The Winners, page 37
“She doesn’t want a remarkable life, just a… normal one. Our dad’s a fireman, our mom’s a midwife, we’ve spent our whole childhoods getting told we’re being raised by heroes. The sort of people who run toward fire. But Bobo isn’t a hero, and my sister can probably see that. He wouldn’t run toward fire, he’d run toward her.”
Tobias falls silent with embarrassment when he realizes how silly that might sound. Benji runs his fingers through his long, messy hair and smiles uncomfortably. Neither of them can relax in the lack of words that follows, so Benji looks around and catches sight of a patch of ground on the drive where water has leaked out of a split hosepipe, freezing an area of about one square yard. He goes over, followed by Tobias, and when they get there, out of nowhere Benji grabs hold of Tobias’s top and jerks so hard that Tobias loses his balance and falls to the ground. Benji catches him at the last moment and says:
“You need to think about where you place your feet. Then use my own weight against me.”
Then Benji teaches him how to fight on the ice. You couldn’t find a better teacher.
* * *
Over on the practice ramp Ted finally plucks up the courage to ask Amat:
“What was the NHL draft like?”
Mumble is showing Ture how to move if he wants to be a goalkeeper, but glances anxiously at Amat when he hears the question. He’s pretty certain no one else has dared to ask straight out like that, like a thirteen-year-old with dreams too big to be contained by his chest. Amat fires off another shot, then replies thoughtfully:
“Everyone was the best. You encounter good players here at home, in the league, at training camps, wherever. But everyone you meet over there is the BEST where they come from. They’ve been ready for the draft all their lives. It’s… pressure… a hell of a lot of pressure. That’s the only way I can describe it. Heavier than I’ve ever felt. Like being suffocated.”
Ted fires a puck. Leans on his stick.
“My dad says pressure is a privilege. If you don’t feel pressure, that’s just because you’ve never done anything valuable enough for people to have expectations of you.”
“Can I recruit you as my agent if I get to the next draft?” Amat smiles.
“In a few years’ time you can be my agent!” Ted blurts out, and never in his entire life has he said anything so cocky to another person.
He feels ridiculously ashamed and Amat can’t help admiring that, because he can hear himself in the boy. He remembers the way he used to play hockey before he only played hockey for everyone else’s sake. The next shot he fires off whistles through the air and almost tears the net to pieces.
“I’ll never be able to shoot that hard, no matter how much I practice,” Ted whispers, impressed.
“You don’t need to practice more, you just need to think less,” Amat replies.
* * *
The teammates from Beartown are in a good mood when they leave the house in Hed. Bobo kisses Tess so cautiously on the cheek that Benji mutters:
“I’ve seen people be more sensual when they seal an envelope, Bobo.”
Bobo’s face turns dark pink and even Mumble laughs out loud. He’s never had a gang of friends, has never experienced a day like this, when you just hang out with each other for hours without really doing anything at all. This lack of expectations is new for him, as is the laughter, which is why he drops his guard enough to nod in agreement when Bobo offers to give him a lift home.
“See you at training tomorrow!” Bobo calls out as they drive off, unfortunately so loudly that the lights go on in every house along the street.
The campervan drives off toward Beartown and Mumble goes inside his house, but it’s too late, everyone has already seen who dropped him off. A short while later someone throws a stone through the window of the apartment he shares with his mom. A message from the hockey fans in the area is written on it in red ink, and it is as unimaginative as it is effective:
* * *
“Judas! Die!”
59 Youth
A child died in the hospital today. There are always people who claim it isn’t a child until it’s born, but Hannah has never been able to get her head around that line of reasoning. The grief is the same, and the guilt, if all children are your children, then everything is always your fault.
Late in the evening she’s sitting at her kitchen table at home in Hed, exhausted and worn out from crying, until in the end she’s just empty. One of her colleagues drove her home from the hospital and they didn’t say a word to each other, the only thing Hannah could think about was something Ture asked when he was four or five years old: “Do you get old in Heaven, Mommy?” Hannah didn’t understand the question, so her youngest son reformulated it in frustration: “Do you still have birthdays when you’re dead?” When Hannah admitted that she didn’t know, he whispered disconsolately: “So what happens to the babies who die in their mommies’ tummies if they never get big? Aren’t they allowed to play? Not even in HEAVEN?”
