Dancing in the Dark

~ ~ ~

We slept in the loft, I lay dozing till late in the morning and dragged out the time for as long as I could after that, I didn’t want it to end, I wanted to be there, in the happiness I had felt, but then Siv had to take the last group back, and I jumped on board, sat quietly in the bow on the way across, found a seat to myself right at the back of the bus, pressed my forehead against the window and gazed out at the rolling Sørland countryside, which gradually became more and more urban until we reached the bus station and I got onto a bus that would take me home, to where dad was living now with Unni.

I had caught this bus almost every day for three years, but it felt like a whole life. I knew every bend, indeed every tree on the route, and I was on such familiar terms with many of the people who got off or on that we nodded to one another even though we had never exchanged a word.

It had been good on the island. Perhaps I’d never had such a good time.

On the other hand, it was only a class party.

Then there was Hanne.

Each in our own sleeping bag, we had lain face to face, whispering for maybe an hour before we fell asleep. She had also tried to whisper when she was laughing, and when she did I had thought, I can die now, it won’t matter.

‘Can I give you a goodnight kiss?’ I said as we were about to go to sleep.

‘On the cheek!’ she said.

I levered my way forward a few centimetres on my elbows, she half-turned her cheek to me, I moved my head slowly towards it, changed direction at the last minute and gave her a juicy kiss on the mouth.

‘You cheat!’ she said with a laugh.

‘Goodnight,’ I said.

‘Goodnight,’ she said.

That was how it had been.

And surely it is impossible for that whole evening and night not to mean something?

She had to feel something for me.

She had to feel something.

She had said several times that she wasn’t in love with me. She liked me, she said, very much even, but it was no more than that.

Now she was going to change school and start at Vågsbygd Gymnas, where she lived.

At least that would release me from the torment of seeing her every day!

The bus indicated it was going to Kjevik, and at that moment a plane flying low thundered over us, touched down and screamed along the runway at a speed that made it seem as if we were standing still.

Flashing lights, roaring engine. We were living in the future.

I might bump into her now and then in town, we could have lunch together, go to the cinema, I could take her swimming with me on Saturday mornings. Gradually she would realise she was in love with me. She would finish the other business, tell me with a glow in her eyes that now there was nothing to stop us any more.

But then?

When we were together?

Visit each other in the evenings, kiss and eat pizza? Go to the cinema with her friends?

That was not enough.

I wanted her. Not as part of a gymnas existence, a gymnas girlfriend, she meant more than that. I wanted to move in with her. Be with her day and night, share everything with her. Not in town, with everything that went on there constantly around us, but in the skerries or perhaps in the forest, no matter where, as long as it was a place where we could be completely alone.

Or in Oslo, a large town where no one knew us.

Then I could go shopping after returning from lectures because I would study, and make dinner for her, there in our own flat.

Then we could have a child.

The bus stopped in front of the tiny terminal building, and a man wearing a cap and carrying a little suitcase got on board, paid and walked down the bus whistling as he went. He sat down in the seat in front of me.

I threw my arms in the air. The whole bus was empty! And he has to sit right there!

He smelled of sweet aftershave. His neck was covered in a scattering of thin hairs. His ear lobes were fat and red. A farmer from Birkeland.

Child?

I didn’t want one, I didn’t want to work from nine to four, that was a trap I would steer clear of, but it was different with Hanne, that was about something else.

Jesus, no, of course we wouldn’t get married, of course we wouldn’t live in the skerries, of course we wouldn’t have children!

I smiled. It had to be the wildest idea I’d ever had.

On the other side of the runway, across the road, was Jøgge’s house. There was light in the windows, and I leaned forward to see if I could catch a glimpse of him. But, if I knew Jøgge, he would be lying on his waterbed listening to Peter Gabriel.

I woke up next morning to the drone of a Hoover in the room underneath. I didn’t move. The hoovering stopped and other sounds became more prominent: the clink of bottles, the hum of the dishwasher, water running into a bucket. They had been having a party when I arrived. The last I had seen of them before sneaking up to my room the night before had been his contorted face and her laying a hand on his shoulder. That was the first time I had seen him drunk and the first time I had seen him cry. After a while the door was opened, footsteps crunched on the gravel outside and then I heard their voices just under my window.

There was a bench with a table where dad used to sit in the summer in that characteristic way of his, one leg crossed over the other, his back bent slightly forwards, often holding a newspaper in his hands and a smoking cigarette between his fingers.

They laughed. Her voice was high-pitched, his deeper.

I got up and tiptoed over to the window.

The sky was a little misty, it softened a tone, but the sun shone and the air in the garden was perfectly still and quivered.

I opened the window.

And they were indeed sitting on the bench beneath, leaning against the wall with their eyes closed to the sun. Both tipped their heads back and looked up at me.

‘Well, isn’t that our Kaklove?’ dad said.

‘Good morning, early bird!’ Unni said.

‘Good morning,’ I said, securing the window with the latch. I didn’t like the way their voices seemed to embrace me, as though it was us three now. It wasn’t true; it was the two of them and me.

But I liked the role of the rebellious teenager even less. The last thing in the world I wanted was to give them any reason at all to blame me for anything.

I ate a few slices of bread in the kitchen, carefully tidied up afterwards, brushed the crumbs on the plate and table into the rubbish bin under the sink, fetched the Walkman from my room, tied my shoes up and went down to see them.

‘I’m off for a walk,’ I said.

‘You do that,’ dad said. ‘Are you going to visit a pal?’

He didn’t know the name of a single one of my pals, not even Jan Vidar, whom I had been friends with for three years. But now he was sitting beside Unni and wanted to show that he was a good father who knew his son’s habits.

‘Yes, reckon so,’ I said.

‘Tomorrow I’ll start moving my stuff down. It would be handy if you were here. I might need a bit of help carrying.’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘OK, bye.’

I wasn’t going to a friend’s; Jan Vidar was working at a bakery in town this summer, Bassen was on his way to England, Per was probably grafting at the floor factory, and what Jøgge was doing I had no idea, but it wasn’t, and never had been, natural for me to get on my bike without a specific aim. It suited me to be alone though, and I put on my headset, pressed play and allowed myself to be engulfed in music as I walked downhill. The countryside lay serene before me, and the few clouds, above the ridges on the other side of the river valley, were motionless. I followed the road down, it was quiet too, because, apart from a farm a kilometre further up, there was barely a house on this side for some distance. Only forest and water.

The green of the spruce needles shone brightly in the sunshine, it was almost black in the shadows, but there was something light about all the trees, it was the summer that did that, they weren’t brooding or turned into themselves as in winter, no, they let the warm air filter through and stretched towards the sun, like everything else living.

I walked along the old forest path. Even though it was only a couple of hundred metres above our house I hadn’t been there more than two or three times, and then only in winter, wearing skis. Nothing happened there, it was deserted and none of the kids up here gravitated towards that path: down at the bottom was where it all happened, that was where people lived.

