Dancing in the Dark: My Struggle Book 4 (13 page)

‘How has your first week been?’

‘It’s gone well, I think,’ I said.

He nodded.

‘Next Friday you can talk to Sigrid. The mentor, you know. Wouldn’t be a bad idea to write down all the questions and thoughts you have before you meet her. So you can make the best use of the opportunity.’

‘OK, I’ll do that,’ I said.

He chewed his lower lip and he looked like a goat again.

‘OK then,’ he said. ‘Have a good weekend!’

‘You too,’ I said.

Half a minute later he appeared outside running towards his car with his briefcase over his head.

Keys out, door open, in.

The car lights came on, shivers ran down my spine. The rear lights shone red against the wet black tarmac and the headlamps cast two shafts of yellow light against the wall, which seemed to diffuse them as it was lit up.

The pattering rain, the broad Vs of water running down the hill, the overflowing gutters.

Oh, this was the world and I was living in the midst of it.

What should I do? I felt like hammering my fists on the windows, running round the room and yelling, tossing tables and chairs aside, I was full to the brim with energy and life.

‘IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT!’ I sang out at the top of my voice in the staffroom.

‘IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT!

‘AND I FEEL FINE!

‘AND I FEEL FINE!’

Once Richard’s car was out of sight I went for a walk around the school building to see whether anyone might still be there. The caretaker, for example, could have been pottering about fixing things. But it was deserted and after I had made sure this was the case I went into the little telephone cubicle and dialled mum’s number.

She didn’t answer.

Perhaps she had been working late and had popped into a supermarket on the way home, if she wasn’t eating out, that is.

I rang Yngve. He picked up at once.

‘Hello?’ he said.

‘Hi, this is Karl Ove,’ I said.

‘You’re in Northern Norway, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, of course. How are things?’

‘Fine. Just got back from lectures. Going to chill first and then I’ll be off out.’

‘Where to?’

‘Hulen nightclub probably.’

‘Lucky sod.’

‘You’re the one who chose to go to Northern Norway. You could have moved to Bergen, you know.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘How are things up there? Have you got a flat and stuff?’

‘Yes. It’s nice. Started teaching on Tuesday. Actually it’s quite a lot of fun. I’m going out tonight as well. But not to Hulen exactly. It’s a local community centre.’

‘Any nice girls up there?’

‘Yeees . . . There’s one I met on the bus. That might develop into something. Otherwise they’ve all left home. Seems like they’re either schoolgirls or housewives.’

‘It’ll have to be schoolgirls, then, eh?’

‘Ha ha.’

There was a brief silence.

‘Did you get my short story?’ I said.

‘I did.’

‘Have you read it?’

‘I have but only quickly. I skimmed through it. I was going to write to you about it. Bit hard to do that on the phone.’

‘But you did like it, didn’t you? Perhaps it’s not easy to say.’

‘Yes, I did. I liked it well enough. It was nice and lively. But let’s talk about it later, as I said, OK?’

OK.

Another silence.

‘What about dad?’ I said. ‘Heard anything from him?’

‘Nothing. And you?’

‘No, nothing. Thinking about phoning him now.’

‘Say hello from me. Save me having to call him for a few weeks.’

‘I will,’ I said. ‘I’ll write to you in the week.’

‘You do that,’ he said. ‘Catch you later!’

‘OK,’ I said and rang off, went into the staffroom and sat on the sofa with my feet on the table. Something about the conversation with Yngve had depressed me, but I didn’t know what. Perhaps that he was going to Hulen in Bergen with all his friends while I was going to a party in a village in the middle of nowhere and didn’t know anyone.

Or was it the
well enough
.

Yes, I did. I liked it well enough
, he had said.

Well
enough
?

I had once read a short story by Hemingway, it was about a boy who accompanied his father, who was a doctor, to an Indian reservation – a woman was giving birth, it didn’t go so well, as far as I remembered, perhaps a woman had even died – anyway after they had been there they went back home and that was that. All very straightforward. My short story was just as good, I knew that. The context was different, but that was because Hemingway wrote in a different era. I wrote in today’s world, and that was why it was as it was.

