Aftermath

by Carl Frode Tiller

  “But even if you did leave, you’d still be here,” he says. “And anyway, I don’t want you to leave. I would never do that to Mom and Dad.”

  I look at him, so happy to hear him say this.

  “You’re a good person, you know,” I say and it’s strange to hear myself being so forthright, unwonted but good.

  “Not everybody thinks that,” he says with a rather wan smile, then he picks up the wrench, hunkers down, and starts to loosen the nut holding the rear wheel.

  “Oh?”

  He glances up at me, then turns back to the nut.

  “Rikard’s convinced that I got in touch with you just to get at him,” he says. “He hates me for it … he simply can’t understand how anyone would do anything they can’t make money out of, he thinks everybody’s as selfish as he is.”

  “Get at him how?”

  He puts down the wrench, looks at me again.

  “Well, now there’ll be another legal heir,” he says.

  “Oh, right.”

  “I don’t mean to scare you, but Rikard is quite … well … let’s just say you’d be wise to watch your back.”

  I look at him, don’t say anything right away, don’t really know what to say. Klara, Kåre, and Rikard all warned me, they told me he can be a bit paranoid—more than once they’ve told me this and it’s clearly the paranoid Marius who’s speaking here, I’ve certainly never been aware of any hostility toward me on Rikard’s part, anything but, in fact, he’s been kinder and more hospitable than anyone might expect in such a situation. I put my hand to my mouth and give a little cough.

  “Sorry,” he says quickly. “I didn’t mean to drag you into this whole thing between Rikard and me, it makes you uncomfortable, I can see that. But I … I just had to say it. So now you know.”

  I nod.

  “I need to go and get changed, we’ll be leaving in a minute,” I say.

  “Did you know he tried to have me committed?”

  “Committed?”

  “To the psych ward. He says I’m sick.”

  “Oh,” I say, attempting to sound a bit more surprised than I actually am. I didn’t know Rikard had tried to have him committed, but it doesn’t really come as a surprise. I look at him and for the first time he meets my eye unwaveringly.

  “Do you think I’m sick?”

  I swallow.

  “Oh, no … that’s not for me to say,” I stammer, but he knows I’m not telling the truth, he knows the thought has crossed my mind, I can tell by his face. He looks at me and smiles.

  “That’s okay” is all he says.

  “I’ve got to go, but can we talk again later?” I ask.

  He doesn’t say anything, just glances up at me and nods, then turns to the bike again. I stand there watching him for a moment or two, then go back into the house, along the hall, and up the stairs. As I walk into the guest room, I hear the toilet a couple of doors down being flushed—Ingrid, I suppose, she’s not in here anyway. I go over to the window, lean my hands on the sill, press my forehead against the pane, and heave a big sigh. The glass mists up and I smell my breath as it’s thrown back in my face, warm and smelling faintly of coffee.

  Then I hear Ingrid behind me: “How did that go?”

  “Oh … yeah, he’s in a real state. I tried to tell him he’s got nothing to fear from me, but … I don’t know.” I pull away from the windowsill and flop down onto the bed, sit there bouncing up and down on the mattress for a moment. “I’m not sure it was such a good idea to come here,” I say.

  “Stop it, David,” Ingrid says. She flips up the lid of her suitcase and takes out a red fine-knit sweater. “We can’t even begin to imagine how difficult this must be for Marius. Anyway … you’ve done what you had to do. None of this is your fault.”

  I let myself fall back, fling out my arms as I hit the bed, lie there staring at the ceiling.

  “I know, but … it’s like a soap opera, this whole thing. So much emotion, so much drama. I feel like running away, shutting it all out.”

  “But you can’t. They’re your family. And you can’t run away from your family, no matter how hard you try,” she says. She strips off her T-shirt, drops it on the floor, and pulls the sweater over her head. There’s a faint crackle of static and the fine hair of her bangs flies up and stays like that for a few moments, it glints in the sunlight falling through the bedroom window. “And it is wonderful, you know, we mustn’t forget that.”