If I had grown up here I might have been familiar with every bush and rock, as I was with the countryside around our house in Tybakken. But I had lived here for only three years and no roots had developed, nothing meant anything, not really.

I turned off the music, pulled the headset down over my neck. Above me the air was so full of birdsong that it felt as if I could see it. Now and then there was a rustle in the undergrowth beside the path, that must have been birds too, I mused, but I didn’t see any.

The path rose gently, in constant shadow from the high trees growing on both sides. At the top there was a small lake, I lay down on the grass not far away, on my back and stared at the sky while listening to music, I played Remain in Light, and thought about Hanne.

I had to write another letter to her. It had to be so good that she wouldn’t be able to think about anything else but me.

Dad didn’t need much help from me with moving the following afternoon. He carried all the boxes himself, loaded them onto the big white rental van and drove off to town, three trips was all it took; it was only when it came to the furniture that he needed a helping hand. With it aboard he slammed the doors shut and shot me a glance.

‘Let’s keep in touch,’ he said.

Then he laid a hand on my shoulder.

He had never done that before.

My eyes went moist and I looked down. He removed his hand, clambered up into the driver’s seat, started the engine and drove slowly downhill.

Did he like me?

Was that possible?

I wiped my eyes on my T-shirt sleeve.

That was that, I thought. I would never live with him again now. From the edge of the forest came the cat, his tail held high. He stopped by the door and looked at me with his yellow eyes.

‘Do you want to go in, Mefisto?’ I said. ‘Are you hungry too?’

He didn’t answer, he rubbed his head against my leg as I went to open the door, darted in towards his dish and stood there staring up at me.

I opened a new can, dumped a large pile in the dish and went into the living room where a faint trace of Unni’s perfume hung in the air.

I opened the terrace door and stood in the step outside. Even if the sun no longer shone on the house it was still warm out there.

Per came up the hill, walking with his bicycle at his side.

I went to the edge of the slope.

‘Have you been working?’ I shouted.

‘By the sweat of my brow!’ he shouted back. ‘Not like some people I know who sleep all day!’

‘How much did you earn for your pension today?’

‘More than you’ll ever earn in the course of your whole life.’

I watched him chuckling. He was the type that chuckled and had always been older than his years.

He raised a hand in salute, I did the same and then I went inside.

Two of the pictures on the living-room wall had gone. Half of the records, I assumed, and half of the books. All his papers, the desk and the office equipment. The sofa in front of the TV, the two Stressless leather chairs. Half of the kitchen utensils. And of course all his clothes.

But the house didn’t seem to have been stripped.

In the room beside the hall the telephone rang. I hurried over.

‘Hello, this is Karl Ove,’ I said.

‘Hi, Yngve here. What’s new?’

‘Dad’s just left with the last load. Mum will be here soon. So I’m on my own with the cat. Where are you?’

‘I’m at Trond’s still. I was thinking of coming over. Tomorrow actually, but if your dad’s gone I might come tonight.’

‘Could you? That would be great.’

‘I’ll see. Arvid would have to drive me. He might have time. Anyway, perhaps see you tonight then!’

‘Fantastic!’

I cradled the phone and went to see what food there was in the fridge.

When mum drove up the hill an hour later I had fried some sausages, onions and potatoes, sliced some bread, put out the butter and set the table.

I went to meet her. She drove the car into the garage, got out, stretched up on her toes, grabbed the door and closed it.

She was wearing white trousers, a rust-red sweater and sandals. She smiled when she saw me. She seemed tired, but then she had been driving all day.

‘Hi!’ she said. ‘Are you alone?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Did you have a nice time in Denmark?’

‘Yes, great. And what about you? Did you have a nice time in Sørbøvåg?’

‘Yes, I did.’

I leaned forward and gave her a hug. Followed her into the kitchen.

‘Have you made some food?!’ she said.

I smiled.

‘Take the weight off your feet. You’ve been driving all day. I’ll put some water on for tea. I didn’t know exactly when you would get here.’

‘No, of course. I should have rung,’ she said. ‘Tell me then. How was it in Denmark?’

‘It was really good. Some fantastic pitches. We played a couple of games. And then we went out on the last night. But the best fun was the class party. That was really great.’

‘Did you meet Hanne there?’ she said.

‘Yes. That was the great bit.’

She smiled. I smiled too.

Then the phone rang. I went in and answered it.

‘Dad here.’

‘Hi,’ I said.

‘Is mum there now?’

‘Yes. Do you want to talk to her?’

‘No, what should I talk to her about? We were wondering if you would like to visit us on Monday. A little house-warming party.’

‘Love to. When?’

‘Six. Have you heard anything from Yngve?’

‘No, I think he’s on Tromøya.’

‘Tell him he’s invited too if you hear from him.’

‘OK, will do.’

‘Good. See you.’

‘See you.’

I put down the phone. How could his voice be so cold now when he’d put his hand on my shoulder only a few hours ago?

I went into the kitchen, where mum was pouring hot water into the teapot.

‘That was dad,’ I said.

‘Oh?’ she said.

‘He invited me to dinner.’

‘That’s nice, isn’t it?’

I shrugged.

‘Have you heard from him this summer?’

‘No, only from his solicitor,’ she said, putting the teapot on the table and sitting down.

‘What did the solicitor have to say?’

‘Well. . it’s all about how to share the house. We can’t agree, but it’s nothing you have to worry about.’

‘Have to? I can worry about it if I want, can’t I?’ I said as I put the spatula in the pan and transferred some sausages, potatoes and onions onto a plate.

‘You don’t have to take sides. I suppose that’s what I mean,’ she said.

‘I took sides years ago,’ I said. ‘When I was seven I took sides. So that’s nothing new. Or a problem.’

I stuck the fork into a bit of sausage that had curled up in the heat, put it to my mouth and sank my teeth into it.

‘But if things go the way it looks as if they’re headed we won’t have much money in the future. That is, you’ll get your payments from dad of course. They’re yours to dispose of as you like, I suppose. But as I’ve got to buy his share of this house it’s going to be tough economically for me.’

‘That doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘It’s only money. That’s not what life’s about.’

‘True enough.’ She smiled. ‘That’s a good attitude to have.’

Yngve and Arvid arrived at about ten. Arvid just poked his head round the door to say hello before leaving again while Yngve dragged a suitcase and a big bag up to his room, which he had hardly used in the three years we had lived there.

‘You’re not going tomorrow, are you?’ I said when he came back down.

‘Nope,’ he said. ‘The plane leaves the day after. Perhaps. I’ve got a standby ticket.’

We went into the living room. I sat down in the wicker chair, Yngve sat beside mum on the sofa. Outside two bats flitted to and fro, disappearing completely in the darkness of the mountains across the river, then reappearing against the lighter sky. Yngve poured coffee from the Thermos.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘I suppose it’s debriefing time.’

