See You Tomorrow (19 page)

The school bell sounds like a fire alarm. The pupils begin making their way inside, while Sandra stands there, her face almost unrecognisable. There’s sweat on her brow, her big frightened eyes stare at Malene, pleading for help, as though she were suddenly her lifeline in a rough sea. Sandra’s hand is trembling, the bell is ringing furiously in their ears, and she won’t let go of her sleeve, but what is Malene going to say?

She can’t bear to lie, she’s unbelievably bad at it, and acting surprised is the hardest thing she knows.
Daniel Moi? No way. Have you had sex with him? Wow? In Gosen Woods?

Sandra would see through her right away.

Malene has never slept with anyone. She likes boys, it’s not that, and she’s aware she’s nice-looking, she knows they like her, it’s not that either. She’s just not ready. She hasn’t met the right guy yet. The One. Tiril always says she’s going to screw the first guy that comes along, makes no odds, really. But Malene can’t think that way. She knows people call her names. Ice queen. Gymnastics queen. But she pretends not to hear. She doesn’t take it to heart. At least not much. A little, maybe.

What’s she going to say to Sandra? It’s no surprise, what she’s hearing, Tiril already told her, but all the same it’s bonkers that the biggest swot, the most Christian girl in school, lawyer daughter Sandra Vikadal, is together with Metal Daniel. Moped Daniel. Crazy Daniel. Foster home Daniel. And what’s just as mental is that Sandra is standing in front of her – why her? – telling her that she’s had sex with him.

Outside. In the woods.

That is mental.

Daniel is hot, no question about it, but he’s hot in that
dangerous way. All the girls know who he is,
those
eyes
, but would anyone dare to do what Sandra’s done? Go near him? It’s so mad it makes Malene’s heart pound, a heavy hammering inside:
I met him again yesterday. I had sex with him. In Gosen Woods.
And not only is Sandra saying it, she’s picked Malene to say it to. She’s told
her
everything – why? They’ve been in the same class for years but they’ve never really spoken. Not before today. It gives Malene a pain in her chest. She’s entwined in Sandra’s world now and she doesn’t want to leave it.

Daniel Moi has done some crazy stuff, they say. Killed someone, they say.

‘Jesus,’ says Malene, thinking she needs to look natural, ‘is it true? With Daniel Moi? Wow!’

Sandra’s eyes are watery. ‘You mustn’t say it to anyone, you have to promise—’

‘No, Jesus—’

‘I’ve been seeing him for two weeks.’

‘But,’ Malene takes a quick look around at the dwindling number of pupils around them, ‘we need to go in—’

Sandra retains her grip on Malene’s sleeve. ‘Do you think I’m gone in the head?’

‘No,’ says Malene, ‘but … I mean, he’s seventeen, he’s – well, it’s not so much his age as – y’know … people say things about him, stuff…’

‘Yes. But I love him.’

Love him

Malene feels the thumping of a pulse in her ear. ‘We need to go in,’ she says, avoiding her eyes, ‘but … you know what people say?’

Sandra relaxes her grip on her jacket, her eyes narrow.

‘I mean,’ Malene goes on, ‘as long as you know what you’re doing. Then it’s probably all right. If you … love him.’

Sandra wipes her forehead. ‘I do,’ she says. ‘So, what is it they say about him?’

‘Weell … you know … you do know, right?’

Sandra nods.

‘Don’t say any more. I love him.’

Malene has seen this prim, proper girl every day since first
class. She’s always had a naïve look about her, but also balance and poise. Now everything’s off-kilter. Malene shudders. She becomes suddenly aware of wanting to feel like that too and it scares her. Because she’s never thought about it before, about wanting to go out there, out there on that sea where everyone can drown.

‘Look,’ – Malene pushes yearning to one side – ‘we need to be getting in, but are you sure that he’s not just using you, I mean … what about him, does he love you?’

Sandra suddenly gives a start, a look of panic filling her eyes, she looks like she’s about to keel over.

