Dancing in the Dark: My Struggle Book 4 (20 page)

‘Going to speak to them.’

‘OK. I’ll do that then.’

‘Have you heard that Simple Minds are coming, by the way? To Drammenshallen.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. It’s not for a while yet, but the tickets are on sale soon. You should go and see them.’

‘OK. And you?’

‘It’s too far away and too expensive. But for you it’s only a train ride.’

‘OK,’ I said and leaned back in the seat. As we drove I tried to imagine what it would have been like here without a road, without the housing estates, as it must have been once. Untouched bays and coves, vast, perhaps impenetrable, forests. The beach at Hamresanden no more than a strip of sand along the riverbank and the sea inlet. No caravans, no tents, no cabins, no stalls, no people. No shops, no petrol stations, no houses, no chapel, nothing. Just forest, mountain, beach, sea.

It was an impossible image.

‘Let’s drop Hamresanden, shall we?’ Yngve said. ‘Mum’ll probably have dinner ready soon anyway.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Feel like listening to the Church record anyway.’

I was never upset when people left in the way that mum always was. Except when it was Yngve. And then I wasn’t upset, there were no strong emotions at play, it was more a kind of melancholy.

So I didn’t join mum when she drove Yngve to Kjevik, instead I cycled down to see Jan Vidar and went with him to the river, where we swam and stayed for an hour. We paddled across the rapids, then we slid down over the smooth algae-slippery overhang into the current beneath, which it was impossible to fight, all you could do was let yourself be carried along, swim a couple of strokes and steer patiently towards the bank.

Afterwards we lay on a rock, our arms down by our sides, drying in the sun, our trainers beside us, Jan Vidar’s folded glasses in one of his.

On this particular day Merethe and Gunn were there too. They lay on the bare rock in the middle of the rapids, both in bikinis. It excited us that they were there, our pulse rates shot up sky-high, even though we were lying quite still. The effect was contrary to nature. At least that was how it felt to me.

Merethe was wearing a red bikini.

She was two years younger than we were, still in the eighth class, about to start the ninth, but what did that matter?

I couldn’t go out with her, but what did my body care about that?

Oh, how unbelievably frustrating it was to lie there ogling her. Seeing her thighs, which spread as she lay on the rock, seeing that little area between her thighs, the red material nestling against her, just there. And, oh yes, her breasts.

When we got up we hoped they would see us and perhaps be thinking the same as we were. But they were so blasé, so worldly-wise, that not even we, Jan Vidar and Karl Ove, were good enough for them.

We climbed up the waterfall above them, swam into the current, were carried down into the rapids and into the broad deep river beyond.

They didn’t bat an eyelid.

We were used to that though. We had spent three summers like that now. My insides ached and I presumed the same was true for Jan Vidar. At any rate, like me, he was squirming on the rock where we lay.

We could no longer tell each other that our chance would come because we didn’t believe it would.

Why had they ruined my opportunity in Denmark?

What a dirty trick that had been. They had got so little out of it, an extra little chuckle maybe, while what they had ruined for me meant everything.

I told Jan Vidar about it.

He laughed.

‘You had it coming to you. How could you be so daft as to tell Bjørn and Jøgge?’

‘It was all planned,’ I said. ‘Absolutely everything! It was perfect! And then . . . nothing.’

‘Was she good-looking?’

‘Yes, she was. Very good-looking indeed.’

‘Better-looking than Hanne?’

‘No, no, no comparison. Like apples and pears.’

‘What?’

‘It’s impossible to compare Hanne with some Danish girl I want to fuck. Surely you can see that?’

‘What are you going to do with Hanne?’

‘Well, I’m not going to talk about her in this way for starters.’

He smiled and closed his eyes.

The following afternoon I went to dad’s. I had put on a white shirt, black cotton trousers and white basketball trainers. In order not to feel so utterly naked, as I did when I wore only a shirt, I took a jacket with me, slung it over my shoulder and held it by the hook as if it was too hot to wear.

I jumped off the bus after Lundsbroa Bridge and ambled along the drowsy deserted summer street to the house he was renting, where I had stayed that winter.

