Aftermath Page 14

  “Yeah, but …”

  “I’ve really got to go now,” Simen says. “I’m going to be late.”

  “I see,” Torstein says, in a voice designed to let Simen know how disappointed he is, to make the boy feel bad, make him feel that this is all his own fault, it’s unbelievable, it really is.

  “Bye then.”

  “Bye.”

  I hear the front door being opened, then closed, then Gunn Torhild turns to me and smiles.

  “Fathers and sons, eh?” is all she says, with a little shake of her head, trying to play down Torstein’s behavior now. She knows as well as I do that it’s neither normal nor acceptable for a father to behave like this, but she doesn’t want to acknowledge it so she’s trying to convince herself and me that what we’ve just seen and heard was merely a perfectly normal father and son thing: every now and then they’ll have a huge row, but it’s okay because they love each other and they always end up as friends, that’s what she’s trying to say, trying to put a good face on it.

  I smile vaguely at her, bend over my plate, and pop the last chunk of patty into my mouth.

  “Should we have coffee on the veranda?” Gunn Torhild asks. She’s finished eating too, she takes a half-eaten patty from the dish and tosses it into the corner where Conny is lying. There’s a sharp click as the dog’s jaws snap shut.

  “Yes, why not,” I say. “Thanks for dinner! It was delicious,” I add. It wasn’t delicious at all, but I say it anyway and am about to rave a little more about the couscous, but fortunately I manage to stop myself, I’d better not compliment the food too much or it won’t ring true, it would only sound as though it had been so bad that the cook needs a little moral support and some people might take that as an insult.

  “I’m glad to hear that somebody likes to try new things,” Gunn Torhild says as she reaches across the table for a pack of cigarettes down at the far end.

  I smile at her as I pick up the dish of corn, put it on top of my empty plate, and lay my cutlery in it. At that moment Torstein comes in carrying a bottle of brandy and two glasses.

  “Aw, just leave all that. Gunn Torhild’ll see to it later!”

  Gunn Torhild stares at him openmouthed.

  “Excuse me, what fucking century are you living in?” she exclaims, giving a faint shake of her head and a supposedly shocked laugh, looking first at him, then at me, trying to make me believe that their relationship is more equal than it really is, I can tell. She does most of the housework, but she doesn’t want to admit it, not when I’m here, she’s acting as if it’s not simply assumed that she’ll clear the table.

  “Not more Liberal Democrat bellyaching,” Torstein asks, looking at her and shaking his head and Gunn Torhild gives her husky laugh as she plucks a cigarette from the pack. “Christ, you’ll be going around wearing only one earring next,” Torstein adds, and he laughs too as he steps out onto the veranda.

  “It’s okay, just leave it,” Gunn Torhild says, turning to me.

  “Well, I can clear away my own plate, at least,” I say and I carry it and my cutlery through to the kitchen. Torstein has already made the coffee, I see. I rinse the plate and the cutlery and put them in the dishwasher, then I take three coffee cups from the cabinet, pick up the coffeepot, and go back out onto the veranda.

  Silence.

  Gunn Torhild is smoking her cigarette and surveying the yellow fields on the other side of the road. Torstein is sipping his brandy.

  I set the cups on the table and pour the coffee.

  “Excuse me, are you working here now?” Torstein says, grinning at me. I look at him, does he think I’m making myself too much at home, bringing things out, pouring the coffee, is that what he’s getting at?

  “Well, the coffee was ready, so I thought …”

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he says, raising his hand as if to reassure me. “I was only joking.”

  Silence again.

  “You’re looking very thoughtful,” Torstein says, turning to Gunn Torhild. She’s still puffing on her cigarette and gazing at the yellow fields.

  “Is it any wonder?”

  “No,” Torstein says, waits a moment, then: “Not really.”

  Pause.

  “I simply don’t know how we’re going to manage it,” Gunn Torhild says before taking a drag of her cigarette.

  “No, I know,” Torstein says.

  Another pause.