Malene turns to look. There’s a moped coming down the street towards the school. A tall boy with a black helmet, black jeans and a leather jacket riding it.

Sandra gasps for breath, and drags her fingers like a claw from her forehead to her chin. ‘Sorry, Malene, I … talk to you later, okay? I won’t forget this. You won’t say anything, will you? I’ve got to—’

Sandra rushes off towards the boy, who’s pulling up by the bicycle racks. Malene stands looking at her. She recognises that knock-kneed run from PE class, the one people snigger at, one hand under her tits, the other swinging through the air.

Daniel pulls off his helmet and runs a hand through his hair. Sandra throws her arms around him.

Can’t stand here. I’ll get a demerit.

She loves him.

Malene opens the doors and dashes down the corridor, a sudden burning feeling having come over her, a sudden uncertainty;
I want that too
. She stops for a moment – religious studies? Art and crafts? Pull yourself together, Malene, it’s Norwegian … she’s out of breath as she enters the classroom. Malene nods to the teacher, is conscious of being spared a demerit by a whisker and hurries to her desk.

‘Thank you, Malene,’ Mai says. ‘Nice of you to join us.’

Mai Jensen Bore is fairly young, and she’s a canny, kind teacher. She was off for almost six months last year, for what some claim was an operation on her uterus, while others maintain she had ME, or CFS, which Mira said was the proper name, because that was what
her mother had; she lay on the sofa for nearly two years and didn’t have the energy to do anything. But you’d never know it to look at Mai. She teaches Norwegian and social science and she’s one of the most popular teachers, the girls look up to her and the boys make gestures to one another when she walks by in the corridor.

Mai switches on the digital blackboard, clicks on Wikipedia and says something about continuing on today with some texts by contemporary writers. ‘You’ll all recall we read a short story by Frode Grytten—’

‘Pussy Thief!’ shouts one of the boys.

‘That’s right, Jokki, Pussy Thief,’ says Mai without blushing, ‘and you’ll also remember we talked about Tove Nilsen. Well, today we’re going to take a look at something by Johan Harstad, the Stavanger writer who’ll also be paying us a visit in two weeks’ time, so that’s something to look forward to…’

Malene smiles at Mai, tries to follow what she’s saying,
Johan Harstad, writer, point of view.
But she can’t manage to concentrate. Her head is full to bursting. Sandra and Daniel Moi, Dad and his eyes, the mess in his room, his crying, Tiril, whom she slapped last night…

Malene looks around. There’s a growing disquiet in the classroom, a buzz and murmur spreading throughout. People turn to one another and whisper. Mira has stood up and gone to the window. More and more people get to their feet to follow her. Mai has stopped talking about Johan Harstad and even she’s walked over to take a look. Malene cranes her neck.

‘Jesus,’ one of the boys exclaims. ‘Check it out!’

‘Wicked,’ says another. ‘Yeah, baby!’

‘Whoop whoop!’ a third calls out.

Malene stands up to look out. Sandra is standing by the moped making out with Daniel Moi.

‘All right, everybody,’ Miss Jensen Bore says, ‘let’s try to settle down, okay?’

Malene holds her breath. The white sun shines on Daniel’s moped. His hands are around Sandra’s waist. His head is bowed down towards her and he looks like he’s going to eat her alive.

Take him, Malene urges.

The house is situated at the end of a cul-de-sac, close to the rail-track, and anybody would have difficulty guessing what colour it is any more. It hasn't seen a lick of paint since Thor B. Haraldsen leaned the ladder against the wall in the early seventies and ran a brush across the planks. It could do with new windows, six of them have condensation between the double glazing, the ground around needs to be drained, it's got so damp in the laundry room that the boxes of old clothes down there will soon decompose.

Mum drank herself to death in this house, lying there at the end like a dung heap with a death rattle, hardly a tooth left in her head. Dad moved to Houston a few years later, telling his kids to be positive in life and since then things have hobbled along in their own lopsided way. Jan Inge's reputation spread over half the city, people called him Videoboy. Some dodgy characters began hanging around the house and he started to rent her out when they came to visit. He let them eat crisps and watch video nasties which they paid for by putting cartons of stolen Marlboros on the table, and in this way it developed into a little community in a run-down part of Stavanger, a little company where people have come and gone and which today is comprised of her, Jan Inge, Rudi and Tong.

