Ю Несбё - The Kingdom

She smiled, turned and began walking back the way we had come. ‘That’s a lot. But the dotterel was here first.’

The power went just before bedtime.

I was sitting in the kitchen looking over printouts of the most recent accounts. Working out how head office would discount future profits and price the station in the event of a sale. I had worked out that with ten million I would not only manage to buy a ten-year franchise but the whole shooting match, buildings and land included. Then I would really own my own station.

I stood up and looked down over the village. No light down there either. Good, so that meant the problem wasn’t up here. I took a couple of paces in the direction of the living-room door, opened it and peered out into the pitch darkness.

‘Hello,’ I called out experimentally.

‘Hi,’ came the response in unison from Carl and Shannon.

I fumbled my way to Mum’s rocking chair. Sat down. The rockers creaked against the floor planking. Shannon giggled. They’d had a drink.

‘Sorry about this,’ I said. ‘It isn’t us, it’s… them.’

‘Doesn’t bother me,’ said Shannon. ‘When I was a kid there were power cuts all the time.’

I said into the darkness: ‘Is it poor, Barbados?’

‘No,’ said Shannon. ‘It’s one of the richest Caribbean islands. But where I grew up there were so many people cable hooking … what do you call that in Norwegian?’

‘Actually I don’t think we have a word for it,’ said Carl.

‘They stole electricity by connecting up to the mains. And that made the whole net unstable. I got used to the idea. You know, that everything can disappear, at any time.’

Something told me she wasn’t just talking about electricity. About home and family, maybe? She hadn’t given up until she’d found the dotterel’s nest, and then she’d stuck a twig in the ground so we wouldn’t tread on it the next time.

‘Tell us about it,’ I said.

For a few moments the silence in the darkness was complete.

Then she gave a low laugh, as though excusing herself. ‘Why don’t you tell us instead, Roy?’

What surprised me was that even though she never got the wrong Norwegian word or made a mistake in the syntax, her accent still made you think of her as a foreigner. Or maybe it was that meal she’d made. That mofongo , some Caribbean dish.

‘Yeah, let Roy tell us, he’s good at telling stories in the dark. He used to do it for me when I couldn’t get to sleep.’

When you couldn’t get to sleep because you were crying , I thought. When I climbed down into your bed, after it was over, and put my arms around you, felt your skin so warm against mine, and told you not to think about it, just think about the story I’m telling you and let sleep come. And at the same moment as I was thinking that I realised that it wasn’t the accent or the mofongo , it was the fact that she was here, in the dark, with me and Carl. In the dark in our house, the dark that belonged to him and me and no one else.

CARL WAS ALREADY AT THE door, waiting to greet the guests. We heard the first cars struggling up the track towards Geitesvingen, change down, then down again. Shannon gave me a quizzical look when I poured more of the strong stuff into her punchbowl.

‘They like it to taste more moonshine than fruit,’ I said and peered out of the kitchen window.

A Passat stopped in front of the house and six people tumbled out of the five-seater. It was always the same thing; they travelled up in a gang and the women drove. I don’t know why guys think they have priority when it comes to drinking parties like this, or why the girls volunteer to drive even before they’re asked, but that’s the way it is. The lads who came along because they were single or because someone had to stay home and look after the kids did a round of rock paper scissors to decide who drove. When Carl and I were growing up, people drove when they were drunk. Take Dad. But people don’t drink and drive any more. They still beat their wives, but no way would they drink and drive.

There was a banner in the living room with HOMECOMING on it. I thought it was a bit strange because I thought the point of that American custom was that it was family and friends and not the homecoming person himself who was supposed to arrange the party. But Shannon just laughed and said if no one else was going to do it then you had to do it yourself.

‘Let me do the punch,’ said Shannon, who had come up to me as I stood and ladled the mixture of home brew and fruit cocktail into the glasses I’d put out. She was wearing the same outfit as when she arrived, black polo-neck sweater and black trousers. I mean, probably another set of clothes but that looked exactly the same. I don’t know much about clothes, but something told me that hers were of the discreet and exclusive type.

‘Thanks, but I’m quite capable,’ I said.

‘No,’ said the little lady and shoved me aside. ‘Off you go and talk to old friends, while I’ll go round with the glasses and get to know everyone a bit better.’

‘OK,’ I said. I didn’t bother to explain to her that they were Carl’s friends, that I didn’t have friends. But anyway, it was nice to see them all give Carl a hug in the doorway, slap him on the back as though he’d got something stuck in his throat, grin and say some laddish thing they’d worked out on the drive up, a little bit high, a bit shy and ready for a drink.

Me they shook hands with.

Of all things, this was perhaps the biggest difference between my brother and me. These were people whom Carl hadn’t seen for fifteen years, but they’d seen me every other day at the service station, year in and year out. And yet still they felt as though he was the one they knew, not me. Standing there and watching him now, how he relished the warmth and nearness of our friends, things which I had never enjoyed – did I envy him? Well, I guess we all want to be loved. But would I change places? Would I be willing to let people get as close as Carl did? It didn’t seem to cost him anything. But for me the price would have been too high.

‘Hi, Roy. Not often we see you with a beer.’ It was Mari Aas. She was looking good. Mari always looked good, even when she was wheeling her twins around when they had gripe. And I know how much that annoyed the women in town who had been hoping they might finally get to see little Miss Perfect having a hard time of it like the rest of us mere mortals. The girl who had everything. Because as well as the silver spoon in her mouth she was born with, and a brain that got her top marks at school, and the respect that came with her surname Aas, she had the looks to match it all. From her mother Mari Aas inherited the dark glow in her skin and feminine curves, and from her father the blonde hair and the cold, blue, vulpine eyes. And maybe it was those eyes, her sharp tongue and air of superiority and coolness that had kept the boys at an oddly respectful distance.

‘Funny we don’t run into each other more often,’ said Mari. ‘So how are you, really?’

That really was a signal that she didn’t want the standard just-fine-thanks answer, but that she cared, she wanted to know. And I think she really meant it. By nature Mari was friendly and helpful towards people. But still she gave this impression of looking down on you. Of course that might be on account of the fact that she was 180cm tall, but I do remember one time when the three of us were in the car driving home after a dance – me driving, Carl drunk, Mari angry and pissed off – and her saying, ‘Carl, I can’t have a boyfriend who drags me down to the level of everyone else in this town, you do see that?’