See You Tomorrow (27 page)

She walks by the clothes racks with her hand out, her fingers running along the material of garment after garment.

The light in Hennes & Mauritz is cold and glaring; she’s been there a half-hour without really looking at one single article of clothing. Other customers have come in, the clock has ticked, past five o’clock, getting on for six, work and school are finished, outside the sun is sinking on the horizon, the afternoon is slipping into evening.

She’s had to stop several times and draw breath, close her eyes and swallow so as not to burst out crying. If this is love, she doesn’t understand what it wants with her. She thought love would make her feel good. But what it’s doing is dishing out pain, rending and tearing at her and thrusting her into something unknown and dangerous.

We were supposed to be good to one another, Daniel.

Sandra holds an ocean-blue headscarf between her fingers. She can’t remember having picked it out to look at. Blue, her mother always says, blue suits you, Sandra, nice colour on you, brings out your eyes.

She pays. 69.50. She goes out of the shop and down the escalators, out into the fading light on Domkirkeplassen, the square in front of the cathedral. A normal day in Stavanger. Market traders selling fruit and vegetables, a thin man with a hot-dog stand at the entrance to the SR-Bank chatting with passers-by, a beggar wearing a shawl, a 7-Eleven cup in her hands, sitting cross-legged in Laugmannsgaten, and over by ‘Ting’, a junkie in light-coloured jeans and a tracksuit top selling
Asfalt
.

Sandra notices daily life around her, but doesn’t take it in. She feels small, she feels afraid. She keeps her eyes lowered, tightens
her grip on her H&M bag, enters Arneageren Square, without looking at anyone and steering clear of the teenagers sitting outside
Kulturhuset
; she opens the door to McDonald’s.

Sandra hopes Malene comes soon, because right now she needs a friend. She’s taken out her mobile a thousand times and begun writing a text to Daniel, a thousand times she’s pulled his number up on the screen to ring it.

Dear, precious, Daniel. Nothing matters, nothing apart from you and me.

Daniel, you’re everything to me. I love you.

She hasn’t sent either message. She doesn’t like what she has written. Is this how it is? Does love bring out all the pain inside people? Is
that
love’s secret, the one the Bible doesn’t dare talk about? Maybe this is what every grown-up knows, but avoids saying to their children. Maybe that’s why all grown-ups have something of an ash-grey look in their eyes. Because they know that love is the same as pain.

Sandra orders a cheeseburger and a coke. She sits down with her back against the wall, sets the tray on the table in front of her. She takes a sip of her drink, but can’t taste anything. She lifts up the cheeseburger, brings it to her mouth, takes a bite, not good. Pain in her stomach.

Suddenly something jolts in her mind.

She sits up straight.

Has it been like this the whole time, has she just been blind to it? Facial expressions and words spoken begin detonating in her head, bursting like soap bubbles; an ugly sneer playing on his mouth, his eyes turning steely all of a sudden, his hands going limp, the reticence that sometimes comes over him. Is he toying with me? She feels something spread across her chest, feels her mind begin to clear. The risk of weeping begins to subside. Is this the truth? That he caught sight of her that night in the shop, and what he saw was a stick of candy, something he wanted to taste, as long as it had some flavour? In her mind Sandra goes though the times she’s tried talking to him about something other than exactly what he wants to talk about. What does he do then? He just shuts off, closes down completely.

Sandra clears her throat, almost loudly.

The sick stuff he’s done. Beaten people up. Killed his parents. Whatever it may be. The way he just rides around on his moped. She knows he bunks school a few days a week.

He’s dangerous is what he is.

It’s strange how her heart settles when she has these thoughts. Gradually she begins to notice the people around her, the single father in the Smiths T-shirt sitting with his son over at the steps; he’s finished his food and he’s waiting for his son to do the same, they’re probably going to the cinema. Outside the window, four teenagers, sixth-formers, talking, laughing and waving their hands about, one boy constantly bumping up against a very pretty girl.

Malene opens the door. Her new friend walks with her back straight, with colour in her cheeks and red lipstick on. She’s very pretty, with a body a lot of girls at school envy; it says as much on her Facebook page –
oh, such a nice bod, Malene.

‘Hi Sandra, I came as quick as I could…’ Malene sits down, bringing fresh air with her. ‘How are things with you?’

‘Okay.’ Sandra nods and takes a sip of coke to conceal her thoughts.

Malene looks surprised. ‘But you didn’t sound so—’

‘I bought a headscarf.’