It wasn't that horrible, she thinks.

Having all those boys on top of her.

But it wasn't good either.

It was just something she was forced to do.

The house lies a few hundred metres from the old
Riksvei
44, the main road into Stavanger city centre, which goes from Sandnes, through Forus, Gausel and Hinna. The stretch of it
passing near to where Cecilie lives is called Hillevågsveien. For a long time it was a dismal area of the city. While the oil ran down through the region and lubricated Stavanger, added lustre, it was as though Hillevåg was forgotten. Nobody pumped money into Hillevåg. The whole suburb, along with its small factories, car showrooms and wholesalers, was left to lie and rust. And these grey streets have been Cecilie's streets. This is where she's bought her cigarettes and cinnamon buns, the treats she brings with her down to the quay behind the grain silos, while she looks out at the oilrigs lying in the sea at Jåttåvågen.

But it's strange being a Hillevåg girl now. Property prices have shot up, there's a new road, a new shopping mall, an odd place called Hillevåg Business Park, a newly opened fitness centre, a skincare clinic and God knows what else. ‘It's Stavanger that's come to Hillevåg,' Jan Inge says. ‘I'm fucking sceptical' says Rudi. ‘View over the fjord,' was how it was advertised the time Thor B. Haraldsen bought the house in 1971. What would the wording be if Cecilie's childhood home was put up for sale today? ‘Attractive detached residence with huge potential, close to Hillevåg Shopping Centre, allowing partial views of the fjord and within a short distance of the city centre.'

Cecilie finds it sort of scary but also sort of nice. A central reservation with pretty trees. Clean streets. People look happier, she thinks. But it's still safest going down to the sea. That doesn't change. The waves come in, one after the other, and the mountains on the horizon don't move an inch, because they belong to what is eternal, while she belongs to what will fade.

Cecilie has never had a job, never had any friends, and at times she's felt like she can't tell the days apart. She likes power ballads, because they make her eyes mist over and she likes fags and cinnamon buns because they help her muscles relax and she is carrying a child in her stomach. But she doesn't know whose it is. Rudi could be the father, because she's slept with him thousands of times, and Tong could be the father, even though she's only slept with him four times, in the visiting room at Åna.

She's tried feeling guilty but the bad conscience won't come about. When Tong asked if she could wank him off or give him
a blowjob, she'd only thought about it for a second or two. The thimbleweed lay in wreaths beneath the trees out at Åna. ‘Like a favour of sorts?' she'd asked. ‘Call it whatever you want,' said Tong. ‘Rudi mustn't get to hear about it,' she said. ‘Jesus,' said Tong. And then Cecilie had felt a kind of burning in her chest and a tingling in her mouth, and she said: ‘Okay, I'll suck you off so.' She went down on her knees, shoved the round table to the side, opened Tongs flies as he sat on the sofa with eyes wide-open, pulled his pants down around his ankles and gave his dick a quick glance before taking it in her mouth.

She didn't mind. He needed it, she could tell. After all, Cecilie knows something about these things, a professional insight of sorts, or whatever she ought to call it. She knows men's bodies are bursting from within. It was nice, in an odd sort of way, sucking off someone she knew so well, someone who'd always looked straight at her but had never made a single pass at her. She thought about it while she tensed the muscles at the tip of her tongue and licked the underside of his knob, that she'd probably known Tong for close to twenty years and that he'd always behaved like some kind of soldier, pretty much like Steven Tyler sings about in ‘Amazing', an ‘angel of mercy to see me through all my sins'. Not that she'd thought about it before, but as she'd knelt there blowing him, allowing her tongue to relax and widen, giving him wet, doglike licks, it struck Cecilie that Tong had always looked after her. He'd always watched out for her, in an entirely different way from either Rudi or Jani.

