s mirror, but it’s too dark. She fumbles in the car roof for the light switch, but nothing happens when she presses it.

  ‘How do I look?’ she asks.

  ‘Here, put these on,’ says Zak, handing her the sunglasses he found in the glove compartment.

  ‘Do I look that bad?’

  ‘No worse than usual,’ Zak jokes. ‘
I hope you’ve got enough money for the bus,’ he says, suddenly bounding up to the main road and starting to wave his arms. At first, Linda just sees two lights. Then she sees a bus coming round the corner. It’s driving so fast, she’s scared Zak will get run over. But it swerves into the opposite lane and stops.

  ‘Come on,’ Zak shouts.

  ‘But my bag,’ Linda shouts back.

  ‘Forget the stupid bag,’ yells Zak.

  Linda doesn’t want to go without her bag. She packed it with lots of useful things for the trip. She flings the back door of the car open and grabs it before running up to the road. She arrives just in time to find the bus driver shouting at Zak.

  ‘What the hell are you doing? You can’t stand in the middle of the road like that!’

  ‘I’m sorry, but it was an emergency,’ says Zak. ‘We’ve had a car crash and we need a lift.’

  ‘A good thrashing, that’s what you need. But you’d better jump in.’

  ‘Thanks. My sister will pay,’ says Zak, going to the back of the bus and sitting down.

  Linda rummages for her purse in her bag. She can’t see anything with these dark glasses on. But she doesn’t dare take them off, since she doesn’t know how bad she looks from the crash.

  ‘Just go and sit down. You can pay at the next stop. We can’t stand here in the middle of the road,’ says the driver.

  ‘Okay,’ says Linda, surprised that the driver doesn’t seem to have noticed anything unusual.

  She moves to the back of the bus to join Zak. He is resting his head against the window with his eyes closed. Linda takes off the sunglasses cautiously, so she can see better. She opens her rucksack and finds a pocket mirror in her make-up case. Steeling herself, she flips the mirror open. She gasps. Her face looks completely fine! Her reflection gives her goosebumps. What did Zak do to her? She’s about to poke him and ask, when she sees that they’re driving past a couple of policemen that have pulled over a car. They seem to be writing out a speeding ticket or something.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she exclaims, feeling her heart gallop inside her chest.

  ‘What?’ says Zak, opening his eyes.