Ю Несбё - The Jealousy Man and Other Stories

‘The whole point is to get away from the husband and kids for a while.’

‘I could sit at another table.’

‘Amund!’

Don’t hold so hard, I thought. Don’t get cramp in your hand, you’ll lose all feeling, you won’t be able to feel the string.

After letting myself into the house alone I went up to the bedroom and began to rummage through the drawer where Wenche kept her trinkets. I opened jewellers’ boxes and saw rings and gold chains. One of them looked new and I couldn’t remember having seen it before. Then I looked through the earrings. First there was an empty box — that was probably where she kept those silver things she was wearing this evening. Then a pair of unusual-looking pearl earrings with a blue ring that encircled the grey pearls like a narrow equator. She’d got them from her father and called them her Saturn studs. But I didn’t find the earrings I had given her, nor the box they came in. I looked in the other drawers. In the wardrobe. Her toilet bag, her handbags, the pockets of her jackets and trousers. Nothing. What could it mean?

I went into the kitchen, took a beer from the fridge and sat at the kitchen table. I had no proof. I couldn’t be certain, but all the same I knew there was no way round it now. I would have to look through all those half-thoughts I’d been thinking but dismissing and postponing until I found the box with the other stud in it. Until I could be certain.

It wasn’t really the suspicion that Wenche had been fooling around in the back seat that bothered me most. It was Palle denying that Wenche had been in the car at all last night. Why would he lie about that? There were only two possible answers. That he didn’t want to gossip, and perhaps she’d even asked him not to. Or that Palle himself had been the other occupant of the back seat. And once that possibility was raised I couldn’t block out the rest of it either. I visualised Palle’s little arse pumping up and down on Wenche, who was shouting out his name the way she had shouted mine down the football pitch, and continued to do so that first year, until we got married. The mental image made me nauseous. It truly did. Wenche was the best and the worst that had happened to me, but — and this was more important — she was the only thing that had happened to me. Not that I’d been a virgin when I met her, but the others had been the ones anyone could have. Wenche had been the only woman who improved my self-image just by allowing me to screw her. As time went by and it became ever clearer to her that she could have done better than me, naturally she made a point of obliging me to ratchet my self-image back down again. But never back down to the level it had been at before I met her. Wenche was and remained my helium balloon. As long as I held on tight to the string I felt a little lighter, I had a little more lift.

The way I looked at it I had two options. To confront her with the findings and facts. Or keep my mouth shut and just carry on as before. The first option carried the risk of losing both her and the job — at least, if it was Palle who’d been screwing her.

Option two would involve the risk of a loss of self-respect.

My immediate preference was for option two.

But option one, confrontation, naturally also included the possibility that she could invent a completely different explanation for how the earring had ended up between the seats. An explanation I would be able to convince myself was credible. An explanation that meant I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of my life imagining Palle’s ageing but still firm football arse. And maybe the fact that I had confronted her, shown her that I was willing to risk everything, would make her bloody well understand that I was not just somebody who waited around for things to happen to me, that I could act, I could be master of my own fate. That it wasn’t my bloody fault that the licence regulations are the way they are.

Right. I would have to confront her.

I opened another beer and waited. Sweated and waited.

There was a picture of us with our gang on the fridge. It was taken eight years ago, at the wedding, and we all looked so young, younger than those eight years would suggest. Jesus, how proud I was that day. And happy. I believe I can say that: happy. Because I was still at the age when you think that every good thing that happens to you is the start of something, not the end. The thought never occurs that this day, those months, maybe that single year, is all the happiness life has to offer you. I had no fucking idea I was at the top, so I hadn’t taken the time to savour the view but carried on in the belief that there were new heights to be reached. I had seen that picture hanging there for a few thousand days, but this evening it made me weep. Yes it did. I wept.

I checked the time. Eleven. Opened another beer. It eased the pain, but only a bit.

I was about to open a fourth when the phone rang.

I answered in a flash, it had to be Wenche.

‘Sorry for disturbing you this late,’ said a female voice. ‘My name is Eirin Hansen. Is this Amund Stenseth, the taxi driver?’

‘Yes?’

‘I got your number from Palle Ibsen. I believe you might have found the earring I lost in his cab yesterday evening?’

‘What kind...?’

‘An ordinary pearl stud,’ said Eirin Hansen. And if she’d been standing there in my kitchen I would have put my arms around her. My inner jubilation was so great I thought she had to be able to hear it.

‘I’ve got it,’ I said.

‘Oh, what a relief! It was a present from my mother.’

‘Well then, I’m extra pleased I found it,’ said I, and thought how fantastic it was that I could be sharing so much joy and relief over the phone with Eirin Hansen, a complete stranger to me.

‘Isn’t it strange,’ I said, ‘how when you get bad news one day that turns out to be wrong, the day becomes even better than it was before you got the bad news?’

‘I’ve never thought about it but yes, you might be right,’ she said with a laugh.

I know it was the euphoria, but I thought Eirin Hansen’s laughter sounded so good, she sounded like a nice person. In fact, she even sounded as if she was quite beautiful.

‘Where and when can I, er... pick up the earring?’

For a moment I was on the point of suggesting I take it to her there and then, wherever she was, before I regained control of the thoughts and feelings that were racing through me.

‘I’m driving a day shift tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Call me and I’ll let you know when I’m at the taxi rank by the kiosk near the steps, or at least nearly there.’

‘That’s wonderful! Thank you so much, Amund!’

‘No problem, Eirin.’

We ended the call. And with the joy still singing away inside me I drank the rest of the beer.

It was gone midnight by the time Wenche crept into bed. She probably knew I wasn’t asleep, but she kept very quiet and moved around very carefully. I heard her lying down behind my back and sort of hold her breath, as if she was listening to mine. Then I fell asleep.

Next day I woke up bright and raring to go.

‘What’s up with you?’ Wenche asked over breakfast.

‘Nothing.’ I smiled. ‘You’re still not wearing my earrings.’

‘Will you stop going on about those?’ she groaned. ‘I lent them to Torill, she thought they looked so good on me and asked if she could borrow them for the office party. I’m meeting her tonight and I’ll get them back then, OK?’

‘It’s nice that other people think they suit you,’ I said.

She gave me a funny look as I drained the rest of my coffee and with wings on my heels almost flew out the room.

I felt like a teenager on his first date, excited and afraid at the same time.