A Modern Family

by Helga Flatland

  Olaf takes Hedda to a playpark and I make my way to the café, looking back over my shoulder every ten steps to see if I can spot Agnar in the queue. I can’t remember what I was like at fourteen but feel fairly certain that I’d never have suggested going off on my own in a foreign city.

  Håkon and Ellen are sitting at the edge of a terrace with a view of the Colosseum. Simen has decided to have a lie-in and meet us for lunch instead. His approach to holidays is unthinkable in our family – the idea of not getting out and about, not doing something. Holidays are about sleeping late for me, Simen warned us at dinner the previous night. Dad’s smile was strained. I imagine that Simen is also the type to park himself in front of the television on a Friday night when the weather is nice, something which is physically impossible for myself and Håkon and Ellen. Even now, as an adult, I feel guilty about doing anything other than making the most of any good weather we get, something that Dad established as a rule and imprinted upon us every sunny Saturday and Sunday from the day we were born.

  Håkon has ordered a bottle of red wine; I ask the waiter to bring me a glass. Ellen covers her glass with her hand when he comes to pour some for her.

  ‘I’m halfway through another course of antibiotics,’ she says; she’s been plagued by recurring urinary tract infections.

  ‘You must be contributing more than your fair share to global antibiotic resistance, the way you get through those things,’ Håkon says. ‘Maybe you should try drinking more cranberry juice.’

  ‘It’s interesting to hear that you know so much about urinary tract infections, Håkon. Is there any subject you’re not an expert on? Anything you don’t have an opinion on?’ Ellen retorts with a smile, rolling her eyes.

  Their bickering makes me feel calmer, but I’m aware of my heart hammering inside my chest. My gaze is locked on the crowds of tourists, Agnar no doubt milling among them, unable to find his way. I take a large sip of wine, close my eyes and swallow. For a moment I envy Ellen and Håkon, sitting there entirely devoid of responsibility, free, seeking nothing but the sun, which peeks through the thin layer of cloud that lingers above us.

  It’s not often we’re together, just the three of us. It’s only since Håkon got older that we occasionally meet up for a beer or dinner, Ellen and I always taking the initiative. Ellen is two years younger than I am, and Håkon is eight years younger than Ellen – he turned thirty just a few weeks ago. It’s only in the past few years that he’s started getting in touch with us, that the distance between us has felt less stark than it did when he was ten and I was twenty, and we’ve come to know one another in a different way, as adults – even though the sense of hierarchy is still tangible. I feel like he and Ellen have a very different relationship; they spend more time together and are in touch with one another more often than with me. I have the sense that they feel they’ve got more in common, and in fact there’s something in that: they both look like Mum, they have her blonde hair and big eyes. Ellen shares Mum’s curvaceous figure too – she’s soft and plump in a graceful, attractive way, unlike me. My body has always been thin, almost angular.

  I’d love to have swapped places with her; I’d love to have Ellen’s body. I still remember how awful it was when she had more shape about her at fourteen than I did at sixteen – bigger boobs, the works. I recall the way the boys in my class would ring the house to speak to her. I was furious with her, wrote in my diaries that I hated her and listed a hundred reasons why: that she whined, that she was clingy, a brat. When she had a boyfriend before me – a boy who used to sit with us at the dinner table and play with her hair – I told Mum that I wanted to move out. I made every argument possible, without mentioning Ellen, but I realised afterwards that Mum must have seen through it all. I wrote in my diary that Mum took me out to various places, that the two of us went to see Grandma and Grandad, had dinner out, went to the cinema, that she spent a lot of time with me without inviting Ellen. I only ever seemed to mention all this in passing, though, perhaps alongside a comment or short review of the film we went to see. I didn’t seem to be reflecting on or appreciating Mum’s obvious efforts at the time, or perhaps it was just too embarrassing, even in my own diary, to seek sympathy for the fact that I had a younger sister who was much more successful than I was in every single way.

