‘Actually I dropped by on my way to the school,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to do some work and prepare for tomorrow.’
I got up.
She got up.
I went into the hall, she followed and watched me put on my coat.
‘Bye then,’ she said.
‘Bye,’ I said, and hurried up the hill towards the school, where I had nothing to do, but I unlocked the door anyway, in case she was watching me from her house. I was fairly sure she had forgotten I existed the moment she closed the door behind me, nevertheless, I didn’t want to be caught out telling such a cowardly lie, and now that I was at the school I might just as well watch some TV, it was Sunday, there was always sport on then.
Ine, Ine, Ine, all the girls tittered when I went into the classroom for the first lesson the following day.
So everyone knew.
I ignored them but thought of nothing else.
Ine, Ine, Ine.
At night I lay awake musing on my next move. She had left her bag at mine, she would have to come and get it, wouldn’t she? Or should I take it to Finnsnes?
I had already put the nightmare visit to her house behind me, I hadn’t even been able to open the Thermos, so what could I expect of another visit? That she would throw herself into my arms?
I would have to meet her when I was drunk, that was my only chance.
Ine, Ine, Ine.
The brief memory of her burned inside me, I had never experienced anything similar, it was so unassailable, it was the focal point of everything, suddenly she was all that counted.
I walked back and forth between the house and the school during the day, went for long runs in the evenings to sweat out any thoughts of her, and then the following Sunday she appeared.
There was a knock at the door, I opened up, there she stood.
Beautiful Ine.
‘I left a bag here, I believe. Just came by to pick it up.’
‘Is it this one?’ I said, holding it up.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
She turned to go.
‘Wouldn’t you like to come in for a while?’ I said.
She shook her head, but not from side to side, the movement seemed to stop halfway, and I loved it.
‘I have to go back to Finnsnes,’ she said, starting to walk up the little slope to the road. It was slippery, she took small steps.
‘Did you come all this way just to get the bag?’ I said.
‘No. I’ve been here all weekend,’ she said. She had reached the top now and was striding out.
I knew nothing about her except that she was sixteen, liked motorbikes and went to a technical college.
Not much to base a relationship on.
But she was a miracle of nature, and she was tough.
Her breasts were big, her legs long.
What more could I want?
Nothing, that covered everything.
So what should I do?
Nothing, I meant nothing to her, that had taken her under five minutes to work out.
I told Hege everything. We sat nursing cups of tea.
‘Ine’s no good for you,’ she said. ‘You have no idea. So you’ll just have to forget it.’
‘I can’t,’ I said.
She looked at me. ‘You’re not in love with my little sister, are you?’
‘Yes, I am. That’s exactly what I am.’
She sipped her tea, stroked a long strand of hair away from her eyes.
‘Oh, Karl Ove, what a one you are,’ she said.
‘It’s a terrible cliché, but I can’t stop thinking about her.’
‘You’ll never make it with her. It just won’t work. In fact, it is inconceivable.’
‘Saying that is not helpful,’ I said. ‘I have got to try.’
‘OK,’ she said. ‘Let’s go to Finnsnes, go to the disco, miss the bus home and crash out at her place.’
‘Why can’t she come with us to the disco?’
‘She doesn’t like discos.’
It was a plan, and we followed it to the letter.
On Friday night we stood outside a house behind a bank, not far from a disco, Hege rang the bell and Ine came down.
If she was angry that her sister had tricked her, she didn’t show it.
They hugged, I looked down and tried to be as unassuming as possible, followed them up the stairs, sat down on a chair and not on the sofa so that she wouldn’t feel compelled to sit next to me.
She was just as casually dressed this time as last. Shiny tracksuit bottoms tight around her thighs and a plain white T-shirt.
She made some tea and they did the talking, I sat listening and offering the occasional comment.
The bedsit consisted of a single room with a little kitchenette at one end. The room was quite big, though by no means immense, and while I sat there I kept wondering what Hege had imagined. How could anything possibly happen here?
Ine made up a bed on a mattress on the floor, it was positioned right next to the door and that was where I was to sleep. Hege would be sharing the double bed with her.
Ho hum.
The light was switched off, the two of them whispered for a while, then all went quiet.
I lay on my back staring at the ceiling.
How strange my life had become.
As if in a dream a figure rose from the bed. It was Ine, she came over and slipped in beside me.
Jesus, she was naked.
She snuggled up to me, breathing hard.
We kissed, I caressed her whole body, her wonderfully large dark breasts, oh, I devoured them, and I felt her smooth hair against my thigh, and she was breathing heavily and I was breathing heavily, was it going to happen now, I caught myself thinking, with this stupendous motorbike girl?
She rubbed herself against me, and I came.
I twisted away and pressed myself against the mattress.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
‘Did you come?’ she said.
‘Mhm,’ I said.
She got up, crept back into bed and slid back into the dream from which she had so enticingly risen only a few minutes earlier.
And thet was thet, as Fleksnes used to say.
For the next few days my love grappled with the remainder of my pride. I couldn’t go to see her again. I couldn’t ring, couldn’t write a letter, couldn’t look her in the eyes again.
She was still all I thought about, but the incident in her bedsit had been so definitive and so humiliating that not even the most enamoured thoughts could withstand the pressure and slowly but surely they disappeared from my system.
Then it was just school again. School and writing and drinking.
But the days lengthened, the snow melted, spring was on its way. One day there was an envelope marked H. Aschehoug & Co. in my post box. I took it with me outside with the other letters, lit a cigarette, gazed at the jagged white mountains across the fjord gilded by the sun, which with every day that passed came closer to the village with its retinue of rays. The sight was invigorating, there was in fact a light that burned for us out in space.
A car drove past. I didn’t see who it was but waved all the same. Some gulls screeched over by the fish-processing factory, I glanced across, they were circling in the air above the quay. The waves lapped against the stones on the shore. I opened the envelope. There were my two short stories. So they had been rejected. There was a letter attached, I read it. No contributions had been selected, it said. The general standard had been too poor, the anthology would not be published.
So at least I hadn’t been rejected!
I walked up to the road and ambled towards our yellow house. Tor Einar’s old blue Peugeot was parked outside. Tor Einar was chatting to Nils Erik in the sitting room, along with his cousin, Even, a boy in the eighth class, it was Saturday, we were going to Finnsnes. As I turned on to the little path down to the door, they came out.
‘Are you ready?’ he said.