The Wolves of Eternity, page 34
He knew.
‘Yes?’ he said, and carried on eating.
‘Well, I got the results today and they say that I’m ill and that I’ll have to go to Oslo for treatment.’
‘You’ve got cancer.’
Her eyes moistened as she nodded.
‘It’ll be all right,’ I said. ‘Mum’s going to get better again.’
‘Is it lung cancer?’
‘Yes,’ said Mum.
‘Lung cancer kills you.’
‘Listen, Joar,’ I said. ‘It’s not as straightforward as that. A lot of people get well again, a lot. The treatments are really effective now.’
He didn’t say anything.
Mum and I exchanged glances.
What do we do now? her eyes said.
Strangely, I felt bolstered. She was acknowledging me.
‘Thanks for dinner,’ said Joar. He got to his feet and took his things over to the sink.
‘Where are you going?’ I said.
‘To my room.’
‘What about your ice lolly?’
‘I’ll have it later,’ he said, and went up the stairs.
Mum sighed.
‘He’ll be all right,’ I said. ‘He just needs some time on his own.’
‘Talk to him about it, will you?’
‘Of course I will. It won’t be easy, though.’
‘I know it won’t. But he listens, even if he pretends he doesn’t.’
I didn’t say anything, but could only be doubtful.
‘He never wanted to be cuddled or made a fuss of when he was little, the way you did. But I never gave up, because I knew he wanted to really. When I used to sing to him, he’d sit on my lap and drink his milk, but always facing away from me, and I’d stroke his back, it was the only physical contact he allowed. It’s the same now, in a way. He wants us to try and get through to him. Do you understand?’
‘Yes.’
She smiled and wiped her eyes quickly with the tip of a finger, first one, then the other.
‘He needs me a good many years yet. You’re grown up, Syvert, you can look after yourself. But Joar can’t.’
‘Don’t think like that, Mum. The next couple of months are going to be a bit rough, but then you’ll get better again and everything will be like it was before. I’m sure of it.’
* * *
*
Joar was sitting at his desk doing his homework when I went into his room. It looked like it was geometry, there was a pair of compasses and a ruler next to the two books he had open in front of him.
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ he said.
‘That’s all right, we don’t have to,’ I said. ‘I just wanted to check how you were doing.’
‘I’m doing fine.’
‘Good. Geometry, is it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is it difficult?’
‘It’s a piece of cake.’
I sat down on his bed. He threw me a disapproving glance.
‘What do you want, exactly?’
‘Nothing in particular,’ I said.
He wrote something down in his rough book, then opened his exercise book, switched from pencil to pen and began to copy what he’d written. I could hear Mum’s voice downstairs, she was on the phone to someone, probably Gro or Jorunn.
It felt impossible even to talk to him. I couldn’t understand why. So much of what I said seemed simply to pass through him, diffusing without trace, and nothing ever seemed to come back the other way.
‘When Mum goes into hospital, we’ll be on our own here,’ I said. ‘I don’t know how long it’ll be, but a couple of weeks, at least. Is that all right?’
‘Yes.’
‘We can go to the swimming baths, you know that. And we can go out in the canoe. We can do a bit of shooting as well, if you want. I’ve been thinking about what we talked about, that you could join a club. I could have a word with Vidar about it. I think it’d be a really good idea.’
He sat in concentration while writing, then picked up the pair of compasses and drew a circle before placing the ruler on the page.
‘We can rent some videos too. It doesn’t have to be the weekend for that. And I’ll make something nice for our tea every day. How does that sound?’
‘I’m doing my homework,’ he said.
I got up.
‘Everything’s going to be fine, you’ll see,’ I said. I stood still for a few seconds until realising he wasn’t going to answer, then left him and went downstairs. Mum was sitting on the chair in the hall, the receiver wedged between her shoulder and cheek, uttering an occasional mm, aha or I know as she rolled a cigarette.
She glanced up at me. I wagged a finger at her. She smiled meekly, nodded and put the tobacco pouch down on the telephone table.
The dishes were done. The living room was tidied. The laundry bin was empty. I still had to finish my book, but I could read before I went to sleep.
The thought of the letters that ever since I’d hidden them away had glowed like burning embers in the cupboard, as if they were magic and had been drawing me towards them, now only made me feel like throwing up.
‘Syvert?’ Mum said from the hall. I turned round and went to see what she wanted. She held the receiver clasped to her chest now. ‘Haven’t you got football practice tonight?’
‘Normally, yes,’ I said. ‘I just thought . . . well, I thought I’d give it a miss and make sure you’re all right.’
‘No, I’m all right. You get yourself away!’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, of course.’
She put the receiver to her ear again and carried on her conversation.
Was she just saying it for my sake or did she mean it?
I’d have to take her word for it, I reckoned, packed my holdall and went out to the car. It was early yet, but that was OK, it felt good to be getting out for a while.
* * *
*
When practice was over, as we traipsed back to the changing room, I came up alongside Vegard.
‘How’s it going?’ I said.
‘Good. You? Not seen much of you lately.’