It was one of those moments that hit her extra hard because everything with Ture was the last time. The last child. She’s the mother of four children and that’s enough, oh my, it really is more than enough, but still… something happens to you when you realize that it isn’t a choice anymore. Children never let you forget that you’re growing older. Ture is seven now, Tess seventeen, with him everything is things Hannah won’t do as a mom again, and with her daughter everything is things she’s never done as a mom before. “Small children, small problems, big children, big problems,” one of her colleagues said just after Tess was born, but of course that isn’t true. It’s the mistakes that get bigger. Hannah’s own mistakes.
She rests her forehead on the table. She’s had such a long day, but sadly that’s no excuse, because, as she’s always telling the children: “We don’t make excuses for our behavior in this family.” Our own orders are always the hardest to follow. Several hours have passed since Tess slammed the front door behind her and disappeared, the argument went so fast and it was all Hannah’s fault, she knows that. She arrived home exhausted from the hospital, her feet and lungs aching, even her skin hurt, so she was already close to exploding. It started with her finding a piece of rubber trim on the drive that looked like it had fallen off a car. She might not have thought any more about it if one of the neighbors, the nosy cow who’s always complaining about Ted practicing his shots, hadn’t marched over from her yard to announce that Hannah’s children had had a “party” all afternoon. She might have let that go too, because of course Tobias and Ted denied everything, but even if Ture was old enough to know that you don’t tell tales, he was still young enough to be bribed with chocolate. By the time Hannah had found out from him precisely who had been here and why, and that Tess now had a boyfriend and that they had been alone in the house while her brothers had been in the yard, she was already on her way up the stairs, blinded by anger and fear and the illusion of betrayal.
A long day, no excuse, but one of the most unfair things about having three younger siblings is that the way you’re raised will always be based on expectations. So Tess was punished because she has gotten her parents used to expecting her to be the sensible, reliable one, the one her mother never had to worry about. So Hannah stormed into her room with the very worst of all things a parent can say:
“I expected better from you, Tess!”
That’s really just another way of telling a teenager that she ought to make more of an effort to lower expectations for next time. Hannah knows that, deep down, but this was one of those occasions that almost all parents experience at some point, when we start shouting and can’t stop. Disappointment with our children is always just disappointment with ourselves, and nothing has a longer braking distance than that. So Hannah yelled at her daughter and was totally unprepared for being yelled at in return:
“You haven’t even asked what happened!” her daughter shouted, and instantly regretted not saying what she meant: that her mother hadn’t asked how she felt.
Because her mother ought to know. Everything the daughter has learned about real love has been learned here at home.
“I shouldn’t have to ask! You were supposed to look after your brothers and instead you brought a boy home! And a boy from BEARTOWN, at that! Do you even know what happened today? There was a full-blown fight at the hospital, you could have…,” the mother yelled, and the daughter shot back instantly:
“IF TED AND TOBIAS BROUGHT GIRLS HOME YOU’D JUST BE HAPPY, BUT YOU’RE SHOUTING AT ME? DO YOU THINK YOU OWN ME OR SOMETHING?”
Hannah will claim that she was too exhausted to back down and apologize then, but sadly the truth is that she was simply too proud. Mothers and daughters know how to wound each other in totally unique ways, possibly because daughters often carry the guilt of their mothers’ consciences, until they end up arguing about sins that they haven’t even committed.
“Tobias and Ted can’t get pregnant!” Hannah snapped. That’s how little time it takes to create one of those moments that mothers collect and wake up regretting in the middle of the night.
Children’s screams aren’t their best weapon. Silence is. The only advantage parents have is that it takes kids years to realize that.
“Do you really have such low expectations of me?” Tess whispered.
Then she strode past her mother and walked downstairs, and her mother is so used to this child being the one she doesn’t have to worry about that she didn’t even react at first when the front door slammed shut. She didn’t comprehend what had just happened. But it didn’t open again, her daughter didn’t come back, and by the time Hannah rushed downstairs and out onto the drive, she was gone.
So now Hannah is sitting alone in the kitchen with all her regrets. Johnny hasn’t come home yet, Ted and Ture daren’t even come downstairs, so Tobias ends up doing that. Of course. The child she’s always worried about most, has always had the lowest expectations of.