  “What is?” I ask.

  “That you’ve been reunited, of course. After thirty-six years. Just look at your mom and dad. How happy they are to have you here.”

  “There, you said it again,” I say.

  “Said what?”

  “My mom and dad.”

  “Yes, but—well … they are your mom and dad.”

  “Even so, I’d prefer it if you called them Klara and Kåre.”

  “You can’t run away from it, David.”

  “You just said that,” I say, putting my hands behind my head. “But, like I said, I need a little more time.”

  She nods, glances down, and unfastens her pants.

  “Sorry,” she says.

  “No need to apologize.”

  She smiles at me as she pulls down her pants, lifts one foot and slips it out of the pant leg.

  “So have you thought any more about what Rikard said yesterday evening?” she asks.

  “What exactly?”

  “About working for the company,” she says.

  “Aw, we’d polished off the better part of a bottle of brandy by the time he brought that up, Ingrid. So I think we should take it with a pinch of salt.”

  She slips the other foot out of her pants and tosses them onto her side of the bed.

  “He didn’t seem drunk to me,” she says.

  “Not drunk, exactly, but … for heaven’s sake, why would he hire me as communications advisor?”

  “Well, you’re a writer. You’re creative. Good with words. Articulate. I’m positive you’ve got exactly what it takes to be in promotion and image building,” she says. She plucks her black woolen long johns out of the suitcase and slides one foot into them. “And besides, you would be perfect for it, the business sector has plenty of critics and you have … how shall I put it … the courage necessary to do such a job. So I, for one, don’t find it at all strange.”

  “But Rikard doesn’t know anything about that, he doesn’t know me.”

  “Ah, well, he may have made a few inquiries, I suppose,” she says with a sly little smile. Is she hinting that she and Rikard have been talking about me behind my back? Is that how I’m meant to interpret that sly smile, yeah, I’m sure it is. I push myself up onto my elbows, lie there eyeing her quizzically.

  “Oh?” I say.

  “I put in a good word for you. But I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true,” she says, taking her black rain pants out of the case, she smiles at me as she puts them on. “Besides, I think he would have offered you the chance anyway. I mean, you’re brothers, he has your best interests at heart.”

  I put my head on one side and breathe a little sigh instead of telling her again to use their names and not keep referring to them as my mom, my dad, and my brother, but it’s lost on her.

  “You should at least give it a shot, David,” she goes on. “I mean it’s a great chance to get a better idea of the company and how it works … from the inside and the outside. And there are bound to be opportunities for promotion once you learn the ropes,” she adds. I look at her—I agree with her up to a point and if such an offer really were forthcoming there’s nothing I would like more than to accept it, but at the same time it disappoints me and irritates me slightly that she can dismiss my writing so lightly, it sounds as if she simply can’t imagine that I would rather write than work for the company, and that’s actually quite hurtful, I mean, I’ve known her for years so it’s no great surprise that she sees it that way, but still.

  “Are you about ready up there?” Rikard
shouts, from the foot of the stairs it sounds like. I get up from the bed, look at Ingrid as I take off my jeans and get my long johns and hiking pants out of my case. She opens the bedroom door slightly and puts her mouth to the chink.

  “Just coming!” she calls, then she turns to me and smiles. “Ready?”

  “Just a sec,” I say. I do up my trousers, pull on my fleece, and grab my jacket off the stool. “There.”

  “I love you,” she says, and then she leans forward and kisses me on the lips.

  “I love you too,” I say.