Throughout our childhood we three had sat chatting, that was what I was used to, but this was the first time we had done it without dad living in the house, and the difference was immense. Knowing that he couldn’t walk in at any moment, forcing us to think about what we were saying and doing, changed everything.

We had chatted about everything under the sun then too, but never so much as a word about dad, it was a kind of implicit rule.

I had never thought about that before.

But we couldn’t talk about him now, that would have been inconceivable.

Why?

Perhaps it was bound up with loyalty. Perhaps with a fear of being overheard. But irrespective of what had happened during the day and irrespective of how upset I was, I never talked to them about it. To Yngve on his own, yes, but not when the three of us were together.

Then it was as though a dam had burst. Everything suddenly flowed into the same channel, into the same valley, which was soon full of something that excluded everything else.

Yngve began to talk about himself, and it wasn’t long before we were going through one incident after the other. Yngve told us about the time the B-Max supermarket opened and he was sent off with a shopping list and some money, under strict instructions to bring back a receipt. He had done that, but the sum in his hand hadn’t tallied with the till receipt and dad had marched him into the cellar and given him a beating. He told us about the time his bike had had a puncture and dad had walloped him. I, for my part, had never been beaten; for some reason dad had always treated Yngve worse. But I talked about the times he had slapped me and the times he had locked me in the cellar, and the point of these stories was always the same: his fury was always triggered by some petty detail, some utter triviality, and as such was actually comical. At any rate we laughed when we told the stories. Once I had left a pair of gloves on the bus and he slapped me in the face when he found out. I had leaned against the wobbly table in the hall and sent it flying and he came over and hit me. It was absolutely absurd! I lived in fear of him, I said, and Yngve said dad controlled him and his thoughts, even now.

Mum said nothing. She sat listening, looking at me then Yngve. Sometimes her eyes seemed to go blank. She had heard about most of these incidents before, but now there was such a plethora of them she might well have been overwhelmed.

‘He had such chaos inside him,’ she said at length. ‘More than I realised. I saw him angry of course. I didn’t see him hitting you. He never did when I was around. And you didn’t say anything. I tried to compensate for his bouts of anger. To give you something else. .’

‘Relax, Mum,’ I said. ‘We got through it. That was then, not now.’

‘We always talked a lot, didn’t we,’ she said. ‘And he was manipulative. He was. Very. But he did also have some self-awareness. He made that clear to me. So I. . well, I always saw it from his side, what happened. He said he had so little communication with you, and it was because I stood between you and him. And in a way that’s true. You always turned to me. When he was there you left. I had a bad conscience about that.’

‘What happened happened, and it’s fine,’ Yngve said. ‘But what I have a problem with is that when you moved here I was left to cope on my own. You didn’t help me. I was seventeen years old, at gymnas and had no money.’

Mum took a deep breath.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I was loyal to him. I shouldn’t have been. That was wrong of me. It was a big mistake.’

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘It’s over, all of it. It’s just us now.’

Mum lit a cigarette. I looked at Yngve.

‘What shall we do tomorrow then?’

He shrugged.

‘What do you feel like doing?’

‘Swimming maybe?’

‘Or we could go to town? Check out some record shops and cafés?’

He turned to mum. ‘Can I borrow your car?’

‘Yes, you can.’

Mum went to bed half an hour later. I knew all she was thinking about was what we had been saying and she would be lying awake and reflecting. I didn’t want her to feel like this, to be so tormented by it, she didn’t deserve that, but there was nothing I could do.

When we heard the creaks in the ceiling on the other side of the living room Yngve looked at me.

‘Coming out for a smoke?’

I nodded.

We walked quietly into the hall, put on shoes and jackets and crept out to the opposite side of the house from where she was sleeping.

‘When are you going to tell her you smoke?’ I said, watching the flame from the lighter flicker across his face, the glow that came to life when the lighter died.

I heard him blowing out the smoke.

‘When will you?’

‘I’m sixteen. I’m not allowed to smoke. But you’re bloody twenty.’

‘All right, all right.’

I was offended and walked a few steps into the garden. There was a heavy aroma coming from the big bush with white flowers at the end of the potato patch. What was it called again?

The sky was light, the forest beyond the river dark.

‘Did you ever see mum and dad hug?’ Yngve said.

I walked back to him.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not that I can remember. Did you?’

He nodded in front of me in the semi-darkness.

‘Once. It was in Hove, so I must have been five. Dad was yelling at mum so much she burst into tears. She was standing in the kitchen crying. He went into the living room. Then he went back and put his arms around her and consoled her. That’s the only time.’

I started to cry. But it was dark, and not a sound came from me, so he didn’t notice.

Before we left for town I went to find mum. She was wandering around the garden with a pair of large gloves on, trimming the edges of the beds with shears.

‘Could you give me some money?’ I said. ‘I spent all I had in Denmark.’

‘I’ll see what I’ve got,’ she said, and went indoors to get her bag. I followed.

‘Is fifty OK?’ she said, taking a green banknote from her purse.

‘Have you got a hundred? I was thinking of buying a record or two.’

She counted her coins.

‘Ninety. That’s all, I’m afraid.’

‘It’ll have to do then,’ I said, went back to the car, which stood idling on the gravel drive, and got in beside Yngve, who was wearing his Ray-Bans.

‘I’m going to buy myself a pair when I get the money,’ I said, pointing to the sunglasses.

He set off down the hill.

‘Buy them when you get your first study loan,’ he said.

‘That’s two years away.’

‘You’ll have to get a job then. Piling planks at Boen or whatever it is you do there.’

‘I was thinking of doing record reviews,’ I said. ‘And interviewing bands and so on.’

‘Oh?’ he said. ‘That sounds like a good idea. Who for?’

‘Nye Sørlandet.’

We drove along the narrow road under the deciduous trees, past the old white houses, the river glinting beneath us. When we reached the waterfall and I saw some figures lying on the cliff beside it I turned to him.

‘Let’s go swimming afterwards. We can fit in both,’ I said.

‘Could do,’ he said. ‘At Hamresanden?’

‘Ye-es.’

‘Do they sell ice cream there?’

‘Of course they do. They may even have soft ice cream.’

I took Yngve to Platebørsen, the record shop in the town’s old børs, the stock exchange, a situation I relished, now I was the one who knew where everything was and what was good.

He held up a record. ‘Have you got this one?’

‘No? What is it?’

‘The Church. The Blurred Crusade. You’ve got to have this one.’

‘OK. I’ll get it.’

I also had enough money for a Nice Price record and bought the Talking Heads’ 77. Yngve was going to wait until his study loan came through before he bought any records.

We sat down in the café outside the library and smoked and drank coffee. I hoped someone I knew would come by, so that Yngve wouldn’t think I had no friends in town and because the ones I had would see me sitting with Yngve.

But there didn’t seem to be anyone in town today.

‘Where did mum buy the records at Christmas?’ Yngve said. ‘Do you remember?’

