See You Tomorrow (6 page)

Zitha tugs at the leash once they're outside the house. He can feel how primed the dog is, and he lets her strain forward with her snout to the ground. She needs to be driven by her instincts, needs to live and breathe by them.

The day has been unusually warm, but now night has come and the autumn cold is here again. It's in the air all around him, crackling almost delicately; in a couple of months it will have transformed into winter.

PÃ¥l walks over to the rubbish bins. His feet feel heavy, his head feels fried. Is it the green one today? Black? Brown? He looks down the street at the rows of brown bins lined up on either side outside each house, like podgy soldiers. He wheels the bin out in front of the hedge and starts walking down the road with Zitha hurrying ahead of him.

He's been at this so long he's not afraid any more. The most surprising thing is how proficient you become. Living with all the lies isn't difficult. Neither is living with all the covering-up. It's the wide-open world that's difficult to live in.

He comes to Norvald Frafjords Gate and sees the blocks of flats rise up into the sky. The sight of the high-rises has had a hold on him ever since he was little. All the people inhabiting them, all the people living their secret lives, all the people trying to get on. When he was a child and passed them on his way to school – to think it's over thirty years since he did that for the first time – he imagined that everyone living there would one day be pressed out, like meat from a mincer, their eyes, their ears, mouths and hands.

Yeah. That's how it is.

The wide-open world, where nothing is hidden, hard to live in it.

What is with my eyes?

Imagine. These eyes will be forty in a little under a month.

PÃ¥l checks his mobile. Soon be nine o'clock. He feels Zitha tug at the leash.

The gap between who he is and what people see has grown so big. It's a strange feeling. Everyone can see him but no one has a clue who they're looking at. They see that guy who's always lived here. Some of the elderly people in the area probably remember him from when he was a kid. They probably recall a normal enough boy, quiet type. The carpenter's son. Yeah, they'd say. Pål Fagerland? He grew up here, nice kid. People his own age might remember the woman living here a few years back. The wife, they'd say, Christine, left him and the kids. Career woman, they'd say. Statoil, made good money, she was a real go-getter. Must have got tired of him. He was a bit humdrum for her, they'd say, strange the pair of them got together in the first place. But what is it they say – opposites attract? She was the one with the money. But imagine leaving the kids, eh? What kind of woman does that? Yeah, times have changed. Mind you, she was generous enough, went to Bergen but let him hang on to the house and that. Poor guy. Works for the local authority, doesn't he? Caseworker or something.

Yeah.

That's probably what they'd say.

Poor guy.

And what is it they see?

A man of average height, dressed in regular clothes. Greying at the temples, round cheeks, childlike skin, hardly any beard and a bashful look in his eyes. His wife was forever saying it,
PÃ¥l, can you try looking at people when you're talking to them, it makes them uneasy when your eyes are flitting all over the place.

PÃ¥l isn't the one who pipes up a lot at parents' meetings. He isn't the one who talks loudest in work. He isn't the one who comes out with fresh ideas. He's never been called intense, never been called conspicuous and never been called dangerous. But he has been called kind, been called good and been called reliable. That was what his wife used to say,
I need you, PÃ¥l, you bring balance to my
life
. Right. Well, suddenly one day you didn't need that any more, did you, Christine?

PÃ¥l has always thought that he sees the world as it is.

Seems like that was a bit too boring for her though, doesn't it?

Eh, Christine? Everything you said you needed, everything you said I represented, all that you needed in your life in order for it to make sense. A husband who arrived home at the same time every day, who kept the household in order and took care of all the day-to-day stuff. You started looking in another direction. And then you just left.

PÃ¥l, I can't do this any more.

You've been so, so very kind.

You've been so, so very dependable.

But I have to go.

You're just going to leave me here?

You'll manage, PÃ¥l.

You're just going to leave the girls?

They'll understand someday, PÃ¥l.

Have you lost your bloody mind?

You're strong, PÃ¥l, remember that.

