Dancing in the Dark: My Struggle Book 4 (35 page)

The four of us took a taxi to Tromøya. I sat in the front seat. We had stood wrapped around each other snogging while we waited for it to come, and, still dazed by that, I stretched my arms back towards her. She took my hands and caressed them. Her hands were very rough, I noticed.

‘Oh, Karl Ove,’ Yngve said from behind me.

They laughed.

Furious, I retracted my arms.

‘How much have you had to drink, actually?’ Yngve said.

‘Five,’ I said.

‘Five
bottles
of wine?’ Yngve said. ‘Are you kidding?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘No wonder you’re behaving so weirdly. If it had been me I would have been lying in the street snoring.’

‘True,’ I said.

The taxi stopped, I paid, we went into the house.

The same thing happened there, with the sole exception that this time she was
absolutely
naked. But no, she didn’t want to. Alabaster skin, full-bosomed and beautiful, she lay there saying no, no, no.

When I awoke next morning she was gone.

Still drunk, I went upstairs and into the kitchen, where Yngve and Kristin were having breakfast.

‘She caught the bus a while ago,’ Kristin said. ‘She said to say hello and thank you for yesterday.’

For a change, the sky was overcast. I decided to give this day a miss, lie on the sofa and read until Yngve went in to do his evening shift. The next day she wasn’t there. There was a girl in her twenties at the hatch. I asked her where Sigrid was, she said she had finished, yesterday had been her last day. Did she have any idea where she was? No, she didn’t.

I went to Kristin’s a couple more times, and on the last evening the family had returned from their holiday. I said hello, they were as nice as Yngve had said they were, we rented a video of
Apocalypse Now,
Kristin sat leaning against Yngve while I sat beside Cecilie, we exchanged occasional glances and smiled, we were so clearly the little brother and sister on the floor below our two siblings, who, if they had decided to get married, would not have surprised anyone.

There are was a tension in the air, I felt it all evening, but what kind of tension was it?

We were a bit shy with each other, was that what it was?

I saw how Cecilie sometimes tried to wrest the initiative, as though wanting to make it clear that she was not only on an equal footing with her sister but also very distinct from her.

I liked to see that. Her will, how that led the way and she followed.

She did ballet, and she was good, Kristin had said; after leaving school she was going to take the ballet school entrance exams.

The way she threw herself onto the sofa. The way her face could suddenly become quite open and artless when she smiled.

But this was no good. There was no point even thinking about it.

Yet I did.

There was only a week left of the summer job and I joined Yngve whenever he drove to Kristin’s, I enjoyed being in her home too, there was such a nice atmosphere, they were good people and it was reflected everywhere in the house.

I saw how Yngve was treated and how happy he was. I thought to myself, come on now, don’t be an idiot, just let him have it all.

But I also thought about Cecilie, because when she was in the room I could feel her presence with the whole of my body.

And I knew it was the same for her too.

First of all her parents left and went to bed. Then Yngve and Kristin left and went to bed.

We sat alone in the big living room, on opposite sides of the table. We made conversation, for we couldn’t talk about or show anything of what we felt, or rather of what I felt and of what I imagined she also felt.

‘I was there when they got together,’ I said. ‘At Vindilhytta. You should have seen it. It was really sweet.’

‘Yes, they are sweet,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ I said.

What kind of situation was this I suddenly found myself in? In a house on Tromøya alone with the sister of Yngve’s girlfriend?

Nothing wrong with the situation. Only with my feelings.

‘Well,’ she said with a yawn. ‘Time to go to bed.’

‘I’m going to stay up for a bit,’ I said.

‘See you at breakfast then.’

‘Yes, goodnight.’

‘Goodnight.’

She disappeared down the stairs, moving in that self-assured elegant way she had. Thank God I was going home soon and could put all this behind me.

The following evening, which was the last, I went to see Yngve, he was on the evening shift and served me an enormous pizza, which I ate at the table in the lobby while he worked and came over for a chat whenever he could. He said Cecilie and Kristin were in town. Kristin was coming here soon. He didn’t know what Cecilie was doing. But she came as well, I joined them, it was the last night, in very few hours I would be home again. Nevertheless, even though I knew it was stupid, I strung along with Cecilie, we walked side by side, we had nothing to say to each other, we just walked and listened to each other’s breathing, which was deep and tremulous, and then we hugged and kissed, again and again.

