Tore Renberg - See You Tomorrow

A headscarf.

Yes.

That might be nice.

She doesn’t have much left to do now. Vacuum the very back of the shop, then she’s finished. Tiril is dragging her feet, she can do what she wants. Once Sandra has finished hoovering, she’s out of here. Then she’ll hang up her jogging pants and jumper and pull the skinny Met jeans well over her bum, because he’s told her he likes them: I think you’re well sexy in those jeans. She’ll put on more lip gloss, because he’s told her he likes that too: I love it when your lips gleam.

A thousand nervous times she’s stood in front of the mirror, trying to find that expression, the one she evidently has, because he said that too: Oh, you’re well cute when you do that. There’s something about her mouth, something about the way her nostrils flare. She’s asked him plenty of times, what do you mean? She’s smacked him on the arm, smiled at him, but all he said was: I can’t explain it, you’re just so bloody cute when you do it.

Am I? You really think so?

Yes, you are, Sandra, You’re well cute, fucking hell, you’re a flower, you are.

Sandra gets out her mobile again, no messages. 20:52. Hope he hasn’t forgotten the time, hope he hasn’t grown tired of her, stupid girl, only fifteen.

Ten o’clock, that’s what she told Mum and Dad. Her job will take her until ten, because she has to clean the whole shop on her own. There used to be two of them but not any more, and that means it takes a lot longer. But that’s a lie, because Tiril is here, and the lie hisses in her head, as if it floods up from her midriff towards her throat: one hour. She had managed to wangle one hour. With him.

Sandra’s forehead is sweaty. Yes, Mum, I’ll come straight home after work, no, Mum, I won’t dawdle, no, Dad, I’m not going to drift around at night. No one hung out at night midweek when we were young, things were different back then. Oh, really, so what? If there was one thing she couldn’t care less about, it’s how things were in the stupid seventies and the idiotic eighties, just like she couldn’t care less about the music Dad is always trying to get her to listen to, real music, as he calls it. The Police and Sting and all that stuff. People who could play and didn’t think real music was made with Pro Tools. Or Mum going on about Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Jesus, and all that talk of the cold war and the Berlin Wall — so what? So what? So what?

She’s alive now , don’t they get that?

She’s alive now and she’s lying through her teeth. It’s risky. Mum and Dad could easily find out. They could run into Tiril’s dad. They know who he is. They could run into Tiril. The lie is far from watertight. ‘Hi Tiril, nice to see you, shame you quit your cleaning job at the shop.’

Dozy Tiril, only fourteen and thinks she is something. She’s by the frozen foods with a cleaning spray. Tetchy brat. Sulky and grumpy, always has been. Her sister’s not quite as bad, a little quiet maybe, a little serious. The gymnastics talent, Malene, but she’s injured her ankle. They’re so different, those two. But they’re both odd, each in their own way. Everybody knows, knows they’re a bit weird. Maybe Mum’s right when she raises her eyebrows and says: After all, they haven’t grown up with a mum and a dad.

It’s so hot.

Sandra sticks out her bottom lip, blows up at her fringe.

It’s so unbelievably hot.

The lie is a risk she’s willing to take. If they find out they can say what they like, even though they’ll probably cut her pocket money and ground her, because what do they know about love? They sit watching box sets on Blu-ray, night after night of Mad Men and The Killing. Is that love? What do they know about a boy’s mouth against hers and his hands on her body, what do they know about the intensity in his eyes when he gazes at her in the darkness of the forest?

Sandra is lying, but it doesn’t matter, because she’s a child of Heaven. Her willingness to lie attests to the truth of what she’s doing. When that’s how it is, then it’s right , then it’s the heart that acts. If love wasn’t right, what would be right in this world?

Her hand goes to her throat, to her silver cross, the one she got from Aunt Astrid and Uncle Frank for her confirmation, the one with the diamond inset. She squeezes it hard, again.

She’s nervous about what’s going to happen.

You’re precious, Sandra. Remember that.

You won’t give yourself to just anybody. Will you, my love?

No, Mum.

She’s not just sweaty under her hairline, but on her neck, between her shoulder blades and on her palms. She represses thoughts of her mother and thinks instead about what it says in First Corinthians, about love enduring, believing, hoping for, tolerating all. And she thinks about what the Bible says, that when you were a child, you spoke as a child, thought as a child, and understood as a child, but when you became a man, you put away childish things. That’s the way she feels. Everything childish feels so stupid, feels so far away it is inconceivable that it could have been her.

Sandra vacuums as quickly as she can. Tiril glowers at her from under her headphones, with her thick black mascara, listening to Evanescence or My Chemical Romance. Sandra’s skin tingles. His hands, his eyes, his voice: Do you want me? Sexy?

She hurries, she is close to the bottle return machine and the entrance to the back room, but just before she finishes, she knocks down a display of honey next to the spices. The pyramid collapses, honey jars tumble to the floor and roll in all directions. Sandra’s pulse is up under her chin, she curses to herself and quickly falls to her knees to put them back.

‘Hey, Tiril? Can you give me a hand?’

She’s losing time now. She’s losing seconds with him.

Do you want me, Sandra?

‘Tiril, give me a hand, will you.’

I’m precious.

I don’t give myself to just anyone.

I want you. Take me. Open me. Now. Tonight.

‘Hey, Chessi? You there, baby?’

Rudi’s coffee-brown eyes move to glance in the rear-view mirror.

‘Hey, Chessibaby?’

No reply.

The old Volvo splutters out of the roundabout at Åsen, daylight streaming in the windscreen, and Rudi puts his foot on the pedal. If this is supposed to be a company, and this is a company car, then things are bad. When did they buy it again? Ninety-two. From an old farmer on Finnøy. The Volvo was in a field, under a tarpulin, sheep sniffing around at the edges. It only had 19,000 on the clock. That’s how old people are with cars, they treat them as carefully as they would money. Now it had done 270,654 and should have been on its way to Knoksen’s knackers yard.

But the Volvo is the same as all the other rubbish you lug around with you year in, year out; you grow so damned attached to it.

‘Hey, Chessi?’

Rudi takes another look in the rear-view mirror. She’s just sitting there. You’d be hard pressed to find a more pig-headed woman. One little row, Jesus, not even a row, and she won’t budge an inch.

His rasping voice reaches a higher pitch: ‘Hey, Chessi, are you there, or are you just sitting dreaming about rock ballads and my cock?’

She turns her head and looks out of the window.

That’s gratitude for you. A joke, and she looks out the window. Great idea bringing her along to work. It’s true what Jani says, that girl was born difficult. She shot out of her mum in December 1972, covered in spikes. She’s downright spiny . She’s always been pale and freckly, rough and sickly and as ugly as an uprooted tree, but she has beautiful big hair, chestnut colour, and hips like shelves, as well as an ass that can make your head spin. Living without her would be utterly impossible.