Ю Несбё - The Kingdom

But even if she wasn’t happy about the level, it was obvious that it was here she wanted to be. Though she’d been even smarter than Carl at school, she didn’t have the same drive as him, that burning desire to head on out and be somebody. Maybe because she was already up there, floating around on the surface in the sunshine. So it was mostly about staying there. Maybe that was why – after it was over with Carl – she’d just taken a short course in political science – or posh litical science as the locals called it – and then come straight back home with Dan Krane and an engagement ring. And while he started work as editor of the local Labour Party newspaper, she was apparently still working away on a final paper she was clearly never going to finish.

‘Doing OK,’ I said. ‘Did you come alone?’

‘Dan wanted to look after the boys.’

I nodded. Knew that the grandparents next door would have been delighted to help out with the babysitting but that Dan had insisted. I’d seen his expressionless, ascetic face at the service station when he pumped up the tyres on the costly-looking bike he was going to use in the Birken long-distance race. Pretended he didn’t know who I was but his animosity was palpable, simply because I shared a lot of DNA with the guy who’d slept with the woman who was now his lawful wedded wife. Oh no, Dan probably didn’t entertain any burning desire to come up and celebrate the return of a home-town boy who was also his wife’s ex.

‘Have you met Shannon?’ I said.

‘No,’ said Mari, scanning the already packed room where we’d shoved all the furniture to one side and everyone was standing. ‘But Carl is so fixated on looks she’s bound to be so pretty you can’t mistake her.’

From the way she said this it was obvious what she thought of all talk about appearances. When Mari gave the speech on behalf of the school-leavers for her year the headmaster had introduced her by saying that she ‘wasn’t only intelligent but also a striking beauty’. Mari had started her speech by saying: ‘Thank you, headmaster. I wanted to say a few words of thanks for all you’ve done for us these past three years, but I didn’t know quite how to express myself, so let’s just say that you have been remarkably lucky in your appearance.’ The laughter had been isolated, the line delivered with a little too much venom, and as the daughter of the chairman it wasn’t really clear whether she’d been kicking upwards or downwards.

‘You must be Mari.’

Mari looked round before she looked down. And there, three heads below her, Shannon’s white face and white smile smiling up at us. ‘Punch?’

Mari raised an eyebrow. Looked as though she thought this slight-built figure had challenged her to a boxing match until Shannon lifted the tray higher.

‘Thanks,’ said Mari. ‘But no thanks.’

‘Oh no. You lost at rock paper scissors?’

Mari looked blankly at her.

I coughed. ‘I told Shannon about the custom of driving and the—’

‘Oh that,’ Mari interrupted with a thin smile. ‘No, my husband and I don’t drink.’

‘Aha!’ said Shannon. ‘Because you’re alcoholics or because it’s not good for your health?’

I saw Mari’s face stiffen. ‘We aren’t alcoholics, but on a worldwide basis alcohol kills more people annually than wars, murders and drugs put together.’

‘Yes, and thank goodness for that,’ said Shannon, smiling. ‘That there aren’t more wars, murders and drugs, I mean.’

‘What I’m trying to say is that alcohol isn’t necessary,’ said Mari.

‘I’m sure it isn’t,’ said Shannon. ‘But at least it’s got the people who’ve come here tonight talking a bit more than when they arrived. Did you drive up?’

‘Of course,’ said Mari. ‘Don’t the women drive where you come from?’

‘Sure they do, but only on the left.’

Mari gave me an uncertain look, as though asking if there was some joke here she didn’t get.

I coughed. ‘They drive on the left in Barbados.’

Shannon laughed loudly, and Mari smiled tolerantly as at a child’s embarrassing little joke.

‘You must have put a lot of time and effort into learning your husband’s language. Did you never consider him learning your language instead?’

‘That’s a good question, Mari; but English is the language of Barbados. And of course, I want to know what you’re all saying behind my back.’ Shannon laughed again.

I don’t always understand what women are saying when they talk, but even I could see that this was a catfight, and my only job was to stay well out of the way.

‘Anyway I prefer Norwegian before English. English has the worst written language in the world.’

‘Prefer Norwegian to English, you mean?’

‘The idea behind the Arabic alphabet is that the symbols reflect the sounds. So when for example you write an a in Norwegian, German, Spanish, Italian and so on, then it’s pronounced a . But in English a written a can be anything at all. Car, care, cat, call. ABC . And the anarchy just goes on. As early as the eighteenth century Ephraim Chambers was of the opinion that English orthography is more chaotic than that of any other known language. While I found out that without knowing even a single word of Norwegian I was able to read aloud from Sigrid Undset – Carl understood every word!’ Shannon laughed and looked at me. ‘Norwegian ought to be the world language, not English!’

‘Hmm, maybe,’ said Mari. ‘But if you’re serious about sexual equality then you shouldn’t be reading Sigrid Undset. She was a reactionary anti-feminist.’

‘Well, I’m inclined to think of Undset more as a sort of early second-wave feminist, like Erica Jong. Thanks for the advice about what not to read, but I also try to read writers with some of whose viewing points I don’t agree.’

‘ Viewpoints ,’ corrected Mari. ‘I see you spend a lot of time thinking about language and literature, Shannon. You’d probably be better off talking to Rita Willumsen, or our doctor, Stanley Spind.’

‘Instead of…?’

Mari gave a thin smile. ‘Or perhaps you should think about doing something useful with your knowledge of Norwegian. Like looking for a job? Contributing to the community here in Os?’

‘Fortunately I don’t need to look for a job.’

‘No, I’m sure you don’t,’ said Mari, and I could see she was on the offensive again. That contemptuous, patronising look, the one Mari thought she kept so successfully hidden from the other villagers, was there in her eyes as she said: ‘After all, you do have a… husband.’

I looked at Shannon. People had taken glasses from the tray as we stood there and she moved the ones that were left to restore the balance. ‘I don’t need to look for a job because I already have one. A job I can do from home.’

Mari looked surprised, and then almost disappointed. ‘And that is?’

‘I draw.’

Mari brightened up again. ‘You draw,’ she repeated in an exaggeratedly positive way, as though someone with a job like that would naturally need encouragement. ‘You’re an artist,’ she announced with a pitying derision.

‘I’m not too sure about that. On a good day maybe. What do you do, Mari?’

Mari suffered a moment’s disorientation before she composed herself enough to say: ‘I’m a political scientist.’

‘Brilliant! And are they much in demand around here in Os?’

Mari gave the kind of quick smile people do when they feel a pain somewhere. ‘Right now I’m a mother. To twins.’

‘No! Really?’ cried Shannon in enthusiastic disbelief.

‘Yes. I wouldn’t lie ab—’