  I look at them, is it my turn now, am I supposed to ask why Gunn Torhild was looking so thoughtful, it seems rather like it, it sounds as though they’ve just been discussing something they want to do but find it hard to tell me about, so they’re trying to make me so curious that I’ll have to ask.

  “And we don’t have that much time either,” says Gunn Torhild.

  “That’s for sure.”

  Silence again. And now I’m going to have to ask what they’re talking about, because that’s obviously what they want and to not take the hint and not ask would seem rude and standoffish somehow, although it isn’t, of course, it’s ruder to try to coerce me into joining the conversation, but still, I’ll feel like a cold and uninterested guest if I don’t ask what they’re prompting me to ask.

  I wait a moment, swallow.

  “Manage what?” I ask.

  Gunn Torhild turns to me.

  “We need to come up with the money to bring Rune home from the Philippines. One hundred thousand kroner and we only have a few days.”

  “One hundred thousand?” I exclaim, instinctively raising my eyebrows, it sounds extortionate.

  “That’s what it costs, or so the embassy says.”

  “But … didn’t he have insurance?”

  “The Norwegian insurance companies don’t cover the transport home if the deceased has lived abroad for more than forty-five days,” she says. “And Rune had been there for nearly three months when he died, he had a girlfriend there and everything.”

  “But still, one hundred thousand?”

  Gunn Torhild sighs.

  “Well, actually it costs twice that. But Rune had some money in the bank and if we add the little bit that’s left after his girlfriend got away with all she could get, it comes to just over a hundred thousand.”

  A white lumber truck thunders past on the highway and a flurry of sparrows rises from the roadside.

  “It would cost a fraction of the price to have him buried down there, of course,” she says.

  “Forget about it,” Torstein says firmly. “My brother will be buried in Namsos. That slanty-eyed bitch wouldn’t even visit his grave, she only wanted someone to spend money on her, she couldn’t have cared less for Rune when he was alive and she certainly doesn’t care about him now,” he says, then he raises his brandy glass to his lips and knocks it all back in one go. “Rune is going to lie next to Ma and Pa and that’s that!” he says, setting his glass on the table with a thump.

  Gunn Torhild shrugs.

  “Well, then we’ll just have to sell the house and find something smaller and cheaper. Because we’ll never get a loan.”

  I look at them and swallow, look at the floor, then up again, do they want me to pay for Rune’s coffin to be sent home to Norway, is that what this is about, is that why they’re telling me all this, so that I’ll feel sorry for them and offer to help? Yes, I bet that’s it, they know a hundred thousand is chicken feed to my family and they’re hoping that I’ll help them with this problem. They don’t know that I haven’t been in touch with Mom and Dad for God knows how long, they think I have free access to the family fortune, so to speak: a quick phone call and the money would be there in their bank account.

  I take a swig of coffee, say nothing, feel a flicker of annoyance. They’re desperate, I understand that, of course I do, but still. I mean, if they’d asked me straight out I wouldn’t have minded at all, but to go about it like this, well, somehow I feel they’re trying to put one over on me, that they’re trying to manipulate me by playing on my emotions and my conscience and I don’t
like that.

  “Oh, I don’t know, I really don’t,” Torstein says.

  “No,” Gunn Torhild sighs. She takes a long pull on her cigarette, then she leans across the garden table and stubs it out in the ashtray. “Well, if we have to, we have to. It’ll be with a heavy heart, though, that’s for sure,” she says, blowing smoke out of her nose. She’s not about to give up, she’s still trying to wangle money out of me by appealing to my conscience. I say nothing, feeling more and more uncomfortable.

  Silence.

  Suddenly Simen appears in the doorway and stands there looking at us. He couldn’t bring himself to go to that meeting after all, I suppose, Torstein must have succeeded in making him feel guilty and he has turned around and cycled home again. I smile at him and again I’m struck by the resemblance, it’s weird, like looking at myself when I was younger.

  “Finished saving the world already, are you?” Torstein says, baring his yellow teeth in a big grin. There he goes again, mocking his son’s concern for the environment. I don’t get it, why can’t he curb his frustration and his anger for a moment, if only for his son’s sake. A look of sadness and anger comes over Simen’s face, he stands there scowling at his father for a second, then he turns and goes back inside.

