A Modern Family

by Helga Flatland

  I can’t sleep. I fetch my computer and try to work; I need to write a long piece on our ageing population, which was hyped up as a worstcase scenario a few years ago, but which lost its sensational edge in the years that followed. A colleague and I have been to view a model flat with automated solutions designed to replace real-life home help. A relentlessly calm woman’s voice is activated and speaks to you if you forget to turn off the hob, for instance, or if you step out of your front door in the middle of the night. It’s half past one in the morning. Are you sure you want to go out now, Berit? the voice asked softly after our guide set the time and opened the door. He looked at us expectantly and said: This is the future, ladies. I was uncertain whether he meant our future or more generally. Oh God, my colleague said as we drove back to the office, I’m never getting old, at least not on my own.

  I write a few emails to potential interview participants, with the subject line: The senior citizen of today. I wonder if it’s too patronising. I picture Mum, but then I shake my head; they need to get used to being called elderly once they hit sixty-five. I remember Dad taking it as a personal insult when he automatically started receiving 60+ magazine in the post after he turned sixty, and I imagine he ran twice as far and twice as fast as usual the following morning.

  I can’t sustain my concentration for longer than half an hour, and it feels good to blame the previous day’s events for once, even though I know that the past few months have seen me experiencing the same difficulties maintaining any sense of focus, and all while stone-cold sober. I close the lid of my laptop, lie there for a while listening to the sound of Agnar taking a shower, drying his hair, packing his bag, his characteristically arrhythmic sequence of footsteps as he runs down the stairs and makes his way into the kitchen – I’ve no idea if there’s any food in the fridge, I hope that Olaf’s stocked up – puts something in his bag, goes into the hallway, pulls on his shoes, slams the front door. He doesn’t shout goodbye. It suddenly feels so crucial to call him back, hold him close, understand; I long to run after him, yet still I lie there.

  Several hours later, when I hear Olaf’s bicycle on the gravel driveway and Hedda’s earnest laughter – how can he make her laugh that way after a long day at nursery? – I get up. I quickly pull on a pair of leggings and an old checked shirt I find hidden at the bottom of the wardrobe, the only item of clothing I can find that doesn’t look as if it will chafe uncomfortably against my skin. I run my hands through my hair, make the bed, leave the laptop open on the desk in the corner, open Word and place a notebook and pen beside it. I go down to see Olaf and Hedda, who’ve come into the kitchen where they now stand in their coats, each of them peeling a banana. There are two full carrier bags on the bench.

  Olaf casts a glance in my direction, looks down at his banana, then looks back at me as if he’s missed something. He looks at my shirt and smiles.

  ‘I’d forgotten about that one,’ he says.

  I don’t get it, and I look at him with puzzlement.

  ‘My shirt,’ he says.

  I realise that it’s Olaf’s old shirt, the one I adopted when I was pregnant with Agnar. Back then, just like now, it was the only item of clothing that didn’t pull or rub uncomfortably, draping loosely over my stomach instead, and I think I wore it every day for four months straight.

  I smile and nod, starting to unpack the bags.

  ‘Thanks for doing the shopping,’ I say.

  He doesn’t respond. He doesn’t ask about yesterday or why I slept on the sofa, but instead simply demolishes his entire banana in two bites to Hedda’s great excitement, then leaves the kitchen.

  ‘Did you have fun at nursery?’ I ask Hedda.

  She nods and runs out into the hallway, fetches her backpack and carefully pulls out at least ten folded pieces of paper. Some are covered in stickers and drawings, others feature only a half-finished pencil stroke, and for a moment I catch myself thinking that nursery should try restraining her creativity, just a little, but I stop the thought in its tracks.

  ‘Gosh, they’re lovely,’ I say to Hedda. ‘Are they Christmas cards?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replies, laying them all on the kitchen table. ‘We have to send them in the post,’ she adds.

  ‘Oh really?’ I reply, and feel annoyed once again, cursing the person whose useless, pedagogical benevolence led them to explain that Christmas cards ought to be sent in the post. ‘Who should we send them to, do you think?’ I ask her more gently, the image of the other children’s enthusiastic parents in my mind.

  ‘This one is for Daddy and you,’ Hedda begins, pointing at one.

  ‘Well, we probably don’t need to post that one, then,’ I say, relieved. ‘You can leave that one in the post box at the end of the driveway.’

  She doesn’t understand what I mean, and I can’t be bothered to explain.

  ‘This one is for Agnar,’ she says, pointing at the next one. ‘And this one is for Grandma and Grandad,’ she says.

  It hits me that I still don’t know Dad’s address. Hedda has had someone at nursery write on the front of the card, To Grandma and Grandad, spelled out clearly in black marker pen. I feel like everyone employed in nurseries and schools has the same handwriting, the women at least, soft, round letters, perhaps it’s part of their training. I pick up the card. I feel sad as I read the words, but I smile at Hedda, wondering if she’s forgotten that they’re living apart now, or if she’s just too young to understand the concept. For a split second I imagine next year’s card, Grandma’s name and Morten’s beside it. I feel as if I’m about to break down, then I remember Håkon and Ellen’s condescension and pull myself together. I clear my throat.