Could it be that Tong had always liked her and she hadn't noticed? Was that possible?

Cecilie stroked him gently with her fingers while she tongued him, tightening her grip now and then, listening to him gulp and breathe, noticing herself becoming aroused, becoming warm at the thought of one of the guards passing by out in the corridor, pulling the curtain in the window on the door aside and seeing her like this, on the floor, with an inmates's prick in her mouth.

After that Wednesday in March she began visiting him regularly. Seeing as she was the only one in the house in Hillevåg without a criminal record it was left to her to head out to Åna, get
the latest from Tong, check how he was, make sure he was staying clean and fill him in on how things were with the rest of them at home. ‘Get him to look on the bright side of things,' as Jan Inge said. ‘Give him faith,' as Rudi said. And after that Wednesday it seemed strange not to wank him or suck him off. After all, they didn't have that much to talk about. Tong has never been a chatterbox, on the contrary, he ‘s always been the silent type.

Cecilie would get behind the wheel of the Volvo, drive past Sandnes, past Bryne and out to windswept Jæren. She would turn off the main road after crossing the River Hå, drive through Nærbo, over the flat expanse of Opstadsletta towards Åna, watching the old prison building rise up on the barren height, thinking how from a distance it resembled a German concentration camp she'd seen on TV. She had a strange sensation as she drove up the grand tree-lined avenue flanked by dry stone stone walls, before she drew to a halt, pressed the button and said: ‘Cecilie Haraldsen, here to visit Tong.'

She liked driving to Jæren in sunshine, in wind or rain, listening to Aerosmith on the stereo, smiling to the guards at the entrance, who began to recognise her after a while, and she liked the feeling of being a known face. It felt like they knew why she was there and that she was swathed in a kind of respect. Jealousy even. She liked nodding to the guards, feeling their eyes upon her as she walked down the hall to the visiting rooms. She liked to open the door and see Tong sitting there, see that body of his, strong from all the work-outs, with his jet black hair shining. She liked closing the door behind her, going down on her knees, sucking him and pulling him off. She got to know his breathing and his body, she saw the veins on his sprawled forearms thicken. Over time she saw a light and colour in his eyes she'd never seen before, and one day, just as he was about to come in her mouth, he said: ‘Jesus. I'd do fuckin' anything for you.'

Rudi talked and talked and talked without stopping, never more so than when they were having sex; she was so fed up of all that blather. Tong hardly ever spoke. But when he first opened his mouth, the words that came out, they were perfect.

He just seems so bloody smart, she thought.

So why is he with us?

Maybe it's because of me?

Cecilie hid the thought away in her heart and she looked forward to going to Åna once a week, but she never allowed Tong to touch her. She never let him undress her. That's where she drew the line. If she took her clothes off, allowed him to see her and put his hands on her – that would be wrong. It'd be unfair to Rudi. Because no matter how browned off she was with Rudi, he is the one she loves, that's the way she's always seen it. Up until last summer. Then she'd sat astride Tong. She'd just done it. It wasn't like she had her hands on the wheel listening to Aerosmith while the countryside of Jæren flew past and the thought of having sex with him had popped into her head, she had just come into the visitors' room that particular day and done it.

I couldn't help it, she told herself. I wanted him. It was the first time in my life I ever actually fucking wanted a cock.

Since then they've had sex four times on the brown leather sofa. And Cecilie has to admit that now there's a lot going on in this life that, until recently, was just drifting imperceptibly along. The father of the child could be Rudi, or it could be Tong. She has a grown-up problem on her hands. Because Rudi trusts Tong one thousand per cent. And Rudi loves her. And Tong says he'll do anything for her. And Tong is strong, he can smash anything with his bare hands, he's stronger than Rudi, but the fact of the matter is that Rudi is crazier than anyone she knows and that makes him the strongest of all. If Tong wants to do anything for her, then he ought to be aware there's also another who will, and his name's Rudi, he's out there and he's got ADHD.

