Aftermath Read online

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, guys,” Jan Olav says, staring in astonishment at me, then at Kristian, then he gives a little laugh. “What is this?”

  Kristian and I hold each other’s eyes for another second or two, then we both laugh awkwardly, laugh as if we were only joking, trying to ease the tension and move on by pretending that we weren’t really spoiling for a fight.

  Silence.

  Jan Olav saunters up the slope to the tent, unzips the flap, and ducks inside, I hear him rummaging around in there, then he reappears clutching a bottle of whisky.

  “Fancy a drink, anyone?”

  “What is it?” Kristian asks.

  “Springbank.”

  Kristian shrugs.

  “It’s probably way too expensive for me to have heard of it,” he says. He sets his knife down on the rock, dips his hands in the water, and rinses off the fish blood. “But I’ll have a taste.”

  “It’s not expensive at all,” Jan Olav says, unscrewing the top, I hear the faint snap as the seal breaks. “But it’s good. Bob Dylan’s favorite whisky, actually!”

  “Wow, Bob Dylan, eh!” Kristian says. He puts a hand to his face and twirls his beard, looking at me and grinning, says nothing for a moment. He’s trying to come up with a joke about how I’m still listening to the same sixties and seventies music as we were listening to twenty years ago, that’s what he’s doing, I know it is, this should be just the whisky for you, Marius, that’s what he’s about to say, or something like that, but he doesn’t get the chance.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Jan Olav says. He knows Kristian inside out and he realizes as well as I do what he’s thinking.

  “What?” Kristian says, pretending to look baffled, as if he has no idea what Jan Olav means. They eye each other for a moment or two, saying nothing, and then they both laugh knowingly. I feel an immediate surge of annoyance, their shared laughter only seems to confirm that they see me as somebody who got left behind twenty years ago and that pisses me off. I give it a second, then I open my mouth and give a long yawn, I just do it, possibly in an unconscious attempt to make them think that I’m bored, that I’m not bothered by what I’m hearing, I simply don’t find it funny, that’s the impression I’m trying to give, I suppose.

  “Honestly, you two,” I hear Jan Olav say. I turn to him, slowly and as casually as I can. He laughs softly and shakes his head as if he despairs of us as he pours whisky into Kristian’s wooden cup. “You sound like an old married couple, do you realize that?” he says, trying to smooth things over between Kristian and me. Comparing us to an old married couple is a way of reminding us that we used to be the best of friends, that we’re really very fond of each other and this is all just a bit of harmless banter. “Well, I for one get enough of marital bickering at home. A weekend away with the guys should be a break from all that,” he says. I don’t think he really has any serious marital problems, although you never know, of course, but Jan Olav and Kjersti certainly seem like the perfect couple, so he’s probably just saying this in order to strengthen the bonds between us guys, lying about having the odd marital spat to show Kristian and me how much our friendship matters, it’s like an arena in which we can get away from all the hassle and the nagging and simply be ourselves, and we have to cherish this and not spoil it, that’s what he’s trying to say.

  “Sorry?” he says, raising his eyebrows and looking at me with a smile on his lips.

  “Hm?”

  “Arena?”

  “Arena?” I say.

  “You said arena,” Jan Olav says.

  I look at him, saying nothing; arena, did I say that, I wasn’t aware of it, but if he says I did, then I must have. There’s silence for a moment, then Kristian bursts out laughing, looks at the ground, shaking his head and laughing wryly. I swallow, suddenly feeling my cheeks start to burn again, sweat breaks out on my brow and the back of my neck, I raise a hand to wipe it away, try to make it look as though I’m brushing away a speck of grit or something, I’m embarrassed at being embarrassed, so I try to hide it, do it quite instinctively.

  “Have a whisky,” Jan Olav says, smiling amiably and holding out the bottle.

  “No thanks,” I say, although I wouldn’t mind a whisky, actually, and I regret it as soon as I’ve said it.

  “Sure?”