  Silence.

  “I know, I’m an asshole,” Torstein says, still grinning. It’s a slightly different grin now, though, an agonized grin, the grin of a troubled man. He leans across the table and grabs the brandy bottle, fills his glass.

  “No, you’re not,” Gunn Torhild says.

  “Yeah, I am,” Torstein says.

  “Stop it, Torstein.”

  “But it’s true, isn’t it, Marius? I’m an asshole, aren’t I?” he says, looking at me, still with that pained grin on his lips, and I smile uncertainly back at him, I don’t know what to say, don’t know what he expects me to say when he asks a question like this, is he trying to get me to do the same as Gunn Torhild and tell him he’s not an asshole, is that what he wants, does he want help to play down what just happened and thereby boost his self-esteem?

  “Asshole?” I say, acting as if I don’t know what he’s talking about.

  Torstein doesn’t reply, he knows full well I’m making myself out to be dumber than I am and he makes no secret of it, smirks as he picks up his brandy glass.

  “It’s nice of you to take it like that,” he says, looking straight at me as he drinks, he makes me feel like a gutless little loser when he carries on like this, he knows I do think he’s an asshole, but he also knows I can’t bring myself to say it to his face, so I do seem gutless when he asks if I don’t agree that he’s an asshole, he’s making me look a fool and I’m letting him do it, sitting here grinning sheepishly. I feel my cheeks starting to burn again, I don’t want to be the shamefaced loser he’s making me out to be, don’t want to let him make me squirm like this, but I am, I wish I could say that it was because I feel sorry for him, that I’m putting up with more than I should because I regard him as a victim, someone deserving of a little more understanding, and to some extent I am being more understanding, because he is a victim, Torstein, it’s all the stuff he went through during and after his time as a deep-sea diver that’s turned him into the tormented character he is today, I know that, but that’s not why I’m letting him treat me like this, or, at least, that’s not the only reason, it has as much to do with the fact that I’m a coward.

  “Okay, now you’ve lost me,” he says.

  “Sorry?” I say.

  “Deep-sea diver?”

  I stare at him, saying nothing.

  “You said deep-sea diver,” he says.

  I stare at him for a moment longer. I wasn’t aware of having said anything at all, but apparently I did, I feel my cheeks growing even hotter, I need to explain, if nothing else I need to show that there was some thinking behind what I said.

  “I think a lot of this has to do with your time as a deep-sea diver,” I say quickly.

  “What?”

  “You sacrificed your health and well-being so Norway could become the wealthy oil nation we are today,” I say, then I swallow. “And some of your best friends gave even more, I know, they gave their lives. And when you see Simen getting involved with Nature and Youth, well … you don’t just feel that he’s refusing to acknowledge the gift that you and your buddies sacrificed their health and their lives to bestow on all of us Norwegians, you feel he’s blaming you personally for the greatest problem of our age—climate change, that is,” I say. “And that … I realize that that hurts, I realize it upsets you and makes you angry to hear him talk of our great oil adventure as a tragedy. You have to remember, though, that Simen is only sixteen, he’s at that stage where he needs to break away from you and become an independent human being and at that stage it’s perfectly normal for kids to declare themselves totally against everything their fathers are in favor of, and in favor of everything their fathers are against. In fact it’s not just normal, it’s more like a law of nature, it’s something young men do without meaning to or being conscious of doing, as it were, and … and, well, obviously you have to show a little tolerance and a little patience. Even if it’s not always easy,” I say. I pause for a moment and suddenly I realize I’m sitting hunched over with my eyes shut, chopping the air with my hands, the way I tend to do when I get carried away by what I’m saying. I feel my face flaming, feel it turning crimson. I open my eyes, try to smile and look relaxed, but all I can manage is a twitch of my lips.

  Torstein and Gunn Torhild exchange a glance, look at me again.

  Silence.

  “That was a bit beyond me, all that, I’m afraid,” Gunn Torhild says.

  Torstein takes a swig of his brandy.

