The Last Fix (4 page)

    Her
face was numb. She could feel her mouth distorting into an artificial,
transparent smile as she tried to stare him down. 'You are one big arsehole,'
she said slowly and clearly so that he caught every single syllable. But it
didn't help. She saw that. This was his arena. His home. She was here at their
invitation. She was a part of the decoration for the evening, something exotic
Annabeth and Bjørn could show off:
Would you like to see the house -
the African vase, the carved masks on the wall, the Italian table and the poor
drug addict Annabeth managed to get back on an even keel. Which one is she, do
you think? Yes, her over there, the blonde, and she's so good- looking, isn't
she?

    At
that moment she felt his hand stroking her backside. 'Don't touch me,' she
hissed as tears welled up, forming a humiliating, misty film across her vision.

    He
cleared his throat. His hand slid between her thighs.

    'I'll
scream,' she said, despising herself even more for these stupid words. Had it
been anywhere else, in the street, on the staircase in a block of flats, any
other place except for here, she would have kicked him in the balls and spat at
him into the bargain. But she was a stranger here, and paralyzed.

    He
removed his hand. 'Just wait before you scream,' he said in a cool voice.

    She
turned and saw Annabeth through the glass door searching for her husband.

    'Your
wife's looking for you,' she said.

    'No,'
he said with a sardonic smile. 'She's looking for us.' He raised his glass and
sought her eyes. Katrine stared into space and heard herself say from a long way
off:

    'You
are nothing, nothing to me.' And sick of this game, sick of playing the role of
an idiot, she stormed towards the door and into the smoke-filled room.

    As
she made her way between the people she could feel their gazes burning into her
body. From the corner of her eye she saw heads huddled together. She lumbered
across the floor feeling like an orangutan on a stage set for a ballet. She was
completely numb. At the other end of the room she saw Ole bending over the
woman with the long legs. He was whispering something in her ear. She was
giggling and tossing back her hair. Apart from them, she recognized only the
faces of Sigrid from the rehab centre and Bjørn Gerhardsen.

    She
appeared at Ole's side and he immediately lost his composure. He coughed and
mumbled a forced 'Hi'. The stork woman fumbled for a cigarette. Katrine stood
her ground. The stork woman was professional, turned away and moved on.

    Ole
took her arm. 'Shall we mingle?' They entered the room with a piano where
Georg, alias Goggen, was sitting. Ole held her back. 'Not that man,' he
whispered into her ear. 'He's a poof.' She sent Ole a weary smile and felt
alienated, even by him. She said: 'Shout for me if he tries anything on you.'

    They
took their place in the circle around Goggen, who was talking about himself and
an ex-lover - a waiter - and some fun they had had with a female TV celebrity.
According to Goggen, the woman had thought it exciting to have been left alone
with two gay men. They had been drinking hard all night, all three of them. In
the daylight hours they had become very intimate, and during a guided tour
through her flat all three of them fell on to her large four-poster bed and
'did it'. 'We had her, both of us,' Goggen wheezed. 'And I mean at the same
time.' He winked at Katrine and said to Ole: 'You know, he parked himself where
pricks prefer… (pause for effect, audience cheering) while I found a spot a
little further back.' (More cheering.)

    Goggen
continued with a raised voice, at one level below shouting: 'I was very aroused
because we could feel our pricks rubbing against each other all the time. After
all, there was just a thin membrane between them!'

    Katrine
peered up at Ole. Either he was embarrassed or he was furious. At any rate, his
face was red. As red as Goggen's. You're all the same, she thought, and her
eyes wandered back to Goggen, who was now employing body language. He was
miming, leaning backwards, overweight, flushed. With his face distorted into a
sick grimace, he puffed out both cheeks as though blowing a trumpet. Then he
sat with his mouth open and revealed the white spots on his tongue. His eyes,
dead and vacant, staring into empty space, Goggen said: 'She was screaming all
the time.' Saliva dripped from his full bottom lip as he imitated her. 'Aah…
aaahhh.'

    Ole
wanted to leave and grabbed her arm. She felt her alienation tip over into
aggression. A sudden fury that had been building up. But now it was being
released by Ole's smug self-righteousness. She stayed where she was. From the
corner of her eye she could see that he, too, had chosen to stay.

    The
laughter among the listeners died away, and the long-legged woman, who in some
mysterious way had also appeared among them, whispered to the man next to her
so that everyone could hear: 'Now that was a bit vulgar, don't you think?'

    'Oh
dear!' he said, miming a stifled yawn and patting his mouth with his hand.
'Just so long as he doesn't tell the story about the piano stool. Whoops.' He
recoiled and added, 'Too late!'

    'I
was in Hotel Bristol,' Goggen said.'… I went in and saw a quite magnificent
piano stool in the bar, and I simply could not resist. I sat down and played a
light sonata and I hardly noticed that I was playing until I sensed the silence
around me. But, by God, it was too late to stop then - so I kept going, and
when

    I
finished I could feel there was a man standing next to me…'

    'A
man!' Stork woman shouted in an affected voice. 'So exciting!'

    Her
neighbour: 'Yes, talking about piano stools and women, have you heard about the
fat woman who's so good at playing she breaks two stools every concert!'

    Ole
grinned. He didn't mind joining in when Goggen was the victim. Ole's eyes
shone.

    The
stork woman winked at Ole. 'Breaks the piano stool?'

    'Yes,
of course, they're very fragile affairs!'

    'I
felt…' Goggen screamed with annoyance. 'I felt a hand…'

    A
voice from the crowd: 'It's not mine!'

    Laughter.

