Tore Renberg - See You Tomorrow

‘Rudi! I’m not getting into this right now. We need to make clean cash, you need to get that through your head! How many times do we have to talk about this? We run a moving company, that’s what it says on your tax returns, on my tax returns — it’s the reason no one can nab us, don’t you get that? You know, sometimes I wonder if you’re retarded. We’re respectable people, we have jobs, and as you’re well aware, there’s nothing better than having a moving job on the same day as we have … well … other jobs!’

Rudi takes a step back. What’s up with the guy? Jan Inge has sweat rings under his arms, all worked up and giving out like a headmaster or something.

‘Hey, brother,’ Rudi says cautiously. ‘Take it easy, yeah? What’s gotten into you? You need to use the wheelchair. Every day. You just tire yourself out spending so much time on your feet.’

Jan Inge takes a deep breath. He nods. ‘Yeah. You’re probably right,’ he mumbles. ‘Sorry. It’s nothing. Didn’t get enough sleep is all. You know yourself. Too little sleep will stress anyone out. You remember Tone-Tone? The one who hanged herself, remember her?’

‘Mhm.’

‘Yeah, hanged herself in the kitchen, and people said it was because Donald was having it off with Kjabben’s girlfriend and she walked in just as he was rimming her, but that wasn’t it. It was because she slept too little. She lost it. Put the noose round her neck one morning when she couldn’t take it any more.’

Rudi nods. ‘Tone-Tone, yeah. You remember her sister? What was she called again? Li … no, Lu … no—’

‘Lene-Lene.’

‘The very one. Whatever happened to her?’

‘Something in IT, I think.’

‘Like most of them. End up working with computers. You liked her, eh? Lene-Lene. Fuck, Jani. Maybe that’s what the matter. You should find yourself a woman. You know what Gran said, a man without a woman is half a person.’

Jan Inge nods. ‘Yeah, maybe. But I’ve got enough on my plate. Will we get a move on here?’

Rudi straightens up. ‘ Aber klar, mein Führer !’ He performs a Nazi salute and laughs.

‘Tong will be here,’ Jan Inge continues, ‘that’ll be good. We’ll score some speed. We’ll move a piano. We’ll work a nightshift. Kein Problem, mein Sohn . But enough of the Bee Gees. This is a house of horror. A house of metal and country music. That Coldplay stuff isn’t even funny. It just makes for a bad atmosphere.’

‘No, no,’ Rudi says sullenly, turning off the CD. ‘Did you see Chessi this morning?’

Jan Inge turns around and starts walking towards the kitchen.

‘Mhm. Why?’

Rudi squints. ‘Dunno,’ he says. ‘She was in such a great mood.’

‘Yeah, she’s in good humour all right.’

Jan Inge disappears into the kitchen.

Rudi ejects the CD, puts it back in its case. No, he thinks. Becoming more and more obvious that this house is beginning to get a bit cramped for all three of us. More and more obvious that Chessi and me need to find a place of our own.

‘Did she not have a massive pair of jugs?’ Rudi calls out in the direction of the kitchen.

‘Who?’

‘Lene-Lene!’

‘No, that was Tone-Tone.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yeah. I notice that kind of thing.’

‘Yeah, you like that.’

‘Huh?’

‘Big jugs!’

‘Wouldn’t say I dislike them.’

‘Frank and forthright.’

‘Wha?’

‘Frank and forthright, I said!’

‘That?’

‘Wha?’

‘Wank what?’

‘Frank and forthright, I said! That you like big jugs! I think they can be a bit much. Speaking of which, do you think Cecilie’s tits have grown bigger lately?’

‘What?’

‘Your sister! Her tits! Gotten bigger!’

‘No, no!’

‘Fuck. Probably just in my own sick head.’

Jan Inge walks back in. ‘Enough about tits now,’ he says, looking serious. ‘We’ve also got this thing with Tommy to take care of.’

‘Shit,’ Rudi exclaims, slapping his palm to his forehead. ‘Shitshitshit.’

‘You’d forgotten about that, I take it.’

‘Shitshitshit.’

‘We’re just going to have to deal with it. Simply go about our day as though he could show up here at any given moment. And the sooner he does the better.’

‘Okay, what about Cecilie — have you told her he’s coming?’

‘No, I have not, the fewer people that know about it the better,’ Jan Inge says, heading back towards the kitchen.

Rudi takes a breath and lets it out; he feels the urge to spit and spin right round. Difficult to deal with when the atmosphere in a room changes. When the boat rocks. That’s the reason he’s never believed in all that stuff about revolution — it makes people so insecure.

‘You should at least listen to the lyrics,’ Rudi says in a lower tone, to himself really. ‘Seeing as how you plan to become a writer and all that,’ he adds, as he stows the Coldplay CD on the shelf behind some old magazines. ‘It’s about a king who’s no longer a king.’

‘Seriously, Mally, this is insane, Kenny has beaten up Shaun!’

Malene hurries after Tiril as they rush along Ernst Askildsens Gate, up towards the green area overlooking the neighbourhood of Tjensvolltorget.

She can’t take much more of this. Malene wants to return to the world where she goes to school, does her homework, eats her dinner and then heads to gymnastics practice and hears Sigrid’s voice resound through the hall: ‘Malene, now! The double!’ Train until it’s late, sail through the air and enjoy the sensation of it. Focus her mind and body, shut everything else out and feel herself growing stronger. She doesn’t want to be in the midst of this muddle of unpredictable interpersonal relations that’s been stirred up over the last couple of days, with Dad acting so strangely and Tiril going off her head. Malene herself feels as though she’s being opened and closed every other minute, to the point where she hardly recognises herself.

‘And Sandra — holy shit — here, check out this text.’

Tiril comes to an abrupt halt and hands her the mobile: Maybe you were right, maybe DW is a coward. Outside his block of flats now, have no clue what’s going to happen. If I die, I die for love. Xx S.

‘What’ll we do?’ Tiril continues. ‘Eh?’

Malene lifts her hands in a gesture of resignation: ‘I’ve no idea…’

‘And what about Dad, breakfast banquet for no good reason? He really needs to get a girlfriend. Or a new car. Something.’

Tiril stops when she sees a football lying on the tarmac. She looks at it as though it’s a person who’s done her wrong, knitting her brow before giving it a boot with her right foot.

‘Where’s Shaun?’ asks Malene, watching the ball go in the direction of the tennis courts. ‘What did he write?’

‘That was all,’ says Tiril, while they watch the ball disappear out of sight. ‘He didn’t write any more. Kenny beat the shit out of me .’

‘Where is he?’

The sisters walk up the hill towards the green belt of land around the pumping station, known locally as Vanassen. There’s a park of sorts up there. It’s laid out as if the local authority had intended it to afford outstanding views over the area: lying high up, on a grand scale, with the water of Hafrsfjord in the west and the peaks of Ryfylkeheiene to the east. But it’s almost as though the people in the council lost interest midway, they couldn’t stay the course and what remains seems half-hearted and hopeless. A miserable gravel path, a dry-stone wall, four garish benches with two matching tables and the land around always overgrown, any surfaces invariably graffitied. It’s windswept up there, even when there’s not the slightest hint of a breeze anywhere else.