See You Tomorrow (30 page)

He stops abruptly and looks PÃ¥l in the eyes. Then the
high-pitched
voice wafts into the darkness of the woods: ‘Have I seen you before?'

‘No,' Pål replies hastily, ‘I don't think so.'

‘No? Hm. Are you scared, Pål? You don't need to be. You
should know that you're surrounded by friends. You should know that you're working with someone who wishes the best for you, someone who is going to give you the chance to get your life back in order and get you back on your feet. Fear? Let me tell you. I know all about fear. It's what you could call my area of expertise. You're at the point where it's still not too late. You're not alone in this. We're going to lift this weight as a team, PÃ¥l. A collaborative effort.'

There's a shine in his blueberry eyes. His voice carries out into the woods, with an unworldly tone.

‘Are you with us, Pål? Will we do this? Go through with, what I like to call, a time-honoured classic?'

This here – this is a hassle. That last foster father was a run-of-the-mill asshole, but he was right about what he said: if it’s hassle you want, just get yourself a woman. Daniel has two of them now and they’re both psychos. One has cut herself up and the other is hysterical.
Daniel, you are a coward. It’s time you showed who you are. Who it is you want. I’ll wait by the substation
. Daniel feels the lift suck him down through the block of flats, and looks at the display on his mobile for around the twentieth time. What the hell’s happened to Sandra? The fact that Inger flipped out when she saw Veronika’s mesh-face, screamed and wailed and wanted to ring the hospital and Child Welfare, and send Daniel off to some outreach camp for kids and God knows what else – that he gets. But he managed to calm her down. He has a knack for that sort of thing. Look deep into the eyes, keep a good hold on the shoulders, wait for the breathing to slow:
Inger, Inger, we’ll sort it out.

But this here?

You are a coward

Daniel exits the entrance to the flats and walks out into the darkness.

He’s not an idiot either. He’s got good hearing. He can pick up when other people are talking through your mouth. When you open your gob and they’re not your own words spewing out from between your lips. When you can see in people’s eyes that there’s a psychologist in the background dictating the words.

Get rich. Get a woman with her head screwed on once and for all.

That’s all Daniel wants. Two small things. How difficult does it have to be? Every time he nears his goal it’s like some fucker comes
along and wallops him in the face with a club, sending him back to his own stone age. Inger seemed all right. Sandra seemed all right. Veronika seemed all right. But no. They were all too good to be true. That’s the hidden truth. Nobody is as they make out. They sell themselves as beautiful fucking buttercups, but when you unwrap them they snap at you.

Give them cancer, cancer, cancer.

He walks with purpose, his arms paddling through the air, as though to sweep aside anything that gets in his way.

He can handle Inger. A grown woman screaming because her daughter has transformed her face into a hundred small bloody squares, who says she regrets ever having taken him into the house.
There there, Inger. It’s going to be all right.
He can also handle Veronika. When he left them, mother and daughter were sitting on the sofa with their arms round one another. They feel they’ve been through something together. But Sandra. He can’t handle her or his own feelings for her. They brim over, he’s unable to hold them down. Whenever other girls pass him he doesn’t react. They can be as hot as may be, they can have jugs that are heaven-sent, legs and asses that are primo, but it makes no odds. When she comes running along from side to side with those knees of hers, then he just has
no control over himself.

But now.

Now he’s in control of himself.

Daniel, you’re a coward. It’s time you showed who you are.

All right. It’s a deal, bitch. You asked for it.

He runs. The last metres through the schoolyard, over the football pitch. It’s already dark all around. There isn’t the slightest breeze, no friction other than what he himself creates against the world.

‘Daniel!’

He stops dead.

‘Daniel!’

A dark figure appears over by the school, becoming clear under the lights by the football pitch. Be angry now, he says to himself. Be hard.

She runs quickly towards him. Fast, small feet across the gravel.
The pulse in his necks throbs, he clenches his teeth. Sandra speeds up, she looks a wreck, her hair is dishevelled and her eyes tired.

‘Daniel!’

She stops just in front of him. They look at one another. He bends over slightly, she raises herself on her tiptoes. They throw their arms around each other, kiss.

‘Fuck,’ he says, feeling her soft lips, how they take shape to fit his, her warm, wet tongue, how it seeks his, ‘fuck, fuck, fuck.’

‘Fuck,’ she says, sniffling.

‘Fuck,’ he says, closing his eyes, ‘fuck, fuck, fuck.’

‘Fuck,’ she says, sobbing.

‘It’s you and me, baby,’ he says, placing his hands on her behind.

‘Touch me,’ she says, ‘never stop, Daniel William Moi.’

‘Fuck,’ whispers Daniel, ‘I didn’t mean it. You know that.’

‘I know,’ she whispers, ‘I know.’

‘I just get so fuckin’…’

‘I know,’ she whispers again, ‘you don’t need to say anything.’