For Christmas Yngve had been given The The’s debut album by mum while I got Script of the Bridge by the Chameleons. I had never heard of the Chameleons, but they were absolutely fantastic. Yngve thought the same about The The. We couldn’t work out how she had managed this. There was hardly anyone here in town who followed the pop scene more closely than Yngve and I. Well, she said, she had gone into a record shop and then she had described first Yngve, then me, and the assistant had pulled out these two records.

I asked which shop it was, she told me, and over the Christmas period I popped in. Harald Hempel was behind the counter. So now I understood. He played with Lily and the Gigolos, and what he didn’t know about good music wasn’t worth knowing.

‘It’s in Dronningens gate,’ I said. ‘Shall we head down there?’

‘Do a little tour?’

As we drove away from the last shop I pointed to a building in the next block.

‘That’s Nye Sørlandet. The paper I was talking about.’

Yngve glanced up as we passed. ‘Looks small,’ he said.

‘Well, it’s the second biggest newspaper here. Like Tiden in Arendal, more or less.’

I cast an eye up and down Elvegaten, where dad lived now, to see if I could see him. But I couldn’t.

‘What’s better, do you think?’ I said. ‘Writing an application or going to speak to them?’

‘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.’

‘I don’t,’ I said. ‘A lot happened, but it doesn’t matter any more.’

His head shot up.

‘YES, IT DOES!’ he said. ‘Don’t say that!’

Then he noticed the cigarette between his fingers. Took the lighter from the table, lit it and sat back.

‘But now we’re having a cosy time anyway,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It was a wonderful meal.’

‘Unni’s got a son as well, you know,’ dad said. ‘He’s almost as old as you.’

‘Let’s not talk about him now,’ Unni said. ‘We’ve got Karl Ove here.’

‘But I’m sure Karl Ove would like to hear,’ dad said. ‘They’ll be like brothers. Won’t they. Don’t you agree, Karl Ove?’

I nodded.

‘He’s a fine lad. I met him here a week ago,’ he said.

I filled my glass as inconspicuously as I could.

The telephone in the living room rang. Dad got up to answer it.

‘Whoops!’ he said, almost losing his balance, and then to the phone, ‘Yes, yes, I’m coming.’

He lifted the receiver.

‘Hi, Arne!’ he said.

He spoke loudly, I could have listened to every word if I had wanted to.

‘He’s been under enormous strain recently,’ Unni whispered. ‘He needs to let off some steam.’

‘I see,’ I said.

‘It’s a shame Yngve couldn’t come,’ she said.

Yngve?

‘He had to go back to Bergen,’ I said.

‘Yes, my dear friend, I’m sure you understand!’ dad said.

‘Who’s Arne?’ I said.

‘A relative of mine,’ she said. ‘We met them in the summer. They’re so nice. You’re bound to meet them.’

‘OK,’ I said.

Dad came back in and saw the bottle was nearly empty.

‘Let’s have a little brandy, shall we?’ he said. ‘A digestif?’

‘You don’t drink brandy, do you?’ Unni asked, looking at me.

‘No, the boy can’t have spirits,’ dad said.

‘I’ve had brandy before,’ I said. ‘In the summer. At the football training camp.’

Dad eyed me. ‘Does mum know?’ he said.

‘Mum?’ Unni said.

‘You can have one glass, but no more,’ dad said, staring straight at Unni. ‘Is that all right?’

‘Yes, it is,’ she said.

He fetched the brandy and a glass, poured and leaned back in the deep white sofa under the windows facing the road, where the dusk now hung like a veil over the white walls of the houses opposite.

Unni put her arm round him and one hand on his chest. Dad smiled.

‘See how lucky I am, Karl Ove,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I said and shuddered as the brandy met my tongue. My shoulders trembled.

‘But she’s got temperament too, you know,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that true?’

‘Certainly is,’ she said with a smile.

‘Once she threw the alarm clock against this wall,’ he said.

‘I like to get things off my chest straight away,’ Unni said.

‘Not like your mother,’ he said.

‘Do you have to talk about her the whole time?’ Unni said.

‘No, no, no, not at all,’ dad said. ‘Don’t be so touchy. After all, I had him with her,’ he said, nodding towards me. ‘This is my son. We have to be able to talk as well.’

‘OK,’ Unni said. ‘You just talk. I’m going to bed.’ She got up.

‘But, Unni. .’ dad said.

She went into the next room. He stood up and slowly followed her without a further look.

I heard their voices, muted and angry. Finished the brandy, refilled my glass and carefully put the bottle back in exactly the same place.

Oh dear.

He yelled.

Immediately afterwards he returned.

‘When did the last bus go, did you say?’ he said.

‘Ten past eleven,’ I said.

‘It’s almost that now,’ he said. ‘Perhaps it’s best if you go now. You don’t want to miss it.’

‘OK,’ I said and got up. Had to place one foot well apart from the other so as not to sway. I smiled. ‘Thanks for everything.’

‘Let’s keep in touch,’ he said. ‘Even though we don’t live together any more nothing must change between us. That’s important.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Do you understand?’

‘Yes. It’s important we keep in touch,’ I said.

‘You’re not being flippant with me, are you?’ he said.

‘No, no, of course not,’ I said. ‘It’s important now that you’re divorced.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ll ring. Just drop by when you’re in town. All right?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

While putting on my shoes I almost toppled over and had to hold on to the wall. Dad sat on the sofa drinking and noticed nothing.

‘Bye!’ I shouted as I opened the door.

‘Bye, Karl Ove,’ dad said from inside, and then I went out into the darkness and headed for the bus stop.

I waited for about a quarter of an hour until the bus arrived, sitting on a step smoking and watching the stars while thinking about Hanne.

I could see her face in front of me.

She was laughing; her eyes were gleaming.

I could hear her laughter.

She was almost always laughing. And when she wasn’t, laughter bubbled in her voice.

Brilliant! she would say when something was absurd or comical.

I thought about what she was like when she turned serious. Then it was as if she was on my home ground, and I felt I was an enormous black cloud wrapped around her, always greater than her. But only when she was serious, not otherwise.

When I was with Hanne I laughed almost all the time.

Her little nose!

She was more girl than woman in the same way that I was more boy than man. I used to say she was like a cat. And it was true there was something feline about her, in her movements, but also a kind of softness that wanted to be close to you.

I could hear her laughter, and I smoked and peered up at the stars. Then I heard the deep growl of the bus approaching between the houses, flicked the cigarette into the road, stood up, counted the coins in my pocket and handed them to the driver when I stepped on board.

Oh, the muted lights in buses at night and the muted sounds. The few passengers, all in their own worlds. The countryside gliding past in the darkness. The drone of the engine. Sitting there and thinking about the best that you know, that which is dearest to your heart, wanting only to be there, out of this world as it were, in transit from one place to another, isn’t it only then you are really present in this world? Isn’t it only then you really experience the world?