On top of all that there's Jan Inge, and he's not strong but he's the one who runs everything, without him none of them are anything, and Jan Inge loves them all. If he knew about this he wouldn't go get the shotgun and blast somebody with it, he'd burn down the whole house. Set fire to everything and let everybody die, including himself.

And all these people, they work together. And none of them know she's pregnant. So what's she going to do? Sit and wait, see what kind of kid comes out, if it has Korea eyes or ADHD eyes?

‘What do I feel?' she whispers in a low voice while she listens to Rudi making a racket down in the basement, while she puts on her shoes and opens the front door on the bright, clear September day.

‘In love?' she says in a low voice as she comes out on to the street. She takes out a bag of Fisherman's Friend, needs something to get rid of the taste of vomit. Surely she won't be throwing up every morning from now on? It was probably the sight and smell of Jani stuffing his face with those eggs. He's way too fat now. He needs to go on a bloody diet, that brother of mine.

Am I in love?

In love with Tong?

At the same time as I love Rudi?

Cecilie glances down at her stomach, gives it a rub and whispers: ‘Don't you worry about it. Mummy will sort it out. Somehow or other. But right now we need fags, a cinnamon bun and skincare.'

Cecilie walks up to
Mix
on Hillevågsveien every day and buys twenty Marlboro Lights. She's tried to bring it under twenty a day but seeing as how she likes smoking so much she's just not able. She's set a limit at twenty, which she maintains by smoking precisely one pack each day. She's pleased with having made the switch from ordinary Marlboro to Marlboro Light, that's a step in the right direction.

After she's bought the fags, she usually goes into Romsøes' Bakery next to the Mattress Master and buys a cinnamon bun. Then she crosses the street, passes Kvaleberg School, cuts over the playground by the old German bunker, wanders over the waste ground, out on to Flintegata, down to the bend in the road by the corn silos and along the street towards the sea where she sits down and looks out over the fjord, towards the heights of Li and Storhaug and at the water in Hillevågsvannet. She smokes two cigarettes, one before and one after eating.

And thinks.

Just thinks.

For years this has been what Cecilie's liked best about her life. Getting out for a walk, buying cigarettes and cinnamon buns, sitting down by the fjord and thinking. To avoid being at home,
to escape listening to Rudi´s prattle. And she still likes it. But now a lot has changed.

She began to notice them pretty much around the same time she started sleeping with Tong. Women in high heels and fancy clothes. They had handbags with gold fastenings. They started appearing in Hillevågsveien. They came in and out of a building across the road from
Mix
. They looked stylish and pretty. They looked like they came from leafy Eiganes or somewhere.

Mariero Beauty, it said in the window, even though strictly speaking it wasn't in Mariero but Hillevåg. Spa, it said. Universal Contour Wrap, it said. Classic Skincare, it said. And the women in the high heels and the gold clasps on their handbags, they went in and out of there. Looking radiant, she thought.

One night, after they'd watched
Evil Dead,
she looked at Rudi with her softest expression and said in her most mellow voice, ‘Rudi boy, baby, I was wondering if I could maybe go down to that skincare place?' Rudi's eyes widened: ‘What?' At first he was in a huff and then he grew angry. What the fuck did she want to doll herself up for? Cecilie thought about how right his family were, about how it wasn't strange they didn't want anything to do with him. That greedy brother of his with the psycho wife out in Sandnes. She should have just done it. Should have just gone down to the basement, fetched the axe and planted it in his back while he was asleep. But Cecilie isn't stupid, so later that night, after she had sucked him off and taken it so far down her throat that she nearly puked, she made it clear to Rudi that it was him she wanted to look good for, then Rudi nodded his approval over and over. After a while he began to smile. Then he began singing the opening lines of ‘Dream On': ‘Every time that I look in the mirror, all these lines on my face getting clearer.' Eventually he said: ‘I get what you're saying. You're knocking on forty. You feel clapped out. Okay, baby, you'll get five hundred kroner, once a month. All sweet. On the house.'