He was in the back garden pouring lighter fluid over the charcoal in the grill when I arrived. Bare chest, blue swimming shorts, feet thrust into a pair of sloppy trainers without laces. Again this get-up was unlike him.

‘Hi,’ he said.

‘Hi,’ I said.

‘Have a seat.’

He nodded to the bench by the wall.

The kitchen window was open, from inside came the clinking and clunking of glasses and crockery.

‘Unni’s busy inside,’ he said. ‘She’ll be here soon.’

His eyes were glassy.

He stepped towards me, grabbed the lighter from the table and lit the charcoal. A low almost transparent flame, blue at the bottom, rose in the grill. It didn’t appear to have any contact with the charcoal at all, it seemed to be floating above it.

‘Heard anything from Yngve then?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He dropped by briefly before leaving for Bergen.’

‘He didn’t come here,’ dad said.

‘He said he was going to, see how you were getting on, but he didn’t have time.’

Dad stared into the flames, which were lower already. Turned and came towards me, sat down on a camping chair. Produced a glass and bottle of red wine from nowhere. They must have been on the ground beside him.

‘I’ve been relaxing with a drop of wine today,’ he said. ‘It is summer after all, you know.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Your mother didn’t like that,’ he said.

‘Oh?’ I said.

‘No, no, no,’ he said. ‘That wasn’t good, you see.’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ he said, emptying the glass in one draught.

‘Gunnar’s been round, snooping,’ he said. ‘Afterwards he goes straight to grandma and grandad and tells them what he’s seen.’

‘I’m sure he just came to visit you,’ I said.

Dad didn’t answer. He refilled his glass.

‘Are you coming, Unni?’ he shouted. ‘We’ve got my son here!’

‘OK, coming,’ we heard from inside.

‘No, he was snooping,’ he repeated. ‘Then he ingratiates himself with your grandparents.’

He sat staring into the middle distance with the glass resting in his hand.

Turned his head to me.

‘Would you like something to drink? A Coke? I think we’ve got some in the fridge. Go and ask Unni.’

I stood up, glad to get away.

Gunnar was a sensible fair man, decent and proper in all ways, he always had been, of that there was no doubt. So where had dad’s sudden backbiting come from?

After all the light in the garden, at first I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face in the kitchen. Unni put down the washing-up brush when I went in, came over and gave me a hug.

‘Good to see you, Karl Ove.’ She smiled.

I smiled back. She was a warm person. The times I had met her she had been happy, almost flushed with happiness. And she had treated me like an adult. She seemed to want to be close to me. Which I both liked and disliked.

‘Same here,’ I said. ‘Dad said there was some Coke in the fridge.’

I opened the fridge door and took out a bottle. Unni wiped a glass dry and passed it to me.

‘Your father’s a fine man,’ she said. ‘But you know that, don’t you.’

I didn’t answer, just smiled, and when I was sure that my silence hadn’t been perceived as a denial, I went back out.

Dad was still sitting there.

‘What did mum say?’ he asked into the middle distance once again.

‘About what?’ I said, sat down, unscrewed the top and filled the glass so full that I had to hold it away from my body and let it froth over the flagstones.

He didn’t even notice!

‘Erm, about the divorce,’ he said.

‘Nothing in particular,’ I said.

‘I suppose I’m the monster,’ he said. ‘Do you sit around talking about it?’

‘No, not at all. Cross my heart.’

There was a silence.

Over the white timber fence you could see sections of the river, greenish in the bright sunlight, and the roofs of the houses on the other side. There were trees everywhere, these beautiful green creations that you never really paid much attention to, just walked past; you registered them but they made no great impression on you in the way that dogs or cats did, but they were actually, if you lent the matter some thought, present in a far more breath-taking and sweeping way.

The flames in the grill had disappeared entirely. Some of the charcoal briquettes glowed orange, some had been transformed into greyish-white puff balls, some were as black as before. I wondered if I could light up. I had a packet of cigarettes inside my jacket. It had been all right at their party. But that was not the same as it being permitted now.

Dad drank. Patted the thick hair at the side of his head. Poured wine into his glass, not enough to fill it, the bottle was empty. He held it in the air and studied the label. Then he stood up and went indoors.