Oh, this is the song about the young man who loves a young woman. Has he the right to use such a word as ‘love’? He knows nothing about life, he knows nothing about her, he knows nothing about himself. All he knows is that he has never felt anything with such force and clarity before. Everything hurts, but nothing is as good. Oh, this is the song about being sixteen years old and sitting on a bus and thinking about her, the one, not knowing that feelings will slowly, slowly, weaken and fade, that life, that which is now so vast and so all-embracing, will inexorably dwindle and shrink until it is a manageable entity which doesn’t hurt so much, but nor is it as good.

Only a forty-year-old man could have written that. I am forty now, as old as my father was then, I’m sitting in our flat in Malmö, my family is asleep in the rooms around me. Linda and Vanja in our bedroom, Heidi and John in the children’s room, Ingrid, the children’s grandmother, on a bed in the living room. It is 25 November 2009. The mid-1980s are as far away as the 1950s were then. But most of the people in this story are still out there. Hanne is out there, Jan Vidar is out there, Jøgge is out there. My mother and my brother, Yngve — he spoke to me on the phone two hours ago, about a trip we are planning to Corsica in the summer, he with his children, Linda and I with ours — they are out there. But dad is dead, his parents are dead.

Among the items dad left behind were three notebooks and one diary. For three years he wrote down the names of everyone he met during the day, everyone he phoned, all the times he slept with Unni and how much he drank. Now and then there was a brief report, mostly there wasn’t.

‘K.O. visited’ appeared often.

That was me.

Sometimes it said ‘K.O. cheerful’ after I had been there.

Sometimes ‘good conversation’.

Sometimes ‘decent atmosphere’.

Sometimes nothing.

I understand why he noted down the names of everyone he met and spoke to in the course of a day, why he registered all the quarrels and all the reconciliations, but I don’t understand why he documented how much he drank. It is as if he was logging his own demise.

Starting school again after the holidays was like being sent back to Go: it turned out that everything was as it had been when I started gymnas the previous year. The class was new, the pupils and teachers unknown. The sole difference was that there had been twenty-six girls in the first class while there were only twenty-four in the second.

I sat on the same seat, in the left-hand corner at the back, seen from the front, and I behaved in the same way: spoke up during lessons, discussed what teachers said, got into fights with other pupils over political or religious issues. When the breaks came everyone in the class joined the crowd they belonged to or the friends they had from before, and I invested all the physical and mental strength I possessed into avoiding the humiliation it was to be left standing somewhere on your own.

I went up to the library and read books such as The Falcon Tower by the twenty-year-old writer Erik Fosnes Hansen, only four years to go until I am twenty, I thought, perhaps my name will be on the front of a book then? I sat in the classroom on my chair pretending I was doing homework. I walked up to the petrol station opposite the school premises and bought something, anything, more often than not an Oslo newspaper because I couldn’t read it with others around and so that was a plausible reason for sitting alone in the canteen during the endlessly long lunch break. Or I acted as if I was searching for someone. Up and down the stairs, through the long corridors, sometimes to Gimlehallen or over to the business school, in pursuit of a fictional person for whom I searched high and low. But usually I stood smoking by the entrance, because that act by its very nature determined where I should be, where I was entitled to be, where there were also others, my ‘friends’ to those who wondered.

My fear of being seen as friendless was not without some justification. One day there was a new note on the noticeboard. A student who had recently moved to the town and didn’t know anyone at the school wanted someone to be friends with, if anyone was interested they could meet him by the flagpole at twelve the next day.

The area around the flagpole at twelve the next day was packed with pupils. Everyone wanted to observe this friendless creature, who naturally enough didn’t show up.

Had it been a hoax? Or had this friendless creature got cold feet when he saw the crowd?

I suffered with him, whoever he was.

One day I went to Nye Sørlandet and asked to speak to the person responsible for the newspaper’s music section. I was shown into the office of someone called Steinar Vindsland. He was young with dark big hair which was cut short at the back and on the sides, much in the style of the bass player in Simple Minds, and had a bristly chin and a gleam in his eye. I said who I was and what I wanted.

‘Well, we don’t have a regular record reviewer,’ he said. ‘I usually do the reviews, but I’ve got so many bloody other jobs to do it would be great if someone else could do that.’

He studied me.

I had dressed for the occasion, put on my black and white checked shirt, which was like the one The Edge wore, studded belt and black trousers.

‘Who do you like then?’

I said, and he nodded.

‘We’ll give you a spin. Look,’ he said, rummaging through the piles of records spread across the desk. ‘Take these with you and write about them. If it’s good, you’re our new record reviewer.’

I sat down and wrote all weekend, draft after draft, and when Monday came round I walked down to the newspaper after school and delivered six handwritten pages. He read them standing up in his office, at a disconcertingly fast tempo. Then he fixed me with his gaze.

‘I’m looking at our new record reviewer,’ he said.

‘Did you like it?’

‘It’s good. Have you got a few minutes?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll take a few shots of you and make a little file. Ask you a couple of questions. Are you at Katedralskolen?’

I nodded. He grabbed a camera from the table, lifted it to his face and pointed it at me.

‘Sit down there,’ he said, indicating the corner of the room.

My spine ran cold as I heard the clicks of the camera.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘Grab these records and hold them up facing me.’

He passed me three LPs and I held them up while staring into the lens with as serious an expression as I could muster.

‘You like U2, you said. Who else?’

‘Big Country. Simple Minds. David Bowie. And Iggy, of course. Talking Heads. R.E.M. Chronic Town, have you heard them? Shit hot. Really great.’

‘Oh yes. Have you got a mission statement?’

I could feel my cheeks burning.

‘Nooo,’ I said.

‘Any particular axes to grind? Musically speaking? The gigs we get in town? Music programmes on NRK? Any views on that?’

‘Yes, well, it’s shocking that there’s only one good music programme on the radio and nothing on TV.’

‘Great!’ he said. ‘You’re still sixteen, are you?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s it then. We’ll run it tomorrow. You start next week. Is that all right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Pop in on. . erm Thursday and we can discuss the nitty-gritty.’

He shook my hand.

‘And by the way,’ he said on the way out.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘You can’t write in longhand. That’s no good. If you haven’t got a typewriter, get one!’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

Then I was outside on the street.

It was too good to be true. I was the record reviewer for a newspaper! Sixteen years old! I lit a cigarette and set off. The dry tarmac, the windows darkened in places with exhaust fumes, all the cars made me think I was in a city. I was a music journalist on my way through the streets of London. Coming hotfoot from a hectic editorial office.

Steinar Vindsland had been exactly as I had imagined a journalist to be. Unbelievably fast. Everything happened fast. They had deadlines, that was why they had to nail their articles at breakneck speed.

And he knew about music. Probably knew Harald Hempel. Maybe some of the bands in Oslo.

Now I could meet them!

I hadn’t even thought about that. But now I was a music journo I could hang out with the bands when they came to town.

No messing!