    Goggen
was offended. 'Very droll, very droll. Well,' he continued with everyone's
attention back on him again. 'I was sitting there playing and I felt a hand on
my shoulder,' his voice entranced, his eyes half- closed, the pale whites
gleaming. 'I turned,' he said with dramatic emphasis, 'and I looked up… and was
startled to hear a voice say:
Nice!

    Goggen,
who had the audience with him now, paused. 'A beautiful, rounded, warm voice,'
Goggen placed a hand on his own shoulder as though trying to feel the same
pressure as he had long ago; he twisted in the chair pretending to hold the
hand and turn to see who owned it…
That was very nice
, the voice said
and then this man let go and gave me…'

    'Come
on,' one of the women at the table shouted. She turned round to make sure the
others were with her. 'What did he give you?'

    A
voice from the table: 'Goodness me! With a hand, too!'

    'The
man,' Goggen, undeterred, continued. 'The man was a venerable man of the
theatre. Per Aabel!'

    The
words had an impact. A wave of deep rapturous sighs passed around the table.
Goggen surveyed those around him with a nod of triumph and repeated, 'Per
Aabel!'

    Katrine
noticed Annabeth standing in the doorway. She was drunk as was everyone else.
All those self-righteous people who dealt with others' drug abuse problems were
pissed. Pissed and horny and old. She felt nauseous.

    A man
who had not quite got the point of Goggen's story looked at the others with a
little grin. 'Christ, Goggen, isn't he the same age as you?'

    Everyone
burst into laughter.

    'Who
said that?' Goggen stood up, raising an arm in the air, his bloated cheeks
quivering with rage. 'Who said that? I challenge whoever it was to a duel.'

    'Sit
down, you old goat,' a woman shouted. 'Sit down and tighten the truss!'

    More
laughter and raised glasses. Katrine turned because she sensed a movement by
the door. Annabeth was staggering towards her, and Katrine squeezed Ole's hand
and let him take her in tow.

    Annabeth
blocked their way. She was swaying and struggling to keep her balance.
'Katrine,' she called with warmth in her voice. 'I hope you're having a good
time,' cutting off the ends of her words, because she was drunk. Katrine smiled
but felt sick. 'The food was lovely, Annabeth. Very nice.'

    Annabeth
took her hand. Katrine looked down at Annabeth's hand. It was the hand of an
ageing woman, pale brown skin, wrinkled fingers covered in rings. She looked
up. There was a lot of blusher on her cheeks. And dark shadows under the
powder.

    'We
love you
so much,
Katrine,' Annabeth said and began to cry.

    'Are
you crying, Annabeth?'

    Even
though Katrine wished she were many miles away, she managed to find the right
note of sympathy. In front of her stood Annabeth, the director of the rehab
centre, completely pissed. The stab of discomfort she had felt in her stomach
from the first moment she had set foot in the house, the little stab she had
been fighting to keep down freed itself now from the claws in her stomach.
Katrine could feel the discomfort and disgust spreading through her body like
wildfire, a numbing hot pain that started in her stomach and spread outwards.
As her body gradually surrendered to the pain and repulsion, her mind was clear
enough to remember the many times she had seen more wretched gatherings than
this. She closed her eyes, opened them again and saw Ole. He was standing
behind Annabeth and staring at her, rapt. For a few seconds Katrine experienced
deep, violent contempt for him and all the people around her: Annabeth and her
smug acquaintances knocking back wine, beer and spirits to find the courage to
tell each other secrets, to slag each other off, to smooth the path for
infidelities and other hypocrisies. And there was Annabeth whispering secrets
to her she didn't have the energy to hear. But the painful stabbing in her
stomach also numbed her thinking. There was a rushing noise in her ears and she
discovered she could not hear what was going on in the room. Annabeth was
swaying and her lips were moving. Her teeth were long with black joins. They
were the teeth of an old person. A person who has smoked too many cigarettes
and uttered too many empty words. Annabeth's eyes were red, wet with tears,
swimming with water. In her hand she was holding what looked like an open
bottle of red wine. She waved the bottle and teetered again, took an unsteady
step to the side and the bottle exploded as it hit the door frame. In slow
motion a shower of red wine enveloped Annabeth; it was as though someone had
torn off her skin, as though blood were spraying out, wetting her hair,
streaming down her face and neck, a naked red wound that had once been a face.
At that moment Katrine's hearing returned; it returned as the old woman let out
a hoarse scream. The sound was just an undefined rush in Katrine's ears. For
one second she gazed into Annabeth's eyes; she stared into two dark, empty
tunnels in a brain which was no brain, just a pulsating mass of white worms.
Katrine's stomach heaved. She knew she was going to throw up, there was no
doubt in her mind; the contents of her stomach were on their way up right now.
Her vision became even hazier. The white worms came closer, and the red liquid
streamed down Annabeth's neck, like blood, as though from a fountain of blood.

    Someone
was supporting her. Katrine felt the cool tiles against her knees and knew she
was throwing up. She vomited into a toilet bowl. Sounds from the party
penetrated the lavatory door. She peered up. Ole was standing over her. His
expression was anxious. 'I want you out,' she groaned.

    'You
fainted,' he said. 'The bitch smashed the bottle of wine and you passed out.
Great party. You shouldn't drink so much.'

    She
looked up at him. 'I don't drink. I haven't touched a drop all evening.'

    'Why
were you sick then?'

    She
was unable to answer before the cramps in her stomach started again. This time
it wasn't food; it felt like she was disgorging burning hot tea. She groped for
toilet paper. Her fingers grabbed some cloth. Ole had passed her a towel.

    'Don't
know,' she groaned. 'May have been the food.'

    He
flushed the toilet. The noise drowned out the sounds of the party. She dried
the mucus, the snot and the tears from her face. 'Why are you still here?' she
asked. 'I want to be alone. I don't want you to see me like this.'