Tore Renberg - See You Tomorrow

But Dad.

He was always so happy. Dad was like a funfair.

If Cecilie was to make a list of her top five heavy rock ballads, then it’d be:

‘Dream on’ by Aerosmith. Obviously. ‘Carrie’ by Europe. ‘Still Loving You’ by Scorpions. ‘Dreamer’ by Ozzy. ‘When the Children Cry’ by White Lion. And ‘Jump’ by Van Halen. But that would make six. No matter. David Lee Roth would have to be on there. Even though ‘Jump’ isn’t a ballad. Puss would say it wasn’t a good list if there’s no Motörhead. It’s not her fault Lemmy’s no good at ballads.

‘Baby,’ she whispers. ‘We’re going to listen to heavy rock, you and me. We’re going to raise our hands in the air and listen to heavy rock, you and me.’

Cecilie snaps out of the thoughts going round her head as she spots a boy emerging from the woods. She lowers her head, puts her hand to her stomach and looks at the ground. A girl follows just after. She shivers a little, looks away, trying to make herself invisible.

Puss.

Sometimes she wants to kill him and sometimes she wants to marry him. It’s practically the same thing, Cecilie feels.

Baby, she thinks, watching the boy and girl scurry out of sight. We’ll get Uncle Jani to fix up a nice room for you in the basement. And then we’ll get a nice dog, you and me. A black-and-white one. Or maybe we can get a place of our own. A house. Maybe.

I smoke too much but I need a cigarette now.

I’m not pretty but Rudi thinks I am.

And so does Tong. Friday. That’s when I’m picking him up and then anything could happen.

Cecilie makes her way back over to the hedgehog’s grave. Once again she pats the topsoil with the tip of her shoe.

A thousand kilometres underground.

I want to go down, I want to go down, a thousand kilometres beneath the earth. To the place where dreams are boiled in rusty oil drums, where feet scrape across bleeding stones, where small boys pluck squirrel eyes under the light from hanged girls. You’re going down, you hear me? A thousand kilometres under the earth. Don’t touch me, you hear, don’t fucking touch me. You can just lie there, you bitch, you can just lie on your back, being all sexy, closing your eyes and whimpering with glossy lips but you have no idea, you hear me, no idea.

Daniel darts like a ragged dog across the forest floor. Setting his heels down hard into the ground, gritted teeth, breathing through his nose with his fists clenched. If he could hit someone he would; smash a face to a pulp, kick someone in the guts, break them up and hollow them out until they were dust.

Nobody is ever going to put their hands on me again.

Play the drums while Veronika watches, drink with Dejan and the others, work out until I’m built like a brick shithouse. Full stop.

Bury girls a thousand kilometres underground.

He slid in and out of her, once, twice, then it cascaded through him. It was impossible to control. He shouted at himself, pull back, keep calm, but it didn’t help. It was just a wild storm. No matter what he did, no matter what he screamed at himself, it was impossible to hold back. It pumped through him and he just about managed to pull out of her, just about managed to cover himself with his hands before it blasted out of him, wave after wave.

So unbelievably embarrassing. So unmanly.

Daniel keeps a look out for his helmet. Have to just strike that whole girl idea, shit plan anyway, having yourself depend on something as fickle as a girl. What the hell did he do with that bloody helmet. There you have it. Girls, they screw your head up. Just because they’re gorgeous. He’s been walking around like an idiot the last few weeks, a silly grin on his face, only sleeping two or three hours a night, thinking about roses and all kinds of girly crap, even thinking about a house and kids, no wonder he just tossed his helmet someplace. It’s not right, hardly recognise myself, he thinks, as though nothing matters any more, apart from her, apart from her body, apart from getting inside her.

He doesn’t like it.

Daniel speeds up.

Losing control.

I don’t like that one fucking bit.

Anyhow, it’s the last time I’ll ride out to these woods and snog a fifteen-year-old who sings in a choir, wears a cross round her neck, has a lawyer daddy and a Jesus freak for a mother and thinks the world is a lollypop.

Cotton Candy, sunbullet mine

Explode my body out of time

Bowlegged baby, how you shine

Running over space and time

Bring my shovel, bring my axe

Bring my rifle, fill your cracks

First I fuck you, then I kill you

First I fuck you, then I kill you

Cause I see you running, whore

I see you running, whore

Bandylegged you set ashore

Away with another man

Daniel nods to himself as he feels the lyrics tick out in his head. It’s like the words burrow their way up through the dirt in his mind. The lyrics are suddenly there, totally complete. He just needs to remember them, just needs to get them down on paper as soon as he gets home.

Daniel glances up, holds his breath.

There’s that dog again.

Closer now.

And voices?

Daniel catches sight of the substation, not too far off. He slows down. There’re people behind the tall weeds. Two of them. He hears one of them say:

‘Calm down, man! Make the dog shut up! Listen to me now!’

Daniel comes to a halt. He looks right, then left. He takes a few steps into the woods and gets behind a tree. He squints.

There’re two of them. Two men. Both around forty or something. One of them, who’s really lanky, must be all of two metres, is waving and swinging his arms around, he looks like a tree in a storm. The other one isn’t that tall and he’s kind of difficult to see. He’s the one with the dog on a lead.

‘Okay,’ he hears the guy with the dog say.

‘Good,’ says the tall guy in a raspy voice. ‘You need to calm down, Påli, if this is going to work out. That’s one of the fundamental principles right there. Keep cool! What’s important here is to think, you get me?’

What’s going on here?

‘Okay, you’re a Motörhead man, so that probably makes you a Metallica man, am I right?’

‘Yeah, or I used to…’

‘Darkness imprisoning me, all that I see, absolute horror, I cannot live, I cannot die, trapped in myself — is that how you feel, hombre?’

‘Well…’

‘Where do I take this pain of mine — I run but it stays right by my side?’

‘Well I…’

‘Maybe you’re a Judas Priest man too, eh Kåli?’

‘Ehh…’

‘Breaking the law, breaking the law…’

‘Can’t really—’

‘Too bad Rob Halford turned out to be a queer, but there are a lot of things in life you have to turn a blind eye to, or whaddayasay, Gnåli?’

What’s going on here?

Daniel hears footsteps, he turns around — it’s Sandra. Reacting as quickly as he can, he hurries on to the path, nods in the direction of the men behind him and pulls her into the darkness of the woods, whispering: ‘Don’t make a sound.’

He points. Sandra twists herself loose. She looks angry, her eyes are red, but there’s no time for him to think about that, he points again in the direction of the two men and whispers as quietly as he can: ‘Just listen!’

She looks over at the men behind the substation. The taller one lays his hands on the shorter man’s shoulders.

‘Okay,’ they hear him say. ‘You think I’m a magician. A wizard. You’re right, and you’re wrong. You’ve got problems. It’s understandable. What we’ll do is…’