I would be as good to him as I could possibly be, I decided. Regardless of what he did, I would be a good son.

This decision came at the same time as a gust of wind blew in from the sea, and in some strange way the two phenomena became connected inside me, there was something fresh about it, a relief after a long day of passivity.

He returned, knocked back the dregs in his glass and recharged it.

‘I’m doing fine now, Karl Ove,’ he said as he sat down. ‘We’re having such a good time together.’

‘I can see you are,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he said, oblivious to me.

Dad grilled some steaks, which he carried into the living room, where Unni had set the table: a white cloth, shiny new plates and glasses. Why we didn’t sit outside I didn’t know, but I assumed it was something to do with the neighbours. Dad had never liked being seen and definitely not in such an intimate situation as eating was for him.

He absented himself for a few minutes and returned wearing the white shirt with frills he had worn at their party, with black trousers.

While we had been sitting outside Unni had boiled some broccoli and baked some potatoes in the oven. Dad poured red wine into my glass, I could have one with the meal, he said, but no more than that.

I praised the food. The barbecue flavour was particularly tasty when you had meat as good as this.

‘
Skål
,’ dad said. ‘
Skål
to Unni!’

We held up our glasses and looked at each other.

‘And to Karl Ove,’ she said.

‘We may as well toast me too then.’ Dad laughed.

This was the first relaxed moment, and a warmth spread through me. There was a sudden glint in dad’s eye and I ate faster out of sheer elation.

‘We have such a cosy time, we two do,’ dad said, placing a hand on Unni’s shoulder. She laughed.

Previously he would never have used an expression such as
cosy
.

I studied my glass, it was empty. I hesitated, caught myself hesitating, put the little spoon into a potato to hide my nerves and then stretched casually across the table for the bottle.

Dad didn’t notice, I finished the glass quickly and poured myself another. He rolled a cigarette, and Unni rolled a cigarette. They sat back in their chairs.

‘We need another bottle,’ he said and went into the kitchen. When he returned he put his arm around her.

I fetched the cigarettes from my jacket, sat down and lit up.

Dad didn’t notice that either.

He got up again and went to the bathroom. His gait was unsteady. Unni smiled at me.

‘I’ve got a first class at
gymnas
in Norwegian this autumn,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you can give me a few tips? It’s my first time.’

‘Yes, of course.’

She smiled and looked me in the eye. I lowered my gaze and took another swig of the wine.

‘Because you’re interested in literature, aren’t you?’ she continued.

‘Sort of,’ I said. ‘Among other things.’

‘I am too,’ she said. ‘And I’ve never read as much as when I was your age.’

‘Right,’ I said.

‘I ploughed through everything in sight. It was a kind of existential search, I think. Which was at its most intense then.’

‘Mm’ I said.

‘You’ve found each other, I can see,’ dad said behind me. ‘That’s good. You have to get to know Unni, Karl Ove. She’s such a wonderful person. She laughs all the time. Don’t you, Unni?’

‘Not all the time.’ She laughed.

Dad sat down, sipped from his glass and as he did so his eyes were as vacant as an animal’s.

He leaned forward.

‘I haven’t always been a good father to you, Karl Ove. I know that’s what you think.’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Now, now, no stupidities. We don’t need to pretend any longer. You think I haven’t always been a good father. And you’re right. I’ve done a lot of things wrong. But you should know that I’ve always done the very best I could. I have!’

I looked down. This last he said with an imploring tone to his voice.

‘When you were born, Karl Ove, there was a problem with one of your legs. Did you know that?’

‘Vaguely,’ I said.

‘I ran up to the hospital that day. And then I saw it. One leg was crooked! So it was put in plaster, you know. You lay there, so small, with plaster all the way up your leg. And when it was removed I massaged you. Many times every day for several months. We had to so that you would be able to walk. I massaged your leg, Karl Ove. We lived in Oslo then, you know.’

Tears coursed down his cheeks. I glanced quickly at Unni; she watched him and squeezed his hand.

‘We had no money either,’ he said. ‘We had to go out and pick berries, and I had to go fishing to make ends meet. Can you remember that? You think about that when you think about how we were. I did my best, you mustn’t believe anything else.’