“Have you called Dad and told him Tess has gone?”
With her forehead still pressed to the table, Hannah mutters:
“No, no, are you crazy? If she’s at Bobo’s he might go over there and…”
She stops herself before she says something stupid, but her son knows exactly what she means anyway. He says nothing for a long while, then sighs:
“That Bobo’s okay, Mom. He’s kind. He adores her.”
“THAT isn’t what this is about…,” his mother says defensively, but the words dry up in her throat when she hears how much she sounds like her own mother.
Tobias doesn’t sit down at the kitchen table, he just touches her shoulder with his fingertips and says:
“What’s that thing Dad always says about hockey players? That stuff about the leash?”
Hannah bites the inside of her cheek and mutters:
“ ‘You have to trust the best ones and let go of them, because if you resist they’ll just chew through their leash and then they’re gone forever…’ ”
“That’s how it is with Tess,” her son says.
Hannah puts her hand over his fingers and makes him squeeze her shoulder tightly before she whispers:
“Is this when I lose my daughter, is that what you’re saying?”
Tobias isn’t smart enough to know the answer, but he is smart enough not to lie, so the only response his mother gets is silence and his nose pressed against her neck.
* * *
There’s no life like the life of young people. No love like first love.
* * *
The campervan rolls into the Hollow and Bobo and Benji drop Amat off outside his apartment. In every locker room they have grown up in, they have been told how important it is to “play your own game” and to “direct the match.” Not stand around waiting for something to happen, but do something yourself.
Amat is all too aware that he ought to apply that to his pride now. He stands there in the parking lot, waiting and hoping for Bobo to ask if he’d like to come and train with the team, instead of simply asking himself. It goes too quickly, like the first kiss or the last “sorry” said to who or whatever you are about to lose, and if you don’t seize the opportunity perhaps you’ll end up spending your whole life wondering what might have been.
But Amat can’t get the words out and Bobo is looking at him with eyes that steadily get more nostalgic and less hopeful. They’ll soon be grown men, and all they will talk about then as each year passes will be more about memories and less about dreams. This is the end of the age when everything is still possible.
Bobo raises his hand in a sad farewell, Benji touches two fingers to one eyebrow in salute. Amat gives a brief nod. It’s been a fun day, a really fun day, one of the last truly carefree days.
* * *
The campervan turns and drives away. Some kids are running around the yard playing with sticks and a tennis ball, and as Bobo drives past they wave and call out to him:
“Are you selling ice cream?”
“Get a real car, you loser!”
“Even child molesters don’t have cars as ugly as that!”
Bobo just laughs, the kids in the Hollow have always been a bit more loudmouthed than everywhere else, but Benji rolls down the window on his side and sticks his head out, and that shuts the children up at once. He jerks the door handle hard, as if he’s about to leap out, making them jump. It takes a moment before their little hearts start beating again, and Benji and Bobo laugh as they drive away. The mouths of the kids behind them start up again at once, all of them arguing with each other, “I wasn’t frightened, YOU were frightened!”
“Do you remember when we were that small?” Bobo grins.
“You were never that fucking small!” Benji grins back.
Bobo has to concede that there’s a degree of truth in that. When he pulls out onto the main road his phone rings, and even if he tries to hide it, his face lights up so much when he sees the name on the screen that he almost drives into a ditch.
“Hi! Hi! No, nothing! Now? Come to mine? Yes, of course… but what about your parents? No, I’m coming, I’m on my way!” he chatters.
Benji sighs when he ends the call.
“If you’re going to get Tess, I’m coming with you. You probably shouldn’t be in Hed on your own if you’re planning to sleep with one of their girls…”
“How did you know it was her?” Bobo wonders, and Benji laughs so hard that the whole car rocks.
“It’s good to see you in love, Bobo. Really good. You deserve it.”
“Seriously?” Bobo whispers uncertainly.
“Seriously,” Benji assures him.
They set off along the road between the two towns and pick Tess up, she’s waiting where the forest ends and the houses haven’t yet started, she couldn’t wait to get out of Hed. She just says she’s had an argument with her mom and Bobo doesn’t ask any questions and she loves him for that, the way he always lets her explain what she wants to explain, no more, no less. Benji drives the campervan back, Bobo sits in the back with Tess’s head on his shoulder, his creaking skeleton trying to contain feelings that are far too big for it.
