Ю Несбё - The Kingdom

‘Roy,’ said Julie when I returned, drawing the vowels out as though it was an extremely long name, ‘do you have a dream place where you’d really like to go?’ She flipped through a travel magazine and showed me a beach where a scantily clad young pair reclined in blistering sunshine.

‘That would have to be Notodden, I guess,’ I said.

She gawped at me. ‘What’s the furthest away place you’ve ever been?’

‘I’ve not been anywhere,’ I said.

‘Oh come on.’

‘I’ve been south. And north. But I’ve never been abroad.’

‘Course you have!’ She put her head on one side, studying me, and then added slightly less cockily. ‘Hasn’t everyone?’

‘I’ve been to a few faraway places,’ I said. ‘But that was here.’ I tapped my bandaged finger carefully on my forehead.

‘What do you mean?’ She smiled faintly. ‘You mean like you’ve been mad?’

‘I’ve dismembered human beings and shot defenceless dogs.’

‘Sure, and you tossed a lifebelt to your wife when she was drunk on champagne and drowning.’ Julie laughed. ‘Why aren’t boys of my own age as funny as you?’

‘It takes a long time to be funny,’ I said. ‘Time and hard work.’

When I got back to the farm that evening Shannon was sitting in the winter garden wearing Carl’s old quilted anorak, one of my hats and a woollen blanket over her lap.

‘It’s cold, but it’s so nice here just after the sun goes down,’ she said. ‘In Barbados it happens so quickly, suddenly it’s just dark. And in Toronto it’s so flat and there are so many tower blocks that at some point the sun just vanishes. But here you can see everything happening in slow motion.’

‘ Sakte kino in Norwegian,’ I told her.

‘ Sakte kino ? Slow cinema?’ She laughed. ‘Yeah, I like that. Because so much happens to the light. The light on the lake, the light on the mountain, the light behind the mountain. It’s like a photographer has gone crazy with his lighting. I love Norwegian nature.’ And added, with ironic, exaggerated sincerity, ‘Wild, naked Norwegian nature.’

I sat down beside her with the cup of coffee I had brought from the kitchen. ‘Carl?’

‘He had to sweet-talk someone who’s important for the project. A used-car salesman.’

‘Willumsen,’ I said. ‘Anything else?’

‘Anything else?’

‘Anything else happened?’

‘Such as what?’

Through a gap in the clouds the moon showed her pale face. Like an actor taking a peek at the audience from behind the curtain before the show begins. And in the reflected light falling on Shannon’s face I could see now that that’s exactly what she was: an actress who couldn’t wait to get started.

‘He held out until eight o’clock,’ she said, pulling her hand out from under the blanket and handing me the phone. ‘I told him I liked him, that I was bored here, and asked if he could send me some pictures. He asked what sort. I said I wanted Norwegian nature. Naked, wild Norwegian nature. Preferably in full bloom.’

‘And he sent you this?’ I looked at Erik Nerell’s customised selfie. Dick pic was putting it mildly. He was lying naked in front of an open fireplace on what looked like a reindeer hide and with some kind of lotion that gave his flexed muscles a dull sheen. And in the middle of the picture, an exemplary erection.

No, the face wasn’t visible, but there was more than enough for a pregnant girlfriend to recognise.

‘He might claim to have misunderstood me,’ said Shannon. ‘But I find this incredibly offensive. And I think his father-in-law will too.’

‘His father-in-law?’ I said. ‘Not his girlfriend?’

‘I’ve given that some thought. Erik was a little too clever at knowing what to say. So I think he knows he can talk his way out of it with a pregnant girlfriend. Prostrate himself, beg for forgiveness, blah blah. A father-in-law, on the other hand…’

I chuckled. ‘You really are wicked.’

‘No,’ she said seriously. ‘I’m good. I love the ones I love and do what I have to in order to protect them. Even if that means doing bad things.’

I nodded. Something told me this wasn’t necessarily the first time. I was on the point of saying something when I heard the low rumble of an eight-cylinder American. Cones of light, and then the Cadillac rounding Geitesvingen. We saw it park and Carl get out. He stood by the car, lifted his phone to his ear. Spoke quietly as he headed towards the house. I leaned back in my chair and switched on the light on the wall behind us. I saw Carl give a start when he caught sight of us. As though he were the one caught red-handed at something. But I was the one who didn’t want to be caught red-handed hiding away in the dark with Shannon. I switched the light off again to show that we preferred it dark, that was all. And I knew as I did so that the decision I had made was the right one.

‘I’m going to be moving down to the workshop,’ I said in a low voice.

‘What?’ said Shannon, her voice also low. ‘Why?’

‘Give you two a bit more space.’

‘Space? Space is all we’ve got. A whole house and a whole mountain for just three people. Can’t you stay, Roy? For my sake?’

I tried to see her face, but the moon had hidden herself again, and that was all she said.

Carl came through the door of the living room and joined us.

‘And with that the deadline for being part of Os Spa and Mountain Hotel SL is closed,’ he said, and slumped down in one of the wickerwork chairs with an open beer in his hand. ‘Four hundred and twenty participants – in effect that’s everybody in the village who can afford it. The bank’s ready and I’ve talked to the contractors. In principle we could get the diggers in there after the company meeting tomorrow.’

‘To dig what?’ I asked. ‘It’ll have to be dynamited first.’

‘Sure, sure, it was just an image. I sort of look on the diggers as tanks that are going to move in and conquer this mountain.’

‘Do like the Americans do and bomb it first,’ I said. ‘Extinguish all life. And then advance and conquer.’

I heard the scrape of his stubble against his collar as he turned his head towards me in the dark. He was probably wondering if I meant a little bit more than what I was actually saying. Whatever that might be.

‘Willum Willumsen and Jo Aas have agreed to sit on the board,’ said Carl. ‘On condition that the company votes for me as manager.’

‘Sounds like you’ll have complete control.’

‘You could say that,’ said Carl. ‘The advantage of SL is that, unlike a limited company, the law doesn’t require you to have a board, an accountant and all that kind of control stuff. We will have a board and an accountant because the bank demands it, but in practice it’s possible for the manager to run the company like an enlightened despot, and that makes everything that much fucking easier.’ There was a klunk from the beer bottle.

‘Roy says he’s moving,’ said Shannon. ‘To the workshop.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Carl.

‘He says we need more space.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Maybe I’m the one who needs space. Maybe all these years of living alone have turned me into a weirdo.’

‘Then it should be me and Shannon that move,’ said Carl.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m happy there’s more than one person living here. The house is happy too.’

‘In that case three has to be even better than two,’ said Carl, and I sensed he lay his hand in Shannon’s lap. ‘And who knows, one day we may even be four.’ For a couple of seconds there was complete silence, and then he sort of woke up again. ‘Or not. What made me think of it was I just saw Erik and Gro out for an evening stroll. She’s pretty big now.’ Still no response. More chugging from the bottle. Carl belched. ‘Why do the three of us spend so much time sitting in the dark when we talk?’