  I still feel tiny glimmers of that shameful, overwhelming envy. It flares up in me when I see the looks she attracts as we walk down the street or sit together in a café, when I see pictures of us in our younger years, or worst of all, when I see the way she talks to Olaf sometimes – no, in fact, it’s the other way around: the way he talks to her. I’ve never asked him about it, even though the most banal questions hound me with a childish intensity: Do you think she’s prettier than I am? Would you choose her if you could? Even during our most serious arguments, when I almost lose control over what I’m doing or saying, still I keep these questions to myself. I’ve longed to scream them at him, particularly during our early days together, but I’ve always caught myself in time, instead singling out a colleague or friend of his: Don’t think I can’t see the way you look at her, I’ve shouted, the way you light up around her. Do you really think you’ve got a chance? Do you really think she’d be interested in you? It’s so petty and so shameful, but it beats the alternative.

  Ellen and I became good friends in our early twenties. When I met Olaf, I found that Ellen filled a new role in my life. All of a sudden, she was someone I could confide in – she became a person, a sister, someone close to me, not simply a manifestation of everything I envied and could never be. I had been studying journalism and living in Majorstua with a friend while Ellen had continued to live at home. The year after I moved out, I don’t think we saw each other at all, beyond the usual family get-togethers. All I remember is how lovely it was to be away from her, not to see myself reflected in Ellen every morning, to make friends who didn’t know her. Then I met Olaf, and my ambivalent feelings towards her suddenly seemed excessive and childish, and she and I grew closer. When Agnar and Hedda were born, those old feelings became nothing but the faintest of flickers, reminding me of how things used to be.

  After two and a half glasses of wine and enough time in the sun to leave the tip of my nose tingling with sunburn, I feel more relaxed. I’m pleased that Olaf took control of the situation, pleased that Agnar got to see the Colosseum, that he has parents who give him the space he needs to learn that freedom comes with responsibility. I feel pleased to be sitting with my brother and sister in a tourist café in Rome as our mother peruses Italian contemporary art and our father wanders around the Vatican.

  I don’t dare mention my concern for Agnar again, not after Ellen and Håkon had looked so perplexed when I’d told them how stressed I was feeling before I’d even sat down. We’ve had long discussions about this in the past and I know that Håkon thinks I’m overprotective, that the children are subjected to too many rules and that I have too many anxieties as a result of it all. Ellen is fascinated by the way we give our children so much support, as she’s commented somewhat sarcastically several times, though she’s not even bothered to state her feelings outright this past year – she’s simply withdrawn from the conversation whenever we’ve started talking about bringing up children. And even though I understand what she’s saying, that we’re part of a bigger trend, I don’t know how I could possibly do things any differently. If I refuse to do all of those things that are expected of parents these days, it would only harm Agnar and Hedda, they’d find themselves outsiders.

  ‘It’s almost half two,’ Ellen says, interrupting Håkon’s reflections on the fact that we perceive Italian families to be large, when in fact families here now have just over one child on average.

  ‘Beyond the fact that it says something about recession and family policies that aren’t fit for purpose, it’s not all that catastrophic in itself. Having lots of children shouldn’t be something to aim for. Quite the opposite, in fact,’ he says. ‘The world is overpopulated as thi
ngs are.’

  Ellen talks over him as he utters the last few words, loudly parodying Mum, who, regardless of whether anyone has asked, has a habit of checking the time before announcing it to all and sundry.

  We’ve teased her incessantly about it and it’s become an inside joke between Håkon, Ellen and me, and even with Olaf, Agnar and myself. All the same, her declarations have a steadfast quality about them, neutral and informative. Even though we imitate Mum’s tone in jest, Håkon, Ellen and I have started declaring the time to one another and to others outside of the family, giving us something to say when things go quiet, providing a neat way of bringing social gatherings to a close, or simply taking the form of a snippet of information to share.

  I laugh at Ellen. Her impersonations are better than anyone else’s I know; there’s something about her ability to observe and imitate the tiniest of gestures, her mimicry; the slightest toss of the head or change to her expression and suddenly she is transformed into Mum, Grandma, a friend or some well-known politician or actor.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say.