  She gazes into my eyes for a second or two and smiles happily, then off we go, her first, me right behind her, I feel a sneaking sense of unease as we walk down the stairs, there’s something about the way she’s been acting lately, I can’t put my finger on it, but she’s always so chirpy, so perky, she’s much more effusive than usual. I realize, of course, that the somewhat delicate and extraordinary—to say the least of it—situation that I, and hence she, have been thrown into has had an effect on her, but I can’t help thinking there’s a connection between the way she’s acting and the fact that I suddenly appear to be heir to an unimaginably large fortune. That she’s so anxious for me to bond with my biological family, that she insists on calling them my mom, my dad, and my brother even though I’ve asked her not to, and that she keeps reminding me of how incredibly alike Kåre and I are—is she doing all of this because she’s eager for me to become a part of this family as soon as possible and thus secure my share of the estate quickly and without a fight, as it were? And the fact that she’s so keen for me to join the family firm, that she takes a half-drunk Rikard on trust and puts in a good word for me, as she said, is that part of the same plan? I mean, maybe it’s the prospect of all that money and wealth that makes her act the way she has been lately, maybe what I’m actually glimpsing here is her inner capitalist: like father, like daughter, you might say. I put on my boots, pull my hat and gloves out of my jacket pocket, put them on, and out we go. We walk side by side down the avenue and past the part of the laboratory we were shown around the day before yesterday. The smell of salt water, seaweed, and shore grows stronger the closer we get to the quay, it smells so good, it’s the scent of my childhood, the scent of home somehow.

  “Is there something the matter?” Ingrid asks.

  “No.”

  “You’re very quiet.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Okay,” she says, then she takes my hand. I’m not used to walking hand-in-hand with her, it’s not something we ever do. I’ve never thought about it, but maybe it’s because she’s slightly taller than me and I would have to hold my hand a little higher than feels natural, I don’t know. We walk out along the jetty and down the steel gangway to the biggest floating pier, it rocks in the swell and I have to do a little shuffle as I step onto it to keep my balance. It’s not really the weather for going out in a boat, the water’s choppy even this far up the fjord, I hear the sea crashing over the huge rocks on either side of the jetty only then to be sucked back out. The pennant on Rikard’s boat cracks in the breeze and farther out the waves are whitecapped. I’m glad we’re not going out beyond the skerries, although in a boat as big as this it would probably be all right, even if not particularly comfortable.

  “Come on, come on,” Rikard says, he has already started the engine and he’s standing in the cabin doorway, looking at us. “We have to be back before dark.”

  We clamber on board, Ingrid first and me right behind her.

  “Could you cast off and pull in the fenders?” Rikard asks me, pointing to the mooring lines. I nod, untie one line, then the other, wait till he has pulled away from the pier, then haul the three fenders over the side and onto the deck. I go to join Rikard and Ingrid in the cabin, then change my mind and instead just pop my head around the door. It’s nice in there: the floor, walls, and most of the fittings are of some dark wood, probably oak, and it’s remarkable how well this goes with the burgundy upholstery on the chairs and benches and all the gleaming brass fittings.

  “I’m going to stay outside for a while,” I say. “I feel like getting a bit of sea air.” They don’t reply, just nod and smile back, then face front again. I shut the door, climb the ladder to the top deck, and park myself on one of the seats behind the windshield, sit there, scanning the steel-gray waters of the fjord. The roar of the engine fills my head, it must be a hell of a powerful engine, we’re moving much faster than I expected, at any rate. I place my hands on the rail, shut my eyes, and hang on tight as the boat shoots forward. But what if my reconciliation with Ingrid is also part of her plan? I hadn’t really been expecting her to ask me to come back to her, but what if she was motivated by the thought of money and wealth? I mean, she already knew what had happened to me when she called, I had told her about the newspaper ad and the letters and that the people I had always believed to be my mom and dad might not be my real parents. I didn’t say anything about my alleged biological mother and father being rich, it’s true, but I mentioned their surname, and that they lived in Bangsund, so a quick Google search would have told her that. I open my eyes, swallow. I don’t know, of course, but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that the thought of the money made it easier for her to initiate our reunion, it’s an awful thought, there’s something greedy and calculating about the whole thing, and however understandable it may be, however human, it makes it hard for me to believe that she loves me as much as she says she does. Since I returned home she could not have been more attentive, she says “I love you” umpteen times a day, she kisses and hugs and touches me in situations where she would never have done so before and now, suddenly, she wants us to hold hands as well.

