Dancing in the Dark: My Struggle Book 4 (56 page)

What was special about these parties was that they weren’t restricted to or arranged for particular age groups – desperate twenty-year-olds here, resigned forty-year-olds there – no,
everyone
came to these community centre parties. Seventy-year-olds sat at the same table as teenagers, fish-processing workers at the same table as school inspectors, and the fact that they had known one another all their lives did not prevent them from letting their hair down, normal social relationships were set aside, you could see a thirteen-year-old smooching with a twenty-year-old, a juiced-up old lady dancing and shaking her dress cancan style while grinning a toothless grin. I loved it, couldn’t help myself, there was a freedom in this I had never encountered anywhere else. Yet you could only love it if you were there, part of the untrammelled euphoria, for with even the tiniest hint of criticism or good taste everything would collapse and become a wild parody or perhaps even a travesty of the human condition. The youths who heated their coffee on a low blue gas flame, the very elderly women who looked at you with mischievous flirty eyes, the bald men dressed in formal suits and ties who one minute were making passes at fifteen-year-olds and the next were hunched over a ditch beneath the glittering community centre spewing, women staggering and men crying, all wrapped up as it were, in a long stream of badly performed 1960s and 70s hits by bands that no one but people up here cared about any longer, and a cloud of smoke that was so dense that if you hadn’t known better you might have assumed came from a blaze in the cellar.

For me this was alien and exotic. I had grown up where almost no one drank or at least was ever visibly the worse for wear. There was a neighbour who drank himself silly once or twice every six months, this was a sensation and caused quite a stir. There was an old alcoholic who cycled to the shop every day to buy his brown bottles of beer. And that was it. Mum and dad never drank, apart from a couple of bottles of beer or a glass of red wine with their food. Grandma and grandad in Sørbøvåg didn’t drink, grandma and grandad in Kristiansand didn’t drink, none of my uncles and aunts drank, and if they did, never in front of me. It was only two and a half years ago that I had seen my father drunk for the first time.

Why didn’t they drink? Why didn’t everyone drink? Alcohol makes everything big, it is a wind blowing through your consciousness, it is crashing waves and swaying forests, and the light it transmits gilds everything you see, even the ugliest and most revolting person is rendered attractive in some way, it is as if all objections and all judgement are cast aside in a wide sweep of the hand, in an act of supreme generosity, here everything, and I do mean everything, is beautiful.

Why say no to this?

I plunged into the party on this March evening, I was in my element, I even went over to Richard, who was sitting in a late 1970s suit a size too small for him, with his wife, to say how much I liked him, he had kept a tight rein on me, he was right to do so, and everything had gone well, hadn’t it? It was going well, wasn’t it?

Yes, I was doing fine.

He didn’t like me, but he couldn’t say that, all he could do was force a goatish smile. I was in the ascendancy, I was the shining star, he was just the head teacher at a small school, of course I could spare a moment for a cosy chat with him.

I saw Vivian and Andrea’s mothers, they were friends and were sitting at a table smoking, I sat down beside them, I wanted to have a chat about their daughters, they had such fantastic girls, they were so lively and pretty and would do well in life, I was sure of that.

I had never spoken to them before, apart from at parents’ evenings, but those had been formal occasions, I had discussed the girls’ performance and behaviour in various subjects then, they had listened carefully to what I said and asked a few questions, no doubt prepared, before disappearing into the darkness, on their way home to their children, who had been nervously waiting to hear what the meeting might bring, or reveal. Now the situation was different, we each had a glass in front of us, people were staggering past on all sides, the music was loud, the air close and warm, I was drunk and so eager to say something nice that I was leaning over the table towards them with a huge smile on my face. They said their children talked so much about me, there was no end to it, in fact it was almost as though they were in love with me! They laughed, I said yes, that can be difficult, a teacher who is only eighteen years old, nevertheless they are incredibly nice girls!