They break off from the fantastic kissing he can’t live without and stand looking at one another under the lights of the football pitch.

‘Daniel?’

She reaches her hand out, strokes him gently across the cheek.

‘Yeah?’

‘Have you seen Malene and Tiril’s dad?’

‘No…’

They look in the direction of the substation.

‘What do you think is going on?’

He shrugs. ‘I don’t know – did you say anything to them?’

‘No,’ she says, ‘but I think it’s kind of horrible … I feel I know something I shouldn’t, and I feel I ought to say it, but—’ Once more she brings her hand to his face again, strokes his skin with her fingers, and once more he loves it. ‘But Daniel,’ she says, warily. ‘Am I the one you love?’

Is she going to start this again?

He can’t believe his ears. They’ve been snogging each other for two minutes, they’ve forgiven one another – and she starts this again? He feels like beating her senseless. Can she not fucking leave well enough alone?

‘Veronika,’ she says, nervously, ‘you need to tell me what’s going on. I saw the two of you, in town. I saw her. You have to tell me what’s going on.’

He breaks eye contact. Okay. That’s how it is.

‘Sandra.’ He shifts his weight to his other foot. ‘Don’t worry about this. Will we go into the woods and look for the father of those girls? Just, don’t be concerned about this—’

She just stands there. ‘I need to know, Daniel. I have to know if it’s me you want.’

He sighs and looks up towards the sky. ‘Please. I need you to trust me now.’

She nods. ‘Yeah, and I need you to be honest with me. You had your arms around her. You live with her. I have to know—’

‘She fancies me.’

Sandra takes a step backwards. The corners of her mouth begin to quiver. She stammers: ‘Does she want … but … so, do you want to be with her?’

‘I—’ he stops himself, this has to come out right. ‘I’m not able to protect myself when I’m with you.’

Furrows appear on Sandra’s forehead, her hands begin to clench.

‘When I’m not with you I sometimes think I should break it off, that we shouldn’t be together.’ Daniel is conscious these words aren’t coming out right, he can hear how dangerous it is saying them out loud, yet he’s unable to stop: ‘But when I see you, then I just want to have you.’

Sandra weeps inaudibly. Her body is limp. He doesn’t like looking so he turns his head and continues: ‘I didn’t know she wanted to be with me. Not like that. Not in that way. But she did. I can get on fine without her, but at the same time it’s like she … fuck, you know? It’s as if she’s good for me somehow, while you’re not good for me, even though you’re the one I need. Do you understand?’

Sandra has closed her eyes. She looks like she’s going to keel over, as though her knees are going to give way any second.

‘Do you understand?’

She doesn’t say anything. She just stands there with her eyes
shut, crying. Fucking hell, she looks so beautiful. Okay, he thinks. Not so strange she has to mull it over a bit. She’s just got a considerable dose of honesty right in the face. But if she managed to listen to what he was saying, then she’s understood who he needs. That was what she wanted to know, wasn’t it?
Who it is you want.
He’s said it as clearly as he could, without lying. He likes Veronika, he’s not planning on letting her down. If Sandra’s thinking of a life with him, then she’ll have to learn to deal with Veronika. Just like Veronika will have to face the fact that it’s Sandra he needs.

‘Sandra?’ he says in a soft voice. ‘Are you all right with this?’

‘Did she cut herself for you?’

She opens her eyes, they’re overflowing with tears.

He nods.

Sandra swallows. ‘Just one more thing, Daniel, then I’ll let everything be.’ She brings her hand to her throat, fiddles with her necklace. ‘I need to know who you are.’

‘Hm?’

‘I need to know who you are. What you’ve seen. What you’ve done.’

Ponderous beasts surround the football pitch, crippled mongrels. They’ve emerged from out of the woods. Groups of small boys stand just behind them, all dressed in beige wadmal, all barefoot, all with horses’ heads, all with bleeding eyes. One of the boys holds a lance in his right hand. He raises it and at the same moment the horse heads begin to scream, a piercing, depraved shrieking, and the sky overflows with a rapacious light, and there, in the heavens, the sun is on fire, burning with raging flames. The boy with the lance summons the muscles in his body, tenses his arm, brings it back and sends the lance up into the sky.

‘A wolf,’ whispers Daniel and sees the beasts withdraw, moving backwards into the woods, followed by the boys in horses’ heads.

‘Hm?’ Sandra juts her chin out. ‘I didn’t hear what you said.’

The sound of footsteps coming across the gravel behind them. Daniel and Sandra turn around. Malene. It’s Malene.

She should sit at the front of the stage playing piano. Sing. Just her, a piano and the audience. Like Amy Lee. But she can’t play the piano. It’s just as well Thea is taking care of the music so she can concentrate totally on vocals. There’s a video like that on YouTube, where Amy is sitting on a stool singing while the guitarist in the band is responsible for the music. But Amy is kind of fat there and doesn’t look too good, and the backdrop isn’t great either.