‘What are we doing?’ I said. ‘Can we do this?’

‘I’ve been thinking about that ever since I first saw you,’ she said, holding my face between her hands.

‘Me too,’ I said.

We stood wrapped in each other’s arms for a long time.

‘At the last moment,’ Cecilie said.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Now you mustn’t have any regrets,’ she said. ‘Or rather, of course you can. But tell me if you do. Do you promise?’

‘I won’t have any regrets,’ I said. ‘I promise. Are you at home next weekend?’

She nodded.

‘Can I come and see you?’

She nodded again, we kissed for a last time and then I went, turned, she waved, I waved.

Yngve was standing behind the counter studying a sheet of paper when I went into the hotel to get the keys. I said nothing about what had happened. Were we going out together now? I wondered as I walked up Arendal’s steep hills in the hazy darkness of the late summer night. In which case how strange it would be for Yngve and me to be going out with two sisters! Wasn’t there something a bit circus-like about this? Roll up, roll up, come and see the two brothers who go out with two sisters! But why should I care? He lived in Bergen while I lived in Kristiansand, and soon he and Kristin would be in China.

This had completely bowled me over.

She was walking home now too, likewise bowled over.

Yngve drove me to the bus the following morning. I didn’t say anything then either. When I sat down in a window seat and looked for him, he was already on his way up the street.

I closed my eyes and could feel how thoroughly exhausted I was. As the bus turned into Grimstad town centre I was asleep and didn’t wake until it passed Kristiansand Zoo. I jumped off at the Timenes intersection and caught a different bus for the last part up to Boen. Out of habit I looked for a glimpse of Jan Vidar in his window as the bus crossed Solsletta, but he wasn’t there and his car wasn’t in the drive either.

I took out a cigarette and looked down at the waterfall, the last kilometre home was a drag, but I did finally manage to motivate myself and set off with my bag on my back.

As I came up the last hill I saw mum by the barrel we used to burn paper in. A thin, almost transparent flame flickered to and fro over the edge. She caught sight of me and walked down.

‘Hi,’ she said with a smile. ‘How was it?’

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Everything all right here?’

She nodded.

‘I’ve been fine,’ she said.

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Think I’ll have a shower and change.’

‘You do that,’ she said. ‘I’ve made dinner. Just have to heat it. Are you hungry?’

‘Yes, starving.’

In the evening I sat at my desk reading, but I couldn’t settle, my thoughts ran hither and thither, and everywhere they went they confused me, none of them were as they had been. Now and then I looked out of the window, saw the garden merge imperceptibly into the dense forest behind the little potato patch, felt the trees close to us waiting or listening, darkness always gave me this sense, and as the gentle gusts of wind grew stronger the leaves trembled and the branches swayed. A week ago I had never seen her, hardly knew who she was. Now we were going out.

What about Hanne?

And the girl in the ice cream stand, what had that been?

It was as though I was faced with a jigsaw puzzle made of pieces from several sets. Nothing fitted, nothing made any sense.

I went downstairs to mum in the living room.

‘Are you sure you’ve been fine while I’ve been away?’ I said.

She put down the book she was reading on the table.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I really have been.’

‘You weren’t lonely?’

She smiled. ‘Not at all. I was at work. There was a lot to do. And then it was wonderful to come up here afterwards.’

Presumably roused by our voices, the cat padded across the floor with a sleepy face. He jumped straight into my lap and rested his heavy head on my thigh.

‘How about you?’ she asked.

I shrugged.

‘It was fine,’ I said. ‘I liked selling the cassettes on the street. In a way I lived from hand to mouth. Earned money during the day and spent it at night.’

‘Oh?’ mum said. ‘What did you spend it on?’

‘Well, various things,’ I said. ‘I went out for meals quite often, for example. That costs money. And then I had the odd beer with Yngve. But I’ve saved a bit too. I’ve brought a bag of money back with me. Nearly three thousand kroner.’