“Is this going too fast for you?” she whispers.
“Everything has always gone too fast for me, I’m not very quick,” he whispers.
“Will you forgive me when I get really angry with you?” she asks.
“What have I done?” he asks anxiously.
“Nothing. Yet. But sooner or later you’ll do something, if it’s going to be you and me now.”
She feels his heart pound like a jackhammer beneath her cheek.
“You can get as angry as you like, as long as you don’t leave me.”
“Deal,” she whispers.
Then they head into that very first, best silence of a relationship. When everything is safe. When everything is us. One day they will get married and have kids of their own and Tess will say the same thing to Bobo then that she once heard her mom say to her dad: “If we get divorced, I hope we don’t part as friends. I hate it when people say that. If we get divorced as friends, that means we don’t love each other enough to be able to hurt each other anymore. So if you love me, really love me, you need to love me so much that it drives you mad.” He will never stop.
“Bobo?” Benji asks from the driver’s seat as they pass the Beartown town sign.
“Yes?”
“Can I buy this campervan off you?”
“No.”
“What? It’s completely broken down, but hell, I’m starting to like it, it feels like me!”
Tess laughs. Bobo smiles and replies:
“You can’t buy it, Benji. But I can give it to you.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
* * *
There’s no life like youth, no love like first love, no friends like teammates.
60 Talent
Zackell picks Peter up early on Monday morning. Her Jeep is rusty, his old tracksuit top has grown tight, the whole world has gotten older since he was last on his way to watch hockey.
“What’s that?” Zackell asks, nodding at the bag in his hand.
“Bread!”
“Bread?” she says, as if the word were particularly exotic.
He offers her some but she lights a cigar instead. He waits for her to explain where they’re going, but evidently she can’t see any reason to say. They drive for one and a half cigars until he finally loses patience:
“Seriously, Elisabeth? Do you want me to just sit here without you even telling me which player we’re going to look at? If I’m going to be any use, I need to be prepared!”
“Don’t worry, you won’t be much use,” she replies bluntly between two long puffs.
He frowns.
“You said you needed my help?”
“Did I? Maybe I did. But I don’t. It’s enough for you to be here. You can sleep now, the drive’s going to take six hours.”
Tobias falls silent with embarrassment when he realizes how silly that might sound. Benji runs his fingers through his long, messy hair and smiles uncomfortably. Neither of them can relax in the lack of words that follows, so Benji looks around and catches sight of a patch of ground on the drive where water has leaked out of a split hosepipe, freezing an area of about one square yard. He goes over, followed by Tobias, and when they get there, out of nowhere Benji grabs hold of Tobias’s top and jerks so hard that Tobias loses his balance and falls to the ground. Benji catches him at the last moment and says:
“You need to think about where you place your feet. Then use my own weight against me.”
Then Benji teaches him how to fight on the ice. You couldn’t find a better teacher.
* * *
Over on the practice ramp Ted finally plucks up the courage to ask Amat:
“What was the NHL draft like?”
Mumble is showing Ture how to move if he wants to be a goalkeeper, but glances anxiously at Amat when he hears the question. He’s pretty certain no one else has dared to ask straight out like that, like a thirteen-year-old with dreams too big to be contained by his chest. Amat fires off another shot, then replies thoughtfully:
“Everyone was the best. You encounter good players here at home, in the league, at training camps, wherever. But everyone you meet over there is the BEST where they come from. They’ve been ready for the draft all their lives. It’s… pressure… a hell of a lot of pressure. That’s the only way I can describe it. Heavier than I’ve ever felt. Like being suffocated.”
Ted fires a puck. Leans on his stick.
“My dad says pressure is a privilege. If you don’t feel pressure, that’s just because you’ve never done anything valuable enough for people to have expectations of you.”
“Can I recruit you as my agent if I get to the next draft?” Amat smiles.
“In a few years’ time you can be my agent!” Ted blurts out, and never in his entire life has he said anything so cocky to another person.
He feels ridiculously ashamed and Amat can’t help admiring that, because he can hear himself in the boy. He remembers the way he used to play hockey before he only played hockey for everyone else’s sake. The next shot he fires off whistles through the air and almost tears the net to pieces.
