See You Tomorrow (12 page)

‘Tiril?’

Malene is standing on the loading ramp with her arms folded. Her head moving slowly from side to side, like a leaf in a light breeze.

Tiril bites the top off a fingernail and spits it out on the tarmac. She takes out a fresh cigarette, tucks her chewing gum up between her lip and her front teeth as though it were a pinch of
snus
, produces the lighter, watches the flame light up the darkness before bringing it to the cigarette.

She doesn’t reply. Why should she go around answering people all the time? Amazing how someone’s always pestering you. Everybody’s alone in this world, in case you hadn’t noticed, you’re born alone and you’ll die alone.

‘Something’s up with Dad.’

Malene turns to her. She speaks in a low voice. She has a forlorn expression on her face. Sometimes Tiril wonders if she practises that look, so people will feel sorry for her. Tiril certainly couldn’t be bothered perfecting any bogus expressions of her own, even though she’s the one they should feel sorry for, because she’s the one who’s fourteen, she’s the one with a horrible body, the one without any friends, while Malene gets everything handed to her, just sits there in Dad’s lap being the understanding, talented little gymnast with good grades.

‘I can just feel it,’ Malene says, still speaking in a hushed tone. ‘There’s something up with Dad.’

She can just
feel
it.

Jesus.

‘Relax,’ says Tiril. ‘You’re so dramatic. He’s out taking Zitha for
a walk. That’s what he does every night. Zitha is a dog, she needs to be taken for walks. It’s not Dad there’s something wrong with, it’s you.’

Malene crouches down right in front of her. Tiril doesn’t like it. She doesn’t like it when people get all in her face. It’s like when that Norwegian teacher crops up behind her shoulder, smelling of coffee and asks so veeeeeeeery gently
how are you getting on here, Tiril.
Just great, Miss, get lost and sort out your own life, on your period, are you?

She blows smoke straight into her sister’s face.

‘You need to quit that, it’s disgusting.’ Malene waves the smoke away with a grimace.

‘No. It’s great. Cancer of the future, pleasure of the present.’

‘Knock it off. Listen to me,’ says Malene. ‘I can feel it, you understand?’

Tiril shakes her head: ‘You can feel it. You know what, I’m so bloody fed up of you thinking you can
feel
how things are with Dad.’

‘Tiril, stop—’

‘Who do you think you are? Dad’s girlfriend? The way you go round tidying his things, as if he didn’t have his own life, do you think he likes that? Do you think he likes you putting away his Adidas and folding his trousers, I don’t know what you’re thinking, I mean, it’s sick! You’re, like, his daughter! And then you sit on his knee as if you were even younger than me. Jesus, it’s disgusting.’

Malene recoils. Her eyes screw up slightly and the corners of her mouth begin to quiver.

Jesus, now she’s going to start crying.

That is a frigging low girly thing to pull.

She’s never going to be like that, she’s never going to cry unless she’s in real pain. Harshini and Vera both do it as well, they’ve been at it since first class, crying about nothing and then the whole class gathers round them and it’s all poooooor you, Harshini, and poooooor you, Vera. Jesus, it’s not
poooooor
anyone, or if it was it should be Kia Pogo, she’s actually paralysed, she actually
has
a reason to think everything’s fucked up. No, it’s just a low, frigging,
girly thing to do because they’re weak and don’t have the guts to deal with things themselves. It was cool when Frida Riska tore into them, Vera and Harshini both, went over to them and said: ‘Girls, enough of the crocodile tears. You hear me?’

Tiril gets to her feet. She looks away.

Mhm. There’s the sniffling.

Time for the waterworks now, maybe? Pooooor me who’s always looking after Dad. Pooooor me who does all the housework. Ungrateful you, who just goes round giving out and being pissed off. Isn’t that what you’re going to say?

Malene stands up, grabs hold of Tiril’s arm. She tries to pull herself loose – ‘what are you doing? Are you going to hit me now as well?’ – but her sister clutches her tight.

‘You can say what you want, Tiril.’ Malene looks her in the eyes. ‘You can say what you want about me, we can talk about that another time, when you’ve had a chance to think about it. But this here, this is about Dad. Understand?’

Tiril tears herself free from Malene’s grip. She stares at her while fixing her clothes.

‘Is that so? You think you’re the only one who’s ever right? You think you’re the only one with eyes in their head? Don’t you? That you’re the only one who can think and understand and actually has a brain?’

‘No. I—’

‘No! So quit it and … just quit it! What is it you want?’

Malene looks down. ‘I’m sick of arguing with you, Tiril,’ she says quietly.