  “Positive,” I say. I don’t know why I say it, a form of protest perhaps, an act of defiance maybe; declining the offer, not taking a drink on a guys’ trip is like refusing to be sociable and maybe that’s what I’m trying to do, they made me feel like an outsider, laughing at me like that, so maybe this is an instinctive attempt to prove to them and myself that I’m not particularly interested in being sociable anyway, an attempt to tell them that I don’t need them.

  “Okay,” Jan Olav says, sounding rather disappointed, looking disappointed too, he turns away with a tight, frustrated smile on his lips. I understand his frustration, of course, he’s doing all he can to cheer me up, to make me feel included, and I reject every one of his advances. I don’t mean to, but I do—I can’t help thinking about what went on between Julie and me, it was so awful but still, I can’t go on like this, I don’t want to be a drag, draining the others of energy, I don’t want to be like this, moody and tight-lipped and not entering into the spirit of things. I look at Jan Olav and swallow, I need to snap out of it, do the sociable thing and accept the offer of a whisky after all. Hey, you know what, I should say, maybe I will have a wee dram after all. Either that or say I’d rather have a vodka, but I wouldn’t mind trying the whisky afterward, there would be nothing strange about me saying that, it would sound perfectly natural, so I ought to just say it. But I don’t, I can’t, my mouth won’t open, my thoughts seem to congeal in my head, they seem to solidify before they can be put into words and I just sit here, moody and tight-lipped, sinking deeper and deeper into myself. I watch Jan Olav wander a little farther up the slope. He screws the top on the bottle and sets it down in the heather, then he bends his head and goes back into the tent, I hear him fumbling with something, poor Jan Olav, he’s doing everything he can to make me feel included, but I’m resisting all his efforts, I hate myself when I’m like this.

  Silence.

  I straighten one leg, stick my hand in my pocket, and pull out my cell phone again, I just have to check one last time, I wish Julie would get in touch to say that she wasn’t thinking clearly and that she wants me, of course she does, even though I have MS, so I can’t resist checking. I flip up the cover, look at the screen, but no, still no word from her, I can’t believe it, I thought her love went deeper than that, I ache inside just thinking about it. I swallow, raise my eyes, and look at Kristian as I snap my phone shut. He shoots me a slightly exasperated glance, his eyebrows raised higher than usual, looking as if he’s about to sigh and mutter “for Christ’s sake,” but he doesn’t. He turns away without a word and carries on gutting the fish, sticking the knife into a trout and slitting the belly open. It takes a moment for it to dawn on me what he’s so pissed about: of course, it’s my cell, phones are exactly the sort of thing that make it hard for Kristian to lose himself in his son-of-the-wilderness role, that’s why he looks so fed up every time I take out my phone, he thinks I should have switched it off and left it in the car, the way he did. I look at him, feel myself growing more and more irritated by this ludicrous pose of his, he’s never been the outdoor type and I’d bet anything he’d never last half as long in the wilderness as I would, but now here he is acting like Bear Grylls, it’s too ridiculous for words. I wait a moment, then open my phone again. I shouldn’t antagonize him more than absolutely necessary, it’s childish of me, but I can’t help it. I look at him, then down at my cell, then up at him again, wait for him to turn and glance this way, but he doesn’t. He sticks his hand into the fish’s belly, pulls out the glistening entrails, and slings them off into the undergrowth, he makes no move to turn around, instead he hunkers down, dips the fish into the water, and alternates between rinsing it and scraping the ins
ide. I wait a moment longer, then I go into Settings and activate the function that causes the phone to beep every time I press a key. There, I think, that’s sure to make him turn around. I grin to myself as I press some keys at random, the beeps they make are soft enough, but they still sound pretty loud out here, where it’s so quiet, and Kristian immediately turns to look at me. I pretend not to notice, put the phone to my ear, and pretend to be waiting for someone to answer.

  Silence.

  And then, all of a sudden, he starts to sing: “No woman, no cry.” I look at him, it’s no coincidence that he’s singing this, of all songs, that I don’t believe, he’s made the connection between me constantly checking my phone and the fact that I’ve been so quiet and distracted, and from that he’s made the assumption that something has happened between Julie and me, that must be it. I feel a stab of resentment, I’m starting to get angry, but I can’t let it show, because then he’ll realize he’s right on target, and I’m not going to give him the pleasure. I snap my phone shut and slip it back into my pocket. He’s still sitting there singing “No woman, no cry,” singing a little louder now.

