Tore Renberg - See You Tomorrow

Thea continues: ‘And from Aberdeen in Scotland, from Eksiltuna in Sweden, and Jyväskylä and Antsirabe…’

Somebody pokes Tiril on the shoulder. She turns around.

Bunny’s little brother.

What the hell is he doing here?

‘Can I have a word?’

There´s something different about him. For one thing, he’s on his own. He never usually is. He’s always with those annoying friends of his. For another, he doesn’t have that cheeky grin on his face. And thirdly, he’s just standing calmly. He has a pair of headphones around his neck. She can’t remember ever having seen him stand quietly.

‘I don’t have the time.’

‘It’s all right — we’re not on for another twenty—’

Thea. Great. You had to open your mouth.

‘Just a couple of minutes,’ says Shaun. ‘Five. Tops. Promise.’

‘Listen,’ says Tiril, folding her arms, ‘you’ve ratted to Kenny, you’ve spat in my hair, you’ve—’

Shaun shakes his head. ‘I didn’t rat to Kenny. I wasn’t the one who told him.’

‘Yeah. Right.’

‘Can you not just come outside with me for a sec? Just for a bit. Five minutes. Two minutes.’

‘Where Kenny is standing waiting with your idiot mates to beat the shit out of me. Do you think I’m stupid, Shaun?’

He remains standing, quite still. Tiril tries to remain firm, but can’t maintain it. Some old memories well up inside her, from primary school, when she and Shaun used to have pretend fights in the snow, when he tripped her up, when she threw snowballs at him, when she sat on his chest and gave him typewriter torture.

‘One minute.’

She gets to her feet.

‘Okay. One minute. Max.’

Shaun nods and begins walking towards the door. His body isn’t swaying from side to side as much as usual. He’s small, almost a foot shorter than her. He walks with his hands in his pockets and his head down. She follows him. Out through the foyer, out the front doors. Shaun walks a little away from the gym hall, over behind a tree.

She comes to a halt when she reaches him. ‘Well, what is it?’

‘I—’

‘He’s bang out of order, Kenny, you are aware of that? Do you know what he did?’

Shaun nods. ‘I can’t do anything about it, some others told him, and Kenny … Kenny’s not quite right in the head, it’s not my fault.’

‘What do you want, so?’

‘I—’

Tiril takes a deep breath. Her chest rises.

‘Have you got a fag?’

Shaun nods. He takes a ten-pack from the pocket of his baggy hoodie. They sneak around to the side of the gym hall. He produces a lighter, lights one for her and then one for himself.

‘We’re probably the only ones in second year who smoke.’

He nods. ‘I was the only one who smoked in sixth class too. Going to try to quit soon.’

‘Me too. Not good for the singing voice.’

Tiril is pushed for time, but she looks him over. Small, scared and strange, that’s what he is. Her eyes fall on his headphones. ‘What are you listening to?’

Shaun gives an embarrassed shrug. ‘Ah, nothing.’

‘Give me a look at your phone, then.’

‘Eh,’ he says, shifting his feet.

‘Give me a look.’

Shaun takes his phone out of his pocket, makes a face, not eager to let her see. But Tiril grabs it, begins to scroll. Just hip-hop, just shit music. Eminem, Rihanna and a load of bands she’s never heard of — David Banner, Khia, Akinyele… what the fuck? Her finger stops moving. She glances up at Shaun.

‘Eh…’ He blushes.

‘Put it in my mouth?’

‘Eh, yeah, that…’

‘What the fuck is this … smell your dick? We fuck virgins?’

She removes the headphones from around his neck, puts them on and presses play. A sleazy drumbeat. A siren. A creepy man’s voice whispering: Cum girl, tryna get your … what’s he singing? Tiril raises one eyebrow at Shaun while she taps the next song on the playlist. A faint drumbeat, another creepy voice, a woman this time: All you ladies pop your … what is she singing?