Pål scratches Zitha behind the ears. Strong? His eyes are dry, like there's a white light against them. Malene is right: he needs to see the doctor. Strong? He's never felt strong. We've just lived, Pål thinks, from one day to the next, we've tried to do as well as we could. Often, when he hears people discussing their lives, it seems like they're talking about a series of choices they've made. It doesn't feel like that to Pål. It feels, for the most part, as though life were a river and he's been a boat. The girls have gotten bigger. Malene has had her gymnastics. She's practically grown up in that hall – palm guards, chalk, glittering leotards, ice packs and perseverance. Tiril has been a tornado, ferocious intensity, with a restlessness to match. They've travelled backwards and forwards to Bergen a couple of times a month and come home with expensive clothes and make-up: love from Mum. Malene has gone along with being driven to the airport, gone along with being picked up again, and Tiril has hated it from day one. Everything to do with her mother is just fuel to an ever raging fire within her.

He knew Christine could be cynical, but that she could actually go ahead and leave the kids, that was cold. Withdraw from their childhood and stake everything on Statoil and that guy from Bergen. Albeit that was PÃ¥l's only consolation: he was left with the kids. The girls had kept things afloat. The drive to gymnastics. The sight of Malene doing backflips, the shouts of the trainer in the hall: Good, Malene! Come on, now straighten up! You need to jump sooner. Wrists straight. Such a shame about that injury; she landed badly on her ankle in the spring, never screamed like that before. She hasn't trained properly since.

Tiril?

Trying to catch her eye, get beyond that wild gaze, never succeeding.

The girls are all he's got. He can't take them over the brink with him. He has to do something, otherwise he may as well put a bullet through his head. Whether or not what he's about to do is a good idea, he doesn't know. But it's the only idea he's got.

Pål halts at the bus stop on Folkeviseveien. He reaches for his inside pocket. ‘There, there, Zitha,' he whispers as he takes out the envelope, ‘Daddy's just going to get rid of this.' He feels the relief as the envelope lands in the bus shelter bin. Together with all the others. It feels like it's taking all the mould along with it, as if his problems were actually over, and he smacks his lips at Zitha, walks out from under the shelter, back up the hill and doesn't cross over until he's reached the back of the high-rises.

They walk along the footpath, the fields enlarging the landscape around them. Zitha is frisky and happy.

‘There, Zitha, there. Go on!'

He walks her every day. Usually up to the fields and forests of Sørmarka, to Hinnaberget, sometimes down to the sea at Møllebukta, but mostly they go to Limahaugen by the Iron Age Farm. Get outdoors, feel like the blood is flowing from Zitha's body over to his. He sees how she tenses up when she picks up the scent of something, sees how her body spurts across the ground. ‘Yeah, yeah, Zitha. Go on!' What he likes most is standing on top of Limahaugen, close to the old cairn, and looking down at Hafrsfjord. The three islands, Prestøy, Somsøy and Kobbholmen, lying
there like three brothers. He and a mate used to go out there when they were small, to Sømsøy, except they called it Bunny Island on account of all the rabbits running around. Long time ago now.

This is what he likes best. Him, with the dog by his side. If anyone was ever going to paint a portrait of him, then this is what would fill the canvas.

But no one, he thinks, has any idea what I'm up to.

Getting close to nine o'clock.

This isn't going to work out, is it?

Below him lies the forest.

He has the blocks of flats to his right, Limahaugen to his left, and on the horizon the telecom tower at Ullandhaug. Once past the flats, the primary school comes into view. Madlavoll. The one he went to so many years ago. The gym, football pitch, the school building. Brand new in the eighties, seems old now, run-down and out of date. Happens to everything. Everything that was modern, forced to become so faded. Pål looks over at the schoolyard. That's where they played football, where the girls jumped rope, they were there, all of them. Jørgen, Lise, Thomas, Jarle, Bülent, Susanne, Anna and Prince. Prince. What a character. That's all we called him, Prince. He was a damn good breakdancer. Him and Inge. They were the first ones in school to do handstands, had to beat the women off with a stick. Then the girls of course, Hilde, Marianne, ah, she was gorgeous. Funny about the girls you never get. They can haunt you for the rest of your life. And Anne Mette, she became an actor, she did, and then there was Odd … Odd Jonas, no … Odd Roger, the guy with the forehead covered in zits, big guy. Yeah, Odd Roger. Something screwed-up there. Wasn't right in the head. Just filled up with hate … and Pesi … He died, didn't he? Yeah, junkie. Popped his clogs.