Tiril takes a last drag of the cigarette, drops it, puts it out with her foot and dislodges the chewing gum from beneath her lip. She takes a few steps along the loading ramp and looks over towards the school. Some day she’s going to get out of here, and she’s never going to come back. She’ll get away from here, away from Madla, away from Gosen, away from poxy fucking Stavanger.

‘I’m not arguing,’ Tiril says coolly, ‘I’m discussing.’

Behind her, she hears Malene let out a heavy sigh. ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Whatever.’

Her hands hang by her sides. Malene stands there with her nice
body. And Tiril stands there with her horrible body and a pain in her stomach. Two boys skate by in the car park below. One of them points at the girls and shouts something. It’s Bunny’s little brother and that guy from Haugtassa, Hassan. Tiril extends her middle finger, holds it up to them and shouts: ‘Fucking retard!’

Can’t she give it a rest.

Standing there breathing so heavily.

‘Yeah, yeah!’ sputters Bunny’s little brother. ‘Emo! Looking forward to you making an asshole of yourself on Thursday! International Cunt Workshop!’

‘Wanker!’ shouts Tiril, hears them laughing and watches them skate out of sight. Bunny’s little shit of a brother, cheeky little prick. Not a day goes by without him making some remark, something wrong with that guy.

‘Listen…’ she says, without looking at Malene. ‘I didn’t mean it.’

‘Right, right,’ her sister says hastily. ‘Whatever. I’m heading home. See you when I see you’

Tiril bites her lip. ‘Look…’ she takes a deep breath: ‘That thing about the clothes. I didn’t mean it. Dad likes it. I’m sure he does. It’s just … you always have to be so … it’s like, you always have to do the right thing the whole time. When did you get your period, by the way?’

Malene looks like E.T. again, she gives a little start and laughs. Tiril grins.

‘Well, I—’ Malene stops herself. Looks closely at Tiril. ‘But have you—’

‘No, no. I’m as clean and pure as a preacher’s sheets. Heh heh.’

‘Summer last year,’ Malene says, ‘right after we got home from Copenhagen. It’s a real hassle.’

Tiril looks around. It’s a hassle, yeah, but it sucks being the last in the class to get it. Not that she’d want to have been the first, not like Amalie, that was so embarrassing, she got it super early, but if it doesn’t come soon she’s going to start to wonder if there’s something wrong with her, no matter how much it hurts.

She doesn’t have Malene’s nice figure. She doesn’t have Malene’s eyes. She isn’t good, nice and kind like Malene, but she has the
eyes of Amy Lee, and she, too, is able to see. Bunny’s little brother and his mate skating by the low-rises. The woods. The school. The telecom tower. The hill.

Tiril feels the cold worming its way into her body. All right, she thinks, hopping down off the loading ramp. Fleet of foot, clear in mind. All right.

‘Come on,’ she says, setting off.

‘Huh?’

‘Limahaugen.’

‘Huh?’ Malene scuttles after her.

‘Well? Didn’t you want to look for Dad?’

‘Yeah, but—’

‘Well then, come on,’ says Tiril, continuing up the hill by the school, ‘and I’ll prove to you nothing’s wrong. Dad is standing up there, I’ll bet you a hundred kroner on it. He’s standing up there, on top of Limahaugen looking out over the fjord, Zitha by his side, her tail wagging, and when we get there she’ll come running and barking, but then you’re the one, Malene, who’s going to have to explain what we’re doing there, okay?’

Tiril stops in front of the flats, turns and breathes on her sister.

‘Well, have you got a hundred? I’m not going if you don’t.’

Malene nods and takes a banknote from her pocket.

‘Do I smell of smoke?’

Malene sniffs.

‘It’ll go away.’ Tiril hurries uphill toward Limahaugen. ‘Dad will be disappointed, you know, if he finds out. Think you might need glasses by the way, you’re making a lot of weird faces, maybe your eyesight is bad.’

Bunny’s little brother, that prick.

Tiril clenches her fists.

Guess who’s going to get a taste of Tiril tomorrow.

‘Like that? Daniel? Like that?’

It hurts a little. She has the weight of a boy lying on top of her, his entire bodyweight. Only a few moments ago she thought about just abandoning herself to it, and she managed too, but now she’s suddenly thinking there’s a boy on top of her, she’s never experienced that before and he’s thrusting something inside her. Ouch.

It stops abruptly. She feels a trickling sensation ease through her body and it doesn’t hurt so much any more.

I love this boy, she thinks. I love this. He’s all mine.

Why is he stopping? Why is he pulling out of me? Sandra opens her eyes as she feels Daniel getting up. She props herself up on her elbows, covering her naked breasts. He’s on his knees in front of her, features tightly drawn, looking away, looking into himself.

‘Daniel? What is it?’