  Two seconds.

  “Don’t make more of a fool of yourself than you have to, Kristian,” I say. I don’t want to rise to the bait, but I can’t help it.

  “What? Is my singing that bad?”

  “Asshole.”

  He grins, waits.

  “Yeah, well, when the cat’s away and all that,” he says, still grinning, waits a moment more, then turns away again and goes back to cleaning the fish. It takes a second for me to realize what he’s getting at. I feel my anger rising, he’s trying to suggest that Julie is being unfaithful to me, or, at least, that I’m afraid she will be while I’m here, he’s implying that I’m a jealous loser who’s obsessed with keeping tabs on his girlfriend, that that’s why I’m forever checking my cell, and there is some truth in that, I do have a bit of a jealous streak, but he doesn’t know that, or at least I don’t think he does.

  “Yep, I’m glad I only have myself to think about.”

  A wry laugh escapes me.

  “Yeah, that’ll be right.”

  “Hm?” he says, laying the freshly cleaned trout on the rock.

  “D’you think I don’t know what you’re doing when you talk and act like this, you’re trying to convince both me and yourself that being single is a whole lot better than it actually is,” I say, sneering at him.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Ever since you got your degree and started work, all you’ve wanted is to have a wife and family and acting as though being single is better than having a girlfriend is just a way of dealing with your frustration, d’you think I don’t see that?” I say. “As though it’s somehow easier to cope with the sadness of not having a family if you can convince yourself that it’s great to be single, right? Plus it’s a good way to boost your self-esteem. You feel you’re a failure because you’ll be forty soon and you still don’t have a girlfriend and the only thing you can do to feel better about yourself is to convince yourself and everyone else that the single life is something you’ve actually chosen, d’you think I don’t see that?” I say, getting more and more worked up, talking faster and louder now, never taking my eyes off him. “You’ve got desperation written all over you, Kristian, it’s there in just about everything you say and do. Look at all the changes in style you’ve gone through over the years. They’re all part of the same thing. If the black-clad rocker look doesn’t win you a woman, you go to the other extreme and try your luck as a slick-suited politician, stand as a candidate for the Trondheim branch of the Labor Party and all that. And now you’ve reinvented yourself as Bear Grylls.”

  “Bear Grylls?”

  “Yeah, now you’re playing at being the son of the wilderness, that’s the image you’ll be presenting, for a while at least.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about,” I sneer indignantly, shutting my eyes and shaking my head.

  “But I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, looking amused. He spreads his hands and smiles broadly, shaking his own head.

  “My God,” I sneer. “You’ve thrown yourself into the part of the great adventurer as wholeheartedly as you do every new persona, so nobody can help noticing. Not only have you taken up fly tying and fly-fishing and God knows what all, you’ve even started acting the way all converts do. You frown on everything that doesn’t fit with this fucking wilderness ideology of yours, or whatever you call it. You hate the fact that Jan Olav brought some cheese and wine with him. And every time you catch sight of my cell phone, you look like you’ve stepped on a nail. Any reminder of the modern world, of civilization and culture makes it harder for you to see yourself as some sort of wild man of the woods when we’re up here, that’s why you can’t abide the fact that we’ve brought them with us, right? It ruins your image of yourself as the great adventurer on an expedition into the wilderness,” I say, almost shouting now, the words spilling out, my voice almost cracking from spite and fury. I suddenly notice that my chin is wet, I put up a hand and quickly wipe away the spittle from the corner of my mouth, never taking my eyes off Kristian.

  He opens his mouth, raises his eyebrows, and shakes his head.

  “So this is what’s been going through your mind, this is what you’ve dreamed up while Jan Olav and I have been enjoying ourselves?” he says.