Strange thinking about the old gang.

Feels painful. And it feels good.

And Hasse – imagine, they were so close in secondary school, for a while they were together day and night, and now? They're embarrassed when they meet. Hasse has become a bit of a minor celebrity, works for the Minister of Culture in Oslo. What would he have said if he knew what Pål was doing now?
Jesus, PÃ¥l. You're
playing with fire. Jesus Christ, PÃ¥l, you're heading into the depths of the forest.

The dog tugs at the leash.

‘Yeah, come on, Zitha,' he says, ‘Come on.'

He's thought a lot about that school reunion. They arrived one by one, face after face, half-forgotten memories dancing in front of his eyes. Ådne from Class 6B worked for the national health service and had lost his wife to cancer. Bjarne from 6C had MS. Kjartan from 6A had become a multi-millionaire, something to do with selling equipment to the oil business. Tine, Mimi and Anja tottered on high heels, drank gin & tonics and white wine and talked about Thomas Dybdahl, Karl Ove Knausgård and George Clooney, and were on the razz for the first time in ages. A lot of the lads turned up with pear-shaped bodies and potbellies and tried as well as they could to chat about football and the old days. All Pål could think about was how everyone had lost. Everyone, including me, has lost. We're losing all the time, and we're losing hard, but at the same time our helplessness shines like small, blushing suns.

PÃ¥l passes the kindergarten. Out of the corner of his eye he sees a moped parked over by the old substation. He speeds up, continues down towards Madlamarkveien, crosses over it and enters the wood on the other side. He doesn't take the tarmac path through the wood, he goes into the pitch darkness. He walks carefully through the ferns, the overgrown scrub, the twisted roots, letting Zitha sniff and lead the way.

He stops for a few seconds and turns his face towards the black tops of the trees. A clear, starry sky hangs above them.

There were other people too. Back in his younger days. People who lived in the darkness. People who dared do things he never would. People who crossed lines. People with wild eyes and clenched fists. The Tjensvoll Gang.

Malene mustn't ever find out about this, he thinks. She must never know what her father was up to.

He's arranged to meet him at nine o'clock.

He’s not exactly a songsmith. But then neither are Dejan, Simon or Vegard. So he’s been responsible for the lyrics. They’re not particularly good, but that’s one of the ones he’s happy with, one of the ones that feels real.

Daniel remembers one time in third year when they had a writer visit the class, wow, like,
oh, so interesting, Mr Writer Dude, wow, did you really begin writing poetry when you were in second year? You read a thick book by a Russian writer, you say? Oh wow, Mr Writer Dude, I’m so impressed.

Makes no difference. No one hears what Simon is singing anyway.

But real.

The lyrics of that one song. At least they’re real.

Oh Lord.

Daniel checks the time again. 20:59

He often wakes up in the middle of the night, ready to burst he’s so aroused. He’ll wake up in the dark feeling like he’s lying in a cold cave far up in the mountains, where ancient water drips down around his naked feral form, where diseased bats sail above his ringing head, where long curtains of stone hang down through the darkness, where blood boils within those black lungs of his, lungs that look like stone furnaces, where indiscernible spears cut through the foul air now and then, spears glistening with silver and grease, where screams are to be heard, long-drawn-out screams, that begin with a faint, barely audible tinnitus in the distance, before growing and gushing towards him like heavy trains, like jets of pain, banging like bolts against his hearing. Then he knows who’s woken, the caveman, the stoneman, the ironman:
He just knows.

20:59

O Lord

A thousand million kilometres beneath the earth.

Sandra. Now.