See You Tomorrow (2 page)

His eyes, they feel as if there's sand in them.

As if there's a fine layer of tiny grains on the membrane. It's been like that for weeks now. Nothing helps: not eye drops, not eye ointment, it won't go away. The grains scrape against the membrane. If it keeps up, the particles will perforate the cornea and one day he'll wake up unable to see the world.

Maybe it's just as well.

Getting so sick of this.

It's never going to work out, is it?

PÃ¥l wipes the mixer with the cloth, then folds it and hangs it over the tap. He leans on the worktop and fills his lungs with air, as though that would help. He hears the gush of the cistern from the first floor and he exhales, glances at the dog. The border collie is lying on a blanket next to the fireplace.

‘Eh, Zitha? Just as well, eh?'

The sound of the cistern subsides and it's peaceful in the house. As peaceful as outside, where not even the lightest leaves on the trees stir beneath the yellow glow of the street lights. Not even the string hanging from the spruce tree moves; the string the girls used to hang milk cartons from, that they had cut holes in and stuck twigs through, so that the great tits could sit there and eat.

Dad? Can we have some raisins? Do birds eat raisins?

The milk carton's gone, his wife's gone, the girls are still here, and so is the string.

PÃ¥l squeezes his right eye shut and presses his forefinger against his eyelid in irritation. He turns on the radio. P4. Coldplay. A hit from a few years back. What's it called again? Always so annoying when they don't sing the title.
Now in the morning I sleep alone.
He switches off the radio. Everything is a reference to him, and
he's not able to take it in any more. He's not able to watch TV, he's not able to read the papers, he can sit with a book in his hand reading the same page sixteen times over without grasping what's written.

All he can stand is silence, no matter how it might eat away at him.

Autumn came early this year, the first weeks in September were spattered with rain and chased by wind, but the days have suddenly brightened up. It's as though summer wants to bid a final farewell. A glaring white sun sits low in the vast sky. From early morning it casts long shadows along the streets. It's so strong it gives the impression it's going to burn up the sky, and then itself.

Well, Zitha? You think Daddy'll cope?

The dog has one paw curled up under her chest, the other alongside her lupine snout, idle and limp. Zitha takes on a slightly comical expression when she lies down flat on the blanket. Her ears are recumbent on her head, dainty and elegant.

She's a reliable dog, a beautiful dog, and she has no idea about what's going on with her master. Zitha just is. She sleeps. Plays. Runs. Eats. She stands in front of PÃ¥l with the same devotion, day in day out, tail wagging, bottom waggling, tongue hanging out.

He looks out of the windows facing the garden. It gets dark earlier now. The street lights are on by half past seven, it's already dusk by then, and within half an hour it's pitch black.

Summer began to ebb a month ago. People were still in T-shirts and shorts then. But soon it was over for the year. The leaves on the birch turned yellow, the rhododendron red, and deciduous trees began to fade. Women had to root out three-quarter length coats, the colours shifted to grey, brown and ochre and there were more and more hats to be seen. People started wearing shawls and scarves, they put away their trainers, and the kids were knocking about in fleece jackets and raingear.

Yeah, birds can eat raisins, they like them.

Is Mum coming back, Dad?

No, I don't think she is.

Good while ago now.

The temperature dropped; the nights got colder. He saw the
neighbour scraping ice off his car windscreen one morning; good thing he's got a garage.

These unnaturally bright days are merely on loan. It's summer's last sigh and not something that will last. His body needs to adjust now, adapt to the new season, to the prolonged gloom that is on its way, to months of cold and darkness. The joints get stiff, the body gets heavy and sleep takes up more room.

PÃ¥l rubs his seasonally dry hands together and looks at Zitha. Her breathing is slow and heavy. Who knows if she's dreaming, and who knows what she's dreaming of behind that elegant brow of hers.

Getting incredibly sick of this.

‘Zitha!'

He smacks his lips and goes closer to the sleeping dog. She twitches, rises up on her front paws, yawns and stretches. Her tail starts whacking against the floor straight away, her tongue rolls out of her already salivating mouth.

‘Yeaah. Come on, Zitha. Yeaah.'

He walks towards the hall, Zitha scampering around his legs. He clears his throat, demonstrably. He says ‘Yeah, yeah!' extra loudly as he takes the leash from the top drawer and sees the twinkle in her eyes.

This isn't going to work. Is it?

The girls.

The dog's tail is going like a wind-up toy, she scurries about happily in front of him. PÃ¥l rubs his eyes before bending over and feeling the blood tip in his head, as if his skull were a lab flask and everything was following gravity. He rubs Zitha under the chin, looks her in the eyes and meets the same boundless trust she's always prepared to show.

PÃ¥l hears a door open upstairs. He puts on his coat, slips his feet into his shoes. He pats his inner pocket to see if the envelope is still there. It is.