Malene leans back into the seat. ‘Cool … let’s have a gander. Hennes?’

‘Mhm,’ Sandra nods, ‘it’s all right.’ She takes the headscarf out of the bag. Hands it to her friend. Malene examines it.

‘It’s nice … blue suits you.’

‘I think I’ll break up with him.’

Malene’s eyes open wide.

‘With Daniel, yeah, I—’

‘What?’

Don’t start crying now. Sandra takes another sip of coke, a bite of the cheeseburger.

‘Jesus, Sandra, what’s happened—’

Sandra looks at her friend. ‘I can’t handle it,’ she says, taking back the headscarf and beginning to tie it around her head,
under her hairline. ‘I don’t know who he is. He … I just can’t handle it—’

‘But, I mean, you love him, he loves you, you—’

Sandra nods. Don’t say it, she thinks, don’t say it.

‘Don’t you? Do you not love him any more?’

Sandra ties the headscarf at the nape of her neck.

‘But if you love him, if he is the love of your life—’

‘Yeah, but what if all that love of your life, the one stuff, is just a…’ She can’t manage to finish the sentence. The tears are coming.

Shit. Sandra tries to hold them back but they won’t be bossed. She shuts her eyes, places her fingers over them, inhales and exhales.

When she opens them again, she catches sight of him. And her. Daniel and Veronika are standing a few metres from the window, between McDonald’s and the fountain in the square. No doubt about it. It’s them. Sandra has a rushing sensation in her head, as though a thousand tiny spears are flying from one side of her brain to the other: his head tilted to one side, his hand going to her hair, his fingers moving a lock from her cheek.

Daniel and Veronika.

‘Sandra, what is it—’

That’s it. That’s what it’s all about.

Malene turns and looks out the window.

‘Oh my God, isn’t that—’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘But—’

Daniel puts his arms around Veronika. He pulls her close and runs his hand up and down her back. She leans into him, resting her head on his chest.

Malene looks at Sandra in confusion.

‘But I don’t understand, is he, have they—’

She turns back towards the window.

Daniel lets go of Veronika. They stand looking at one another. The deaf girl’s face is covered in lines going up and down and across, as though it were divided into pieces. Daniel brings his hand to her face, tracing the lines with his fingers, opens his mouth and says something. Veronika nods and smiles and then
they leave. Walking past the fountain, out of sight, into the gathering darkness.

‘You need to breathe easy,’ Malene whispers.

‘I can hardly breathe at all,’ Sandra whispers back.

Thea unrolled the hose from the basement, Tiril sprayed the entrails off the window, feeling cool standing there with her feet apart and a cig hanging from the side of her mouth as the jet of water hit the pane. Thea fetched her father's hammer, but looked away as Tiril pulled the nail from the tree and out through the cat's head. She had to stand on a lawn chair and use all the strength she had, the bark of the tree made a whining sound as the nail came free, the head and pelt of the cat landing with a smack at the foot of the tree. Tiril was satisfied. They had withstood the attack from Bunny's big brother. Thea fetched two big black bin liners. As if to demonstrate it was no problem for her, Tiril put out her cigarette in the carcass of the dead cat before lifting it up from the ground – uuchh, Tiril, disgusting – and throwing it into the bag. She tied the bag tightly, double-wrapped it in the other bin liner and then said: ‘I'll take care of this.'

‘So, like, what are you going to do with it?'

Tiril held the bag up in Thea's face and shook it about.

‘Uhhyuu! Quit it!'

Tiril threw the bag to Thea. She reacted as though a live rat had landed on her lap and flung it quickly back.

‘Tiril! Quit it!'

‘I said I'd take care of it, didn't I?' Tiril laughed and began to make her way out of the garden.

‘Where are you going?'

Tiril halted. ‘Are there any of the neighbours you don't like?'

‘What?'

Tiril put one hand on her hip and swung the rubbish bag round in the other.

‘Do you think this is all a joke? Do you think my mum and dad
aren't going to twig that something's gone on here? Do you think the neighbours aren't going to discover what's happened if they find a cat in their rubbish?'

Tiril walked back to her friend. She placed her hand on her shoulder. ‘No,' she said. ‘I don't think so.'