‘I’m fine. A bit strapped for cash, that’s all. I was thinking, that uncle of yours you mentioned. The one with the undertaking business. Is that job still going, do you know?’
‘No idea. It wouldn’t surprise me, though. He’s always saying how hard it is to get hold of people.’
‘I can see that.’
‘Are you desperate?’
‘I am a bit, to be honest. And it can’t be that bad, surely? It’d only be for a few months.’
‘I’ll ask.’
‘Or maybe you could give me his number? I could do it myself then.’
‘It’s in the book. Kristian Emanuelsen.’
* * *
*
I rang the next morning, while Mum was upstairs having a rest and Joar was at school.
I presented myself as a friend of Vegard and he knew who I was straight away. He was still a man short, and it was basically just a question of when I could start.
‘It’s the Whit holiday this Monday coming,’ he said. ‘How about Tuesday?’
‘That’d be great,’ I said. ‘What time do you start in the mornings?’
‘You can come in at nine. You’ve got a driving licence, of course?’
‘Of course.’
‘What about a suit? Have you got one?’
‘I’m afraid I haven’t, no. Do I need one?’
‘It’s what we wear. I’ll have a look, I might have something lying about you can use until you get sorted. See you Tuesday, then.’
‘There’s no interview?’
‘No need. I trust Vegard. He says you’re a good lad. Not his words exactly, but that’s what he meant. So it won’t be necessary.’
It wasn’t until I’d put the receiver down that I realised he hadn’t mentioned how much I’d be getting. I assumed there was a standard rate they stuck to. And it couldn’t be that badly paid.
I’d have money coming in every month for a while. I’d be able to help Mum out financially. But I didn’t know what to say to her. It didn’t feel right somehow, working for an undertaker when she was seriously ill. On the other hand, lying about it wouldn’t feel right either. Besides, it’d never work. A thing like that would be impossible to keep secret.
I went up to the barn and got the garden table out, it was wrought iron and heavy as hell, but I managed to lug it into the garden, or more exactly the narrow strip of grass round the back where we’d always put it when summer came. The tulips stood brightly in the flower bed up against the wall of the house. The apple trees would soon be thick with foliage. And the fields, until recently a muddy black, were now tinged green beneath the blue sky.
I put four chairs out too, before going back in and getting some coffee on the go for her.
‘Mum?’ I called up when it was ready. ‘Coffee’s made!’
If she was asleep, it’d be quite annoying to be woken up like that. But it was better for her to sit out in the sunlight and fresh air than to lie festering in that dim and clammy bedroom.
Ten minutes later we were sitting in the garden, each with a mug of coffee and a plate of plain biscuits on the table between us.
‘How are you feeling?’ I said. ‘Are you still in pain?’
‘My back still hurts a bit, yes. But the good news is they’re taking me in next week.’
‘Are they? That’s brilliant!’ I said as enthusiastically as I could. The news wasn’t that good at all, I reckoned. If they were taking her in that quickly, it meant she was a priority, which in turn could only mean she was bad.
‘How are you going to get there?’
‘Oh, I’ll take the coach. That’s the easiest.’
‘Wouldn’t it be better to fly? It only takes half an hour. I mean, if your back’s hurting and everything.’
‘It’s too expensive, you know that.’
I snapped a biscuit in half and dipped one piece in my coffee before popping it into my mouth. Above the ridge a great cloud lingered, it looked like a snow-covered fell and seemed hardly to be moving. Apart from that, the sky was blue and empty.
Mum looked at it too.
A bird soared, outlined sharply against the white. A hawk of some kind, or a buzzard.
‘The money situation might be looking up now,’ I said. ‘I’ve been looking for a job. There was nothing going at the factory, so I asked at the sports shop where Vidar works, only they had nothing there either. But it turns out Vegard’s uncle has been short-handed for a while. I’ve just spoken to him and he says I can start on Tuesday. So that plane ticket won’t be a problem. It won’t cost that much, and it’ll be a lot easier for you.’
‘Well, there’s good news, Syvert,’ she said. ‘What sort of work is it?’
‘That’s the thing. You might not like the idea, but his uncle’s an undertaker. I don’t know what I’ll be doing there yet. He asked if I had a driving licence, so it might just be driving. The main thing is we’ll have money coming in! Joar and I can come and see you for the weekend.’
‘Do you think you can manage it?’
‘What, coming to see you? Of course we can!’
‘No, I meant working at an undertaker’s. It sounds a bit bleak and horrible. We can always get by on what we’ve got, you know.’
‘A job’s a job, Mum. Can’t be too choosy. Anyway, it’s only for a few months.’
She looked at me and nodded almost imperceptibly. The big cloud seemed now to be balanced on the ridge. The spruce at the top stood outlined against it and took on a winter-like quality. The fire at the Soviet nuclear plant was under control now, I’d read, so presumably there’d be no more radioactivity drifting on the wind. It was all on the ground. In the water, in the fields. In the animals and livestock, in the trees, in the flowers.
‘It will be a big help, though,’ Mum said. ‘Thank you, Syvert. I can think of a lot of jobs a nineteen-year-old would rather have than that.’
