The Last Fix (2 page)

    Katrine
had risen from the bizarre position she had been in, swept back her hair, put
her hands on her hips, brushed down her skirt and limped around the counter.
She had lost a sandal, and staggered over to the door with one sandal and one
bare foot. She locked the door and turned to Elise. For a few seconds she
leaned against the door, breathing heavily. She was wide-eyed and her hair
dishevelled. A button on her blouse had come loose and she held the two sides
together with one hand. Standing like that, leaning against the door with a
short skirt and untidy hair, Katrine looked more like a bimbo from a TV soap
opera than the daughter about whom Elise liked to daydream. Elise was standing
stock still, motionless, petrified. Not a sound could be heard in the room,
apart from Katrine's heavy breathing and the telephone that had started to ring
behind the counter.

    'Aren't
you going to answer the phone?' Katrine asked at last.

    'Of
course not. Are you crazy?'

    At
once Elise saw the comical side of the remark. They exchanged looks and Katrine
began to laugh. Elise smiled at herself and asked again: 'Who on earth was that
man?'

    Katrine,
too, lowered her shoulders in the changed atmosphere. 'Oh, crap, I've gone and
hurt myself.' She grinned. 'My bum hurts.' She turned and looked out on to the
busy street, pressed down the door handle, opened the door and peered out. 'He's
gone anyway,' she said, closing the door and limping back behind the counter.
She slipped on the other sandal and picked up the chair. 'It's stopped
ringing,' she confirmed and pulled a face.

    Elise,
curious: 'Is he someone you knew from before?'

    Katrine
avoided her gaze. She breathed in, arranged her blouse, sat down and adjusted
the back of the chair. It was obvious she was thinking feverishly, and it was
also obvious she was struggling to decide what to say.

    Elise
waited patiently with a stern look on her face.

    In
the end, Katrine said: 'I think it frightened him when I shouted to you to call
the police - and I don't think he'll be back.' Her face became more impassioned
and desperate the clearer it became that the other woman did not buy her story.
'Elise,' she drawled. 'It's true. I thought he was just a normal customer.'

    Elise
did not answer; she observed Katrine with suspicion, feeling like a sceptical
school teacher.

    'I
don't know what else to say.'

    'What
do you mean by that?'

    Katrine
turned to her, and it seemed to Elise she could read a kind of genuine despair
in her expression. But it was never easy to say with Katrine. At this moment
she reminded her of one of her own children on Sunday mornings when lies were
told about how long they had been out. Slowly Elise rose to her feet and took
plodding steps to the front door. It was her turn to lock up now. Broad and
plump, she stood with her back to the door and leaned back hard, her arms
crossed in an authoritarian manner.

    'Katrine.'

    'Hm?'
Her blue eyes were innocent-blue and glazed, a child's eyes, ready for a fight.

    'Is
it safe to work here?'

    Katrine
gave a slow nod.

    'Because
I'm over fifty and would like to imagine I will be here until I'm sixty-seven. I
like travel agency work. I like the fringe benefits. I like flying to Sydney
for next to nothing. And I'm not interested in taking early retirement because
you're incapable of distinguishing between old friends and old lovers.'

    'Elise

    'I
hate to have to say what I'm going to say now,' Elise continued. 'I don't know
if I can express myself in a befitting manner, either. I thought we were going
to be robbed. I'm all shaky and my stomach hurts.'

    Katrine
tilted her head. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'But I had no idea…'

    'The
man who was here,' Elise interrupted with force. 'He's the nearest I have come
to what I would describe as a thug.' She didn't give Katrine, who had raised
both palms in defence, a chance. 'You and I have never talked about the past,'
Elise persisted, but she was full of regret when she saw the effect her words
were having. 'We don't need to talk about the past, not even now, but I would
like to know whether I can feel safe working here. If not, I'll have to take
further steps. Has this roughneck got anything to do with your past?'

    Katrine
smiled with the same glazed, light blue, childlike eyes. And Elise could have
bitten off her tongue. She should never have asked in that way. Katrine laughed
a nervous, artificial laugh and reassured her: 'No, Elise, he has nothing to do
with my so-called past.' And Elise knew Katrine had lied. That was why she
blamed herself. Katrine had lied and now they were moving into terrain where
she had no wish to be with this young woman. She felt she lacked words and
could see Katrine was aware of this shortcoming; from Katrine's face it was
clear she realized Elise had seen through the lie. Silence hung in the room.
Katrine made no attempt to retract the lie, and Elise did not want to wait for
the sound of cars and trams to penetrate the window, making the situation
workaday and wearisome - for that reason she interposed: 'So next time he could
just as easily come in and attack me?'

    'Of
course not.'

    Elise
breathed in. 'So he's only interested in you?'

    Katrine
looked away. Elise waited.

    'Yes.
He is someone from my past,' she conceded at last.

    Elise
breathed out and closed her eyes. In a way this admission was the most
important thing that had happened so far today; the admission was more
important than the incident with the man. The admission made it possible for
the balance between them to be re-established. More than that, the relationship
between them was no longer threatened by lies. 'Thank God,' she mumbled,
unlocking the door and strolling back to her chair. 'Thank God.'

    The
door jangled. The two women were startled. They looked at each other and Elise
felt her mouth go dry.