Fifteen metres in front of me was the crossroads between Dronningens gate and Elvegaten. Since I was in the area I ought to go and see either dad or grandma and grandad.

There was just one problem: I didn’t have more than seven kroner on me and after five o’clock my student card was no longer valid on the bus.

But I ought to be able to borrow what I needed. After all, I had a job now.

I stopped by the traffic lights, which were red, pressed the button on the blue box and closed my eyes to get an impression of what it would be like for a blind person to be standing here.

Perhaps it was more important to visit grandma and grandad? I hadn’t been to see them since dad moved out. Perhaps now that dad was divorced they were afraid they might lose contact with me or that I might stick with mum.

I could see dad on Tuesday after the meeting with Steinar.

Steinar!

At that moment the ticking started. The signal for the blind. I opened my eyes and walked over the pedestrian crossing, past the large square building with the supermarket and onto Lundsbroa Bridge, where the smell of the sea was always stronger and the light also seemed stronger, probably because it reflected off the water, which widened out at this point.

A couple of white sails were visible in the distance. A double-ender was on its way in. I stopped, placed my hands on the brick parapet and leaned over. The water around the columns was a deep green.

Once dad had fallen in here. This was about the only story he had told us about his childhood. He had been given a sound beating by grandad, he had said, and put under the stairs, where he stayed for several hours.

Whether that was true or not, I didn’t know. Dad had also said he had once been a promising footballer and played for IK Start, which turned out to be lies. Another time he had said that everything the Beatles did was plagiarism, they had stolen the songs from an unknown German composer and when I, twelve years old and a big Beatles fan, asked him how he knew, he said he had played the piano when he was young, and one day he had played some tunes by this German composer, whose name he couldn’t remember, and discovered they were the same as the Beatles’ songs. He still had the music at home. I believed him, of course; it was dad who had told me. The next time we go there, could you find the sheets of music and play them on the piano? I had asked. No, they were stored away in the loft, it would take too long to find them. And then the realisation dawned on me! He was lying! Dad was lying!

This insight was a relief, not a burden, because it was a face-saver for the Beatles.

I kept walking, took the short cut to the right, came out in Kuholmsveien and walked up the gentle slope, from there I saw the sea widen out, so desolate and blue.

But why had he said we were so poor?

What did that have to do with anything?

I shook my head and passed a garden surrounded by wire fencing, inside which there were three trees groaning with dark red apples. A blue estate car parked in the adjacent drive glinted in the sunlight.

Grandma poked her head out of the window when I rang the bell, disappeared and reappeared a minute later at the door.

‘Well, look who it is,’ she said. ‘Come in!’

I leaned forward and gave her a hug. She stiffened slightly. I was too old for this now, I thought, and straightened up.

She had the same fragrance as always, and it was as though the whole of my childhood opened inside me as I smelled it. We were going to grandma’s! Grandma’s coming! Grandma’s here!

‘What’s that in your ear?’ she said.

I had forgotten it!

The two previous times I had been here I had taken the cross out. But not today.

‘It’s just a cross,’ I said.

‘Yes, times are changing,’ she said. ‘Boys wearing jewellery in their ears! But that’s how it is nowadays.’

‘Yes, it is,’ I said.

She turned and I followed her up the stairs. Grandad was sitting where he always did, in the kitchen chair.

‘Well, look who it is,’ he said.

Under the clock on the wall I saw the tall blue step chair I had always loved, and on the table the coffee pot on the small wire stand that had always been here as well.

‘Got your ear pierced?’ he said.

‘Yes, that’s cool nowadays,’ grandma said. She smiled and shook her head. Came over and ruffled my hair.

‘I got myself a job today,’ I said.

‘Did you now?’ grandma said.

I nodded.

‘At Nye Sørlandet, the newspaper. As a record reviewer.’

‘Do you know anything about music?’ grandad said.

‘Bit,’ I said.

‘How time flies,’ he said then. ‘You’re so big now.’

‘He goes to the gymnas,’ grandma said. ‘He’s probably got a girlfriend as well, don’t you think?’ She winked at me.

‘No, I’m afraid I haven’t,’ I said.

‘You will,’ she said. ‘Good-looking lad like you.’

‘If you take that cross out of your ear,’ grandad said, ‘the girls’ll come running.’

‘You don’t think it’s the cross they want then?’ grandma said.

Grandad didn’t answer, he picked up the newspaper which he had put down when I arrived. He could spend hours reading it. He absorbed absolutely everything, every little advert.

Grandma sat in the chair and reached for the pouch of menthol tobacco on the table.

‘But you haven’t started smoking yet, I suppose!’ she said.

‘In fact, I have,’ I said.

She scrutinised me.

‘You have?’

‘Not much. But I have tried.’

‘You didn’t inhale though?’

‘No.’

‘Because you mustn’t inhale, you know.’

She looked at grandad.

‘Hey, Grandad!’ she said. ‘Do you remember who got us started?’

He didn’t answer, she licked the edge of the paper and shaped the cigarette.

‘It was your father,’ she said.

‘Dad?’

‘Yes, we were in our mountain cabin. He had brought some cigarettes along. And he told us to try one. So we did. Didn’t we, Grandad?’

When she didn’t get an answer this time either, she winked at me.

‘He’s getting senile, I think,’ she said, put the cigarette between her lips, lit up and then blew a huge cloud of smoke out through her mouth.

No, she didn’t inhale. I had never thought about that before.

She looked at me.

‘Are you hungry? We ate some time ago, but if you like I can heat something up for you?’

‘Oh, please,’ I said. ‘Actually I’m ravenous.’

She placed the cigarette on the edge of the ashtray, got up and shuffled over to the fridge in her slippers. She was wearing a blue dress, it went down to her mid-calves, which were light brown under her tights.

‘If it’s in the fridge, you don’t need to warm it up,’ I said.

‘Don’t worry. It’s no trouble,’ she said.

She began to clatter around. I watched grandad. He was interested in politics and football. I was too.

‘Who do you think will win the elections?’ I said.

‘Eh?’ he said, lowering the newspaper.

‘Who do you think will win the elections?’

‘Hard to say. But I’m hoping it will be Willoch. We can’t take much more socialism in this country, that’s for sure.’

‘I’m hoping it’ll be Kvanmo,’ I said.

He studied me. With a stern, solemn expression. No, no, that wasn’t how it was, because the next moment he smiled.

‘You’re like your mother there,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I don’t want money to control people’s lives. Or us to be focused only on ourselves in our own backyard.’

‘Who should we focus on if not ourselves?’ he said.

‘Those in wretched situations. The poor. Refugees.’

‘But why should they come here and be maintained by us? You explain that to me,’ he said.

‘Don’t listen to him,’ grandma said to me and put a pot on the stove. ‘He’s just teasing you.’