“I’ll never be able to shoot that hard, no matter how much I practice,” Ted whispers, impressed.
“You don’t need to practice more, you just need to think less,” Amat replies.
* * *
The teammates from Beartown are in a good mood when they leave the house in Hed. Bobo kisses Tess so cautiously on the cheek that Benji mutters:
“I’ve seen people be more sensual when they seal an envelope, Bobo.”
Bobo’s face turns dark pink and even Mumble laughs out loud. He’s never had a gang of friends, has never experienced a day like this, when you just hang out with each other for hours without really doing anything at all. This lack of expectations is new for him, as is the laughter, which is why he drops his guard enough to nod in agreement when Bobo offers to give him a lift home.
“See you at training tomorrow!” Bobo calls out as they drive off, unfortunately so loudly that the lights go on in every house along the street.
The campervan drives off toward Beartown and Mumble goes inside his house, but it’s too late, everyone has already seen who dropped him off. A short while later someone throws a stone through the window of the apartment he shares with his mom. A message from the hockey fans in the area is written on it in red ink, and it is as unimaginative as it is effective:
* * *
“Judas! Die!”
59 Youth
A child died in the hospital today. There are always people who claim it isn’t a child until it’s born, but Hannah has never been able to get her head around that line of reasoning. The grief is the same, and the guilt, if all children are your children, then everything is always your fault.
Late in the evening she’s sitting at her kitchen table at home in Hed, exhausted and worn out from crying, until in the end she’s just empty. One of her colleagues drove her home from the hospital and they didn’t say a word to each other, the only thing Hannah could think about was something Ture asked when he was four or five years old: “Do you get old in Heaven, Mommy?” Hannah didn’t understand the question, so her youngest son reformulated it in frustration: “Do you still have birthdays when you’re dead?” When Hannah admitted that she didn’t know, he whispered disconsolately: “So what happens to the babies who die in their mommies’ tummies if they never get big? Aren’t they allowed to play? Not even in HEAVEN?”
It was one of those moments that hit her extra hard because everything with Ture was the last time. The last child. She’s the mother of four children and that’s enough, oh my, it really is more than enough, but still… something happens to you when you realize that it isn’t a choice anymore. Children never let you forget that you’re growing older. Ture is seven now, Tess seventeen, with him everything is things Hannah won’t do as a mom again, and with her daughter everything is things she’s never done as a mom before. “Small children, small problems, big children, big problems,” one of her colleagues said just after Tess was born, but of course that isn’t true. It’s the mistakes that get bigger. Hannah’s own mistakes.
She rests her forehead on the table. She’s had such a long day, but sadly that’s no excuse, because, as she’s always telling the children: “We don’t make excuses for our behavior in this family.” Our own orders are always the hardest to follow. Several hours have passed since Tess slammed the front door behind her and disappeared, the argument went so fast and it was all Hannah’s fault, she knows that. She arrived home exhausted from the hospital, her feet and lungs aching, even her skin hurt, so she was already close to exploding. It started with her finding a piece of rubber trim on the drive that looked like it had fallen off a car. She might not have thought any more about it if one of the neighbors, the nosy cow who’s always complaining about Ted practicing his shots, hadn’t marched over from her yard to announce that Hannah’s children had had a “party” all afternoon. She might have let that go too, because of course Tobias and Ted denied everything, but even if Ture was old enough to know that you don’t tell tales, he was still young enough to be bribed with chocolate. By the time Hannah had found out from him precisely who had been here and why, and that Tess now had a boyfriend and that they had been alone in the house while her brothers had been in the yard, she was already on her way up the stairs, blinded by anger and fear and the illusion of betrayal.
A long day, no excuse, but one of the most unfair things about having three younger siblings is that the way you’re raised will always be based on expectations. So Tess was punished because she has gotten her parents used to expecting her to be the sensible, reliable one, the one her mother never had to worry about. So Hannah stormed into her room with the very worst of all things a parent can say:
“I expected better from you, Tess!”
That’s really just another way of telling a teenager that she ought to make more of an effort to lower expectations for next time. Hannah knows that, deep down, but this was one of those occasions that almost all parents experience at some point, when we start shouting and can’t stop. Disappointment with our children is always just disappointment with ourselves, and nothing has a longer braking distance than that. So Hannah yelled at her daughter and was totally unprepared for being yelled at in return:
“You haven’t even asked what happened!” her daughter shouted, and instantly regretted not saying what she meant: that her mother hadn’t asked how she felt.
