Tore Renberg - See You Tomorrow

Rudi giving his big performance when they were on their way around Stokkavannet.

Cecilie responding so quickly and with such passion, such affection, of a type she rarely reveals.

But then.

They get into the Volvo, everyone refreshed, except for Tong. Everything seems flushed, the sky, the tarmac, the car and its occupants, but as they drive past the allotments near Byhaugen, it’s almost as if it becomes too much to take. Suddenly there’s a clearing of throats and coughing in the back seat, the shifting of feet, people looking in all directions but at each other and mumbled half-sentences abound. The oxygen disappears from inside the car. Cecilie stares out the window. Rudi’s eyes remain fixed on his lap. There has to be some terminology within psychology for it. Suddenly Cecilie and Rudi are so unbelievably awkward. They had been snogging in full public view, then they were like two lovesick teenagers in the back of the van and now they are utterly out of sync. Both of them look like frightened birds, maybe that’s what its known as in psychology? Frightened bird syndrome?

And Tong?

Tong is sitting silent as a stone by the window, longing for a chocolate chip cookie.

EVERYTHING HAS BEEN TURNED ON ITS HEAD, thinks Jan Inge, massaging his front teeth with his fingertips. One moment everything is allt i lagi , as Buonanotte says, the next it’s all fallen apart. Not to mention Tommy Pogo, who’s also obviously got them in his sights. Taking a walk around Stokkavannet, coincidence?

Jan Inge can’t handle this. Now is the time he should show them who’s wearing the pants, but he sinks back down into his own thoughts, while the world he’s created heads for … what’s it called again…?

Jan Inge pictures himself getting up from his chair, offering his hand to the interviewer who has come all the way from Frankfurt and thanking him for the visit. He imagines the photographer taking two photos of him, one in front of the van, with him dressed in Mariero Moving working attire, and one in the video room, with him standing in front of his vast collection of films.

‘Atlantis,’ he whispers.

Cecilie looks up. ‘Wha?’

Jan Inge clears his throat. ‘Oh, I was just thinking about something. How’s the food?’ He checks the time. ‘After five,’ he says, ‘nearly ten past. We’d better start packing the stuff together. I don’t think we need to concern ourselves with Pogo. He’s been on us. He was smart. Caught us on the hop. But he’s not going to strike twice in one day. We’ll be at Pål’s place in a couple of hours. We’ll leave the moving van in Sandal before making our way there. And I just want to say one thing: there’s a weird vibe in the air today. I can’t say I like it. But I would ask that all of you, to the extent you’re able, not lose your composure, and please try and remain focused.’

Cecilie has put down her knife and fork. Rudi chomps his food pensively. Even Tong has his eyes on Jan Inge.

‘What do you say each of us try to bring to mind some happy memories to cheer us up?’

Yes.

They’re listening now.

‘Personally, I’m going to call this memory to mind,’ continues Jan Inge: one day in the eighties, Cecilie and I received word that our uncle, our father’s brother, had passed away. John Fredrick Haraldsen. He was a mangy mongerel, who had brought pain to the entire family by interfering with his daughter, Helene, our cousin. She’s never recovered and lives in a flat paid for by Social Services somewhere up in Trøndelag — and, as you’re all aware, we send her a Christmas card every year, something she no doubt appreciates. You’ll remember we sent her a lovely gold ring the year before last, Rudi, which we took with us from the job out in Sola. Well. On this particular day in the eighties we were informed that he was dead, her father that is. John Fredrik had been killed in a bicycle accident. That’s a good memory for me. Cecilie and I looked at one another with relief, and she made waffles while I–I was a few kilos lighter back then — I ran out into the garden to cut the grass. Which reminds me, we need to have a big clear-out on Sunday.’

Cecilie has tears in her eyes.

Brilliant.

You tell a good story.

And the audience weep.

They’re moved.

That’s the whole point of a good story right there.

The journalist has one final question as Jan Inge is showing him out: ‘Tell me, Haraldsen, is it all horror with you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Is it all horror films, do you not like anything else?’

‘What, do you think I’m just a fat guy with a one-track mind who sits in a wheelchair watching horror all day?’

‘I don’t know, you tell me.’

‘ E.T. I love E.T. And everything it stands for. And I’ll tell you something else: I love everyone who wants to phone home.

Shaun tilts his head back and looks up at the sky.

Those sisters are close. But they’re so frigging different.

He walks a little behind them. Shaun is good at that. Knowing when to hang back.

Kenny just laid into him. Unleashed blow after blow after blow as though Shaun were a punching bag. Mum was asleep on a cocktail of pills and Dad had already gone out, because it’s so long since he cared. Kenny just came into his room, his hair sticking up as if he’d been struck by lightning. He came barging in, and it was obvious he’d only just woken up, because that’s when he’s at his worst, always been that way with him, a big fucking bunch of energy building up in his body when he sleeps and then he’s like a sharpened pencil or something in the morning, and that’s how he was when he burst into the bedroom. Shaun lay sleeping and woke up with a shock, just managed to make out it was six-thirty on his mobile, before he felt Kenny’s hands pulling him out of bed and dumping him on the floor like he was a sack of potatoes, grabbing him by the neck, forcing his head down, and rubbing his face against the rug before turning him over and pounding and pounding and really beating the shit out of him, all the time repeating: ‘You need to learn to shut up, Shauny! You don’t fuckin’ get it, Shauny! You need to learn to shut up, Shauny! You don’t fuckin’ get it, Shauny! You need to learn to shut up, Shauny! You don’t fuckin’ get it, Shauny!’

Bunny should have been here now.

That was what he thought while he lay there listening to a continuous whistle in his head.

Everybody says Bunny is a nutcase.

But he’s not really.

That’s just hearsay.

Bunny is just Bunny. Kenny is the nutcase.

Look at them.

Sisters.

So nice to look at.

The way Malene runs her hand up and down her sister’s back, speaking so calmly to her after their falling out, after everything has been turned upside down.

‘Yeah, Tiril. Yeah. But listen to me. We’ll take it easy now. One step at a time.’

Shaun has no rock of a sister, not like Tiril has. He only has preoccupied Bunny and psycho Kenny.

‘Listen to me,’ says Malene, when they’ve walked about halfway to the school, ‘listen to me, Tiril,’ and Tiril’s features go all small like a cat and she listens, really listens, when her sister says: ‘There’s nothing we can do for Sandra. We made a choice and what’s happened has happened. And we’ll sort it out, I’m sure. But now it’s time for the performance. And Dad is going to come. And you’re going to sing. You got it? My Immortal .’

Tiril sniffles. ‘I don’t want to any more.’

Malene stares fixedly at her. She says: ‘My immortal sister. You will. Will. For me. For Dad.’

‘And for Shaun!’ he shouts from behind them, because he thinks it fits in well. Heh heh. ‘For Shauny!’