See You Tomorrow (34 page)

‘Tiril? Malene? Breakfast!'

He has his foot placed in a jaunty fashion on the bottom step, his chin tilted towards the first floor. Zitha stands beside him, her tail wagging, the end of her snout also raised, as though imitating him. PÃ¥l lifts his eyebrows, elevates his cheeks, arranges his features into a pleasant expression, as if this were a summer day and he were a father from a film on children's TV. In his hands he holds a milk carton and a plate of sliced cucumber, tomatoes and pepper.

‘Come on, girls! Breakfast!'

That's the way. He keeps his back muscles tensed as he returns to the kitchen. Setting down the milk and the plate on the already set table, he takes the matches from the mantelpiece and strikes one off the box. He lights the candles and glances at the coffee maker gurgling by the window. Sides of meat, cheese, pâté, sliced fruit and veg, lettuce even, as well as milk, juice and coffee.

This looks good. This'll do the trick.

‘Zitha! Good girl. Lie down now.'

This day exists. And it doesn't.

He hears Tiril's footsteps, firm and lively, coming down the stairs, ostensibly saying everything about his youngest daughter,
the trampoline kid
, as Christine once called her. She could be like that now and again, original in her choice of words, as if she ought to have been a writer as opposed to a businesswoman. Behind Tiril he hears Malene's footfall, steady and mature. The difference in their footsteps is like hearing his wife and himself. Back before the break-up, back when she jumped out of bed in the mornings, after a good night's sleep, already at work long before she had actually
stepped out the front door and got into the car. He takes a little longer to wake up – usually about twenty minutes before Pål is ready for the day. Christine was awake before she awoke. As soon as she opened her eyes her energy level was running at maximum. He smiles to himself at the memory, which was annoying back when it was reality and not reminiscence. The recollection of Christine drinking coffee while she dressed, putting on make-up, preparing the kids' lunches, reading the paper and hey presto – suddenly she was in front of him, radiant and ready, car keys in hand, giving him a routine peck on the cheek before telling him he had to ‘have a nice day' and then disappearing out the door.

A mutual tempo of sorts was something they never shared. Pål would make an effort now and again to get up to her speed. He convinced himself that somewhere within him lay a kind of variant of her that he could be. He planned the day in accordance with her pace, attempted to imitate her. If she took it upon herself to start vacuuming on a Saturday morning, he would let breakfast wait while he got stuck into the dishes from the day before. But it just drove Christine round the bend. Jesus, Pål, please, this here is just weird – do you have to shadow me?

Tiril's body is electric, she has headphones on and she's sharply defined in black-and-red attire.

‘Hi, honey,' he says, in as friendly a tone as he can, stopping her with his arms outstretched, but she ignores his invitation to hug. He drops his arms without making a fuss about it. Tiril forces a smile, he can hear the music from her iPod, stripped of bass; she has no time for Dad now, she needs to concentrate.

‘Christ,' she says, pointing at the breakfast table, ‘somebody die?'

He laughs, even though he doesn't find it funny. ‘Just wanted to make you a nice breakfast, with you having such a big day and all,' he says, feeling a swelling in his chest as though what he was saying was pure and true. ‘Sit down there and I'll get you some coffee. Can you take off those headphones, just while we're eating?'

Tiril raises her darkly pencilled eyebrows, but leaves the headphones on. She takes her mobile from her pocket, flips the cover up and begins texting.

‘I need an iPhone 5, Dad,' she says, without looking up, ‘but I don't suppose we can afford that?'

The door of the hall toilet can be heard opening and moments later Malene appears. She looks tired and unwell. Pål grows anxious and forgets Tiril's complaint, but he thinks how he mustn't allow the feeling to take root, probably just a morning thing, soon blow over – talking about your troubles only makes them materialise.

‘Hi, Dad.'

Malene bends down to greet Zitha, giving her a rub before coming over to PÃ¥l. She looks towards the kitchen table.

‘Wow, what an amazing-looking breakfast.'

He strokes her hair. ‘Sleep well?'

‘Not really,' Malene says. ‘Do we have any bread?'

‘Yeah, of cour—' Pål stops himself. ‘Hold on, of course we've got bread…'

He scurries over to the breadbin, feeling the girls' eyes on his back as he lifts the lid up. A little bag with a stale heel. He places his palms on the worktop. Turns to the girls. Malene has dark rings under her eyes, it won't soon blow over. Tiril's thumb works away at the screen of her phone, the treble from her iPod hissing about her head like a swarm of wasps.

