Dag Solstad - Novel 11, Book 18

But when I come home today he’ll be there, Bjørn Hansen thought. He always is. Every Sunday. And why does he never tell me who he has been hiking with? He only says he’s been on a hike when I ask him what he’s been doing. Doesn’t Åke Svensson go hiking too? And why in the world can’t they go hiking in Kongsbergmarka together, seeing how well hiking lends itself to discussing things? And they have so much to talk about, or so Bjørn Hansen had understood Peter to imply. But Peter didn’t utter a word about these walks, nor about what Åke or anyone else had said or done. It doesn’t have to mean that he goes hiking by himself, of course, simply because he doesn’t tell me anything about it. It doesn’t have to mean that. But he had begun to suspect that his son spent more time alone than was good for him.

So he was glad when Peter one day asked if he could borrow his car. A bunch of students at the engineering college were going to a rock concert in Oslo on Friday, and when it turned out that they didn’t have enough cars, Peter had said he could get one. Bjørn Hansen handed over the car keys at once, elated. Not only because it was another indication that his suspicion that Peter merely wandered about by himself, like a weirdo, was completely unfounded, but also because, by asking if he could borrow the car, he acted as a ‘son’ towards him, instead of only seeing him as a benevolent landlord, which he often had a feeling Peter was doing, a situation he simply had to put up with, without being able to do anything about it one way or the other, because it was so difficult for Bjørn to open up after such a long separation from his son. Peter drove away and, with four students crammed into his father’s old jalopy, set off for the rock concert in the capital, a journey of about an hour and a half each way.

In the morning, Peter handed back the keys over breakfast and Bjørn Hansen asked how the concert had been. ‘Good,’ Peter said. ‘But it became expensive. Because I filled up the tank, and when we got back to Kongsberg and we were to settle, they refused to pay up. Every one of them. After I had been chauffeuring them all evening, and they had been drinking beer after beer once the concert was over, while I was sitting there with a soft drink. And then they even refused to pay their share.’ — ‘Why?’ Bjørn Hansen asked. Peter shrugged. ‘Don’t know,’ he said, ‘they made a joke of it.’

So, Peter didn’t know why his friends refused to club together for the petrol. They had made a joke of it. Bjørn Hansen would have given a lot to know in what way they had found it funny, but he could not ask and his son was unwilling to elaborate. But he became outraged. It was a rotten thing to do and quite unusual, or so he assumed. What was there about his son that made it possible for three friends to treat a fourth friend in that way? Were they such good friends that the joke quite simply was a joke, it being understood that next time Karsten would drive and Peter would be a passenger, and then Karsten would pay for petrol and be the chauffeur of the evening, with only a soft drink to console himself with?

‘But then I threw them out,’ Peter said, in his usual too loud voice. ‘They damn well had to walk home, and Halvor Mørk had at least four kilometres to walk, but walk he must since he wouldn’t pay. You see, I had stopped at the marketplace just to settle up before taking them home, one after the other. It was in the middle of the night, damn it, four o’clock in the morning, and now they thought that, after acting as their trusty chauffeur, I would take them home, too, without them even paying for the petrol! Well, they crawled out then, hurried towards the taxi stand and took a taxi home — at least Halvor did. What the others did I don’t know, but in any case, the taxi cost more than they would have had to pay me for the petrol.

Bjørn Hansen felt uncomfortable. He did not like the situation. This was no ordinary joke, this was something quite different. There were three of them against Peter, three fellow students against his son. Why didn’t they want to pay for the petrol, but would rather take a taxi? It was not a matter of money, but something else. But what? Why did they treat his son like that, after Peter had offered to get a car and thereby solve a difficult problem for them, then drive them to and from Oslo, besides having to sit around and wait, so to speak, while his friends took the opportunity to have a night out in the capital, once they happened to be there?

Don’t overreact, Bjørn Hansen told himself. Take it easy. This is only an unfortunate episode, for which Peter must take most of the blame. They were just four friends going to a rock concert in Oslo together, and Peter offered to drive. Next time it may be Karsten, or the third one, that fellow Halvor Mørk. This was understood, as a presupposition, and therefore the three others thought it was rather clumsy of Peter to start pestering them about payment at four o’clock in the morning — just think, getting out wallets, digging out notes and coins, a great fuss with change, no, drive us home, Peter, we’ll take care of this later, hell, yes! Surely, that was how it must have been: a very pleasant evening that ended rather stupidly because Peter can, in truth, be a bit difficult and clumsy socially, as I have noticed many times, Bjørn Hansen thought. And besides, Peter did not seem crushed, only slightly annoyed. And in the evening he went out, to the Student Pub, and returned late at night, since it was Saturday.

Although — late at night? For once Bjørn noted the time when he was awoken by Peter letting himself in. 12.35. The following Saturday he woke up in the same way. He heard his son come in and tiptoe through the flat. He looked at the time. Almost 12.30. The Saturday after that he also woke up. He didn’t feel like looking at the clock, but he looked anyway. He shouldn’t have bothered. It was 12.35. That is to say, when he had been out having a good time his son came home at 12.35. It was not especially ‘late at night’. In fact, it’s the earliest a young man can in decency return home after being out having a good time on Saturday night.

Bjørn Hansen understood. He could no longer deny it. This was the proof. He had a son who nobody wanted to spend time with, no more than was strictly necessary at any rate. His son’s footsteps at 12.35 on Saturday night, so regular that you could set your watch by them, testified to that. And he knows it himself . That was the worst part. Otherwise one could say it didn’t matter. He’s trying to hide it, not least from me, Bjørn Hansen thought. ‘Good Lord!’ he burst out. But Bjørn Hansen now knew. That his son was friendless. Evidently there was nobody who liked him very much.

Not even Algot, the friend whom Peter had described as his good genius. Who Peter had stuck with through thick and thin in the army. Oh sure, Algot must have let Peter stick with him through thick and thin, and so his son had wanted to study the same as Algot, and in the same school, so he could continue to be allowed to stick with him through thick and thin. Yes, Peter had dreamed about sticking with Algot through thick and thin for his whole life, as Algot Blom’s trusted shop manager. But Algot hadn’t even bothered to inform him that he had changed his mind. And so Peter sucks up to some classmates who are going to a rock concert in Oslo. Tempts them by saying he can provide a car and drive them, as their chauffeur, back and forth, which they allow him most graciously to do, relieving them of any further worries about transport. But when the fellow demands that they pay for it, that’s the limit. 12.35. Always letting himself in at 12.35.

The worst thing was that his father understood them. The others. There was something about his son that inspired dislike. His voice alone — it was far too loud. He spoke over people’s heads. Bjørn could vividly imagine his son in the Engineering School canteen, with his everlasting Danish and cup of coffee as he enlarged on the fact that he dined at home and thereby saved money, which the others had to listen to as they ate. In all likelihood they had seen him coming, with his cup of coffee and Danish on a plate, hoping that he would sit at another table. It’s just too damn bad, thought Bjørn. All that my son is doing, after all, is following a natural urge to be part of the ordinary social life of young students. And he was perfectly welcome to do so, but preferably not at their table.