‘Candles?’

Tiril has pictured it. That they can cut out the spotlight and the coloured lights. It would be a lot more intense if they bought a load of candles – pillar candles, purple and white – and turned off the lights in the hall.

‘Yeah, good, eh?’

Tiril and Thea walk through the double doors into the gym hall. Lots of people are there, things are already underway and Svein Arne is busy helping with rehearsals. He’s the one responsible for organising things, Svein Arne Bendiksen. He’s in charge of the school revue and he’s a musician – good at everything. People say he held the county record in playing fast on the guitar when he was younger and he’s able to play the saxophone, the piano and the oboe, and one time a guitarist from a really huge band, Tyler Straits or something, heard Svein Arne play, and he said that Svein Arne was a mega talent.

‘I’m certain it would look good,’ Tiril continues, as they hurry into the hall. She unbuttons her jacket and waves to Svein Arne.

‘Tiril! Thea! Great!’ Svein Arne comes towards them smiling. ‘Good stuff, we can have you on soon.’

‘Listen, we were thinking,’ Tiril says, ‘about the lighting…’

‘You’ll have to talk to the lighting crew about it…’

‘Yeah, I know, but you’re the director,’ Tiril laughs, ‘or the manager. Anyway, what about if it’s all totally dark, right, when we’re introduced. Then we, like, come on stage, Thea in white, me in black, and I go and light up ten or twenty big candles while Thea plays the intro…’

Svein Arne nods, clearly impressed. His long curls bobbing about his enthusiastic face. ‘But if it’s going to be that dark, then maybe you should consider wearing something other than all black…’

‘Nah, I’ll have some candles right beside me…’

He laughs. ‘Right, just make sure you don’t catch fire then. Great. That sounds atmospheric. You’re on in about twenty minutes. We’re going through the programme in the same order as tomorrow. I’m just going to finish up with the dancers from Eksilstuna. You have to see them, they’re really good.’

He jogs back to the stage: ‘Right, okay, we’ll go again. Ingrid, Susanna, wasn’t it, yeah, Susanna, Kadi … Kadija, yes, Malin, Badra! Mina! Ulrik! Okay, let’s take it from … let me see … what is it Taylor Swift sings there …
we are never, ever, ever,
yeah two times on
ever
, no wait, actually it’s three times here…’

‘Taylor Swift,’ Tiril snorts. ‘Candles. Thea, you play the intro. I’ll go and light them. It’ll look cool, yeah?’

Tiril takes off her jacket. Then she gets a look in her eyes. Money. Twenty pillar candles. That’ll cost a bit. She can’t afford it. She’s not getting paid before next week.

‘Thea?’

‘Mhm?’

‘I was wondering … can you get the money for candles?’

‘Sure,’ Thea says, with a facial expression as if it were an odd question.

‘Cool. We’ll buy them tomorrow. He’s really good, Svein Arne, isn’t he?’

‘Mhm, yeah, he can play so many instruments.’

They survey the gym hall. Strange when it’s filled with people from other countries. They’re all being put up in pupils’ homes. There’s one in Tiril’s year who has a Finnish girl from Jyväsklä staying with her, another in Malene’s year who has a girl from Antsirabe in Madagascar living with her – she’s really cool, she’s
going to give a speech, apparently, and recite a poem. And Ulrik, he’s going to play the guitar; cute, little Ulrik, so popular he makes all the girls melt.

‘They’re all from twin towns of Stavanger,’ says Thea. ‘Do you know anyone?’

‘Well…’ she wrinkles up her nose, ‘spoke a little with a girl from Denmark…’

‘They’re from, let me see,’ Thea counts on her fingers, ‘Fjardabyggd, that’s in Iceland somewhere, Esteli in Nicaragua, Houston, in Texas of course, and from Esbjerg in Denmark, Nablus, that’s in Palestine…’

‘Yeah, yeah, Brainy, I know, you’re so good at…’

Thea continues: ‘And from Aberdeen in Scotland, from Eksiltuna in Sweden, and Jyväskylä and Antsirabe…’

Somebody pokes Tiril on the shoulder. She turns around.

Bunny’s little brother.

What the hell is he doing here?

‘Can I have a word?’

There´s something different about him. For one thing, he’s on his own. He never usually is. He’s always with those annoying friends of his. For another, he doesn’t have that cheeky grin on his face. And thirdly, he’s just standing calmly. He has a pair of headphones around his neck. She can’t remember ever having seen him stand quietly.

‘I don’t have the time.’

‘It’s all right – we’re not on for another twenty—’

Thea. Great. You had to open your mouth.

‘Just a couple of minutes,’ says Shaun. ‘Five. Tops. Promise.’