‘But we have to help those who are less well off, don’t we,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But we have to look after our own first. Then we can help the others. But what they want is to live here. Help is not what they want. We’ve slogged our guts out and we’ve done well, and now they want to take over. Without lifting a finger. Why should we allow that?’

Grandma sat down on her chair.

‘Why did the man from the laboratory refuse to enter the labyrinth?’ she said.

‘Don’t know,’ I said, although I knew what was coming.

‘Because it was too laborious!’ she said and laughed.

Grandad picked up the newspaper again.

There was a silence. The pot crackled on the hotplate. Grandma lit another roll-up, placed one hand on her other arm and whistled softly to herself.

Grandad turned over a page.

I had exhausted all my conversational topics. We had spent less time on my new job than I had anticipated.

Did I dare take out the cigarettes from my jacket pocket?

Would the cross plus smoking be too much for them? I wondered.

An image of dad entered my head. Perhaps smoking had been the link, my having smoked twice in his presence without him saying a word.

If it was fine by him, it should definitely be fine by them, shouldn’t it?

I took out the packet.

Grandma eyed me.

‘Have you got your own cigarettes?’ she said.

I nodded. I didn’t want to use her lighter, somehow that would be too intimate, or too obtrusive, so I put my hand back into my pocket and took out my own. I lit up.

‘I was at dad’s a few days ago,’ I said. ‘Things are going well for him.’

‘Yes, he dropped by yesterday,’ grandma said.

‘We’re trying to maintain the amount of contact we had, even if we live separately,’ I said. ‘I think he must have been under quite a bit of pressure this summer, what with the divorce and so on.’

‘Do you think so?’ grandma said, looking at me as she blew out smoke.

‘Ye-es,’ I said. ‘They were married a long time. Getting separated is no laughing matter.’

‘No, it certainly isn’t,’ grandma said.

‘I’ll try to keep in touch with you as well,’ I said. ‘It’s easy enough to call by after school, for example. And now that I’ve got a job I can have dinner here every so often.’

Grandma smiled at me. Then she turned, glanced at the pot, which was making some muffled gurgling noises, got up and moved it to the side, switched off the hob, fetched a plate and cutlery, which she placed in front of me on the table.

I stubbed out my half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray. She lifted the pot, held it by one handle, dipped the ladle inside and served three meatballs, two potatoes and some onions onto my plate.

‘I did it the easy way and heated the potatoes in the sauce,’ she said.

‘Looks fantastic,’ I said.

No one talked while I ate. I was soon finished.

‘Thank you!’ I said when I had eaten everything and placed the knife and fork on my plate. ‘That was fantastic!’

‘Good,’ grandma said, got up and carried the plate to the sink, rinsed it, opened the dishwasher lid, pulled out the little basket with the tiny fishbone-like plastic spikes, slotted the plate in and closed it again.

The wall clock said two minutes past five.

If I was going to ask to borrow some money it mustn’t look as if I had planned it or even counted on it. After all I could have stayed a shorter time and caught the bus home using my card. It would have to seem spontaneous.

But I didn’t need to do it yet.

Could I smoke another cigarette?

My intuition told me that would be a mistake. Too much.

‘What’s so interesting in the newspaper?’ grandma said. ‘I read it this morning and there wasn’t a damn thing in it.’

‘I read the obituaries,’ grandad said.

‘And they’re interesting now, are they!’ grandma said, glancing at me as she laughed. ‘The obituaries!’

I smiled.

‘Have you met dad’s new girlfriend?’ I said.

‘Unni? Yes. We have. Nice girl.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I think she’s right for dad. But it’s a bit odd for me, I have to admit.’

‘I can imagine,’ grandma said.

‘It doesn’t matter though,’ I said.

‘Goodness, no,’ grandma said. ‘I’m sure it doesn’t.’

She whistled again, turned her hand over to form a little rake and inspected her nails.

‘Is there a lot of fruit this year?’

‘Yes, it’s not bad at all,’ she said. ‘Would you like to take some apples with you?’

‘Is that OK? They remind me of my childhood.’

‘I can imagine,’ she said. ‘You can have some in a bag.’ I raised my eyes and stared pointedly at the clock.

‘Oh no!’ I said. ‘Is that the time? Ten past five?’

I got up and rummaged through my pockets for money. Took it out, counted it, pursed my lips.

‘The last bus went at five,’ I said. ‘My travel card isn’t valid after five. And I haven’t got enough money.’

I glanced at grandma, then lowered my eyes.

‘I could hitchhike though,’ I said.

‘I’ll see if I’ve got some you can have,’ grandma said. ‘It’s such a long way. You really should take the bus.’

She got up.

‘I’ll be off then,’ I said to grandad.

He put down the newspaper.

‘Bye then,’ he said.

‘Bye,’ I said, following grandma down to the hall. She took a small purse from an off-white coat hanging up, opened it and looked at me.

‘How much does the bus cost?’

‘Fourteen kroner,’ I said.

She passed me two twenty-krone notes.

‘So you can buy yourself something nice with the rest,’ she said.

‘I’m just borrowing it,’ I said. ‘You’ll get it back next time.’

She snorted.

For a moment we stood in the hall without moving. I could feel she was waiting for me to go.

Had she forgotten the apples?

For a few seconds I was at a loss to know what to do. She had said I could take some with me, so surely it wouldn’t be unreasonable to remind her?

But she had just given me some money for the bus. I didn’t want to hassle her.

She turned her head, saw her reflection in the mirror, put a hand on top of her hair and patted it in place.

‘Did you say you had some apples? I could take a few with me and mum could try some. I’m sure she misses them too.’

‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘The apples.’

She opened the door beside the staircase that led down to the cellar.

In the meantime I inspected myself in the mirror. Pulled at the back of my T-shirt to straighten the neck. Ran my fingers through my hair to make it stand up more. Smiled. Put on a serious face. Smiled.

‘Here you are,’ grandma said, coming up the steps. ‘You’ve got a few here.’

She passed me a bag, I took it, went out onto the front doorstep and turned to grandma.

‘Bye then!’ I said.

‘Bye,’ she said.

I turned and set off. The door shut behind me.

At the Rundingen shop I lit a cigarette while waiting for the bus. There was only one every hour, but I was lucky: the next one arrived after only a few minutes.

I boarded and while I was waiting for my ticket and change I squinted down the bus.

Wasn’t that Jan Vidar?

Yes, it was.

He was sitting gazing out of the window, his chin resting on his hand. Didn’t notice me until I reached his seat. He removed the small Walkman earplugs.

‘Hi,’ he said.

‘Hi,’ I said, plumping down onto the seat. ‘What are you listening to?’

‘B.B. King actually,’ he said.

‘B.B. King!’ I said. ‘Have you gone nuts?’

‘He’s a bloody good guitarist,’ he said. ‘Believe it or not.’

‘Him?’ I said.

Jan Vidar nodded.

‘He’s so fantastic that when he plays, his guitar is horizontal,’ I said. ‘Haven’t you seen? It’s like he’s playing a steel guitar.’

