Minus Me

by Ingelin Rossland

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That we were destined for each other. From when we were kids. Don’t you realize?’ Linda says, moving towards him.

  Again she tries to kiss him, but he steps back.

  ‘You can’t say you’re as in love with Mia as you are with me.’

  Axel looks at her in reply, bites his lips, and kicks the sand. He takes a deep breath.

  ‘Well, I suppose I was a bit interested in you this summer, but . . .’

  ‘Ha, I knew it,’ Linda shouts.

  ‘But you didn’t seem to feel the same way. In fact, you were really mean.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Axel. I really am sorry. I handled it badly. When I realized you were interested, something went click in my brain and I turned into a prize idiot! Can’t you forgive me? Can’t it be the two of us?’

  ‘But I’ve got a girlfriend, Linda. I like you a lot, but I’m in love with Mia.’

  He takes a couple more steps back, as if he wants to be at a safe distance if she tries to kiss him again.

  ‘Mia! Ha! Do you remember how pathetic we thought she was? Like the way she always wears pink, and is so scared of getting any marks on her clothes.’

  ‘You were the one who went on about how pathetic she was. I never said it,’ says Axel.

  ‘But you didn’t contradict me,’ says Linda.

  ‘It’s not exactly easy to contradict you, when you get going,’ says Axel quietly.

  ‘Are you saying I’m bossy?’

  ‘No, but you can be a bit forceful,’ he says without looking at her, concentrating instead on the groove he’s making in the damp sand. As if it’s really important.

  ‘You’re just like all the others,’ says Linda.

  ‘Like the others?’

  ‘You’re frightened of me, aren’t you?’

  ‘No,’ says Axel firmly.

  ‘Yes, you are. You’re frightened because I’m going to die. That’s why you won’t kiss me, because you’re frightened you might catch some mysterious disease.’

  ‘That’s not true. I told you, I’ve a got a girlfriend. I don’t want to hurt Mia. It wouldn’t be right,’ says Axel, starting to leave.

  ‘Well, what about me, then? I’m the one who’s going to die. I’m the one who’s come all the way from Trondheim to see you. Just to say sorry, sorry for reading your poems, sorry for laughing at you, sorry I didn’t kiss you!’

  Axel stops, turns and walks towards Linda. He puts his arms around her and gives her a big hug.

  ‘You are forgiven, Linda. And I hope you’ll understand that I can’t kiss you. It’s just not possible.’

  ‘Why do you have to be so stubborn?’ Linda sobs into Axel’s chest, sniffing his woolly pullover that smells like sheep.

  ‘You’re not bad at being stubborn yourself. To think you’ve come all the way here, just to say sorry. That means so much to me, Linda.’

  ‘But clearly not enough,’ says Linda, pushing him away. ‘Piss off,’ she says, before heading for the water’s edge.

  ‘My jacket?’ Axel says hesitantly.

  ‘Do you want me to freeze to death?’ Linda snarls.

  She doesn’t dare to turn around, because her face is covered with tears, and she doubts she looks very tough.

  Chapter 53

  Linda cycles away from the beach with Axel’s jacket over her dress. She feels pretty aimless now, and can’t bear to go back to the cottage where her parents will be waiting. Going round a corner, Linda almost cycles into a pink creature-thing. She slams on the brake.

  ‘Hi,’ she says, putting her feet on the ground.

  ‘Hi,’ says Mia, pushing her hair to the side.

  They stand in silence. Linda purses her lips, enjoying Mia’s discomfort. The pink troll is clearly feeling nervous now!

  ‘Your hair’s really cool. I didn’t recognize you earlier,’ says Mia.

  ‘I’ve talked to Axel. He’s dumping you.’

  ‘What do you mean? He just went home to clean the lavatory.’

  Linda laughs inside. The lavatory indeed! Why can’t she say toilet, like anybody else?

  ‘He was lying. We met down on the beach. He kissed me, and he said he wasn’t in love with you. He said you were just a way to fill time.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ says Mia.

  She tries to walk on, but Linda grabs hold of her so she can’t move.

  ‘Ow! Let me go,’ Mia squeals.