  “Yeah—fascinating, though, to have your feelings explained to you,” he says, gently smacking his lips as he sets down his glass.

  Gunn Torhild almost bursts out laughing but stops herself just in time.

  Silence.

  I’m hot and flushed, there’s sweat on my brow and the back of my neck and I want to get away, I can’t stay here any longer, but here I am, I don’t know what to say, don’t know where to look either, because not only have I been sitting here with my eyes shut, waving my hands about like an idiot, I was also rude and totally out of line, well, I mean, how condescending can you be, I come to see them two or three times a year at most and then I carry on as though I know them better than they know themselves, how unbelievably arrogant, and anyway, what right do I have to express an opinion on any of this?

  “Well, well,” Torstein says.

  Silence.

  “I need to use the bathroom,” I say, I don’t need to use the bathroom, I simply need a little time-out, I can’t stay here any longer, don’t know why I came to see them anyway, why I make this same mistake again and again. Initially, when I looked them up, well, that was understandable: I was curious and badly needed to know where I came from. But that I still keep visiting them, that I come back again and again, long after it’s become clear that we really don’t want anything to do with one another, and of my own free will at that, I simply don’t understand it. I paste on a smile as I plant my hands on the arms of the chair, can’t meet their eyes so I keep mine lowered as I get up and turn to go inside. I walk straight past Conny, who’s lying on her side, asleep, go through the kitchen and into the bathroom. I lock the door and stand there with my eyes closed for a few moments, stand there as if my feet are frozen to the floor, then I open my eyes, flush the toilet, wash my hands, and go back out. I swallow, have to put this out of my mind, it’s not worth worrying about. More often than not things that seem like personal disasters to me turn out to be mere bagatelles to other people, so this is not a problem, it’ll be fine, I don’t know why I came here, but it doesn’t matter, I’ll be on my way back to the cottage soon anyway, I’ll just finish my coffee, then I’ll leave, another five minutes and then I’m out of here. I take a deep breath and let it out again in one long sigh, then I walk into the living r
oom, spot Simen straightaway, he’s sitting by the coffee table at the back of the room eating potato chips, drinking cola, and watching something on his laptop, some comedy film it sounds like, at any rate there’s some guy in it talking in the sort of voice people put on when they’re trying really hard to be funny. I stick my hands in my pockets, wander over to him, but he doesn’t look up, just keeps his eyes riveted on the screen.

  “What are you watching?”

  “The Nutty Professor,” he says.

  I position myself next to him, hear Conny whimper softly in her sleep.

  “Is it funny?”

  “Hilarious. Got me laughing till I cry.”

  Silence.

  “It’ll get better, Simen,” I say softly. It just comes out and I start to worry as soon as I’ve said it: I have to be careful not to act as though we’re closer than we are, mustn’t behave too much like a brother either, that would only alienate him even more. He looks up at me, he knows I’m referring to the way things are between him and his father, I can tell by his face that he does, he looks me in the eye for a second, then turns back to the screen.

  “Yeah, sure,” he says.

  “I had my own run-ins with my dad when I was sixteen,” I say, although I didn’t really, I got on really well with my dad when I was that age, but I say it anyway, I have the idea that it might be some comfort to him to know that it’s not unusual to have a somewhat strained relationship with one’s father at his age. “I lived in a studio apartment for my last two years at high school, I couldn’t bear to stay at home,” I say. I didn’t actually move into an apartment until I was nineteen, but I say it anyway. “I could help you find a place in Trondheim, if you like,” I blurt, give a start when I hear myself say it, I’m going too far now, interfering in things that have nothing to do with me and I feel my cheeks start to burn.

  He looks at me.

  “He’s not normally like this, if that’s what you think,” he says.

  I swallow.

  “No, of course not,” I say, although I’m pretty sure this is exactly how he is, in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if he was even worse when they’re alone, with no witnesses, but I can’t say that. “I know this is a particularly hard time for him, what with having just lost his brother,” I say. “And to have these money worries on top of that … the cost of bringing Rune home to Norway, no wonder he’s at the end of his tether.”