Because her mother ought to know. Everything the daughter has learned about real love has been learned here at home.
“I shouldn’t have to ask! You were supposed to look after your brothers and instead you brought a boy home! And a boy from BEARTOWN, at that! Do you even know what happened today? There was a full-blown fight at the hospital, you could have…,” the mother yelled, and the daughter shot back instantly:
“IF TED AND TOBIAS BROUGHT GIRLS HOME YOU’D JUST BE HAPPY, BUT YOU’RE SHOUTING AT ME? DO YOU THINK YOU OWN ME OR SOMETHING?”
Hannah will claim that she was too exhausted to back down and apologize then, but sadly the truth is that she was simply too proud. Mothers and daughters know how to wound each other in totally unique ways, possibly because daughters often carry the guilt of their mothers’ consciences, until they end up arguing about sins that they haven’t even committed.
“Tobias and Ted can’t get pregnant!” Hannah snapped. That’s how little time it takes to create one of those moments that mothers collect and wake up regretting in the middle of the night.
Children’s screams aren’t their best weapon. Silence is. The only advantage parents have is that it takes kids years to realize that.
“Do you really have such low expectations of me?” Tess whispered.
Then she strode past her mother and walked downstairs, and her mother is so used to this child being the one she doesn’t have to worry about that she didn’t even react at first when the front door slammed shut. She didn’t comprehend what had just happened. But it didn’t open again, her daughter didn’t come back, and by the time Hannah rushed downstairs and out onto the drive, she was gone.
So now Hannah is sitting alone in the kitchen with all her regrets. Johnny hasn’t come home yet, Ted and Ture daren’t even come downstairs, so Tobias ends up doing that. Of course. The child she’s always worried about most, has always had the lowest expectations of.
“Have you called Dad and told him Tess has gone?”
With her forehead still pressed to the table, Hannah mutters:
“No, no, are you crazy? If she’s at Bobo’s he might go over there and…”
She stops herself before she says something stupid, but her son knows exactly what she means anyway. He says nothing for a long while, then sighs:
“That Bobo’s okay, Mom. He’s kind. He adores her.”
“THAT isn’t what this is about…,” his mother says defensively, but the words dry up in her throat when she hears how much she sounds like her own mother.
Tobias doesn’t sit down at the kitchen table, he just touches her shoulder with his fingertips and says:
“What’s that thing Dad always says about hockey players? That stuff about the leash?”
Hannah bites the inside of her cheek and mutters:
“ ‘You have to trust the best ones and let go of them, because if you resist they’ll just chew through their leash and then they’re gone forever…’ ”
“That’s how it is with Tess,” her son says.
Hannah puts her hand over his fingers and makes him squeeze her shoulder tightly before she whispers:
“Is this when I lose my daughter, is that what you’re saying?”
Tobias isn’t smart enough to know the answer, but he is smart enough not to lie, so the only response his mother gets is silence and his nose pressed against her neck.
* * *
There’s no life like the life of young people. No love like first love.
* * *
The campervan rolls into the Hollow and Bobo and Benji drop Amat off outside his apartment. In every locker room they have grown up in, they have been told how important it is to “play your own game” and to “direct the match.” Not stand around waiting for something to happen, but do something yourself.
Amat is all too aware that he ought to apply that to his pride now. He stands there in the parking lot, waiting and hoping for Bobo to ask if he’d like to come and train with the team, instead of simply asking himself. It goes too quickly, like the first kiss or the last “sorry” said to who or whatever you are about to lose, and if you don’t seize the opportunity perhaps you’ll end up spending your whole life wondering what might have been.
But Amat can’t get the words out and Bobo is looking at him with eyes that steadily get more nostalgic and less hopeful. They’ll soon be grown men, and all they will talk about then as each year passes will be more about memories and less about dreams. This is the end of the age when everything is still possible.
Bobo raises his hand in a sad farewell, Benji touches two fingers to one eyebrow in salute. Amat gives a brief nod. It’s been a fun day, a really fun day, one of the last truly carefree days.