‘Ryvita?' Pål asks, hearing how poorly his voice is carrying.

Malene shrugs. Tiril scrolls on her mobile and moves her lips, but no sound escapes her.

Pål breathes in, fastens a smile on his mouth, brings his palms together with a clap and says: ‘Ah, it's going to be a lovely day. Thursday. I've taken the day off work, thought I might get us something really nice for dinner, tidy the house and live it up, the three of us, and then, yes, then it's – eh, Tiril?'

He walks over to her. So much make-up, where's the girl under there?

‘Eh?'

He stands in front of her.

‘Eh? Your big day, isn't it, eh?'

She removes the headphones, puts down the mobile: ‘You coming to watch?'

He keeps his smile fixed and brings his hands to her face, one
on each cheek: ‘Of course I am, honey. I wouldn't miss it for the world.'

Tiril's phone vibrates, reverberating on the tabletop. She frees herself from his hands but he can see the joy in her eyes, the effect his assurance has had. She picks up the phone, taps the screen. Her features contort and she rises from the seat, her head shaking. Then it vibrates again and she reads once more.

‘Jesus,' she says, not looking at them, ‘asshole.' Tiril breathes through her nostrils and looks up from the display. ‘This here, this is seriously screwed up. Sorry, I gotta go. Kenny has kicked the shit out of Shaun and Sandra is flipping out. Malene, you need to come along, let's go. See you tonight, Dad.'

Night arrived with creeping darkness. It covered Madla, covered Stavanger, the west of the country, Norway, Europe, the world and the universe in the same ever-increasing circles she's pictured since she was a little girl, back when she could hear. She was six years old when she lost her hearing and her memories of sounds are as clear as glass, but she doesn't like them; her mother's voice, the sound of a toilet flushing, a car starting. It's nicer to think of the noises she's never heard.

Mum seemed knackered when she said goodnight. She stood in front of Veronika with her head to one side and placed two fingers on her cuts, tracing her fingertips along them, just as Daniel had done in the kitchen minutes previously.

‘Don't stay up too late, okay?'

‘I won't.'

It was as though his very hand had sowed desire in her groin. The firm grasp he had taken of her was hard and insistent, painful almost, but the craving in his palm, the hungry pressure he put against her pubis, made her body ignite, and when he took his hand away all she could think was
do it again
. She felt a flailing warmth spread throughout her, also in the form of increasing circles, beginning in her crotch, describing a ring round her loins, a ring round her stomach and thighs, around her breasts and calves, a ring around her entire body.

The bathroom door opened. The sound of her mother's feet going in the direction of the bedroom and out of sight.

‘Night, Mum.'

‘Good night, Inger.'

Daniel was sitting at one end of the sofa, feet up on the table, neck resting on the back of the cushion, one arm over the end of
the sofa, the other resting on his stomach. Veronika sat up for a moment, pretended to fix her clothes, then sat down again, closer.

He got to his feet without looking at her, his lips moved, but she wasn't sure if he said something or merely sighed, snapped for air, like a guppy. He went over to the window, closed it and remained standing looking out at the darkness with searching eyes.

He did say something, but she couldn't make it out. ‘What?'

He turned his mouth away again.
Too much shit here now?
Was that what he said?

Veronika got up and went over to him. ‘What are you saying?'

He avoided her gaze. ‘Dunno. School. Can't face school tomorrow. Need to think.'

She drew as close to him as she dared. There was a long pause. Veronika's breath had less and less space to draw in air from.

‘And what is it you need to think about?' she asked.

He turned to her. His face glistened, his teeth shone like polished ivory, his eyes had yellow spears in them and his tongue was long and cruel.

‘You fuck me up,' he said.

‘You fuck me up,' she said.

Daniel put his hand back where it belonged, he pressed harder and she felt how that was the way it was supposed to be. Her hand went to his jeans, rubbed him across the flies and she saw his mouth open, saw his chest heave and his jaw clench.

‘You really fuck me up,' he said, gritting his teeth as his torso rose and fell.

‘I know,' she said, as she took her fingers away, saw him take sharp intakes of breath, took hold of his belt, undid the buckle and saw him gulp and blink, ‘and that's the whole point.'