  ‘Ow! Ow! Ow! Let me go!’ says Linda, mimicking her. ‘Look, Mia! Can’t you see I’m wearing his jacket? Why would I wear his jacket if he wasn’t my boyfriend?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Mia, with tears in her voice.

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Linda, mimicking her again. ‘Oh . . . and he’s a very good kisser.’

  Linda licks her lips demonstratively.

  ‘He tastes of Fanta,’ she adds.

  Mia is in real floods of tears now, so Linda lets her go. Let her run away like some pathetic newborn calf. Linda has run away from Mia countless times, run away together with Axel, with Mia calling after them. Please wait for me! I can’t run that fast!

  Linda stands and watches Mia go, and it feels as though a thousand knives were stabbing her in the stomach. She remembers what Zak said when they were on their way up the tower of the cathedral, to see the full moon. That we have an inner compass that tells us right from wrong. That when we do right it feels good, and when we do wrong it feels bad. Yes, Linda knows what these knives in her stomach are telling her. She waits until Mia has gone round the corner, then she flings her bicycle into a ditch, rips off the tiara, and throws that in with it.

  ‘Shit! Shit! Shit!’ she shouts.

  How can she go to her death peacefully if she carries on messing things up all the time? She needs to ask Axel’s forgiveness again, before she hurts anyone else. Mia might not be her favourite person, but still.

  Why is she such a horrible person? Is that why she’s got to die? Has God decided she’s too evil for this world? Does he have to get rid of her before she turns into Hitler II and exterminates anyone who wears pink? Linda flings herself down at the roadside.

  ‘Argh!’ she growls, landing on her back with her rucksack still on. She doesn’t remove it – she deserves to be uncomfortable. In fact, she may as well just die there, that would suit her fine. To die and rot in a roadside ditch. She sees the newspaper headlines. lonely death. girl found dead in a ditch after three years. Linda thinks about the girl she read about in the newspaper. The one who died after her first kiss – not in the guy’s arms but afterwards, on the sofa. Not quite perfect, but good enough to get in the papers. She wishes again for something like that to happen to her. She and Axel; melting together in a kiss on the beach, and then bang. A romantic story like that would go round the world. Authors would write novels about it, and it might even be made into a movie. But now it seems more likely that she’ll go with a little piff, abandoned in a ditch. That was that life. Over and out.

  ‘I’m ready, come and fetch me, do, I’m wearing my pretty dress only for you.’ She must have stolen it from a pop song, seeing as it rhymes, but she can’t remember which.

  And, appropriately, Linda feels a shadow pass over her.

  ‘So you’re ready? At last?’

  Linda lifts her head and opens her eyes. It’s Zak. He bends down and strokes her cheek, brushing off a brown autumn leaf from last year.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  As usual he ignores Linda’s question, and answers it with another.

  ‘How was the kiss?’

  ‘There wasn’t one,’ she says moodily.

  ‘Did you change you mind?’

  ‘No. Axel’s got a girlfriend.’

  ‘And you’re upset?’

  ‘I just don’t understand. We were always together. Axel and me. A bit like the story Olga told us about Karl, her husband. They’d been together ever since they were kids. And their love was so strong that it didn’t even die after he passed aw
ay. That’s how it is between Axel and me. Or should be,’ sighs Linda.

  She picks up her tiara from the ditch. One of the blue stones has fallen off. It’s hardly surprising, since it’s nothing but fake. Just like love, she thinks, feeling a lump in her throat. Yes, she’s certainly feeling sorry for herself.

  ‘It seems that somewhere along the way, you forgot to ask the most important person if that was what they really wanted,’ says Zak.

  He takes the tiara gently out of her hands. Then he rummages about in the leaves, finds the blue stone and fixes it back in place.

  ‘Who? Axel?’

  ‘No, you,’ says Zak, placing the tiara on her head.

  ‘What? Me? Of course that’s what I wanted. I wanted it so much I ran away from home and came all the way here. Just to see him one last time and to say sorry, so as . . .’

  ‘. . . to have a romantic end?’

  ‘Yes,’ Linda admits. ‘But is it so wrong to want that?’