A little over an hour later, Thea's parents arrived home. The girls were practising, Thea by the piano, edgy and ill-at-ease, Tiril seated beside her, singing, better than ever. She felt something had loosened in her chest when she sang the lines she loved: this pain is just too real. When the parents first entered the living room they stood still and listened. After a while they sat down on the sofa by the window and when the girls finished they clapped and said it was one of the most beautiful things they'd ever heard, and as the four of them made their way to the kitchen, Tiril mouthed ‘I told you so' to Thea, before she turned to Thea's parents and said: ‘It's so great we get to practise here, we've been at it for hours now.'

‘Yeah, I can definitely hear it,' said Thea's father. ‘You've got at least two fans that can't wait to hear the two of you tomorrow in the gym hall. Isn't that right, dear?'

‘Absolutely,' said Thea's mother. ‘By the way, it's really wet in the garden. What happened?'

Tiril saw a nervous twitch at the side of Thea's mouth and hurried to say: ‘A few brats came along and threw eggs at the window. We brought the hose out and washed off the mess.'

Thea's father clicked his fingers. ‘Heh heh,' he chortled, his eyebrows dancing up and down a little as he turned to his wife. ‘Eh? There you go. Girls nowadays,' he confirmed with visible satisfaction, ‘they don't take rubbish from anyone. Are you both hungry?'

‘Yeah – we wouldn't say no,' Tiril replied and noticed how everything just fits into place when you feel self-confident.

They walked into the kitchen, where, a few hours earlier, the girls had witnessed the cat's entrails hitting the windowpane. Thea's father opened the fridge door. He does resemble Dad, Tiril thought, around the same age, same sort of build, but whereas Dad does everything with a kind of reluctance, Thea's father does it all with such ease. In a matter of seconds he'd taken out broccoli,
carrots, a fillet of chicken, and in no time he had heated up the wok, cut up the vegetables, kissed his wife on the neck and made a risqué joke as she tied the apron round his waist.

Tiril didn't find it gross, the way they flirted with each other. Although it wasn't so long since Tiril couldn't stand that kind of thing, not long at all since the sight of two happy grown-ups made her livid, particularly if they were the parents of someone she knew. But Thea's parents, she can handle that – perhaps because Thea's father always makes her laugh.

That was awesome.

Pulling the nail out of the tree, out of the cat's head.

Thea hadn't noticed, but Tiril had: Bunny's big brother, that sick fucker, had hammered the nail through the cat's eye. Right through his left eye. The sound when she had extracted the nail, like putting your foot into a waterlogged welly.

The feeling she had had, it was good.

When she held the cat's furry skull, when the limp body hung from the dead head, like a figure from a puppet show. She hadn't felt sorry for the cat. She'd just looked into its dead eyes and all she was able to see was the sick, but nevertheless fantastic, act. His hands. Bunny's big brother's hands. One of them holding the head against the tree. The other gripping the hammer. The nail in his mouth. The wail of the cat as the blows rained down.

Because he wanted to make it clear that nobody touched his brother.

No matter, Tiril thinks, no matter what way you look at it, he's one sick fucker, but a strong fucker, and in one way he did what was right. Just like she did what was right. So the only question is: who's stronger? Who can sing more beautifully?

It was getting on for six o'clock and the girls left the table; it was still a while before they were due at rehearsals. They went to Thea's room where, for probably close to the thousandth time, they sat down to watch Evanescense videos on YouTube. They talked about what an insane day it had been, they felt content and happy with themselves, they laughed about how they'd handled Bunny's big brother, how they'd handled Thea's mum and dad, and now, now they're looking deep into one another's eyes, speaking in hushed
tones, as they talk about how exceptionally well they performed the song in practice today.

‘If we can sound as good tommorrow…' Thea whispers.

‘We'll sound as good,' whispers Tiril.

‘I'm just, like, really nervous. Aren't you?'

‘Why should I be?'

Tiril clicks on the mouse and leaves the live version of ‘Haunted' from Rock Am Ring behind. She's not so into that one, nor does she care much for Amy's shorts, hair or eye make-up in it. She likes her better when she's Gothic and exalted, like in the video for ‘Call Me When You're Sober' for instance.

‘We'll sound better, Thea,' she says. ‘We'll sound even better.'

Text message. She leans towards the desk, looks at the mobile. From Malene.

R u @ T's? Can we come over. Pls. Sandra and me.

‘Who is it?'

Tiril shows the message to Thea.

Thea taps her chin with her middle finger, like she always does when she's unsure. ‘What's happened?'

Tiril gets to her feet, like she always does when her heart begins to tick. ‘Dunno.' She texts back:
Just come. We're here.