‘Shit, we have to be quiet,' he said, placing a hand on each of her breasts.

‘We have to be very quiet,' she said, feeling a throbbing dick in her hands for the first time.

Veronika wakes up. Her cheeks are warm and it is Thursday morning. She opens her eyes and closes them right after, as though what she's going to see is an enemy of that which has occurred.

She has no choice but to go far today, too far perhaps.

‘Oh … Jan Inge … I didn’t know you were in here.’

Jan Inge swallows. He looks up at Cecilie. She has those threadbare jeans of hers in her hands, as well as an old bra. She’s only wearing the large Europe T-shirt. It looks like a tent.

She crouches down.

‘Hey? You okay?’

Jan Inge nods ever so slightly. He meets her eyes for the briefest moment, then looks away again. It’s not a good idea to look deeply into Cecilie’s eyes, too much to see in them.

‘Oh God, Jani, bruv, are you crying?’

It’s not so easy after all. Always having breakfast ready. Never falling apart. Forever being in good humour. Being in control at all times. He saw it. In that programme on TV, the one about leadership. A Microsoft executive.
Show emotion,
he said.
Demonstrate that you’re a person and not a machine.
It makes for a good leader. And why? asked the Microsoft guy. I’ll tell you why, because you work alongside people. They need to see that you’re like them.

Jan Inge reaches out and tears off a few sheets of toilet paper. He blows his nose. Swallows.

‘What’s wrong? Why are you sitting here crying?’

Jan Inge raises his bulk from the toilet seat. He takes a few steps towards the bathroom mirror. He sniffs, clears his throat, spits in the sink and rinses his mouth. In the reflection of the mirror he can see Cecilie pulling down her knickers, flipping up the lid of the toilet, sitting down and peeing. She actually looks quite nice when she’s sitting like that. Those eyes, set far apart, open up her face kind of like a book; she looks like she did when she was small,
when they roamed about the house wondering what to do, when Mum had died and Dad had gone to Houston.

Those compassionate eyes. More gut-wrenching looking into them than meeting those tetchy eyes she glares at you with most of the time.

Jan Inge finds a spot in the air and fixes his gaze upon it. He straightens up: ‘Cecilie. I’m sitting here in the toilet. It’s an important day. I’m here enjoying a few moments of peace early in the morning. I’m meditating. I’m like the Chinese. Do you see the bowl of rice between my hands? Do you see the wind playing in the hazel trees?’

Cecilie gets up from the toilet, flushes it and tries to make eye contact, but he avoids it.

‘Jani,’ she says, sitting down on the edge of the bath, ‘you know I’m not always able to follow what you’re saying when you talk like that. What do you mean?’

‘I just mean that I’m thinking.’

‘Yeah?’

He looks her in the eye. He’s able to now. ‘About my life,’ he says. ‘About our lives. About Tong getting out today. About Dad in Houston. About Mum in Hell, barbecuing rats with the Devil. I’m picturing the grease dripping from the side of her mouth. Is she riding the Devil, Cecilie? It wouldn’t surprise me. I’m thinking about the job we have on tonight. I’m sitting here in the toilet – the last bastion of privacy. And yes. Perhaps I shed a tear. Yes. Perhaps life overwhelms us all at times.’

He turns to the sink, puts both taps on, waiting for the water to become lukewarm before placing his hands under the jet. Warms them up.

‘Yeah, of course it does,’ says Cecilie.

‘Do you not think I harbour dreams?’

‘Sure, of course I think you do.’

Jan Inge turns off the water and takes hold of the towel hanging beside the sink. ‘Do you think it’s fun for me to have become so fat and got a bald patch to boot? Do you not think I’ll do anything to keep this gang together?’

‘But Jan Inge—’

He sits down on the edge of the bath, beside her.

‘I’ll tell you something, Cecilie,’ he says. ‘When Dad went away … one night after I’d put you to bed, I went down to the basement. Dad had left behind some tools in case we had to fix something in the house. We did become independent, you and I, by the fact of him leaving. I’ll give him that. I found the toolbox and took out the hammer, Cecilie. I took it in my hand and carried it with me up the stairs, carried it through the hall here, held it while I opened the door to your room, clasped it as I made my way over to your bed. And once there, I raised my hand over my head and saw the shadow of the hammer on the wall behind you.’

Jan Inge pauses.

He is aware of the heightened atmosphere in the bathroom.