  ‘You know, Hedda, we could just give all of these cards to the people they’re meant for, we don’t need to post them. Don’t you want to see how happy Auntie Ellen is to get your card?’ I say, even though I know that Ellen will probably just point out Hedda’s slapdash approach to her artwork. She thinks it does children good to grasp that merit comes as a result of effort, and that there’s no value to be found in praising a Christmas card, for instance, if it’s clear that Hedda’s work has been sloppy.

  Fortunately, Hedda nods.

  ‘When can we give them the cards?’ she asks.

  I don’t realise I’m thinking it before I speak:

  ‘Maybe we should see if everyone wants to come over on Sunday?’

  ‘Yes!’ Hedda cries, smiling.

  ‘I feel bad,’ I say to Olaf.

  For the first time in a long while, we’ve come to bed at the same time. These past few weeks I’ve gone to bed on my own while Olaf has sat up doing something or other, or when he and Agnar have been in the middle of a film or a television series – either that, or I’ve waited until he’s fallen asleep before joining him. After meeting up with Ellen and Håkon and my encounter with the man at the bar just yesterday, and following Agnar’s coldness this morning, which was intended to make a very clear point to me, I lie down and shuffle closer to Olaf. He hesitates before turning to face me and putting his arm around me, over the duvet, but still, it’s such a conciliatory act that it brings a tear to my eye.

  ‘I think it’s a good idea,’ Olaf says. ‘It’s about time we normalised the whole situation.’

  ‘Mum has a new partner,’ I say, refusing to give any nuance to the situation in my explanation to Olaf, keen to gauge his reaction.

  He falls silent.

  ‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ he says after a short while, and I freeze up in the knowledge that he knew about it all along, that I’m the only one who’s been frozen out of every conversation over the past six months, and all without knowing why.

  ‘Did you know about it too?’ I ask him eventually, as Olaf lies there in silence.

  ‘What? No, no,’ he says, chuckling. ‘How could I have known?’

  I shrug my shoulders under the duvet, fill my lungs with air. I haven’t drawn breath for what must be about a minute now, and I realise then that t
hat’s not the worst thing that Olaf could have to say to me. The worst thing is what’s yet to come. I tense up as Olaf clears his throat, and I feel his body working up to something.

  ELLEN

  Simen has stuck some of my misspelled notes upon the fridge. I still have to read them two or three times to spot what’s wrong with them, but it’s always amusing once I do.

  Early on in our relationship, Simen found it strange that I’d chosen a career which had so much to do with language given the fact that I was dyslexic. Not that strange, really, I replied, I’ve always been more interested in language and communication than anyone else I know, precisely because I’m dyslexic. The feeling that there is a system I can’t prise open and force my way inside remains with me to this day, just as I remember it from my days at primary school. Endless lines of unbreakable code, inscrutable until I devised my own method that didn’t involve reading word by word, but instead saw me guessing entire sentences simply by picking out a few familiar words. It was surprisingly successful for a surprisingly long time, when I think back on it, but then again, that probably tells you a lot more about the level of reading books they used back then, I tell Simen. I can’t remember feeling any shame about my inability to read, not like others with dyslexia have described; for a long time, I believed that I could read. It was only at secondary school, when my dyslexia was discovered by one of my Norwegian teachers, that I realised that I’d never actually read anything at all. It was to become one of my life’s greatest challenges, altering an internalised system I’d trained myself to master, a system that seemed to work, in spite of everything. I put every effort into convincing myself that a method that slowed me down and often caused me to make more mistakes than before was the right and proper way of doing things, a method in which the pointy bits of every letter seemed to poke the wrong way up and down and all over the place, endlessly tripping me up in my attempts to make things work.

  Even so, my clashes with the letters of the alphabet only resulted in making me all the more preoccupied with language. The knowledge that I’d never master the written word in the same way as my peers drove my interest and obsession, and I became fascinated with the other side of things, the effect words and letters could have on people, the power they wielded. That’s something the two of us have in common, at the very least, a firm belief in the power of words, Mum says, having never accepted any criticism for the fact that neither she nor Dad discovered my dyslexia early on. Quite the contrary, in fact – both had objected when my teacher had contacted them to discuss an issue she believed them to be aware of. She’s a fluent reader, Dad assured her, better than her older sister, Mum said. But when they accompanied me to a session with a speech and language therapist, where one test made it impossible for me to cheat – which was how the speech and language therapist referred to the method I’d relied on up until that point – they saw with their own eyes that I wasn’t, in fact, intuitively capable of reading simple words like play and walk and window without issue.

  No one else in the family is dyslexic, Mum explained to the speech and language therapist, eventually recognising that even if this didn’t represent a problem, it certainly presented a challenge – Dad was ahead of his time in that respect, refusing even back in the 1980s to refer to something as a problem, preferring to label things a challenge. He has certain challenges to overcome, he would say about our cousin with multiple disabilities, a young man who had to wait until his adult years to gain access to places that had previously been the domain of those who could climb stairs – it was as if Dad felt his paralysis and illness should be viewed as a struggle to overcome. Håkon, Liv and I have always poked fun at this habit of his, they’ve got certain challenges to overcome, we would say about awful situations that cropped up in conversation, until it became something we said in all seriousness about everything from natural catastrophes and epidemics to celebrities’ various psychological disorders.

