Authors: Tore Renberg
‘Tiril,
please
, can you help me here?’
She sees the honey jars roll across the lino, hears them rattling like the peel of sick bells, sees the sweaty, Christian girl crawling on all fours, and she turns up the volume on the iPhone, wipes the ice cream freezer with the cloth and looks the other way.
Thea is going to sit at the piano and Tiril will stand in front.
I’m so tired of being here, suppressed by all my childish fears.
Thea will be dressed in white: white top, white dress, white tights and white shoes. Whereas she’ll be in black: black top, black dress, black tights and black shoes.
And if you have to leave I wish that you would just leave, ’cause your presence still lingers here, and it won’t leave me alone.
They’re going to blow the roof off the gym hall.
These wounds won’t seem to heal, this pain is just too real, there’s just too much that time cannot erase.
Tiril feels it on her arms, the hairs standing on end, same as when she heard the song for the first time on YouTube:
When you cried I’d wipe away all of your tears
.
On Thursday. The International Culture Workshop. Kinda daft, but, whatever.
‘Tiril! Can you please come and help me here?’
She ignores Christian Girl’s desperate pleas and crouches down. Evanescence fills her head as she gives the large surfaces of the freezer a thorough wipe.
Thea’s amazing on the piano, she’s been playing for years and her parents reckon she could go far. Beethoven and Brahms and all kinds of stuff just flies from her fingers, and she only needs to hear a song and she can play it. It’s mad. Her fingers just run across the keys. It’s not that easy either, ‘My Immortal’. Maybe it’s not that hard, like technically, but getting the feeling right, only Thea can do that. And Amy Lee.
And Tiril Fagerland.
They’ve tried getting hold of a black piano, or a grand, but the school doesn’t have anything like that, only an electronic one. But nobody will have a bad word to say about the stage show. They’re going to cover the windows in the gym hall with black sheets, drape a black felt cloth over the piano, and Tiril found a
five-branched
candelabra in Oxfam. The candlesticks in it will shine bright.
You used to captivate me by your resonating light, now I’m bound by the life you left behind.
After the second verse, Tiril’s going to let a black, see-through shawl fall down over her face. She’ll stand upright, motionless, her gaze fixed on the floor, her body rigid, like a statue, her fingers splayed like a leaf. Then she’ll raise her head, slowly, slowly, as she sings the most powerful lines in the song:
I’ve tried so hard to tell myself that you’re gone.
But though you’re still with me I’ve been alone all along.
The plan is for it to be dark when she sings those lines, and then on the final chorus the lights will come up, preferably ones with green and red filters. That’s when she needs to give it her all. She needs to sing like Amy Lee, needs to think that
she is Amy Lee,
that she’s the one who grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Tiril is going to go there someday. She’s going to see the place Evanescence are from. She’s going to walk the streets, breathe the air. What would be really amazing would be to see them live in their hometown, like Dad did with Maiden. Dad says he had metal on the brain when he was young, Maiden mainly, and even though he doesn’t listen to metal any more he’ll never forget that time he saw them in London. He’s talked about it loads, about what a fantastic feeling it is, seeing your favourite band in the city they come from. And she’ll be the one to do it, not Malene. Tiril will be the one who’ll fly to the US, she’s the one who’ll visit Little Rock, Arkansas.
If there had been eight letters in Evanescence, she would have written it in felt pen on her fingers. But it doesn’t fit. Neither does
My Immortal,
or
Little Rock.
Tiril has come up with something else. Something more her style. Eight letters, two hands, two
words. The atmosphere in the gym hall is going to be electric, she’s going to raise her hands and hold them like a shield in front of her face: LOVE HATE.
These wounds won’t seem to heal, this pain is just too real, there’s just too much that time cannot erase.
Burn in hell, Mum.
Tiril gets to her feet. Slinging the washcloth over her shoulder, she presses pause on the iPhone and looks over at Sandra. She’s crouched down gathering honey jars, her stupid fingers working away in panic. Tiril takes a few steps towards her.
‘Did you say something, by the way?’
Sandra glowers at her while she stacks the last of the jars. She shakes her head.
‘I don’t get you, Tiril,’ she says. ‘What exactly have I done to you?’
Tiril stops and leans against the spices.
‘It’s late,’ she says.