Cecilie sits camly beside him. She listens as though what he’s saying is on celluloid. An intense film about a brother who’s going to take his sister’s life. Because their mother has kicked the bucket and their father has moved to Houston.

But it isn’t a film.

It’s this shitty life.

But that’s just how it always is.

It’s never a shitty film.

It’s always life.

Cecilie nods, as if remembering what he’s telling her.

‘I don’t know,’ Jan Inge says, turning to look at her. ‘I can’t explain what I was thinking. Maybe I thought things would be easier if you were dead. Maybe I was afraid of having to look after you for the rest of my life.’

‘But that’s what you hav—’

‘Yes, I have.’

‘You’ve really looked after me, Jani.’

‘Yes, I have.’

‘Good thing you didn’t crack my skull open with the hammer anyway.’

‘Yes, it was.’

‘But listen, I need to take a shower and be on my way to pick up Tong.’

Cecilie puts her skinny arms around his big body. It feels good.
She radiates warmth even though she’s ever so small. Jan Inge remembers the song he made up that time he was standing over her bed with the hammer in his hand.
Moon and sun, wind and clouds, sister and brother, death enshrouds.
He stood there with the hammer raised and sang. He can still hear the choirboy pitch of his own voice. How nice it sounded. While he looked at the shadow of the hammer thinking that now Cecilie had to die.
Moon and sun, wind and clouds, sister and brother, death enshrouds.

Cecilie loosens her hold around him, her body gives a jerk and she lets go of him. She swallows and gulps, then makes an abrupt dive for the toilet where she leans over the bowl and throws up.

Jan Inge blinks. Repeatedly. ‘Yeah,’ he hears her wheeze, her head down the toilet bowl, ‘yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you, Jani, I know what you’re thinking.’

Blimey.

Jan Inge picks up his inhaler from the washstand. Breathes in.

Hah.

Sometimes life is fascinating.

It’s right in front of you, day in, day out, but no danger of you catching sight of it.

Jan Inge nods to himself. This is fantastic news. He can feel a swelling inside. He’s aware of tears in his eyes. A child. My God. Now there’s going to be some life in the house. Now things are going to happen. Revenge. That’s what he feels, a sense of revenge, like an axe cleaving a skull, because now the Haraldsen name will be carried on, yes, it’s almost as if it’s his own child coming into the world. There’ll be life in the house, the genes will be shuffled and who knows what the child will be like. Will it inherit Cecilie’s capricious nature? Jan Inge’s characteristic astuteness? Its father’s levity?

‘Uncle Jani?’ he asks. ‘Me? Uncle Jani?’

Cecilie, her back to him, nods. She reaches into the shower and turns on the water.

‘Wow. Chessi, I—’

Cecilie turns her head and fixes her brother with a fiery look. ‘Yeah,’ she says, while holding her hand under the jet of water. ‘But you’re not to tell a bloody soul.’

‘No no, I—’

‘Because I don’t know who the fucking father is.’

‘Wha?’

‘Don’t be so dramatic.’

‘But—’

‘Listen,’ Cecilie lowers her voice, which doesn’t serve to reduce the intensity. ‘I don’t know if it’s Tong or Rudi—’

‘Ton—’

‘You’re not to say a single word. Not one word, you hear me.’

‘No, but to … to … I mean he’s in—’

Jan Inge stops himself.

‘Åna,’ he says in a quiet tone.

‘Not another word now,’ Cecilie hisses. ‘Not to me or to anyone else.’

Jan Inge nods. She’s right, he thinks. Sometimes you’ve really just got to shut up. Keep your lips sealed and gulp down.

‘You go out and think about what you’ve heard,’ continues Cecilie. ‘Go out and let me shower and be alone with my own thoughts and my own life and you get your own ass in gear. You don’t need to go round feeling sorry for yourself, Jani, because you’re not the one with problems – I’m the one with problems. And put on some coffee will you – aw! Bloody shower! Either too cold or roasting! Why can’t things in this house just work like they do in normal peoples’ houses!’

‘Right, I’ll—’

Cecilie pulls off the Europe T-shirt. Takes off her knickers. Gets into the bathtub. Pulls the shower curtain across. Jan Inge sees her silhouette, hears the running water, the sound of her voice: ‘And don’t start crying, all right? No crying, okay? We’ve done enough crying, you and me, yeah?’