  She can feel her cheeks burning.

  ‘But are you sure this is the end?’

  ‘Yes, and now I’m going to die and rot here in a ditch. So just go ahead and strangle me or something. You failed yesterday, when you tried to drown me.’

  Linda throws herself down on the grass again, and shuts her eyes. But the sun is shining so brightly, it isn’t exactly pitch dark there behind her eyelids.

  ‘Shall I tell you a secret?’ whispers Zak.

  Linda can feel him stroking her cheek with a blade of grass or something. She doesn’t open her eyes to check. She just lets him stroke her calmly. And again everything seems to flow with her breath. And suddenly it’s as if there is no division between her body and the ground beneath her; the leaves, the gravel, the withered grass.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘You promise not to tell anyone?’

  ‘I shall take your secret to my grave,’ she says. ‘And that isn’t far away,’ she adds with a bitter laugh.

  ‘You have all the love you need inside you. It isn’t true that if Axel doesn’t want you, that’s the end of love. He’s just the person you love, not love itself. Love is much bigger than that. And you have enough love inside you, to love not just Axel but the whole world.’

  ‘Oh, what rubbish! That sounds like something you’ve read in a positive-thinking book,’ says Linda, propping herself up on one elbow. ‘I hate the whole world! I’m a vile person! And I’m glad I’m going to die soon!’ she says, throwing herself back into the ditch.

  A sharp rock catches her back, and she lets out a loud scream.

  ‘Come on, now,’ says Zak, taking her hand again and trying to pull her up from the side of the road.

  ‘No!’ she says, making herself heavy.

  ‘Yes!’ he says, dragging her up with superhuman strength.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘I’ll give you a romantic end!’ says Zak.

  He lifts up the bicycle, sits on the seat, and motions to Linda to sit on the luggage rack.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘No more questions, now, my little emo-princess. Just hop on,’ says Zak, laughing.

  Chapter 54

  Zak takes Linda back to the beach. She is still astonished at how far the spring has come here in the south, at how the landscape is so lush it could be April, and at how brightly the sun is shining, despite the fact that it can rain here for a hundred days at a stretch. She feels Zak take her hand.

  ‘You’re not so cold any more,’ she says.

  ‘It’s you – you’ve grown accustomed to it,’ he says.

  He leads Linda back to the place where she’d peered into the water and sang the children’s song, before Axel had come and nothing had turned out as she’d planned.

  ‘Do you want another chance?’ he asks.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Yes or no.’

  ‘Yes,’ she says.

  Her body offers no resistance as he forces her to kneel beside the water. She looks down and sees her own reflection, but not Zak’s. She turns. He has gone. Then she hears someone shouting her name.

  ‘Linda! Linda!’

  It’s Axel. He’s wearing the same knitted pullover as before, and has her jacket tied round his waist. She gets up and waits for him to come over. Something rubs itself against her leg. Linda looks down and sees that it’s the black cat again.

  ‘You’re following me around like some sort of ill omen,’ Linda says to the cat, which instantly stops rubbing itself against her and stares up at her crossly, before sauntering off with its tail in the air.

  ‘Linda,’ says Axel.

  He is out breath, and Linda can see sweat on his temples.

  ‘I’ve changed my mind. I can kiss you, if you really want,’ he says.

  ‘I’ve changed my mind too,’ says Linda.

  ‘Don’t you want me to? But you said that you’d come all the way from Trondheim just for that,’ says Axel, opening his arms to her.

  ‘Perhaps I came here to find out that I wouldn’t kiss you after all,’ Linda answers.

  ‘I’ve always been in love with you, Linda. But you’re so cool. And I didn’t think you could like anyone like me,’ says Axel.

  ‘But you’re cool too, Axel. That’s why I like you. I like you a lot, which is why I’ve always wanted to fall in love with you. You’re so wonderful. And you’re going to kiss a lot of girls. Minus me.’

  ‘I’ll always be your friend,’ says Axel.

  ‘And I’ll be yours,’ says Linda, taking off Axel’s jacket and handing it to him.

  ‘Thanks,’ says Axel.

  He unties the sleeves of Linda’s jacket around his waist.