  I’ve never managed to get my head around the trend for describing genuine problems as challenges, almost as if it were intended as a vague gesture of goodwill to the person in question; I’d much rather my doctor tell me I have a problem if I’m simply not able to fall pregnant, for instance, rather than hearing it described as something I should challenge to no avail.

  Either way, and taking both sides of the family into consideration, I was the only one as far back as anyone could remember who was to experience the challenges presented by dyslexia. I don’t think about it all that much these days, it’s just a part of who I am, and in spite of everything, it’s much easier to live with since the introduction of computers and mobile phones with autocorrect.

  Some of the handwritten notes on the fridge had been written when I wasn’t concentrating, when I’ve been in a rush on my way out the door. Mostly they’re about things that need to be bought or collected, remembered or fixed.

  Don’t forget hopsital! one says. It’s a new one, just three weeks old, and was intended to remind Simen to meet me at the hospital. An extra ultrasound examination I’d had a few weeks ago at a private clinic, just to be on the safe side, had revealed that I might have a small deformity of the womb. Half of me was relieved to finally receive the tiniest hint of an answer, while the other half immediately wondered if I needed to share this information with Simen. I couldn’t keep it to myself for longer than four awful hours and eventually told him over dinner. I felt sure I could see the relief in his face, no doubt because it confirmed what we both already knew, that the blame lay with me, and he became extra generous and considerate with the information I shared. Of course I’ll come with you, Simen said when I told him I was due for an examination known as hysterosalpingography. But can you spell it? he asked me, and I laughed for the first time that day.

  They couldn’t find anything conclusive. But occasionally the examination itself, the contrast agent we use, it encourages things to open up and helps in its own way, the doctor said, you just have to keep trying. Simen looked disheartened, and I knew there were few things on earth less appealing than the prospect of continuing to try. I don’t see Simen’s body as anything other than mechanical these days, I have to close my eyes and concentrate in order to recall how attractive I find him, his long, lean biceps, his broad shoulders, his neck, his large hands. His slightly crooked nose, his heavy brows. His gaze upon me. The latter has all but disappeared these days, he no longer looks at me the way he once did, and the grudge he holds against my body is all too unmistakeable.

  November has come around, and we haven’t been trying, we haven’t even talked about it. Plus, there’s been the American election, and I’ve been busy trying to explain the rhetorical strategies used by each of the candidates to journalists working in newspapers, radio and television. Håkon doesn’t think it takes a master’s degree in rhetoric to see through Hillary or Trump. You’re talking about speech-making as if it’s some kind of trick, something to be exposed, I said. That’s a naive take on things, I wouldn’t have expected quite such an oversimplification from you. Anyway, it’s very revealing the way you use the surname of the male candidate and the forename of the female one, I added. I wouldn’t have expected such a cheap shot from you, Håkon replied.

  I rang Håkon for the first time in a long while after visiting Mum and overhearing a phone call with a softly spoken man. My first impulse was to call Liv, but for some reason it felt simpler to call Håkon, less intimate somehow. Have you spoken to Mum lately? I asked him. Nah, well, a little, he replied. Did you know she has a partner? I asked him. What, Morten, you mean? he replied. How do you know his name? Have you met him? I asked, surprised at Håkon’s awareness of the situation. No, of course not, Mum just mentioned him a few days ago, Håkon said. I couldn’t think of one good reason why Mum should tell Håkon about a new partner while hiding the situation from me. Does Liv know too? I asked him. I’m not sure, but I assume so, Håkon said, she always knows everything, he added, and actually it is typical of her to confide in both Liv and Håko
n before ever telling me anything. But what’s the deal with it? I asked. They’re just friends, Håkon said. Friends, what, like Grandma’s ‘friends’? Grandma always referred to our boyfriends and girlfriends as friends – Olaf remained Liv’s friend until long after they were married. I don’t know, Håkon said. I don’t think they’ve really defined it yet, as such, he said.

  He explained that Mum and Morten had met in Sicily, and that they’d kept in touch after that. That was basically all he knew about it, he said. I let it go, couldn’t work out if his approach to things was as casual as he made it appear, or if he was actually upset. My irritation took aim elsewhere, shifting instead to Dad and Mum, who were always so keen to protect Håkon against any evil in the world, but who, as a result of their close bond with him and his dependence on them, burdened him with more than they ever did Liv and me.

  Have you spoken to Liv lately? I asked him instead. No, I haven’t heard from her, he said. Have you? No, I said, she’s probably just busy with work and the kids and everything else. Yes, that must be it, Håkon said. Although Håkon is much better at making small talk than I am, and generally finds it easy to talk to anyone at any time about anything, a silence arose between us. Eventually he told me he had to go, and I replied that we’d talk again soon, without quite believing it, but it was an automatic response, and he agreed before ending the call.