But what did Yngve know, actually? How many books did he read? Had he read Hemingway, for example?

I got up and went back into the telephone cubicle, took the slip of paper from my back pocket and dialled dad’s number. May as well get it over with.

‘Yes, hello?’ he said. Brusque voice. The conversation was going to be brief, no doubt about that.

‘Hi, this is Karl Ove,’ I said.

‘Oh, hi, son,’ he said.

‘I’m all set up here now,’ I said. ‘And I’ve started working.’

‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘Are you getting on OK?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s good.’

‘How are things with you?’

‘Well, same as always, you know. Unni’s at home and I’ve just got back from work. Now we’re going to eat. But it was nice you rang.’

‘Say hello to Unni!’

‘Will do. Bye.’

‘Bye.’

The deluge had eased when I trudged down the hill from school to my flat, but it was still raining enough for my hair to be soaked by the time I opened the door. I dried it in the bathroom with a towel, hung up my jacket, put my shoes by the stove and switched it on, fried some potatoes, some onions and a sausage, which I chopped up into pieces, ate the lot at the sitting-room table as I read yesterday’s paper, then went to bed, where I fell asleep within minutes, swathed by the comforting pitter-patter of rain on the window

I woke to the bell ringing. Outside it had not only stopped raining, as I saw when I got up to open the door, the sky over the village was also blue.

It was Nils Erik.

He was holding his arms to his sides like two brackets, with his knees bent outwards, his lips compressed into a zany smile and his eyes wide and staring.

‘Is this where the party is?’ he squeaked in an old man’s voice.

‘Yes, it is,’ I said. ‘It’s here. Come in.’

He didn’t move.

‘Are there any . . . any . . . any really young girls here?’ he said.

‘How young?’

‘Thirteen?’

‘Yep! Come on in! It’s bloody freezing!’

I turned my back on him and went in, took a bottle of white wine from the fridge and opened it.

‘Do you want some white wine?’ I shouted to him.

‘My wine should be as red as a young girl’s blood!’ he wheezed from the hall.

‘Nasty,’ I said. He came into the kitchen with a bottle of red wine in his hand and put it on the worktop. I passed him the corkscrew.

He was wearing a blue Poco Loco shirt, a black leather tie and a pair of red cotton trousers.

The impression he made on people didn’t bother him at any rate, I thought with a smile. Not caring what others thought about him was an essential part of his personality, it seemed.

‘I must say you’re colourful tonight,’ I said.

‘You’ve got to strike while the iron is hot,’ he said. ‘And I’ve heard you have to dress like this if you want to attract women up here.’

‘Like that? Red and blue?’

‘Exactly!’

He put the bottle between his knees and pulled out the cork with a plop.

‘Wonderful sound!’ he said.

‘I’m just going to have a quick shower. Is that all right?’ I said.

He nodded.

‘Of course. I’ll put some music on while you’re in there, OK?’

‘No problem.’

‘No one can say that we aren’t polite young men,’ he said with a laugh. I went into the bathroom, undressed at speed, turned on the water and stepped under the shower, hastily washed under my arms and between my legs, looked at my feet, leaned my head back and wetted my hair, then I turned the shower off, dried, put some gel in my hair, wrapped the towel around my waist and went into the sitting room, past Nils Erik, who was on the sofa with studiously closed eyes listening to David Sylvian, and into the bedroom, where I put on clean underpants and socks, a white shirt and black trousers. I buttoned up my shirt, then put on my shoelace tie and went back to Nils Erik.

‘But I was told that’s exactly how you
shouldn’t
go dressed!’ he said. ‘If you want to pull. White shirt, shoelace tie with eagle and black pants.’

I tried to come up with a smart retort, but failed.

‘Ha ha,’ I said, filling my glass with white wine and drinking it in one long draught.

The taste was of summer nights, discotheques bursting at the seams, buckets of ice on the tables, gleaming eyes, tanned bare arms.

I shuddered.

‘Not used to drinking?’ Nils Erik said.

I sent him a withering glance and recharged my glass.

‘Have you heard the new Chris Isaak single?’ I said.

He shook his head. I went and put it on.

‘It’s brilliant,’ I said.

We sat for a while without speaking.