They're sharp, collies. Intelligent. When his wife left him and heard he was getting a dog, she said he should get a setter; go hunting like other men. Yeah, you would think that, said PÃ¥l. Setters, said Christine, her voice full of admiration, they run themselves into
the ground given the chance. Collies, said PÃ¥l, they're beautiful and they guard the house, that's the kind of dog I want.

Just to run. To explode, to disappear.

That's what he would like to do. That's what he's felt like doing of late. Run, explode, ready to disappear. In addition to numbness, anxiety, and shame; no one knows what I'm up to.

‘Shall I go with you, Dad?'

Footsteps on the carpet above.

The kids are the worst. It feels like Tiril and Malene are all that stand between him and what he is going to do. Malene is the worst. A daddy's girl. She comes down the stairs, he knows her footsteps like he knows his own musty heart.

‘Hm? Shall I go with you?'

‘No, no.' He can't manage to meet her gaze. ‘Get on with your homework.'

‘I've finished.'

Pål sends her a puzzled smile. ‘I must be mixing you up with someone who doesn't always do their homework. Where's Tiril?'

‘At work, I guess.'

‘Yeah, of course.'

Malene frowns. She gets that strange grimace around her mouth, the one she has had since she was a baby, the one that makes her look like E.T. He's almost on the verge of tears.

His daughter bends down to Zitha, strokes her snout affectionately, making her eyes narrow and slanted. She puts her face close to the dog's, the dog licks her nose. ‘There, there, nice Zitha, nice Zitha, going for a walk with Dad.'

PÃ¥l studies her. The strong cheekbones that seem to force her face upwards. Her gymnast's body, strong, supple and erect. Never any nonsense with Malene. Such a pity about that injury. It'll heal soon enough. He smiles, and for a moment he forgets who he is and what it is he has done.

‘Can't I come along?'

A daughter standing there asking to go with him. He hopes it will always be like that.

‘No,' he says, ‘it's late. You've got homework.'

‘Dad, I told you, I've finished it.'

‘Good,' he says. ‘But, it'd be nice if you were here when Tiril gets in.'

‘Aww.' She pouts and pulls Zitha close: ‘Don't you want to stay here with Malene, eh?'

The dog licks her across the face, the tongue pink, wet, the tail beating the floor.

Next to the hall mirror hangs the old photo of his wife. It has started to fade. The kids wanted it put up after she left. A photo of Mum for the sake of the kids. Funny that. One year you want to tear her eyes out and the next it's like you miss her.

‘Someone rang, by the way.'

He's startled out of his musings. ‘Hm?'

‘On the landline,' says Malene. ‘Someone rang. They asked after you.'

‘Did they give a name?' He tries to sound as nonchalant as possible.

‘No, but they said they'd call back.'

‘The rubbish,' he hears Malene say, feeling the fog thicken in his head, wishing he could drop everything and collapse on to the floor. ‘Bin collection tomorrow.'

‘Oh, yeah, the rubbish,' he says, perplexed. ‘What would I do without you?'

Malene stands up, and lets go of the dog. She shrugs. ‘That'd be the end of you, Dad.'

‘Heh heh. Where's your sister, by the way?'

‘I told you, she's at work.'

He rolls his eyes and grins at himself.

‘You've become such a scatterbrain.' Malene lets Zitha jump up on her; she takes a paw in each hand and dances with the dog. She sends Pål a playful look: ‘Is it your age? Eh? Is my dad an old fogey now?'

‘No, no.' He runs his hand over his eyes and laughs awkwardly. ‘Just a lot on my mind. Bit too much going on at work. It'll be all right though. Your dad always comes through in the end, you know that.'

Malene peers at him, squinting so intently it makes her cheekbones even rounder: ‘Still sore?'

‘Yeah.' He blinks. ‘Like there's sand in them.'

‘What can it be?'

‘Dunno. But I'm sure it'll go away.'

‘Have you been to the doctor?'

She's got that grown-up look in her eyes. She looks like Christine when she's like that.

‘No, not yet, but I will, of course.' He forces a smile.

‘Yeah, well make sure you do, okay?'

PÃ¥l suddenly feels his teeth begin to chatter, feels his eyelids close and the oxygen drain from his head. He bends over. Pushes the dog aside, pulls Malene close to him. He swallows a lump in his throat.

He holds her tight, doesn't say a word.

This is never going to work out, he thinks to himself.

‘Dad?'

They say you love your kids equally, and you do, but it's different with Malene. He's never quite understood Tiril, never quite connected, like she's off somewhere else, in a whole different direction, moving too fast for him. Is it Thursday she's going to sing?

‘Dad? What is it?'

He holds her tight. Swallows, sniffles, blinks. Then he lets go.