Tiril takes off the headphones. Her cheeks are flushed, she tries not to swallow but can’t manage. The little, embarrassed halfwit stands there in front of her and she doesn’t have time for this.

‘ Awesome Pornrap for Shaun, ’ she says.

‘Eh, yeah…’

She shakes her head.

‘You are a sick slacker,’ she says, handing him the phone.

He takes it and shrugs again, as if that’s the only thing in the world he’s able to do. ‘Yeah, I suppose I am, all right,’ he says in a low tone.

‘That music,’ she says. ‘It’s, like — Jesus, Shaun.’

Again he shrugs. ‘I know. That’s the kind of stuff I like.’

Shaun gazes at her, looks at her for longer than any boy has ever done.

‘What was it you wanted to talk to me about?’

‘Huh?’ His eyes flit about.

‘What was it you wanted to talk to me about?’ Tiril asks again, aware of an antsy warmth in her body and suddenly realising what all this is about. Without quite being able to explain it to her herself, without being able to take it in her hand and look at it shimmer, she decides to say yes when he asks if she’ll be his girlfriend. No, she decides to be the one in control, so she blows out the smoke and says: ‘Shaun. Do you want to go with me, or what?’

His eyes grow large.

‘What? Do you want to get down on one knee or something? Are you not able to speak now?’

She gives him a thump on the shoulder, but Shaun stands there, as though rooted to the spot, his eyes growing larger and larger.

‘Come on,’ Tiril says, ‘now you’ve got what you want. You need to cut back on the porno rap. There’s proper music out there. Have you heard Evanescence? And don’t make such a big deal out of this here. Kiss me. Make it quick. I haven’t got all night.’

Shaun blinks a few times, raises himself ever so slightly up on his toes, and gives her a kiss, a slightly awkward one, but nice all the same.

Granted, at first sight, yeah. At first sight Jan Inge may not cut such an impressive figure as he does when you see him in action. But then we´re talking discrimination, Rudi thinks, and isn’t that a mortal sin? What we’re looking at then is a type of racism, a type of Nazism, obesity Nazism, and what was it we learned in primary school about not judging people by their appearance, their race or creed? It’s bullying, pure and simple. And Rudi’s seen it so many times when he’s been in the presence of the great Jan Inge, and he doesn’t mean ‘great’ as in fat, but ‘great’ as in brilliant, and what would Gran have to say about that? Shame on you! People who meet Jan Inge and look away, people who talk shit behind his back, call him a hobbit, or people who quite simply talk shit to his face. Do they not think he’s hurt by that?

Great men have feelings too.

The worst Rudi’s experienced was the time they had a job on with the Tornes Gang from around Haugesund. A shower of bastards. Doped out of their minds all day long, swapping women all the time, swindling each other, no conscience and no love, either for the profession or for the people engaged in it. It had seemed so promising, a nice decent break-in up in Haugesund. They’d come by information, they needed people, they’d heard about Jani’s gang — naturally enough, word gets around. But Jesus, Mary and Holy Saint fucking Joseph. It started from the minute they met them. ‘Whataboutye,’ said the Tornes guy, the one with ears as big as an elephant, ‘fat ass there is Jan Inge, is he?’ ‘Whataboutye,’ his brother chipped in, Tornes guy number two, the one with such a tiny nose you’d think he’d snorted it away, ‘all right hi, Porky, you going to drive the Skoda, are you?’ ‘Whataboutye,’ Tornes guy number three takes over, the youngest brother, the one with the mental big wart on his forehead, ‘all right hi, Fatso, are you the one called Videoboy?’ Oh fuck, Gran, wash my mouth out with Domestos. I’m happy you didn’t have to see that. That’s how they went on, for two whole days, and if it hadn’t been for Jan Inge himself refusing to let Tong and Rudi do over the whole Tornes Gang and cut them into pieces, then that’s what would have happened to them, and they would have been messed up and smelt even worse.