‘Eh?’ Sandra says, blushing.
‘You can just go. YOLO.’
‘I don’t know what you’re on about,’ says Sandra. She places the last jar on top of the display stand. ‘See you later.’
Sandra takes the vacuum cleaner and walks in the direction of the back door. Tiril nods.
Do you think I haven’t copped on?
I know where you’re off to, shiza.
I know what you’re up to, biatch.
I don’t like you anyway, not you, your necklace, your BO, your lawyer daddy, your Jesus freak mother or your lies. You think you’re so perfect, but you’re a Canada Goose minge, a Jimmy Choo ho, a Chanel poontang, a preppy tart, and sorry, but I’ve news for you: Someday you’re going to walk out on the guy you marry, you’re going to leave the people around you, you’re going to betray your own family, and you’re never going to go to Little Rock, Arkansas, because you’ve no style of your own, slut.
Sandra is clammy, her neck feels damp, her back is sweaty and her forehead is moist. She needs to get herself that headscarf, Hennes & Mauritz? She knows that H&M sell stuff that falls apart after the first wash. There are a lot of things her mother’s wrong about but she’s right about that:
If you want quality, you have to pay for it. Hennes and Mauritz is not the kind of shop that’s renowned for its quality, Sandra.
If she wants to?
He has peered at her with those deep-set eyes of his, they’re so far back in his head that sometimes she feels she’s going to fall into them. He’s put his arms around her and pressed up against her, she’s felt how strong and hard he is. When he asks –
Do you want me, Sandra
– he glows. He glows with savage hunger, and right at that moment she thinks that even though she doesn’t know if she wants what he’s talking about, she wants it just the same. Because he wants to, because he’s so hungry.
She knows what she’s going to say next time he asks.
Yes, I want you.
Take me, Daniel.
His name is singing in her head from the time she wakes up until she goes to sleep and far into her dreams: Daniel William Moi. He can’t bear being named William. It’s poncy, he says, as if I’m supposed to be English or something, I can’t bloody stand poncy things. But Sandra just wants to take his name in her hands and caress it, cradle it like a bird, stroke its soft feathers with her fingers, put her lips to its head and kiss it. No fucking way I’m letting you use that name, he’s told her. Daniel swears quite a lot, she doesn’t really like it when people swear, but when he does it she thinks it sounds like a song.
I don’t use that name, Sandra, and you’re not to use it either, nobody knows I’m called that, just you, and God help you if you tell anyone.
Just her. Just Sandra Vikadal.
I want to know more about you than everybody else.
I want that part of you that nobody else has.
I want to be closer to you than anybody else.
She used to see people in love and think it was gross, she thought boys were annoying, always rowdy and acting stupid, if they weren’t called Johnny Depp and weren’t hanging on her wall, that is. Now she doesn’t recognise the girl she was, because nothing has been as real as this. It’s awfully difficult to know if she’s doing the right thing. Does she say the things he likes to hear? Does he think it’s a turn-off when she sweats like she does? Does he cringe listening to her speak, does he think that tooth of hers is ugly, or her voice sounds stupid? Sometimes when she talks it can sound sort of hollow and lumpy, as though she had a potato in her throat, does he find that disgusting? And what about her age? He says it doesn’t matter that she’s only fifteen, but sometimes she thinks he’s lying, well, not lying of course, people in love don’t lie, but still, is he only saying it to cover up how gross he actually thinks it is?
The hardest thing of all is to know if she’s good-looking enough.
No matter how many times he tells her she’s sexy in those jeans, the pair she lays out flat and takes care not too wash too often, she still doesn’t know if it’s just something he’s saying. If there’re a thousand other girls who are just as pretty, whose bums are just as nice. And no matter how often his mouth breaks into that bright smile of his when he sees that expression on her face, the one he thinks is so incredibly cute, she still can’t be sure if he’s not just putting it on. Even though she trusts him. Of course she does. Because that’s love. But still she’s nervous, still she takes a long time getting ready.
Her boobs, do they look nice enough?
He stares at them intently, but who knows what he’s actually thinking?
