Karl Knausgaard - Some Rain Must Fall

She should have a bath, she should put on clean clothes. Her mattress should be thrown away, she should have a nice new one with nice new bed linen. She should have food, good hot food, and she should be allowed to rest.

I could give her none of this.

‘They’ll be here soon,’ I said.

‘Who?’ she said, looking up at me, a curl of cigarette smoke rising between her fingers.

‘Gunnar and Tove,’ I said. ‘They’re taking us to the cabin today, remember?’

‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘That’ll be nice.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

At a little past nine their car drew up outside. Grandma peered out of the window in exactly the same way she had when I was a child, turned to me and flicked her hair up from her neck.

‘It’s Gunnar,’ she said.

‘Shall we go down then?’ I said.

‘You don’t think they’ll come up?’ she said.

‘They’re taking us to the cabin,’ I said.

‘That’s true,’ she said.

I followed her down the stairs. Gunnar stood in the hallway waiting. Tanned, blond, tall and slim. He regarded me with affection in his eyes.

‘How are you getting on?’ he said.

‘Quite well,’ I said with moist eyes. ‘It’ll be nice to get out for a bit.’

Grandma put on a coat, grabbed a bag, which she carried on her forearm as we went down the steps to the car. Tove, squinting into the sun, welcomed us, took grandma’s arm and helped her into the car. I walked round to the other side and got in.

The cabin was about twenty miles east of Kristiansand, in the skerries. It was many years since I had been there. When I was growing up we used to go there perhaps once a year. There were many rituals connected with the journey there at that time and it was all an adventure. Just the car park, which was a little field in the forest with each place marked with a car registration number painted on a rock or a piece of wood. Grandad drove into their spot by a stone wall, beneath the flickering shade from the branches of a large oak tree, I opened the door and got out, the air there, smelling of earth and grass and trees and flowers, was so hot it felt as if I was stepping into it. Apart from birdsong and perhaps some scattered voices or an outboard motor from the little harbour where we were going, all was quiet.

Parking the car on grass!

The big square cooler bag grandma lifted out of the boot. The dry moss in the cracks of the stone wall, all the smells there, some of them very dark and mouldy, if you lifted a stone, it could be damp underneath and tiny insects would dart in all directions. The same was true of the stiff grass, it smelled dry and hot, but beneath it, if you dug down a little, there were quite different smells with more presence and depth, akin to decay.

The bees buzzing around the rose hips on the other side of the stone wall. The air above the path, where the sun had been all morning, sections of it were like bunkers of heat, rooms you stepped in and out of. The salty tang of sea became stronger, and of rotten seaweed. The screams of gulls.

We were always taken over to the island by the same elderly boatman. Grandma and grandad stood on the quay and passed him whatever we were taking with us, he placed it at the bottom of the boat, then we climbed on board and sat down. Grandma, an elegant woman in her early sixties who, when the wind ruffled her hair, always fought against it and kept patting it in position; grandad, an affluent man a few years younger with black combed-back hair and sensitive lips. The old boatman, wearing boots and a black peaked cap, one hand around the throttle handle of the outboard motor, the other resting in his lap. Slowly we made our way out, crossed the sound, went ashore on the jetty at the other side, below the simple white cabin. Both Yngve and I used to long to come here. Where wild cherries and apples grew. You could swim by the smooth rocks beside the cabin. From the jetty we could fish for crabs. There was a little red Pioner dinghy we could row. But best of all we liked playing football on the little field behind the cabin, especially when the adults joined in: grandad, Gunnar and sometimes dad.

All this was in my gaze this morning. The car park was no longer grass but tarmac. The long walk through the forest was not long but covered in a matter of minutes. No boatman was waiting for us, he had probably died ages ago and the atmosphere of industry in and around the harbour during those days had completely gone, now it was one of small boats and cabin life.

Nonetheless. The forest was the same, the sounds and smells were the same and the sea with its islets and islands was the same.

Gunnar pulled the boat to the quay, Tove helped grandma in, soon we were heading across the sound beneath the high blue sky. Grandma sat motionless, eyes cast down as though the surroundings, the open space and the light that met us, hadn’t reached her. Her pale lean bird-like face was even more painful to see here than at home. Because here there was bronzed skin after long days in the sun, salt in your hair after a refreshing swim, laughter and smiles, happy flirtatious eyes, evenings with shrimps and crabs and lobsters.

Tove laid her hand on my shoulder and sent me a consoling smile.

I started to cry.

Ooooh. Ooooh. Ooooh.

I turned away, stared at the sea. The sound was full of boats, this was a main thoroughfare for tourists in the summer. The small waves beat against the hull, showering us with saltwater spray.

While Tove was helping grandma ashore and Gunnar was mooring the boat, he turned to me.

‘Did grandma have anything to drink yesterday?’ he said.

My cheeks flushed, I looked down.

‘I think she had a little,’ I said.

‘Thought I could smell it,’ he said. ‘That’s not good.’

‘No,’ I said.

‘She can’t look after herself any more.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘That’s obvious.’

‘We’ve helped them for so many years,’ he said. ‘Both your father and Erling moved away, so we had to pitch up.’

‘It’s incredible you’ve had the energy,’ I said.

‘It’s got nothing to do with energy,’ he said. ‘It was something we had to do. She is my mother, you know.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Go and get yourself a cup of coffee!’ he said.

I went up to the cabin, my eyes wet with tears. I was in a state. A little smile, a friendly hand, that was all it took, the dam burst.

Grandma was his mother. Dad had been my father. I knew how he felt, I knew he wanted to die. I hadn’t lifted a finger. I could have travelled down, talked to him, told him he had to go to a detox clinic. Yngve could have accompanied me, we could have stayed there, his two sons, and taken responsibility for him.

The thought was as alien as it was impossible. I was capable of doing many things, I was able to force myself to do almost anything if it was necessary, but I could not have done that. Not ever.

Should I have been able to say to him, you come to Bergen, you can stay with Tonje and me for the time being, then we’ll sort out a flat for you nearby?

Ha ha.

Ha ha ha.

‘Sit down, Karl Ove, and relax,’ Tove said. ‘You’ve been through a lot. You can enjoy some space out here. You’ll both have to go back soon enough.’

I sobbed and covered my eyes with one hand.

Grandma sat smoking and glanced down at the quay as Gunnar walked up.

An hour later he took me on a walk through the island. At first we said nothing, just walked side by side along the path, surrounded by trees, tall dry grass, scrub and bushes, bright flowers here and there, bare ridges, all grey with patches of multicoloured lichen, the odd hollow with wispy stalks of grass swaying in the breeze, and then everything opened into a rectangular clearing, some houses shone white with orange roofs and red pennants fluttered on the flagpoles.