For a moment I wondered whether to ask one of them to dance, but rejected the idea, they were at least thirty-five, so even though they had a twinkle in their eyes when I appeared, I got up and wandered around the room, sat down first here and then there, went outside and saw Håfjord gleaming beneath me, the black sea straight ahead, and when I went back in I searched for Nils Erik to say what a good friend he was and how much I liked sharing the house with him.

Having done that, I went outside again, I wanted to take in the view one more time. At the bottom of the hill were my girls, I went down, Vivian was with Steve, Andrea with Hildegunn, I asked them if they were enjoying themselves, they were, and they laughed at me, perhaps because I was drunk, who knows, but it made no difference, I moved on, into the thick smoke-filled atmosphere, bounded up the steps in two strides, ploughed my way into the room, and there in front of me, like a revelation, stood a girl.

I stopped in my tracks.

Everything in me stopped. She was beautiful, but there were many who were, that wasn’t the point, it was the eyes she looked at me with, they were dark and brim-full with a life I wanted to share. I had never seen her before. But she was from here. She came from the village, I could see that the moment I clapped my eyes on her, for she was wearing football kit, the whole deal, shirt, shorts, socks and boots, everyone who was working there tonight was, the event had been organised by the football team, and would anyone not from the area volunteer to work at a party for Håfjord Football Club?

She was holding a tray of empty glasses.

Seeing her, so beautiful and so shapely, in football strip and boots, made my senses reel. I glanced at her bare thighs and calves, and I knew I was doing it, so to disguise this fact I looked slightly to one side, and then the other, as though I was inspecting this clubhouse and everything in it very thoroughly.

‘Hi,’ she said with a smile.

‘Hi,’ I said. ‘Who are you? I’ve never seen you before, I’m sure of that, you’re so beautiful I would have remembered if I had.’

‘My name’s Ine.’

‘You live here, but you never go out, is that right?’

‘No.’ She laughed. ‘I live in Finnsnes, but this is where I come from.’

‘I live here,’ I said.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘You work with my sister.’

‘Do I? Who’s that?’

‘Hege.’

‘Are you Hege’s sister? Why didn’t she say she had such a pretty little sister? Because you are younger than her, aren’t you?’

‘Yes. Yes, why didn’t she tell you? Perhaps she wants to protect me?’

‘From me? I’m the most harmless person out here.’

‘Yes, I’m sure you are. But I have to go in with this. I’m working here tonight, as you can see.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But can we meet again? When you finish? There must be some get-together afterwards somewhere. Why don’t you come along? Then we can chat a bit more.’

‘Well, we’ll have to see,’ she said, turned and made for the little room beside the stage, where the kitchen was.

After that, the party was over as far as I was concerned. Nothing going on there interested me any more. All I had in my head was the beautiful waitress dressed in football kit, and I spent the rest of the evening looking longingly at her.

Hege’s sister!

She told me everything, why hadn’t she told me about her?

I searched for Nils Erik and said we should organise some drinks at home. He hesitated, he was already exhausted, but I was determined, we were going to do this. As long as he didn’t have to join in it was fine by him, he said. You have to stay up for a bit, I said. And you don’t need to invite anyone else. What are you up to? he said. Have you got your beady eye on someone? You bet, I said, filling my glass to keep myself on the boil while doing what I could to kill time. I caught fleeting glimpses of her as she went in and out of the kitchen, for a while she served in the snack bar as well, but I didn’t go over, although I would have loved to buy a hot dog from her, just to watch her squeezing the ketchup and mustard from the plastic bottles over the sausage, but I didn’t want to waste the little time I had on anything that wasn’t to do with my plan for her and me at our place. I didn’t want to be a nuisance or force myself on her. When she smiled at me I said there would be drinks at our place afterwards, we were staying in the yellow house on the bend and it would be an enormous boost for everyone there if she came along.

‘We’ll see,’ she said again, but not without a smile, not without a glint in her dark eyes.

Oh, dear God, please let her say yes! Please let her come along!

The band started up again. Eric Clapton’s ‘Cocaine’.