A few minutes later the doorbell rings and Thea, with Tiril right behind, hurries down the stairs to answer it, calling out to her parents that it's for her. As they'd suspected, they open the door to the sight of two girls in crisis mode. Malene leads a clearly shattered Sandra over the threshold and they steer her up to the bedroom: ‘Just Sandra and Malene!' Thea calls out in the direction of the living room.

‘Great!'

That's the thing with Thea's father, thinks Tiril, as she hears his voice ring out. Everything's great as far he's concerned, and if it's not great then he insists on it being great.

Once they're in Thea's room, Sandra collapses on to the red beanbag on the floor. The other three stand in front of her.

Tiril looks at Malene: ‘What's going on?'

‘We're not quite sure, but it's Daniel, in any case.'

Tiril can see Thea swallow, like most girls do when his name is
mentioned. But Tiril doesn't have any need to swallow. ‘What is it he's done, then?' she asks.

‘We were in town,' Malene does the talking, Sandra slumps unhappily in the beanbag, her make-up running down her face, ‘because it was all a bit too much for Sandra today, so I met her there, at McDonald's—'

‘McDonald's,' Tiril rolls her eyes and crosses her arms, ‘have you started going there as well now—'

‘Can you just drop the environmental shit today?'

‘Okay—'

‘Anyway, we're sitting there and Sandra's trying to get a grip on things and suchlike and that's when we see them—'

‘Who?'

‘Them…'

‘Who?'

‘Daniel and—'

‘Daniel?'

‘Daniel and Veronika.'

‘Veronika?' Thea takes a step forward. ‘The foster sister?'

Malene nods. ‘But that's not all, because when she turns round—'

‘Turns round?'

‘Yeah, we were sitting inside and they were outside—'

‘With their arms around one another,' comes a sobbing voice from the beanbag.

‘They had their arms round one another?!'

‘Yeah, they did, but anyway—'

‘Like – I mean, they were wrapped around each other—'

‘Yeah, but anyway, when she turned around her face was all … all…'

‘She'd cut herself up,' says the voice from the beanbag. ‘Out of love.'

They all turn to Sandra.

‘How…' Malene crouches down beside her. ‘How do you know that?'

Sandra makes a fist, thumps it against her chest and with a sobbing voice says: ‘I understand everything now.'

The girls sit down in a ring around the beanbag. They tend to Sandra. They run their hands over her hair, fix her fringe, straighten her necklace so the crucifix rests in the hollow of her throat, stroke her gently on her forearms. They speak to her softly. They let her relate. They listen. They let her tell them how fantastic these past weeks have been, about his bright, electric mouth, about how he's given her his heart and she's given hers in return, about how she felt that life has been filled with a colossal love – I haven't needed sleep, I haven't needed to eat, all I've needed was him! They nod and they listen as she fills them in on the last twenty-four hours, how everything has twisted, how everything has become harsh and ugly and how fear has been hammering at her door.

Tiril gets to her feet. She paces the floor in thought. She feels she's the one who needs to assume responsibility. They need to be at rehearsals very soon. Sandra needs to pull herself together. Tiril halts in front of the beanbag and makes eye contact with Sandra.

‘You need to go see him. You need to tell him what you think and what you've seen. You need to take the fight to him. And to her. Veronika.'

Sandra sniffles, wipes her nose with the back of her hand.

Malene nods.

Thea nods too.

‘You're going to send him a text,' Tiril says.

Sandra shuts her eyes, shakes her head quickly from side to side. ‘No, I won't…'

Tiril raises her voice a notch: ‘You're going to send him a text, do you hear me?'

‘But, I…'

‘Gimme your phone.' Tiril puts her hand out.

‘No, Tiril, I…'

‘I said, gimme your phone.'

Sandra reluctantly hands her the mobile.

Tiril begins to type:

Daniel, you are a coward. It's time you showed me who you are. Who it is you want. I'll wait for you…

‘Where do the two of you usually meet?'

‘Mm, by the electricity substation—'

…by the substation.
This is your last chance. Sandra.

Tiril presses send. She tosses the mobile back into Sandra's lap and walks towards the window. She stands there with her back to them. She can feel their eyes on her.

‘By the way,' she says, without turning around, ‘Bunny's big brother was here. Y'know, Kenny. He nailed a cat to the tree. Put the nail right through the cat's eye. He was trying to put us in our place. He failed. Look. It's beginning to get dark.