She’s let him touch them lots of times. It’s mad how long he can
just stand there, teeth clenched, with that lovely jawline of his, fondling them. Yesterday, she let him kiss them. She took off her bra, in the middle of the woods, her fingers were trembling and she could hardly believe it herself,
the fact she was actually doing it
, as she slipped her hands under her top, unhooked her bra and wriggled it out of her sleeve and stood there, practically naked behind the substation while darkness fell around them. Lord, imagine if someone had come? Imagine someone had seen her standing there, when Daniel opened his bright mouth and said
Oh Jesus, Oh Jesus, they’re so fucking beautiful.
When he said that, she wasn’t able to feel anything.
All she was able to do was show herself to him. Because she knew that’s what he wanted, it made it her own choice. Show herself and let him touch her breasts, let him kiss them. Then she felt a jolt of happiness through her, but all she could think was: Are they nice enough? Are my boobs as soft and as firm as he wants, are they big enough for him, are they the shape he likes? She doesn’t have very small boobs but they’re not very big either; compared to the other girls in the class she’s probably a little bit bigger than average, but what does that actually mean, and what does Daniel want? Because boys like boobs, she learnt that long ago, and a nice bum, they like that too. But legs? It’s not so easy being a girl, not everyone can manage not giving a toss, like Tiril does, not everyone is able to put on a pair of headphones, some goth make-up and rail against the world. It’s hard being a girl, because girls are supposed to look so nice all the time, and that doesn’t seem fair. Sandra has short legs, her knees are a little knobbly maybe, sometimes she thinks they look like malformed wheels, and Daniel has never mentioned her legs. He’s never even looked at them. Her thighs, which are a little thick compared to her body, he’s touched those, but not with the same hunger as when he puts his hands on her bum or her breasts. But her legs? Nothing. Doesn’t he like them?
My mouth, then? Do you like my mouth, Daniel?
It is small, slightly puckered, my two front teeth do stick out a little and I know they make me look like a rodent. Do you like that? Your little rat-girl?
That’s all she wants. To look good enough for Daniel William Moi.
For the rest of her life,
she thinks, glancing at Tiril before taking the vacuum cleaner and going into the backroom. She’s unbelievable, that girl. She saw the stack of honey going all over the floor. She heard her asking for help. But she couldn’t care less. What’s more, she enjoyed it. What is with her? If Sandra told the manager how little work Tiril does, she’d be fired. But Sandra’s not a snitch.
20:54
Sandra brings her hand to the crucifix round her neck and squeezes it.
She opens the closet and stows the vacuum cleaner as quickly as she can. Then pulls off her work clothes.
There’s never anybody in the woods at night. Round the back of the old school, behind the substation. The only sound they’ve ever heard is a dog barking. If her friends knew what she was up to they’d shake their heads in disbelief. Jesus, they’d say; going into the woods to meet a seventeen-year-old boy, you do realise what he’s after? If they knew
who
she was with, they’d be shocked. They’d be jealous, they’d hardly believe her.
Sandra, you really need to think about this, Daniel Moi, he’s not right in the head, everyone knows that.
He’s in the sixth form, he rides a moped, he plays in a heavy metal band, he’s hot,
but he’s not right in the head
, he’s from a foster home, people say he’s had some seriously screwed-up things happen in his life, he’s dangerous, Sandra, you do know that?
If her Mum found out what was happening, she’d freak out. If she heard it was the boy from the foster home, the one who lives with the single mother and her deaf daughter in the flats, she’d break down in tears and start picturing hash, heroin and the end of the world. But no one knows Daniel. They’ve no clue what that bright mouth of his can say, what those long-fingered hands of his can do or what’s stirring in those hungry eyes. They don’t realise that he needs her, don’t realise that he has an emptiness inside, but Sandra does, and when he says he doesn’t want to tell her what happened to him, she understands that. She understands what he’s gone through because she can see into his soul, and she’s not
going to nag him about it, she’s promised herself that. She’ll never ask what happened, she doesn’t listen to rumours, about him having boxed, having beaten up some guy, the thing about his real parents, and that there was something really messed up there. She doesn’t listen to gossip, because she is Sandra Vikadal and he is Daniel William Moi.
They can laugh at her, they can trample all over her. They can do what they want.
But they better remember, for all eternity, that they’ve trampled on love itself.
Because Love, thinks Sandra, love bears all things, love believes all things, love hopes all things, and love, she thinks, taking out her mobile once more, love endures all things.
20:58
You can have me, Daniel William Moi, no matter what it is you’re after.