‘I’d have taken it on anyway,’ I said. ‘I could do with some cash myself.’
* * *
*
I got so drunk that 17 May that I slept under a rhododendron in the park and woke up shivering and confused, feeling sick and with a thumping pain in my skull. It was six in the morning and two figures were standing over me.
Two policemen in uniform.
‘You can’t sleep here,’ one of them said when I peered up at them.
‘No, no, of course not,’ I said, and sat up. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll go home now.’
‘Do you live nearby?’
‘Outside town, a bit of a way. I’ll be all right, though. I’ll get the bus.’
The answer satisfied them and they went on their way side by side. A bit further along, one of them turned his head and looked back at me, presumably to make sure I hadn’t gone back to sleep.
On my way to the bus station I discovered I had no money on me. I couldn’t even ring anyone. I’d have to hitch it. Only there were no cars about, it was six o’clock in the morning, the day after the national day festivities.
As if that wasn’t enough, it started to rain. No more than a light drizzle, but freezing cold nonetheless.
I walked down to the railway station and sat down in the empty waiting room, leaned back against the wall and fell asleep again.
When I woke up, it was gone ten o’clock and half a dozen others were sitting there too. I’d said to Mum I could stay the night at a friend’s house if it got late, so I didn’t suppose she’d be worried or angry.
If only I could get my hands on a coin so I could ring someone and get them to come and pick me up.
I went over to the phone box outside, checked the coin return, the shelf, the floor. People often lost coins in a phone box, but I found nothing. I carried on towards the bus station. There was an empty cola bottle in a bin, and when I decided to have a scavenge around the ferry terminal I managed to find several beer bottles too. I got the money back for them at the Narvesen.
I tried Dag first.
‘You owe me one,’ I said, looking out across the harbour while trying not to breathe through my nose, the phone box reeked of piss.
‘Do I?’
‘The interview.’
‘Ah, right. What do I have to do?’
‘Come and pick me up. I’m stranded in town, I’ve got no money for the bus.’
‘Pick you up in town? Now? You must be joking. I don’t love you that much.’
‘Come on. I’d do the same for you.’
‘That’s easy enough to say. Anyway, I can’t. I had loads to drink last night and if the police are only out once a year with their roadside breathalysers, you can be sure it’s going to be the morning after the seventeenth of May.’
‘Thanks for nothing, you shit,’ I said, and hung up.
There was no one else I could ask, not really. Karsten, Glenn, Vegard, Keith and Gjert had all been as drunk as me, or nearly, and none of them would be capable of driving now. Terje? I didn’t know him well enough.
So I rang Mum, last resort.
She didn’t sound pleased, but said she’d come.
To kill time, I wandered through the streets with my hands in my pockets, eyes scouring the pavement in front of me in case anyone had lost some coins or even their wallet.
We’d had breakfast at Tor Egil’s and got started on the beer and spirits there, there’d even been champagne, before going into town to watch the parades. After that, we’d sat drinking on the grass by the old fortifications and then headed off to Sundown, eventually ending up at the trade-union penthouse Glenn had the keys to.
I’d been on the lookout for Lisa all day. Everyone was in town, so she was bound to be too. And then, suddenly, in the middle of a crowd on the other side of the street, I caught sight of her. I weaved my way towards her, stopping for a marching band, thinking I could cross the street after they’d passed, before the next one came, but then I saw she was with someone. She dipped her head to the lighter he held out in his hand, and when she straightened up again and took her cigarette out of her mouth, she smiled at him and he put his hand on her shoulder. He was a lot older than her, twenty-five or thereabouts. He was quite short and had a moustache and curly hair that looked like it had been permed, black cowboy boots with a heel. I ducked so she wouldn’t see me, wheeled round and went back the way I’d come, to the corner of the street where the others still stood, easy to pick out with Karsten towering over everyone.
That was why she hadn’t rung, obviously. She’d got a new boyfriend.
It was nothing to get depressed about, I had no chance with her anyway. Best just to get on without her and not look back.
So I drank and had a laugh with the rest of the lads. I remembered more or less everything clearly until we got to the penthouse, it was packed with people, but the time between then and waking up in the park was a blank.
I must have decided to go home or gone out looking for Lisa, the sort of thing you did when you were as pissed as that.
I only hoped I hadn’t told anyone about her.
It was a futile hope. The mouth speaks what the heart is full of. Especially when you’re pissed out of your mind.
I turned down towards the harbour again. It had stopped raining, but the ground was still wet. The cobbles were as if membraned by the light of the overcast sky. The Denmark ferry lay with its engines rumbling and the stern door gaping. Some lorries had already gone on board, I could see, while a handful of private cars were lined up waiting.
An idea I’d entertained a few times, to take the ferry to Denmark and pay to have sex with a prostitute, came back to me. There couldn’t be that many nineteen-year-olds who were still virgins. I certainly didn’t know any. It was Keith who’d put the thought in my head, he’d said that Norwegian prostitutes were all junkies, whereas in Denmark they were a different class altogether.