* * *
The campervan turns and drives away. Some kids are running around the yard playing with sticks and a tennis ball, and as Bobo drives past they wave and call out to him:
“Are you selling ice cream?”
“Get a real car, you loser!”
“Even child molesters don’t have cars as ugly as that!”
Bobo just laughs, the kids in the Hollow have always been a bit more loudmouthed than everywhere else, but Benji rolls down the window on his side and sticks his head out, and that shuts the children up at once. He jerks the door handle hard, as if he’s about to leap out, making them jump. It takes a moment before their little hearts start beating again, and Benji and Bobo laugh as they drive away. The mouths of the kids behind them start up again at once, all of them arguing with each other, “I wasn’t frightened, YOU were frightened!”
“Do you remember when we were that small?” Bobo grins.
“You were never that fucking small!” Benji grins back.
Bobo has to concede that there’s a degree of truth in that. When he pulls out onto the main road his phone rings, and even if he tries to hide it, his face lights up so much when he sees the name on the screen that he almost drives into a ditch.
“Hi! Hi! No, nothing! Now? Come to mine? Yes, of course… but what about your parents? No, I’m coming, I’m on my way!” he chatters.
Benji sighs when he ends the call.
“If you’re going to get Tess, I’m coming with you. You probably shouldn’t be in Hed on your own if you’re planning to sleep with one of their girls…”
“How did you know it was her?” Bobo wonders, and Benji laughs so hard that the whole car rocks.
“It’s good to see you in love, Bobo. Really good. You deserve it.”
“Seriously?” Bobo whispers uncertainly.
“Seriously,” Benji assures him.
They set off along the road between the two towns and pick Tess up, she’s waiting where the forest ends and the houses haven’t yet started, she couldn’t wait to get out of Hed. She just says she’s had an argument with her mom and Bobo doesn’t ask any questions and she loves him for that, the way he always lets her explain what she wants to explain, no more, no less. Benji drives the campervan back, Bobo sits in the back with Tess’s head on his shoulder, his creaking skeleton trying to contain feelings that are far too big for it.
“Is this going too fast for you?” she whispers.
“Everything has always gone too fast for me, I’m not very quick,” he whispers.
“Will you forgive me when I get really angry with you?” she asks.
“What have I done?” he asks anxiously.
“Nothing. Yet. But sooner or later you’ll do something, if it’s going to be you and me now.”
She feels his heart pound like a jackhammer beneath her cheek.
“You can get as angry as you like, as long as you don’t leave me.”
“Deal,” she whispers.
Then they head into that very first, best silence of a relationship. When everything is safe. When everything is us. One day they will get married and have kids of their own and Tess will say the same thing to Bobo then that she once heard her mom say to her dad: “If we get divorced, I hope we don’t part as friends. I hate it when people say that. If we get divorced as friends, that means we don’t love each other enough to be able to hurt each other anymore. So if you love me, really love me, you need to love me so much that it drives you mad.” He will never stop.
“Bobo?” Benji asks from the driver’s seat as they pass the Beartown town sign.
“Yes?”
“Can I buy this campervan off you?”
“No.”
“What? It’s completely broken down, but hell, I’m starting to like it, it feels like me!”
Tess laughs. Bobo smiles and replies:
“You can’t buy it, Benji. But I can give it to you.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
* * *
There’s no life like youth, no love like first love, no friends like teammates.
60 Talent
Zackell picks Peter up early on Monday morning. Her Jeep is rusty, his old tracksuit top has grown tight, the whole world has gotten older since he was last on his way to watch hockey.
“What’s that?” Zackell asks, nodding at the bag in his hand.
“Bread!”
“Bread?” she says, as if the word were particularly exotic.
He offers her some but she lights a cigar instead. He waits for her to explain where they’re going, but evidently she can’t see any reason to say. They drive for one and a half cigars until he finally loses patience:
“Seriously, Elisabeth? Do you want me to just sit here without you even telling me which player we’re going to look at? If I’m going to be any use, I need to be prepared!”
“Don’t worry, you won’t be much use,” she replies bluntly between two long puffs.
He frowns.
“You said you needed my help?”
“Did I? Maybe I did. But I don’t. It’s enough for you to be here. You can sleep now, the drive’s going to take six hours.”