  ‘It’s almost dry,’ he says, holding it out to her.

  ‘Great,’ says Linda, feeling for the armhole to put it back on.

  ‘Is it true you’re going to die?’

  ‘Yes, it looks as though it’ll be a bit sooner than I’d thought,’ she says, trying to sound tough.

  ‘It’s not fair,’ says Axel.

  ‘Perhaps, but I think you ought to go and find Mia now. I did something stupid. I told her that you were going to dump her, and that you and I kissed, and that you were actually in love with me and not her.’

  ‘You did? You’re mad,’ says Axel, shaking his head.

  ‘That’s why you like me,’ she answers.

  ‘But then we may as well kiss anyway. You owe me that much!’ says Axel.

  ‘Okay, just a little one,’ says Linda, giving him a peck on the cheek. ‘For eternal friendship.’

  ‘Eternal friendship,’ he says, planting a shy kiss on Linda’s cheek.

  ‘You’d better go now, before I start to cry or something,’ Linda says, covering her face with her hand.

  ‘Because you do love me a bit?’ says Axel, trying to catch her eye in the gaps between her fingers.

  ‘What do you think?’

  Axel doesn’t answer, but he smiles as he pulls his jacket zip up and goes.

  ‘Axel!’

  He turns.

  ‘Promise me one thing,’ she shouts.

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘You must never stop writing!’

  ‘Never! One day I’ll write a whole book about you!’

  ‘Will it have a happy ending?’

  ‘We’ll have to see,’ he says, smiling.

  ‘See you!’

  ‘I’ll miss you!’

  Axel waves before he turns again and goes. Linda watches the red jacket grow smaller and smaller until he disappears behind a ridge of sand. And again she feels something rubbing against her leg.

  ‘Are you back again, you stupid freak cat?’ she says, without taking her eyes from the place where Axel disappeared.

  ‘Stupid cat, indeed! Now you’re being really cheeky!’

  And without turning, Linda knows it’s Zak.

  Chapter 55

  So Zak has been there all the time. Linda watches him. His eyes are the last thing to transform, from the golden yellow of a c
at’s eyes to their more human light blue. She’s surprised that she’s neither frightened nor shocked.

  ‘Well, aren’t you going to say anything?’ asks Zak. ‘You’re usually so full of questions.’

  ‘I’m dead, aren’t I?’ says Linda, surprised again at how calm she is.

  ‘Yes. But it’s not that simple.’

  ‘I thought as much.’

  Linda sits down on the beach and burrows her fingers in the sand. She feels how warm the sand is on the surface, where the sun has touched it, and how cool it is a little deeper. Everything feels so intensely real, she thinks. How can it all feel so real?

  ‘You have left your physical body. But as you’ve probably realized, nothing ever disappears. Including the soul.’

  ‘But when did it happen? I mean, when did I die?’ asks Linda hesitantly.

  ‘When do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know. The first time I saw you, perhaps? On the tram?’

  ‘No. And that was my fault. I apologize. You should have died then, but that’s when I started to mess things up,’ he says with a sigh.

  ‘What do you mean? Are you Death?’

  Zak sighs again. He gets up, brushes the back of his trousers and then walks down to the edge of the sea. He stands there for a moment, his coat flapping in the breeze. Linda says nothing, just watches him, and waits. If he’s not Death, then perhaps he is an angel after all? Perhaps God sent him on a mission to fetch her, and then things went slightly wrong. Zak turns to her again.

  ‘I’m just a meeting-soul,’ says Zak.

  He walks back to where Linda is sitting in the sand. He crouches down in front of her and stretches his right hand out to her.

  ‘I am your little brother,’ he says.

  Linda drops back onto the sand. She doesn’t understand. How can he possibly be her new little brother when he is older than her? How can he be both here and inside her mother’s stomach? Surely a baby must already have its soul, before being born?

  ‘You’ll have to explain,’ says Linda, sitting up again.

  ‘Well, firstly it’s common to be met by someone you know and love at the moment of death – or more precisely, at the moment of transformation. It usually makes the transition easier. Especially if the person who’s dying is a bit scared.’