  I grip the rail a little harder as the boat rolls and plunges over a run of slightly higher waves, try to keep my seat but it’s impossible, I bounce up and down in time with the waves, letting out a little “ow” every time my tailbone hits the plastic. It lasts only a few seconds, then the sea is calmer again. I shut my eyes and tilt my head back, sit like that for a minute, then open my eyes and let out a little grunt of exasperation: I had made up my mind to let all that go, I had made up my mind that I would have to learn to trust that most of the time people are actually telling the truth, that there isn’t always some hidden meaning for me to uncover, but here I go again, shit, I’m so sick of myself, I don’t want to be like this, I mean there’s nothing wrong with a healthy dash of skepticism, of course, but thinking like this is no good for me or for those around me. And anyway, what if it’s not Ingrid but me who’s the greedy one, what if it’s my own selfishness I’m glimpsing here and not hers, maybe deep down I don’t want to share my good fortune, maybe I’m scared of losing control of the inheritance that appears to lie in store for me and maybe that, in turn, is why I’m beginning to suspect Ingrid of wanting to get her hands on what’s mine, maybe I’m simply becoming tarnished by the prospect of money and wealth.

  “Hi,” Ingrid says.

  I turn to look at her and she smiles at me as she comes up the ladder.

  “Hi.”

  “Rikard says we’re not far from Otterøya now,” she says, sitting down beside me.

  “That’s Otterøya over there,” I say, pointing to the steep, wooded headland visible between Kvarvøya and Brannøya.

  “I’d love to see the place where you grew up,” she says. “Your childhood home.”

  “It’s on the other side of the island. I could ask Rikard to take a swing around that way, it’s not far. Look,” I say, pointing to the other side of Lokkaren Fjord. “Over there, that’s Merraneset. And there’s Gullholmstranda, Gullholmen, and Kattmarka,” I go on, moving my finger from one spot to the next. “We went there a lot when I was a kid … well, after I moved to Namsos, that is … we used to play there, and go swimming, camping, held our first parties there, and, yeah … all that. And over there,” I say, pointing to a little red cottage over at Selnes. “That’s where we stole our first boat engine.”

  She smile
s roguishly and arches one eyebrow almost flirtatiously.

  “What?” I say.

  “Oh, it’s just that it’s kind of exciting to think that I’m living with a real bad boy. Quite a turn-on, in fact.”

  “Mm, that bodes well for tonight,” I say, smiling roguishly back at her, let my eyes linger on hers for a moment, then turn and look across to Lokkaren again.

  We sit quietly for a while, then: “I’ve decided to trust you, Ingrid,” I burst out.

  Her hat has slid down over her eyes, she nudges it back up.

  “What?”

  “I’ve decided to trust you.”

  She says nothing for a second, obviously not quite with me, she looks puzzled, but pleased too.

  “I see … so does that mean you didn’t trust me before?”

  I shrug.

  “I think … it’s just a way of saying I love you,” I say, eyeing her levelly, unsmiling, and she sits there with that slightly puzzled but pleased look on her face. Neither of us speaks for a few moments, then I turn away again, glad to have said what I just said, I feel lighter somehow, clean, I don’t really know why. I’ve said “I love you” so many times before, of course, but possibly never with such conviction, maybe that’s why. I look across to Lokkaren, I can make out the remnants of the old ferry landings on either side of the inlet, God knows how many times Mom and I took the ferry across there, before the bridge was built at the end of the seventies. I remember being really scared of one of the men who worked on the ferry, he was so stern and imposing in his overalls, smoking his roll-your-owns as he directed cars and people on and off the boat, but he may well have been just an ordinary guy who felt small and insignificant in all other ways and compensated for this by lording it over others when he had the chance.