I rolled a cigarette and lit it.

‘Did you have a look at my short story?’ I said.

He nodded. I got up and lowered the volume.

‘I read it before I left. It’s good, Karl Ove.’

‘Do you really think so?’

‘Yes. Lively style. Actually I don’t have much more to say than that. I’m not exactly a literary expert or a writer.’

‘Is there anything you particularly liked?’

He shook his head.

‘Nothing really, no. The writing’s even and good. Hangs together well.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘What do you think about the ending in relation to the rest?’

‘It was a strong ending.’

‘That’s what I want, you know,’ I said. ‘Something completely unexpected, the bit about the father.’

‘It is as well.’

He filled his glass. His lips were already red from the wine.

‘Have you read Saabye Christensen’s
Beatles
by the way?’ he said.

‘Of course I bloody have,’ I said. ‘It’s my favourite novel. That was what made me decide to become a writer. That and
White Niggers
by Ambjørnsen.’

‘Guessed as much,’ he said.

‘Oh? Is it similar?’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘Too similar?’

He smiled.

‘No, I wouldn’t say so. But I can see you were influenced by it.’

‘What did you think of the blood bit? The bit that comes in the middle? Where everything changes into the present tense?’

‘I don’t think I noticed it.’

‘That was what I was most pleased with, in fact. I describe him seeing Gordon’s blood and veins and flesh and sinews. It’s quite intense in the middle there.’

Nils Erik nodded and smiled.

Then there was another silence.

‘It was much easier to write than I’d thought,’ I said. ‘It’s the first short story I’ve ever written. I’d written bits in papers and so on before, but that was quite different. That was sort of why I came up here. I just wanted to try and write a book. And then I began and well . . . yes, all I had to do was write. It wasn’t difficult at all.’

‘I see,’ he said. ‘Are you planning to go into writing as a career?’

‘Yes, yes, that’s what this is all about for me. I’m planning to write another short story this weekend. Have you read Hemingway by the way?’

‘Oh yes. Part of growing up.’

‘A bit like that, yes. Straight to the point. Simple and clear.With weight behind it.’

‘Yes.’

I refilled my glass to the brim and drank it in one go.

‘Have you wondered what it would have been like if we had applied for a different school?’ I said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, it’s such an incredible quirk of fate that it happened to be Håfjord. It could have been anywhere. Then we would have had to adjust to whoever lived
there
, wouldn’t we, and life would have been very different from what’s going to happen
here
.’

‘Not to mention the fact that two different people would have been listening to wine and drinking Chris Isaak. Or vice versa. The wine would have been listening and Chris Isaak drinking. Well, have you ever heard the like? Or is it: have you ever leard the hike? I’m all inside out! Spoutside up! Upside down!’

Nils Erik laughed.

‘
Skål
, Karl Ove, and I’m glad it’s you sitting there and not someone else!’

We raised our glasses and said
skål
.

‘Although, if it’d been someone else would I have said the same to him?’

At that moment the doorbell rang.

‘That must be Tor Einar,’ I said, getting up.

He was standing with his back to me and staring down at the village when I opened the door. The grey August light hung between the mountainsides, seemingly of a completely different texture from that which illuminated the sky, for that was blue and gleamed like metal.

‘Hi,’ I said.

Tor Einar turned in a slow studied manner. Here was a guy who had plenty of time.

‘Hi,’ he said. ‘May I enter?’

‘Step right in.’

He did so in the same precise punctilious way I had associated with his personality from the first moment I saw him. It was as though he had thought through his movements a couple of times before he executed them. All with a smile playing on his lips.

He raised his hand and waved in greeting to Nils Erik.

‘What are you two talking about?’ he said in broad dialect.

Nils Erik smiled.

‘We’re talking about fish,’ he said in his version of the dialect.

‘Fish and fanny,’ I said in mine.

‘Salty fish and fresh fanny or fresh fish and salty fanny?’ Tor Einar asked.

‘What’s the filleting difference, can you tell me that?’ I said.

‘Yes, now listen here: salty sole and sole salt, they’re not the same thing. Nor are fish and fanny. But they’re close. Incredibly close.’

‘Sole salt?’ I queried.