‘Is it Thursday Tiril is singing?'

‘You know it is.'

‘Yeah,' he says, shaking his head, ‘what are you going to do with me, sentimental fool that I am, eh? Do you know what I was just thinking of? Iron Maiden in
Drammenshallen
, sure it was good, but Maiden in London, Malene, nothing beats that.
Six, six, six, the number of the beast, sacrifice is going on tonight
. Heh heh. Your old rocker dad, eh? Your daft dad has gone all soft. How's your ankle? Soon, Malene, you'll soon be back on the mat. Now, go and do your homework, and I'll take Zitha for a walk.'

She looks at him askance. ‘I've done my homework…'

PÃ¥l tousles her hair. It feels soothing to the touch. What a girl. He's so proud of having such a great daughter.

Imagine if he told her? Imagine he suddenly told her everything?

‘You know what?' He strokes her cheek. ‘The two of you should hang up another milk carton for the birds. Autumn's arrived, you know.'

Am I a storm? Am I electric?

She’ll be sixteen in a few months, her forehead is sweaty, under her hairline too. Her mouth is trembling and she knows she needs to hurry up – her knees wobble as she walks. Her heart is wild and emboldened; she feels weak, she feels strong.

One metre sixty-one, two burning eyes, three freckles on her nose, straight blonde fringe and glittering lip gloss.

The white bra, the one she bought without her mother’s knowledge, the one her mother would probably think was tawdry, would he like it?

Is she the one he just has to have? Is she irresistible?

Sandra doesn’t need any sleep, doesn’t need any rest, why sleep the seconds away? She’s never going to sleep again, she’s going to stay awake twenty-four hours a day, because she doesn’t have the time to waste a second of the life she’s living.

Terrorism, environmental disasters, financial crises. They might well exist out there, they might well be important, to Mum, to Dad, to the teachers, to grown-ups, but to her they don’t exist. The world has vanished. All she’s got is heat and dread, haste and apprehension. All she feels is this drizzle within, like a strange rain falling inside her, wonderful and dangerous. Because Sandra is going to meet the one she loves.

He must be there by now?

She clutches the silver cross resting in the hollow of her throat, wipes her damp forehead with her arm. It’s embarrassing, she’s inherited it from her father. He always has patches of sweat under his arms when he hangs up his jacket after work and says, ‘Ah, it’s good to be home’.

Maybe she should get herself a headscarf she could tie from the
back of her neck round her forehead. Maybe he’d like that. He wouldn’t have left yet, would he?

Sandra drags the heavy industrial hoover as quickly as she can across the shop floor. She’s not checking the time on her mobile every minute, more like every five seconds and now it’s way too late, 20:50.

He’s going to be waiting for her by the substation in Gosen Woods. Just by Madlavoll primary school. Close to Gosen kindergarten. She’s attended both of them. He’ll be waiting for her. And he’s not lying now is he, because love, that doesn’t lie, does it?

Jesus, imagine if Mum had seen her?

He took her face in those warm hands, his pupils were aglow. She held her breath, felt his thumbs stroke her lips, then he kissed her and said what she wanted to hear: ‘I’ll be there at nine. See you tomorrow.’

Love doesn’t lie.

It’s nice outside now. After a few weeks of rain, the September sky is brightening up even though the temperature has dropped and everybody can feel what’s coming: there’s a nip in the air. Everything living will fade and die.

It’s all the same to Sandra. Come rain, come storm, come everything. War could break out, and that would be fine, as long as she gets to be
with him, with him.
The girl can hardly understand what she was doing before she met Daniel. All the days and nights spent with her friends, standing around the schoolyard, hanging about outside the shop, walking arm-in-arm, sniggering, and singing out loud in unison. It seems so insignificant, so stupid, so childish. They can go on about how preoccupied she’s become lately. Mira can say it as loud as she likes,
Sandra’s let us down, Sandra’s losing it.
And Mathilde, poor girl, looks like she lives in squalor, as Mum would say, she can say it too,
Sandra’s changed.
Makes no difference what they think, it’s air, it’s wind, it’s really less than nothing. All that matters is running towards the one you love and letting your heart melt into his.

A headscarf.

Yes.

That might be nice.

She doesn’t have much left to do now. Vacuum the very back of the shop, then she’s finished. Tiril is dragging her feet, she can do what she wants. Once Sandra has finished hoovering, she’s out of here. Then she’ll hang up her jogging pants and jumper and pull the skinny Met jeans well over her bum, because he’s told her he likes them:
I think you’re well sexy in those jeans.
She’ll put on more lip gloss, because he’s told her he likes that too:
I love it when your lips gleam.