  ‘God, relax will you, he’s fourteen,’ Håkon says.

  We suddenly become aware that Ellen’s reminder of the time was an attempt to put my mind at ease, a point in common, a shared reference. I wonder how much of it is genetic, if we’re programmed in the same way, if that’s why we share this intuitive understanding of and for one another, or if it’s simply a learned behaviour, a way of thinking, speaking, making associations, concluding matters. Either way, Ellen, Håkon and I share these connections, unspoken and unceasing, irrespective of time or place.

  Back when I was a journalist, recently graduated and working freelance for a women’s magazine, I researched and wrote a piece on twins separated at birth. However, unlike the usual tales of such cases, my article focused on a pair of identical twins who looked the same, sounded the same when they spoke and had the same mannerisms, but who lived entirely different lives, making entirely different decisions and holding very different values – one voted for left-wing parties while the other held right-wing beliefs, they had no common interests and they didn’t share one another’s taste in food, music or films; when it came down to it, there were no similarities between them beyond their physical appearance. Neither of them felt like half of one whole, they’d never felt as if they were missing a brother they’d had no idea existed throughout childhood, as I had so often read in stories of this nature, and they were completely unable to guess what the other might be thinking or to complete one another’s sentences.

  My editor didn’t want the story, didn’t think there was anything sensational or fascinating about it; she wanted to hear the opposite, in fact, telling me that it would have been far more interesting if they had made the same decisions, liked the same foods and did finish one another’s sentences. I have a sneaking suspicion she was an only child.

  Agnar strolls in our direction at ten past three, and I have to restrain myself from roaring every thought that has run through my mind over the past ten minutes at him, because Olaf puts an arm around him and praises him, hasn’t he done well, Liv? And he seems to have grown a foot taller from the experience, he looks proud and mature, his back as straight as a ruler. So instead I embrace him, kissing his forehead and cupping my hands around his face; he still has such soft, round cheeks. Only a few pimples around his nose testify to the fact that the transition from childhood to adulthood has begun.

  ‘He has,’ I say, smiling. ‘You’ve done brilliantly. Did you have fun?’

  I almost regret asking the question when Agnar regales me with a breakdown of the Colosseum in minute detail, but his talking continues until we reach the hotel, and I’m able to lean my head against the window of the taxi, Olaf squeezing my hand as we drive past the hotel we’ve stayed in on numerous occasions. I squeeze back and stroke the back of his hand with my thumb, suddenly excited about the days to come, leaving Rome, Olaf on a sunbed beside me with a book in his hands, watching Hedda and Agnar swimming in the pool – and the rest of the family buzzing around me, as I’ve pictured it while sitting in my office in Oslo, longing for the holiday to arrive. For once I’ve managed to convince myself that even if only half of what I’m imagining comes to fruition, I’ll be content.

  We’ve divided ourselves up between three cars and drive out of Rome in convoy: Olaf, the children and me in the first car, Simen and Ellen in the second, and Mum, Dad and Håkon in the third. Despite the fact that Olaf drives unforgivably slowly in the impatient Italian traffic, Mum still fails to follow us at the roundabout; she takes the wrong exit and I watch as their car disappears in the throng of vehicles behind us.

  I tell Olaf we’ll have to stop or turn around, but the road takes us onto a three-lane motorway with cars on all sides and we’re forced to carry on. I call Dad.

  ‘Hello, Sverre speaking,’ Dad says, as he always does when he answers the phone, even after getting a mobile that allows him to see who’s calling him.

  More than once I’ve pointed out the absurdity of answering in the same manner when he can see that it’s me or someone else he knows – certainly when he’s likely to have a fair idea of who’s going to be on the other end of the phone – but he believes that it’s standard etiquette to state one’s name when you pick up the telephone, regardless of the circumstances.

  ‘Hi, you’ve gone the wrong way,’ I say.

  ‘Isn’t that you in front of us?’ Dad asks.

  ‘No, you took the wrong turn-off at the roundabout,’ I tell him.

