Tore Renberg - See You Tomorrow

Videoboy nods to Rudi and places a fat arm around Pål’s shoulder. He leads him a few metres alongside the substation wall. Walks with him a little. Gives him a few pats on the back. Nods. Both of them with eyes downcast.

He stops abruptly and looks Pål in the eyes. Then the high-pitched voice wafts into the darkness of the woods: ‘Have I seen you before?’

‘No,’ Pål replies hastily, ‘I don’t think so.’

‘No? Hm. Are you scared, Pål? You don’t need to be. You should know that you’re surrounded by friends. You should know that you’re working with someone who wishes the best for you, someone who is going to give you the chance to get your life back in order and get you back on your feet. Fear? Let me tell you. I know all about fear. It’s what you could call my area of expertise. You’re at the point where it’s still not too late. You’re not alone in this. We’re going to lift this weight as a team, Pål. A collaborative effort.’

There’s a shine in his blueberry eyes. His voice carries out into the woods, with an unworldly tone.

‘Are you with us, Pål? Will we do this? Go through with, what I like to call, a time-honoured classic?’

This here — this is a hassle. That last foster father was a run-of-the-mill asshole, but he was right about what he said: if it’s hassle you want, just get yourself a woman. Daniel has two of them now and they’re both psychos. One has cut herself up and the other is hysterical. Daniel, you are a coward. It’s time you showed who you are. Who it is you want. I’ll wait by the substation . Daniel feels the lift suck him down through the block of flats, and looks at the display on his mobile for around the twentieth time. What the hell’s happened to Sandra? The fact that Inger flipped out when she saw Veronika’s mesh-face, screamed and wailed and wanted to ring the hospital and Child Welfare, and send Daniel off to some outreach camp for kids and God knows what else — that he gets. But he managed to calm her down. He has a knack for that sort of thing. Look deep into the eyes, keep a good hold on the shoulders, wait for the breathing to slow: Inger, Inger, we’ll sort it out.

But this here?

You are a coward

Daniel exits the entrance to the flats and walks out into the darkness.

He’s not an idiot either. He’s got good hearing. He can pick up when other people are talking through your mouth. When you open your gob and they’re not your own words spewing out from between your lips. When you can see in people’s eyes that there’s a psychologist in the background dictating the words.

Get rich. Get a woman with her head screwed on once and for all.

That’s all Daniel wants. Two small things. How difficult does it have to be? Every time he nears his goal it’s like some fucker comes along and wallops him in the face with a club, sending him back to his own stone age. Inger seemed all right. Sandra seemed all right. Veronika seemed all right. But no. They were all too good to be true. That’s the hidden truth. Nobody is as they make out. They sell themselves as beautiful fucking buttercups, but when you unwrap them they snap at you.

Give them cancer, cancer, cancer.

He walks with purpose, his arms paddling through the air, as though to sweep aside anything that gets in his way.

He can handle Inger. A grown woman screaming because her daughter has transformed her face into a hundred small bloody squares, who says she regrets ever having taken him into the house. There there, Inger. It’s going to be all right. He can also handle Veronika. When he left them, mother and daughter were sitting on the sofa with their arms round one another. They feel they’ve been through something together. But Sandra. He can’t handle her or his own feelings for her. They brim over, he’s unable to hold them down. Whenever other girls pass him he doesn’t react. They can be as hot as may be, they can have jugs that are heaven-sent, legs and asses that are primo, but it makes no odds. When she comes running along from side to side with those knees of hers, then he just has no control over himself.

But now.

Now he’s in control of himself.

Daniel, you’re a coward. It’s time you showed who you are.

All right. It’s a deal, bitch. You asked for it.

He runs. The last metres through the schoolyard, over the football pitch. It’s already dark all around. There isn’t the slightest breeze, no friction other than what he himself creates against the world.

‘Daniel!’

He stops dead.

‘Daniel!’

A dark figure appears over by the school, becoming clear under the lights by the football pitch. Be angry now, he says to himself. Be hard.

She runs quickly towards him. Fast, small feet across the gravel. The pulse in his necks throbs, he clenches his teeth. Sandra speeds up, she looks a wreck, her hair is dishevelled and her eyes tired.

‘Daniel!’

She stops just in front of him. They look at one another. He bends over slightly, she raises herself on her tiptoes. They throw their arms around each other, kiss.

‘Fuck,’ he says, feeling her soft lips, how they take shape to fit his, her warm, wet tongue, how it seeks his, ‘fuck, fuck, fuck.’

‘Fuck,’ she says, sniffling.

‘Fuck,’ he says, closing his eyes, ‘fuck, fuck, fuck.’

‘Fuck,’ she says, sobbing.

‘It’s you and me, baby,’ he says, placing his hands on her behind.

‘Touch me,’ she says, ‘never stop, Daniel William Moi.’

‘Fuck,’ whispers Daniel, ‘I didn’t mean it. You know that.’

‘I know,’ she whispers, ‘I know.’

‘I just get so fuckin’…’

‘I know,’ she whispers again, ‘you don’t need to say anything.’

They break off from the fantastic kissing he can’t live without and stand looking at one another under the lights of the football pitch.

‘Daniel?’

She reaches her hand out, strokes him gently across the cheek.

‘Yeah?’

‘Have you seen Malene and Tiril’s dad?’

‘No…’

They look in the direction of the substation.

‘What do you think is going on?’

He shrugs. ‘I don’t know — did you say anything to them?’

‘No,’ she says, ‘but I think it’s kind of horrible … I feel I know something I shouldn’t, and I feel I ought to say it, but—’ Once more she brings her hand to his face again, strokes his skin with her fingers, and once more he loves it. ‘But Daniel,’ she says, warily. ‘Am I the one you love?’

Is she going to start this again?

He can’t believe his ears. They’ve been snogging each other for two minutes, they’ve forgiven one another — and she starts this again? He feels like beating her senseless. Can she not fucking leave well enough alone?

‘Veronika,’ she says, nervously, ‘you need to tell me what’s going on. I saw the two of you, in town. I saw her. You have to tell me what’s going on.’

He breaks eye contact. Okay. That’s how it is.

‘Sandra.’ He shifts his weight to his other foot. ‘Don’t worry about this. Will we go into the woods and look for the father of those girls? Just, don’t be concerned about this—’

She just stands there. ‘I need to know, Daniel. I have to know if it’s me you want.’

He sighs and looks up towards the sky. ‘Please. I need you to trust me now.’

She nods. ‘Yeah, and I need you to be honest with me. You had your arms around her. You live with her. I have to know—’

‘She fancies me.’

Sandra takes a step backwards. The corners of her mouth begin to quiver. She stammers: ‘Does she want … but … so, do you want to be with her?’