A thousand nervous times she’s stood in front of the mirror, trying to find that expression, the one she evidently has, because he said that too:
Oh, you’re well cute when you do that.
There’s something about her mouth, something about the way her nostrils flare. She’s asked him plenty of times,
what do you mean?
She’s smacked him on the arm, smiled at him, but all he said was:
I can’t explain it, you’re just so bloody cute when you do it.

Am I? You really think so?

Yes, you are, Sandra, You’re well cute, fucking hell, you’re a flower, you are.

Sandra gets out her mobile again, no messages. 20:52. Hope he hasn’t forgotten the time, hope he hasn’t grown tired of her, stupid girl, only fifteen.

Ten o’clock, that’s what she told Mum and Dad. Her job will take her until ten, because she has to clean the whole shop on her own. There used to be two of them but not any more, and that means it takes a lot longer. But that’s a lie, because Tiril is here, and the lie hisses in her head, as if it floods up from her midriff towards her throat: one hour. She had managed to wangle one hour. With him.

Sandra’s forehead is sweaty. Yes, Mum, I’ll come straight home after work, no, Mum, I won’t dawdle, no, Dad, I’m not going to drift around at night.
No one hung out at night midweek when we were young, things were different back then.
Oh, really, so what? If there was one thing she couldn’t care less about, it’s how things were in the stupid seventies and the idiotic eighties, just like she couldn’t care less about the music Dad is always trying to get her to listen to,
real music,
as he calls it. The Police and Sting and all that stuff. People who could play and didn’t think real music was
made with Pro Tools. Or Mum going on about
Girls Just Want to Have Fun,
Jesus, and all that talk of the cold war and the Berlin Wall – so what? So what? So what?

She’s alive
now
, don’t they get that?

She’s alive now and she’s lying through her teeth. It’s risky. Mum and Dad could easily find out. They could run into Tiril’s dad. They know who he is. They could run into Tiril. The lie is far from watertight. ‘Hi Tiril, nice to see you, shame you quit your cleaning job at the shop.’

Dozy Tiril, only fourteen and thinks she is something. She’s by the frozen foods with a cleaning spray. Tetchy brat. Sulky and grumpy, always has been. Her sister’s not quite as bad, a little quiet maybe, a little serious. The gymnastics talent, Malene, but she’s injured her ankle. They’re so different, those two. But they’re both odd, each in their own way. Everybody knows, knows they’re a bit weird. Maybe Mum’s right when she raises her eyebrows and says: After all, they haven’t grown up with a mum and a dad.

It’s so hot.

Sandra sticks out her bottom lip, blows up at her fringe.

It’s so unbelievably hot.

The lie is a risk she’s willing to take. If they find out they can say what they like, even though they’ll probably cut her pocket money and ground her, because what do they know about love? They sit watching box sets on Blu-ray, night after night of
Mad Men
and
The Killing.
Is that love? What do they know about a boy’s mouth against hers and his hands on her body, what do they know about the intensity in his eyes when he gazes at her in the darkness of the forest?

Sandra is lying, but it doesn’t matter, because she’s a child of Heaven. Her willingness to lie attests to the truth of what she’s doing. When that’s how it is, then it’s
right
, then it’s the heart that acts. If love wasn’t right, what would be right in this world?

Her hand goes to her throat, to her silver cross, the one she got from Aunt Astrid and Uncle Frank for her confirmation, the one with the diamond inset. She squeezes it hard, again.

She’s nervous about what’s going to happen.

You’re precious, Sandra. Remember that.

You won’t give yourself to just anybody. Will you, my love?

No, Mum.

She’s not just sweaty under her hairline, but on her neck, between her shoulder blades and on her palms. She represses thoughts of her mother and thinks instead about what it says in First Corinthians, about love enduring, believing, hoping for, tolerating all. And she thinks about what the Bible says, that when you were a child, you spoke as a child, thought as a child, and understood as a child, but when you became a man, you put away childish things. That’s the way she feels. Everything childish feels so stupid, feels so far away it is inconceivable that it could have been her.

Sandra vacuums as quickly as she can. Tiril glowers at her from under her headphones, with her thick black mascara, listening to Evanescence or My Chemical Romance. Sandra’s skin tingles. His hands, his eyes, his voice:
Do you want me? Sexy?

She hurries, she is close to the bottle return machine and the entrance to the back room, but just before she finishes, she knocks down a display of honey next to the spices. The pyramid collapses, honey jars tumble to the floor and roll in all directions. Sandra’s pulse is up under her chin, she curses to herself and quickly falls to her knees to put them back.

‘Hey, Tiril? Can you give me a hand?’

She’s losing time now. She’s losing seconds with him.

Do you want me, Sandra?

‘Tiril, give me a hand, will you.’

I’m precious.

I don’t give myself to just anyone.

I want you. Take me. Open me. Now. Tonight.