‘Where do you think Led Zeppelin got everything from?’ he said. ‘They’re old blues boys.’

‘Yes, of course. I know that,’ I said. ‘But that doesn’t mean we should listen to it. Blues is a pile of shit, if you ask me. Fine for inspiration for something else, but on its own? It’s the same bloody song again and again, isn’t it.’

‘If you can play like him you can play anything,’ Jan Vidar said. ‘You were the one who always talked about feeling. Who said that was why Jimmy Page was better than Ritchie Blackmore or Yngwie Malmsteen. I agree with you now. We don’t need to discuss the point any more. But for feeling, brother, just listen to this guy!’

He passed me the earplugs, I put them in, he pressed play. I listened for two seconds before taking them out.

‘Same song,’ I said.

He looked a bit annoyed.

‘Are you annoyed or what?’

‘No, why should I be? I know I’m right.’

‘Ha ha,’ I said.

The bus stopped at the lights before the E18.

‘Why were you at Rundingen?’ Jan Vidar said. ‘Have you been visiting your grandparents?’

I nodded.

‘But before that I was at Nye Sørlandet.’

‘What were you doing there?’

‘I’ve got work there.’

‘Work?’

‘Yes.’

‘What as? Paper boy?’ He laughed.

‘Ha ha,’ I repeated. ‘No, as a music journalist. I’m going to review records.’

‘Are you? Fantastic! Really?’

‘Yes, I start next week.’

There was a silence. Jan Vidar drew up his knees and put his feet on the seat opposite.

‘And you?’ I said. ‘Where have you been?’

‘Out with a friend. We’ve been jamming.’

‘Where’s the guitar then?’

He tossed his head back.

‘On the seat behind.’

‘Is he good?’

‘Better than you anyway.’

‘That’s not saying much,’ I said.

We smiled. Then he gazed out of the window. I glanced behind us, in case someone I knew was sitting there and I hadn’t noticed them. But there was just a boy I hadn’t seen before, perhaps a seventh year, and a woman of around fifty with a white shoe-shop bag on her lap. She was chewing gum, which was a mistake, chewing gum didn’t go with her glasses and hair.

‘Do you remember when you stood in for me?’ Jan Vidar said.

‘Of course,’ I said.

He had been a paper boy. Over time he had built up a long challenging round. Then he had to have a holiday and I was given his job for a week. He didn’t go anywhere, just lazed around while I was working, and then we went swimming or biked out to a friend’s. But after three days there were so many complaints from people on the round that he had to take over. Some bloody holiday that was, he had said. But he didn’t look too bothered.

‘I still can’t understand how you could make such a balls-up of it,’ he said now.

I shrugged. ‘Actually I did the best I could.’

‘Unbelievable,’ he said.

He had gone over the route with me twice, there were two or three quirks to watch out for — some wanted the newspaper through the door, others had boxes with their names on — and I couldn’t remember these nuances when I was standing there, even though he had repeated them several times, so I improvised and followed my gut instinct.

‘That was only last year!’ I said. ‘At first I thought it was several years ago!’

‘That was a good summer, that was,’ he said.

‘Yes, it was.’

We entered the forest after the Timenes crossroads. The sun was shining on the hilltop trees but completely absent here. I associated the bus stop we passed with Billy Idol, we had been to one of those half-baked parties we sometimes ended up at and as we had been going home in the freezing cold I had been humming the song ‘Rebel Yell’.

‘I think I can associate some memory with every damn bus stop from here to home,’ I said.

He nodded.

Topdalsfjord opened in front of us on the right. The water was a gleaming blue close to the shore, but further out it was foam-tipped in the breeze. A couple of families were sitting on the beach and children were wading in front of them.

It would soon be autumn.

‘Any nice girls at school?’ I said.

‘Not that I’ve seen. And at Katedralskolen?’

‘Actually, there’s a great one in my class. But she’s a Christian, first off.’

‘That’s never deterred you before.’

‘No, but she’s the perfection type. Pentecostalist. Well, you know the type, Puffa jackets and Bik Bok and Poco Loco clothes.’

‘Second off?’

‘She doesn’t like me.’

‘Seen anything of Hanne then?’

I shook my head. ‘Spoke to her on the phone a couple of times, that’s all.’

I wondered whether Jan Vidar wasn’t sick of hearing about Hanne, so I didn’t follow up, even though I was burning to talk about her. Instead we sat silent for the last ten minutes, lulled into the regular drone of the bus that we both knew so well. It felt as if we had been catching the bus for the whole of our lives. Up and down, back and forth, day after day. Bus, bus, bus. We knew all about buses. We were bus experts. In the same way that we were experts on pointless cycling and endless footslogging, not to mention the very centre of our existence, something we knew very well: using the grapevine to stay up to date with what was happening. What? Someone had The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on video? Right, over we cycled, a tumbledown house with piles of rubbish outside, and a complete stranger, a dubious but also dopey-looking twenty-year-old, who was just standing there when we arrived, in the middle of the yard, with no discernible aim, he was just standing there, and when we showed up he turned towards us.

The house was situated in the middle of a bloody field.

‘Heard you’d got a copy of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,’ Jan Vidar said.

‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘But I’ve just lent it to someone.’

‘I see,’ said Jan Vidar, looking at me. ‘Better cycle back then, eh?’

An eighth year who was alone at home and had invited a few friends round? Right, off we trudged, knocked on the door and were invited in, they were watching TV, had nothing to drink, there were no girls and they were just some twats with nothing in their heads, we stayed nevertheless, the alternative was no better, that was the point, if we were completely honest.

And we frequently were.

Oh! Someone somewhere had got a new guitar.

Right, onto our bikes and off we pedalled to see it.

Yes, we were good at using the grapevine. But what we were best at, what we were really the kings of, that was buses and sitting around in bedrooms.

No one could beat us at that.

None of this led anywhere. Well, we probably weren’t very good at doing things that led somewhere. We didn’t have particularly good conversations, no one could say we did, the few topics we had developed so slowly we ourselves assumed they had nowhere to go; not one of us was a brilliant guitarist, although that is what we would have loved to be, more than anything else, and as far as girls were concerned, it was rare we came across one who wouldn’t object if we pulled up her jumper so that we could lower our heads and kiss her nipples. These were great moments. They were luminous shafts of grace in our world of yellowing grass, grey muddy ditches and dusty country roads. Yes, that was how it was for me. I assumed it was the same for him.

What was this all about? Why did we live like this? Were we waiting for something? In which case, how did we manage to be so patient? For nothing ever happened! Nothing happened! It was always the same. Day in, day out! Wind and rain, sleet and snow, sun and storm, we did the same. We heard something on the grapevine, went there, came back, sat in his bedroom, heard something else, went by bus, bike, on foot, sat in someone’s bedroom. In the summer we went swimming. That was it.

What was it all about?

We were friends, there was no more than that.

And the waiting, that was life.