  “Really, though, we should be as hairy faced and scruffy as you,” I say, simply picking up where I left off, I’ve hardly said a word for the whole trip, but now it’s pouring out of me, I’m so mad. “And obviously we should have subscribed to the same spartan ideals as yourself, and made a game out of traveling as light as possible, right? Calculating how many calories a particular type of food contains compared with how heavy it is to carry, all that sort of thing. A fanatic, that’s what you are. No matter what fucking persona you adopt, you always have to take it to the extreme,” I snarl, not taking my eyes off him, I glare at him and he just sits there smiling, with his mouth half-open and his eyebrows raised, trying to look both surprised and amused.

  “Is that so?” is all he says.

  “Marius,” says Jan Olav.

  “And underneath it all, of course, you’re actually so deeply insecure and so disappointed with yourself,” I say.

  “Marius …”

  “You’re so full of self-loathing, Kristian, you always have been, but your lack of success with women has made you a thousand times worse. You try frantically to find yourself a girlfriend, but it gets you nowhere, and if no girl will have you, you don’t want yourself either, so you shed your skin, so to speak, you reinvent yourself,” I say. A shudder of triumph runs through me as I hear myself say it, it’s well observed and well said and I glare at him, grinning that furious grin. “You do it again and again and again. And always with the same total commitment and desperate enthusiasm. And now you’re playing at being a son of the wilderness. Now that’s the image you’re trying on for size, to see if that will help you to achieve your goal. It’s so pathetic words fucking fail me,” I say, then I let out a fierce bark of laughter and whip around to face Jan Olav, he’s standing outside the tent, eyeing me gravely, looking troubled and sad. I fix my eyes on him, shake my head, and give another bark of laughter, as if laughing like this will convince Jan Olav that I’m right, that Kristian really is pathetic and ridiculous. As if laughing like this will persuade Jan Olav to take that grave, troubled look off his face and laugh at Kristian along with me. It won’t, though, I know that, it’s such a shrill, unnatural laugh, the sort of manic laugh that no one would ever believe could had been brought on by something funny, even I can hear that, I can hear how demented I sound, but I have to stop now, here I am, laughing this laugh that I don’t recognize, it’s like some other man is laughing through me. Just a moment more, then I take a deep breath and snap my mouth shut, cutting off the laughter: I really have to get a grip n
ow, I can’t go on like this. I shut my eyes, put a hand to my head, dig my fingers into my hair, and pull back sharply, tug my hair so hard that the corners of my closed eyes are slanted upward to my temples and I feel my scalp shift a fraction over my skull. I sit like that for a moment, then I loosen my grip and let my hand drop into my lap.

  “Sorry, Kristian,” I blurt, doing a complete about-face and apologizing to him. I wait a moment, then I open my eyes and look at Kristian, he’s crouched down, staring at his hands and shaking his head helplessly, his face as grave as Jan Olav’s now. “I didn’t really mean it,” I say and a soft little laugh escapes me, a very different laugh from before, but just as unnatural, a laugh that says this is no big deal, an attempt to laugh the whole thing off. But it’s no use. This is no laughing matter and Jan Olav and Kristian are both stone-faced. I lower my eyes, my laughter subsiding to a faint, hesitant chuckle, then I just sit there, smiling wanly, staring at the fire, I feel my face flushing, the sweat breaking out on my brow and the back of the neck.

  Silence.

  “Well, what a great trip this turned out to be,” Kristian says, jumping to his feet. “Fuck!”

  “Kristian,” Jan Olav says, in a voice that’s begging him to let it go, not to lose his temper.

  “You see, what did I say?” Kristian fumes and I feel my stomach churn, I look at him and swallow, look at the fire again, they’ve obviously discussed this beforehand, weighed up the pros and cons of having me along on this trip, I can tell from Kristian’s words, neither of them was all that keen on me coming, they were afraid I would put a damper on things, but Jan Olav must have felt they had no choice but to ask me, I suppose he felt obliged to invite me, what with him being my best man and all, I feel my cheeks getting hotter and hotter, feel my brow burning.

  “Kristian,” Jan Olav says again, in the same beseeching tone as before, and Kristian shakes his head at him, gives it a moment, then snorts. He looks like he’s struggling to comply with this plea to keep his temper and let it go, but he can’t, he turns to face me again, I swallow and promptly look away, gaze into the fire again.