    But
it was not the man returning. The customer who opened the door turned out to be
a young woman wanting Mediterranean travel brochures.

    The
next few hours were hectic, and even though it was a quite normal Saturday with
quite normal Saturday tasks, sluggish computers and indecisive customers, Elise
felt a little shudder go down her back every time the door opened. Every time
the familiar jangle sounded, she peered up at the customer and glanced over at
Katrine who, irrespective of whether she was busy or not, was sitting ready to
meet her gaze with neutral, light blue eyes.

    It
was almost two o' clock before the room was quiet again. Elise swung her chair
round to face Katrine, took a deep breath, but then paused.

    'I
know what you're going to say,' Katrine said, massaging her temples. 'You want
me to ring the police.'

    'Don't
you think you should?' Elise said in a low voice. 'He threatened you.'

    Katrine
nodded. 'I need to think a bit,' she said.

    'Katrine…'
Elise started.

    'Please,'
Katrine retorted. 'Let me have a think!'

    'What
did he want?'

    Katrine
went quiet.

    'Is
he an ex-boyfriend?'

    'He
might have considered himself one once, a long time ago.'

    'So
he's jealous?'

    'Believe
me, this has nothing to do with love.' Katrine sighed. 'He and a load of other
people are just shadows for me now. It's funny, but until he walked through
that door I had forgotten what he looked like.'

    'What's
his name?'

    Katrine
had to puzzle for a few seconds. 'Raymond,' she said at length. 'Just imagine,
I had even forgotten that.'

    'But
what did he want?'

    Katrine
stood up. 'I promise I'll tell you,' she said. 'But not this minute. I need to
think; I'll have to ask for some help to know how to tackle this. Then I
promise I'll tell you.'

    Elise
nodded slowly. 'Fine,' she said. 'What are you going to do this evening?'

    'I'm
going to do something I have next to no interest in doing.'

    Elise
smiled and at once pictured Katrine's skinhead boyfriend. 'Are you going to
finish with him?'

    Katrine
smiled and shook her head. 'With Ole? It'll be him who does that with me, I
suppose. But he's accompanying me at any rate.'

    'Where
to?'

    'To a
party.'

    'It
must be quite a party if you're that keen to go.'

    'That's
the point,' Katrine said with a heavy sigh. 'I have absolutely no interest in
going, but I have to.'

    Ole
had eased his body from a recumbent into a sedentary position on the sofa. It was
a terrible sofa to sit on, one Katrine had bought at a flea market, a 70s sofa
bed, with a solid, uncomfortable pine frame and a seat that was so deep it was
impossible to sit with your back supported; you either had to lie you had to
sit with your legs beneath you. It irritated him that she had this sofa. It
irritated him to think that all her visitors had to confront the same problem:
Shall I lie down or what? When Katrine sat on the sofa she always drew her legs
up beneath her - she invited a physical intimacy in everything she did. He
could feel his irritation growing as he thought about this too, that Katrine
was a woman who invited a physicality in all situations. A pling sounded on the
TV. Someone had put Stavanger Viking ahead. But he was watching Molde playing
against Stabæk. Crap match. Frode Olsen, the goalkeeper, might just as
well have started doing gymnastics on the crossbar, and the cameramen seemed to
be more interested in the trainers on the Molde bench than the ball. Katrine
sauntered by, not wearing clothes of course, her hair wet from the shower. She
turned down the volume without a word to him.

    'What
is it now?' he asked.

    'Nothing.'

    'But
why can't I watch TV?'

    'My
God, you can watch TV. But you can manage with the volume down can't you? I
have to make a call.'

    With
that she was gone, slamming the hall door behind her. The contours of her body
became a blurred, pale shadow behind the door's frosted glass. He could see her
sitting beside the telephone. This was Katrine in a nutshell: sitting naked,
phoning and making sure he couldn't hear. A form of behaviour and secrecy he
could not stand. But now he didn't know what provoked him more, her nonchalant
nakedness or her slamming the door, as though he had no right to know what she
was doing. He felt a sudden fury surge up inside him; he got up and tore open
the door. 'You're the one who's loud!'

    She
peered up at him with the telephone receiver tucked under her chin. He stood
following the line of the cable coiled around one of her breasts. It looked
like a pose for a men's magazine.

    'And
why aren't you dressed?' he barked.

    'My
dear Ole, I've just had a shower.'

    'But
you could get dressed, couldn't you?'

    'Ole,
I live here. I do as I like.'

    'But
I'm here now.'

    She
put down the telephone and leered. 'You're not usually that bothered whether
I'm dressed or not.' She rose to her feet, took the towel hanging from a hook
on the wall, made a big show of wrapping it around herself, so that it half-covered
her breasts and reached mid-thigh.

    She
sat back down beside the telephone, held it and looked up. 'Happy?' 'No,' he
said, irritated, still provoked and aggressive because she had put on her cool
tone - she seemed to be sitting there and making a fool of him.

    Then
her eyes flashed. 'I have to make a call. Would you please go away and let me
talk in peace.'

    'Who
are you ringing?'

    'It's
got nothing to do with you.'

    Ole
Eidesen felt the blood drain from his face. 'It's nothing to do with me?'

    Katrine
sighed and crossed her legs before adjusting the towel. 'Ole,' she said, 'drop
it.' 'I want to know who you're ringing.'