He doesn’t answer. His face is contorted, his eyes wide open, as though his pupils are just going to disappear. Sandra draws her legs back, feels a tightening in her chest.

‘Daniel? Is there something wrong?’

He holds his hands in front of his crotch, he’s quivering all over, sweating, not looking at her. Sandra reaches out despairingly, her hands touching his stomach.

‘Don’t!’ he hisses, getting up and pushing her away.

‘What is it?’ She sobs. ‘Daniel? What have I done wrong? You know I love you, you know I just want … it was nice, Daniel!’

They hear the sound of a dog barking, not far from them. Daniel pulls up his jeans, giving her a stern look as he crouches down.

‘Daniel, I—’

‘Shhh!’

He brings a finger to his lips. He shoots her another severe look. Sandra feels her throat go cold and a sweat break out under her hairline. She’s never seen him like this before, it’s scary.

But she does as he says. Keeps quiet.

Footsteps. They hear footsteps. Moving quickly over the ground, nearby. They both crouch down further. Daniel zips up the flies of his jeans. Sandra pulls her panties on hurriedly, wiggles her hips into her jeans and nervously fastens the buttons on her top one by one. They look around for the source of the footsteps. That dog, the barking of that dog, they’ve heard that before. Is someone spying on them? My God, it could be someone from the class. It could be Mum, it could be Dad.

Daniel points. Once again he puts a finger to his lips. Sandra feels her stomach throb with fear, she looks around anxiously. Now he gives a firm nod, his teeth clenched, in the direction of the woods. What is it she’s supposed to see?

There. A girl.

Or, a woman.

She’s walking between the trees. God, she’s walking right towards them. A woman, she’s carrying something, what is it, a
cat?
It’s an animal in any case, and she doesn’t look good, this woman, not at all, frail and rough with unruly witchlike hair, shabby clothes and smudged make-up – there’s that dog barking again.

‘Down!’ whispers Daniel and lies down flat on the ground.

Sandra does the same. Her heart pounding in her chest.

The woman walks by. It’s a hedgehog she’s carrying. It’s the weirdest-looking thing, the woman is tiny and as thin as a sheet of paper, around forty or something, with crooked teeth and red eyes, walking along muttering to herself.

She continues on down towards the road.

They get back up when she’s out of sight. They try to look at one another but can’t manage to. Sandra has tears running down her cheeks and feels like she’s ruined everything. She did something wrong but doesn’t know what, and now he’s furious. Wasn’t she good enough at it? Were her hands not skilled, did she use her
tongue wrong, was her body not attractive? Has he slept with hundreds of girls before her and just thought she was horrible, stupid, small and tight and no good at anything? Please, Daniel, give me one more chance, I’ll be better, I promise, I’ll do everything the way you want.

‘There’s someone here,’ he says, in a low voice.

She’s about to say something, but he puts his hand over her mouth.

What’s he on about? How can he talk like that after what’s happened?

There’s that dog barking again.

He turns. Whispers: ‘Understand?’

Sandra nods, she feels so small and stupid that she obeys everything he says.

Then they hear it, both of them. The sound of someone laughing.

‘We have to go,’ he says. ‘It’s not safe here.’

Sandra feels like she’s going to shatter into a thousand pieces. There’s nothing about Daniel to indicate they’ve slept together, that they’ve looked as far into one another’s eyes as people can.

‘We can’t be here,’ he says, straightening his jacket. ‘We’ll just walk calmly across the path, me first and then you half a minute after.’

Daniel stops.

‘Fuck. Where’s my helmet?’

‘Helmet?’

‘Fuck,’ he says again. ‘Never should have—’ He shakes his head. ‘Okay. Me first. Then you follow half a minute later. I’ll take the Suzuki. You walk home.’

Home?

She’s not able to get up, not able to breathe, she can only cry.

‘Get a grip, Sandra.’ He’s not looking at her. ‘Get up. Don’t sit there blubbering. I’m off now, you follow after.’

She gets to her feet unsteadily. I have to do what he says, she thinks, otherwise he’ll leave me. He knows about this sort of thing. He’s older than me.

‘Okay,’ she says, mustering her most grown-up smile. ‘Half a minute,’ she adds, trying to sound upbeat. She leans forward, gives him a peck on the cheek. ‘So, did you like it?’

His eyes flit around, avoiding her gaze.

‘Hm? Yeah, yeah, it was great, see you tomorrow.’

What’s with you, Daniel William Moi?

How can you be so cold?

Are you a dangerous boy, Daniel William Moi?

She wants to hurl herself at him, wants to hit him more than anything, hit him with both hands, but she refrains. She smiles, brushes off leaves, grass and mould, and says: ‘Yeah. Sure. See you tomorrow.’