‘Listen,’ says Tiril, folding her arms, ‘you’ve ratted to Kenny, you’ve spat in my hair, you’ve—’

Shaun shakes his head. ‘I didn’t rat to Kenny. I wasn’t the one who told him.’

‘Yeah. Right.’

‘Can you not just come outside with me for a sec? Just for a bit. Five minutes. Two minutes.’

‘Where Kenny is standing waiting with your idiot mates to beat the shit out of me. Do you think I’m stupid, Shaun?’

He remains standing, quite still. Tiril tries to remain firm, but can’t maintain it. Some old memories well up inside her, from primary school, when she and Shaun used to have pretend fights in the snow, when he tripped her up, when she threw snowballs at him, when she sat on his chest and gave him typewriter torture.

‘One minute.’

She gets to her feet.

‘Okay. One minute. Max.’

Shaun nods and begins walking towards the door. His body isn’t swaying from side to side as much as usual. He’s small, almost a foot shorter than her. He walks with his hands in his pockets and his head down. She follows him. Out through the foyer, out the front doors. Shaun walks a little away from the gym hall, over behind a tree.

She comes to a halt when she reaches him. ‘Well, what is it?’

‘I—’

‘He’s bang out of order, Kenny, you are aware of that? Do you know what he did?’

Shaun nods. ‘I can’t do anything about it, some others told him, and Kenny … Kenny’s not quite right in the head, it’s not my fault.’

‘What do you want, so?’

‘I—’

Tiril takes a deep breath. Her chest rises.

‘Have you got a fag?’

Shaun nods. He takes a ten-pack from the pocket of his baggy hoodie. They sneak around to the side of the gym hall. He produces a lighter, lights one for her and then one for himself.

‘We’re probably the only ones in second year who smoke.’

He nods. ‘I was the only one who smoked in sixth class too. Going to try to quit soon.’

‘Me too. Not good for the singing voice.’

Tiril is pushed for time, but she looks him over. Small, scared and strange, that’s what he is. Her eyes fall on his headphones. ‘What are you listening to?’

Shaun gives an embarrassed shrug. ‘Ah, nothing.’

‘Give me a look at your phone, then.’

‘Eh,’ he says, shifting his feet.

‘Give me a look.’

Shaun takes his phone out of his pocket, makes a face, not eager to let her see. But Tiril grabs it, begins to scroll. Just hip-hop, just shit music. Eminem, Rihanna and a load of bands she’s never heard of – David Banner, Khia, Akinyele… what the fuck? Her finger stops moving. She glances up at Shaun.

‘Eh…’ He blushes.

‘Put it in my mouth?’

‘Eh, yeah, that…’

‘What the fuck is this … smell your dick? We fuck virgins?’

She removes the headphones from around his neck, puts them on and presses play. A sleazy drumbeat. A siren. A creepy man’s voice whispering:
Cum girl, tryna get your
… what’s he singing? Tiril raises one eyebrow at Shaun while she taps the next song on the playlist. A faint drumbeat, another creepy voice, a woman this time:
All you ladies pop your
… what is she singing?

Tiril takes off the headphones. Her cheeks are flushed, she tries not to swallow but can’t manage. The little, embarrassed halfwit stands there in front of her and she doesn’t have time for this.

‘
Awesome Pornrap for Shaun,
’ she says.

‘Eh, yeah…’

She shakes her head.

‘You are a sick slacker,’ she says, handing him the phone.

He takes it and shrugs again, as if that’s the only thing in the world he’s able to do. ‘Yeah, I suppose I am, all right,’ he says in a low tone.

‘That music,’ she says. ‘It’s, like – Jesus, Shaun.’

Again he shrugs. ‘I know. That’s the kind of stuff I like.’

Shaun gazes at her, looks at her for longer than any boy has ever done.

‘What was it you wanted to talk to me about?’

‘Huh?’ His eyes flit about.

‘What was it you wanted to talk to me about?’ Tiril asks again, aware of an antsy warmth in her body and suddenly realising what all this is about. Without quite being able to explain it to her herself, without being able to take it in her hand and look at
it shimmer, she decides to say yes when he asks if she’ll be his girlfriend. No, she decides to be the one in control, so she blows out the smoke and says: ‘Shaun. Do you want to go with me, or what?’

His eyes grow large.

‘What? Do you want to get down on one knee or something? Are you not able to speak now?’

She gives him a thump on the shoulder, but Shaun stands there, as though rooted to the spot, his eyes growing larger and larger.

‘Come on,’ Tiril says, ‘now you’ve got what you want. You need to cut back on the porno rap. There’s proper music out there. Have you heard Evanescence? And don’t make such a big deal out of this here. Kiss me. Make it quick. I haven’t got all night.’

Shaun blinks a few times, raises himself ever so slightly up on his toes, and gives her a kiss, a slightly awkward one, but nice all the same.