I applauded when they had finished, couldn’t take much more, staggered out into the cold, saw Tor Einar chatting with two girls in the ninth class with a big smile on his face, a couple further away snogging in a car, the school at the other end of the football pitch looking like an embankment in the darkness, lit a cigarette, drained the vodka, turned and glimpsed Hege on her way over. My intuition told me I shouldn’t say anything about Ine to her, otherwise she would be sure to come along too and the situation would be impossible.

‘Are you OK?’ she said.

‘Can’t complain,’ I said.

‘So you’ve been chatting to my sister?’

‘Yes, you kept her well hidden. I didn’t even know you had a sister.’

‘We’re only half-sisters. Same dad, but we didn’t grow up together. She lives her own life.’

‘Does she live in Finnsnes?’

‘Yes. She opted for the motor mechanics course. She likes motorbikes. And motorbike riders!’

‘Oh yes.’

Vidar appeared in the doorway. His eyes scoured the people standing outside. And stopped at us. Held us in his gaze, then he came in our direction. He was drunk, I could see that by the way he was concentrating on walking properly and in a straight line. Broad and powerfully built, his shirt open at the chest, a gold chain visible, he stopped in front of us.

‘So this is where you are,’ he said.

She didn’t answer.

He looked at me. ‘We don’t see much of you any more. You should drop in. Or perhaps that’s what you do when I’m away?’

‘It has happened,’ I said. ‘We had a little get-together there for the teachers a couple of weeks ago, for instance. But mostly I stay at home and work in the evenings.’

‘What do you think about Håfjord actually?’

‘It’s nice here,’ I said.

‘Are you happy?’

‘Yes, I am.’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘It’s important that teachers are happy.’

‘Shall we go in?’ Hege said. ‘It’s beginning to get cold.’

‘I’ll stay here for a bit,’ I said. ‘Have to clear my head.’

They went in side by side, next to him she was extremely slight. But she was tough, I thought, and looked out over the village again, it was so quiet and peaceful compared to the hubbub of vying personalities and wills in the clubhouse behind me.

Some time after the band stopped playing, the music was also switched off, and as people began to drift away the lights came on, harsh and quivering, and the magic veil in which the darkness had wrapped everything was torn aside. The dance floor, which moments before had been the scene for the sweetest and hottest dreams, was now bare and empty and covered with dirt and gravel from all the boots that had stomped around on it during the course of the evening. The space beneath the ceiling, which as if underwater had pulsated in hues of red, green and blue except when it had sparkled like a starry sky, was empty apart from a light rig with some light cannons and an idiotic cheap shiny disco ball hanging from the middle. The tables, where people had been sitting and enjoying themselves in what resembled a wall of human warmth, were strewn around, beneath them a sea of empty bottles and scrunched-up cigarette packets, here and there shards of broken glass and the odd trail of toilet paper someone had unwittingly brought with them. The tabletops were stained with all sorts of sticky mess and covered with small burn marks from forgotten cigarettes, on top of the tables there were overflowing ashtrays, piles of cups and glasses, empty bottles of all descriptions, cheap Thermos flasks with long rivulets of coffee under the spouts. The faces of those who had not yet gone home were tired and lifeless, bone structures covered with skin, white and creased, eyes two lumps of jelly, bodies either rippling with fat and folds of skin or so bony and lean that your thoughts were led to the skeletons beneath, which would soon be lying picked nice and clean under the ground in some windblown graveyard with saline soil somewhere by the sea.

No, under the lights this room was nothing special. But then in came six girls wearing football kit to tidy up, they scurried around with their trays and cloths and it was as though life had come to chase away death. I would have loved to stand watching them, but now it was important to give the right impression, not to be a pest and stare and harass, so I went for a walk outside, chatted to people and tried to plan the next phase of the evening, that is, to discover where people were going to drink in case she didn’t want to join me.

A quarter of an hour later the crowd outside the community centre had thinned and I ventured in. With another girl she was carrying a table across the floor to the corner below the stage. After they had put it down she ran one hand across her forehead, rested the other on her hip and looked across at me.

‘After all this hard graft you deserve a break,’ I said. ‘I know a house with a great location by the water. You can relax and recover there.’

‘And no one will come and bother me?’ she said.