Tore Renberg - See You Tomorrow

Rudi gasps for breath.

‘Listen,’ Cecilie says, ‘you know you don’t need to talk about them, not if you don’t want to, you know how worked up you get.’

‘That my own fam—’

‘I know.’

‘That my own famil—’

Cecilie rubs the back of his hand. ‘I know, Rudi.’

‘Rikki and Ben … and Kate…’

‘I know.’

‘Rewind!’ sniffles Rudi, and slaps his hands together. ‘Where was I? Yeah, Tong: Elton. John. An openly homosexual man. And friend of the British royal family. Yes.’ He clears his throat. ‘And that’s what he sings, my Korean friend, or rather my former Korean friend: “I can see, very well.” And that’s what Deep Purple sing: “I’m a blind man and my world is pale.” And to take it slightly further, what is it The Cars sing: “Oh, heartbeat city, here we come.” Hm? Tong. Have you been there? In heartbeat city? And what is it Marillion — yeah, I know you hate Marillion, and I’d be only too happy to sit down and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of that band — what is it Marillion sing? “You’ve got venom in your stomach, you’ve got poison in your head.” Well, I’ll tell you one thing, brother of evil: I was blind, but now I can see, and my address is in heartbeat city, and my stomach isn’t full of venom, my head isn’t filled with poison, I’m rich. How is your stomach, yellow adder? How is your head, my furious friend? That’s the way it is, Tong, you have to accept that your best friend sucks cock, no matter how fucked up it seems.’

It’s quiet after Rudi’s flood of words lets up. Four pensioners pass by, one of them smiles, raises his hand to his forehead and gives them a three-fingered scout salute and says: ‘Lovely day, isn’t it?’

Cecilie feels warmth spread across her skin. Her eyes are moist.

‘In prison,’ says Tong calmly, ‘I read a good bit of psychology. And psychiatry. There’s a diagnosis for people like you, Rudi. It’s called manic. A lot of unstable people suffer from it.’

Cecilie continues looking at Rudi. The warm feeling on her skin increases, like a friendly fever. Please, whispers Cecilie to herself, please baby, don’t be Tong’s kid. And please, baby, please never let Rudi find out what I did. He’s my man, she whispers to herself, and now finally, I’m in love with him.

It just took a little time.

Then she approaches Rudi, places her hand in his, and says: ‘Hey, Rudi boy. Manic?’ She turns to Tong. ‘So what? Manic, my ass. I love manic.’

Rudi stares at her, his eyes look like they’re going to fall out of his head.

Cecilie continues to look at Tong.

‘Hey, Tong,’ she says, her voice clear and distinct. ‘Can you see how ugly I am?’ Then she goes up on her toes, reaches towards Rudi, takes hold of his head, finds his mouth, gives him her tongue and whispers: ‘I’d do fucking anything for you.’

His kiss is stiff. His eyes flit about. ‘Shhh!’

‘Wha?’

‘Pogo!’

She turns and looks in the direction he’s staring. About fifty or sixty metres from them, Tommy Pogo is approaching along the path. He’s wearing white trainers, blue jeans and a black belt with a shiny, silver buckle. A freshly washed, black T-shirt sits tight across his torso. Kia is rolling alongside in a motorised wheelchair. She has wavy, blonde hair and curling eyelashes to match, and she’s almost alarmingly pretty; imagine having a daughter like that.

‘No way,’ Rudi whispers, kissing Cecilie back as naturally as he’s able, ‘there’s no way this is a coincidence.’

Tommy and his daughter draw closer. Kia turns her head to her father and says something. He nods three times in succession. They’ve recognised them.

‘Tampon is sticking so close to us,’ Rudi whispers. ‘So bloody close. Come on, baby, let’s show him a bit of tongue here.’

And so Rudi snogs his woman, with such passion and intensity that his whole body is shaking as he hears Tommy Pogo’s resonant voice: ‘Well hello, didn’t expect to see you lot up here. I didn’t get a chance to pop by. Kia was off school due to some rehearsals, so I took the day off too, and voilà , here we are, and what do you know, you lot are here too. Tong, you’re back again. Did you have an okay time in Åna? Hi, Jan Inge, seems like either we never meet or we can’t stop bumping into each other, eh? You know, I’ve often thought about it, how you and Cecilie were left there in Hillevåg in the eighties; that’d never happen today, Child Welfare would have intervened, we would have stepped in, but maybe you’re happy we never did?’

Jan Inge smiles, but doesn’t reply, and Rudi merely continues making out with his girlfriend.

Pogo laughs. ‘Will there be wedding bells in the near future, Rudi? See, Kia, love can work out too, can last a long time. Good thing Rudi isn’t inside, the way the two of them carry on, eh?’

His daughter laughs, a mellifluous sound, she’s obviously inherited her father’s vocalisation. Tommy Pogo is a very handsome man. His beard is trimmed, his harelip barely visible beneath, not that it mars his appearance — it’s more of a liberating feature under the straight nose and piercing eyes.

Cecilie smiles mischievously and Rudi frees himself from her lips. Buoyed by self-confidence, he stares fixedly at Tommy: ‘Not that I believe for one second that you’re here by chance, Tommy. But I’ll tell you this, man, here we are, four friends, four bloody good friends, it’s Thursday and we’ve just had a heavy moving job, a grand piano in Våland, and we have one more job this evening, entire contents of a terraced house in Sandal, and now we’re taking a walk, and that, sir, we intend to continue with, and love, which I heard you talking about while I was giving Dolly here a little taste of things, yes, love, that’s the flag blowing in our breeze.’

Tommy Pogo nods.

‘It’s a free country, Rudi. Good to hear. Well, what do you say, Kia, will we be getting on?’

And so they part, Tommy and his daughter in one direction around the lake, the four crooks in the other. They stop and fall silent just five minutes from the car park, they look around, and on Jan Inge’s signal, Rudi runs up into the woods towards a large stone where he sticks his hand into a crevice and locates a bag of speed. Cecilie observes him from a distance, she feels like her face is burning up and she thinks about how strange this life can be, where one day the sight of a certain person makes you want to puke, and the next he’s your god, and she turns abruptly and looks straight into Tong’s face with utter disdain.

Pål reads the text once more as the sound of the doorbell fills the room: On my way. Heh heh! I’ll get a taxi. Zitha’s ears stiffen and her tail begins to beat against the floor. Pål checks that his answer is sent, OK, great , and looks out the window, which could really use a wash; when was the last time they did that? They had it on a list once, Malene was to wash the windows, Tiril was to do the shopping, and he was to, yeah, what was he supposed to do? They disappeared, those lists. They couldn’t manage to run such a tight ship.

So she is coming after all. Here. Today. Great.

How’s that going to go?

He squints: a moped?

Pål’s mouth runs dry, he hears Rudi’s agitated voice in his head, Jan Inge’s reedy voice, Cecilie’s warm voice, and he begins breaking out in a sweat. Is that them? They’re not supposed to be here before tonight. Now? On a moped?

It starts to sink in. He’s agreed to this scheme with people who cut their teeth in the Tjensvoll Gang, people who’ve been hardened criminals for over twenty years, and he’s put his trust in them. Christine should have been here now — she will be soon of course, great — she would have shaken her head as hard as humanely possible, she would have lowered those sexy eyelids of hers, sighed heavily and said: Pål. What is wrong with you. How naïve can you possibly be? Will you never learn?