I hadn’t counted the money, in fact I had forgotten all about it, so now I got up and went into the hall to check and keep it in something more suitable than a plastic bag.

But the bag wasn’t there.

I had dropped it on the floor just inside the door, hadn’t I?

Yes. On top of the shoes. A white Beisland bag it had been. Full of creased notes.

Had mum put it away?

I went back into the living room.

‘The bag that was in the hall,’ I said. ‘Have you moved it?’

She looked up at me, her index finger keeping her place on the page.

‘A plastic bag in the hall?’ she said. ‘I chucked it away.’

‘Chucked it away? Are you crazy? There was three thousand kroner in it!’

And it wasn’t even mine, it was Rune’s. In fact, he should have had more than that because I had spent quite a chunk of his money during the last few days there.

‘You had money in it?’ mum said. ‘And you left it on the floor? How was I supposed to know?’

‘Where did you throw it?’

‘In the barrel. Where we burn paper.’

‘Have you burned it? How could you? Have you burned the money?’

I shook my hands in the air. Then I dashed into the hall, slipped on a pair of shoes and ran up the slope.

There was the bag.

But was the money in it?

I snatched at it and peered inside.

Oh, thank God. There it was.

I took the bag, emptied the money onto the floor of my room, counted it, there was a bit more than three thousand two hundred kroner, put it in a drawer and went down to the living room.

‘Find it, did you?’ mum said.

I nodded. Put on a record, ran my eye along a bookshelf, eventually picked out Hamsun’s
Pan
, sat down on the sofa and began to read.

There was a week left before school began and I decided to spend it writing some reviews, went down to town, dropped in on Steinar Vindsland, it was good I came, he said, he had been trying to get hold of me, had rung a couple of times without any luck.

‘Thing is I’m finishing here. I’ve got a new job on
Fædrelandsvennen
. You can probably carry on here, but I can’t guarantee it, after all it was me who hired you.’

‘That’s a shame,’ I said.

‘Yeah, well,’ he said. ‘Anyway, I have an offer for you. I’ll be responsible for the young adults and music sections. Would you fancy writing for
Fevennen
? It won’t be record reviews, Sigbjørn Nedland does that, as I’m sure you know. But material for young adults, and then perhaps reviews of gigs and interviews with bands.’

‘Yes, I would,’ I said.

‘Great,’ he said. ‘See you!’

Nye Sørlandet
was a sinking ship, that was common knowledge, so this was good news.
Fædrelandsvennen
was a paper everybody read. If I wrote something there everyone would see it.

I went to Platebørsen and bought five LPs to celebrate my promotion, which was how I considered it. I had taken the money from the plastic bag, the odd couple of hundred kroner wouldn’t make any difference anyway, somehow I would have to find the money to pay Rune.

When I returned home Yngve rang, eager to know what had happened on the last evening. Cecilie had been so strange and secretive and was writing a letter to me.

I told him.

‘So you’re going out with Cecilie?’

‘Yes, that’s about the size of it.’

‘Isn’t that a bit weird?’

‘Yes. Does it matter?’

‘No . . . I don’t suppose it does.’

‘Good!’

But it made no sense to me. Two days later the letter arrived. She was confused, it had been like a dream, she wrote, and she ought not to tell me, but when she had left me that evening tears had been streaming down her cheeks. On the Friday I went to see her, we were alone, we had to edge our way forward. We talked about what had actually taken place. She said she had been so intrigued by me after all the things that Kristin had told her and the photos she had seen. She had wondered whether perhaps something might happen, and after she had seen me she wanted something to happen, but it couldn’t, after all we were just the younger siblings. I said I had felt the same. She said Yngve had looked at us one evening, first of all at her, then at me, then at her again. It had been in the air. Yes, I said, and I ached. We didn’t know each other, didn’t know what it was, but then it happened again, suddenly we were embracing, kissing each other and then we went to bed . . .

But we didn’t make love. I thought she was so young, we didn’t know each other and I ought to tread carefully . . .

No, that was not the real reason.