  ‘I see, and where are you now?’ Dad asks calmly.

  ‘Where are we? I don’t know, Dad, we’re on our way out of Rome. You need to tell Mum to turn around and make her way back to the roundabout and then take the third exit. Then you’ll need to follow the satnav.’

  ‘It’s not working,’ Dad says. ‘Liv says we need to turn around,’ I hear him relay to Mum, and I can’t hear her response.

  ‘It does, Olaf set it up before we set off,’ I tell him. ‘Can you pass it to Håkon and ask him to sort it out for you?’

  ‘He’s asleep,’ Dad says, and I hear such a loud hooting sound from outside their car that I’m forced to hold the phone away from my ear. Mum shouts something or other.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, wake him up,’ I say. ‘You need your satnav, we’ll wait for you along the way once we find somewhere to pull over. Call me when you come off at the big roundabout.’

  ‘The satnav doesn’t work, as I said, but we’ll manage,’ Dad says, and it’s clear that he’s not going to wake Håkon, both out of a sense of pride – he’s generally unwilling to ask for help, particularly where technology is concerned – and also out of consideration for Håkon; if he’s tired, he should be allowed to sleep.

  Both he and Mum lost a little of their hearts to Håkon, as Mum likes to say, as Håkon was born with a heart condition and they were led to believe he wouldn’t survive for more than a few weeks. I remember it well, his tiny body inside the incubator, all of the leads making him look like some sort of extra-terrestrial.

  When I was on the maternity ward after Agnar was born, I thought about Mum a lot, what it must have been like for her to lie there as I did then, only without her baby by her side, what it must have felt like to know that he was all alone elsewhere in the large, complex hospital building, a tiny hole in his tiny heart.

  Ellen and I stayed with Grandma when Håkon was born, and Dad came the following day. He sat at the kitchen table and cried, almost totally unaware of Ellen and me, both standing there silently and watching him. I didn’t know what to do with myself, he told Grandma, who held his hand as though he were a little child, you can’t imagine what it was like, I spent all night running back and forth between the delivery room and intensive care, he said.

  He and Mum took it in turns to stay at the hospital in the months that followed. Håkon had an operation, he changed colour and started squealing, and both Mum and Dad were so grateful for his wails that Ellen and I grew fr
ustrated. Can’t you make him be quiet, I said one night after they’d brought him home – Dad rocked a screaming Håkon in the living room, which was just under my bedroom, all with a blissful look on his face – and I remember him saying that at that moment, Håkon crying was to him the most beautiful sound in the world.

  The fear that Håkon would die turned into certainty that he was a little bit different, a little more fragile, possibly a little more important than everyone else. Mum and Dad dealt with Håkon in a completely different way from how they did things with Ellen and me. They were told by the doctors that he might experience some developmental delays, that he might have learning difficulties or various other behavioural issues, but in spite of the fact that Håkon was a head taller and a shoulder’s width broader than his classmates, even in primary school, or that he was able to read and write and count before he started school, or that he was almost exaggeratedly empathetic where others were concerned, Mum never stopped worrying about him, and almost refused to accept that he was entirely normal.

  Instead it was Ellen who turned out to be dyslexic, a discovery that was made too late, something she still blames Mum and Dad for – because they spent all their time worrying about Håkon, she tells anyone who’ll listen, and everyone just thought I was stupid. That’s not true, nobody thought Ellen was stupid, it’s something she’s read about dyslexics somewhere and adopted for her own use to make a point, but it’s true that it took a long time for her to be diagnosed, mostly because Ellen was so bright that she developed her own system for understanding words, managing to read just fine using her own method throughout primary school.

  Håkon was also a sincerely longed-for third child. Mum and Dad had been trying for another baby ever since Ellen turned two, and even though both of them assured Ellen and me that they’d be delighted with the outcome regardless of the sex of the baby, I’m convinced they wanted a boy. There’s nothing odd about that, it’s just odd that they both insisted – even to one another, I’m sure – that they’d be just as happy if they were to have another girl.