Outside, it was still snowing, quieter now though. It struck me that in two days I would be back in the office and a frisson of pleasure ran through me. Perhaps Ingrid would even be able to have Vanja three times a week and not just twice? I desired no more of life, in fact. I wanted to have some peace, and I wanted to write.
Of Linda’s friends, Fredrik was the one she had known longest. They had met when they were working on costumes at the Royal Dramatic Theatre as sixteen-year-olds and had maintained contact ever since. He was a film director working mostly on commercials while waiting to make his first feature film. His clients were big names, the adverts were constantly on TV, so I assumed he was good at what he did and earned a packet. He had made three shorts, for which Linda had written the scripts, and a slightly longer film. He had close-set blue eyes and blond hair. His head was big, his body thin and there was something evasive about his character, also vague perhaps, which made it difficult for you to know where you were with him. He giggled rather than laughed and had a cheery disposition, both of which could lead you to draw hasty conclusions about him. His cheery nature didn’t necessarily hide greater depths or gravity, rather it functioned in ways that were not readily apparent. There was something latent in Fredrik, what, I didn’t know, but the fact that there was, which one day would metamorphose into a brilliant film perhaps, perhaps not, intrigued me. He was astute and fearless, and must have discovered many years ago that he didn’t have much to lose. At least that was how I read his character. Linda said that his greatest strength as a director was that he was so good at dealing with actors, giving them exactly what they needed to achieve optimal performances, and when I saw him I could see that, for he was a friendly soul who flattered everyone he met, and his innocuous appearance allowed you to feel strong while the calculating side of his nature knew how to exploit the benefits this accrued. The actors were welcome to discuss their characters and attempt to find what made them tick, but they were not allowed to see the entirety, where the meaning lay, no one knew that apart from him.
I liked him, but couldn’t talk to him and I tried to avoid any situations where we were left in each other’s company. As far as I could gather, he did the same.
I didn’t know Karin, his partner, so well. She was at the same college as Linda, at DI, but on a screenplay-writing course. Since I also wrote I ought to have been able to relate to her work, but the craft side was so prominent in writing a screenplay, where it was about all manner of ebbs and flows of tension, character development, plots and subplots, intros and turning points, I assumed I would have little to contribute in that respect and never mobilised more than polite interest. She had black hair, narrow brown eyes and her face, also narrow, was white. She radiated a business-like manner which went well with Fredrik’s more flippant and childlike character. They had one child and were expecting another. Unlike us, they had everything under control, there was order in the home, they went out with their child and organised interesting activities. After we had been to theirs, or they had been to ours, that was often what Linda and I discussed: how on earth what appeared to be so simple for them could be so utterly beyond our capability.
There was a lot to suggest we could make friends with them as a couple: we were the same age, we worked in the same areas, belonged to the same culture and we both had children. But there was always a piece missing, it was always as though we were standing on opposite sides of a small chasm, the conversation was always tentative, we never really found the right tone. But the few times we did it was to everyone’s relief and pleasure. Much of the reason it did not really work was me: my great expanses of silence and the slight discomfort that came over me when I did say something. This evening proceeded by and large as always. They arrived at a few minutes after six, we exchanged polite pleasantries, Fredrik and I each had a gin and tonic, we sat down and ate, asked one other about various matters, how this and that were going, and it was, as always, clear how much more adept they were at this than we were, or at least than I was. Taking the initiative — suddenly talking about something I had experienced or thought in an attempt to get the conversation going — was beyond me. Linda didn’t do this very often either, her strategy was rather to home in on them, ask about something and play it by ear from there, unless she felt so secure and good in herself that she held the floor with the same ease that I did not. If she did, it was a great evening; there would be three players who didn’t give the game a single thought.
They praised the food, I cleared the table, put on some coffee and set the table for dessert while Karin and Frederik settled their child down in the bedroom beside where Vanja was already asleep in her cot.
‘By the way, your flat was on Norwegian TV just before Christmas,’ I said when their son had fallen asleep and they had both sat down again and helped themselves to hot blackberries and ice cream.
‘Your flat’ was my office, actually a one-room flat with a bathroom and a small kitchenette which I rented from Fredrik.
‘Oh yes?’ he said.
‘I was interviewed by Dagsrevyen, the Norwegian TV news programme. At first they wanted to do it here. I said no, of course. Then they’d heard I was looking after our child at the moment and wondered if they could film me with Vanja. I said no again, of course. But they persisted. They didn’t need to film her, the buggy would be enough. What about if I pushed the buggy through town and then handed Vanja over to Linda — before the interview started as it were? What could I say?’
‘What about no?’ Fredrik said.
‘But I had to throw them a bone. They absolutely refused to do it in a café or anything like that. It had to be about something. So the interview was in your office, plus I went looking for an angel to buy for Vanja in the Old Town. Oh, it was so stupid it could drive you to tears. But that’s what it’s like. They need to have something.’
‘Turned out well though,’ Linda said.
‘No, it didn’t,’ I said. ‘But I find it hard to understand how it could have been better in fact. Under the circumstances.’
‘So you’re big in Norway then, are you?’ Fredrik said with a knowing look.
‘No, no, no,’ I said. ‘It’s just because I was nominated for a prize.’
‘Aha,’ he said. Then he laughed. ‘I was just winding you up. But in fact I’ve just read an excerpt from your novel in a Swedish journal. It was immensely evocative.’
I smiled at him.
To divert attention from the fact that there had been a touch of smugness about the theme I had just introduced, I got up and said, ‘Ah, I almost forgot. We bought a little bottle of cognac for the meal today. Would you like some? And I was on my way to the kitchen before he could answer. On my return, the conversation had turned to alcohol and breastfeeding, which a doctor had told Linda was not a problem, at least in moderation, but she wasn’t taking any chances as the Swedish health authorities recommended total abstinence. Alcohol and pregnancy were one thing, when the foetus was in direct contact with the mother’s blood, breastfeeding was quite another. From there it was a swift jump to pregnancies in general and then to births. I chimed in with something or other, added a snippet here and there and otherwise listened in silence for the main part. Births are an intimate and sensitive topic of conversation for women, there is a lot of covert prestige, and as a man the only possible option is to keep well away. To refrain from expressing an opinion. Which both Fredrik and I did. Until the subject of Caesareans came up. Then I couldn’t restrain myself any longer.