Everything was as it had been, yet it wasn’t, for imperceptibly, so imperceptibly that it seemed as if it wasn’t happening, something in our lives lost its lustre. The fire that drove us towards each other and into the world no longer burned as bright. Atmospheres could spring up. One Saturday I awoke thinking how nice it would be to have some time for myself, visit some second-hand bookshops, go to a café and read the papers… We got up, went to the nearest café, ordered breakfast — porridge, yoghurt, toast, eggs, juice and coffee — I read the papers, Linda stared down at the table or into the room, said at length, do you have to read, couldn’t we talk? Yes, of course, I said, closing the newspaper, and we chatted, it was fine, the tiny black spot in my heart was barely noticeable, a little hankering to be alone and read in peace without anyone demanding anything of me was forgotten in a flash. But then came the time when it wasn’t, when on the contrary it led to ensuing atmospheres and actions. If you really love me, you have to come to me without demands, I thought but didn’t say, I wanted her to notice on her own.
One evening Yngve called, he was wondering if I wanted to go with him and Asbjørn to London, I said, yes, of course, perfect. As I rang off Linda was watching me from the other side of the room.
‘Who was that?’ she asked.
‘Yngve. He wanted me to go to London with him.’
‘I hope you didn’t say yes?’
‘I did. Shouldn’t I have done?’
‘But we were going to travel together. You can’t travel with him before you travel with me!’
‘What are you talking about? This has nothing to do with you.’
She looked down at the book she was reading. Her eyes were black. I didn’t want her to lose her temper. But to have the disagreement hanging in the air was intolerable for me, I needed clarity.
‘I haven’t spent a moment with Yngve for an incredibly long time. You have to remember I don’t know anyone here except your friends. Mine live in Norway.’
‘Yngve has just been here, hasn’t he.’
‘Oh, come on.’
‘Just go then,’ she said.
‘OK,’ I said.
Afterwards, when we were in bed, she apologised for having been so uncharitable. It didn’t matter, I said. It was nothing.
‘We haven’t been apart since we got together,’ she said.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Perhaps it’s time we were.’
‘What do you mean?’ she said.
‘We can’t live on top of each other for the rest of our lives,’ I said.
‘I think we’re fine,’ she said.
‘Yes, we are fine,’ I said. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘Of course I do,’ she said. ‘But I’m not sure I agree.’
From London I rang her twice every day, and spent almost all my money on a present for her, it was her thirtieth a few weeks later. At the same time I realised, presumably because I saw our Stockholm life from a distance for the first time, that I would have to knuckle down when I got home, start working harder, for not only had the whole of the long summer disappeared in happiness, and inner and outer extravagance, but September had also passed without my having achieved anything. It was four years since I had made my debut, and a second book was nowhere in sight, apart from the 800 pages with a variety of beginnings I had accumulated since then. I had written my debut novel at night, got up at eight in the evening and worked right through until the next morning, and the freedom that lay in it, in the space the night opened, was perhaps what was necessary to find a way into something new. I had been close in recent weeks in Bergen and the first few in Stockholm, with the story that had aroused my interest about a father who went crabbing one summer’s night with his two sons, one obviously me, I found a dead seagull I showed dad, he told me seagulls had once been angels, and we left in the boat with live crabs crawling inside a bucket on the deck. Geir Gulliksen had said, ‘There’s your opening,’ and he had been right, but I didn’t know where it would lead, and I had been grappling with it for the last few months. I had written about a woman in a maternity ward in the 1940s, the child she gave birth to was Henrik Vankel’s father, and the house waiting for her return with the baby was originally an old hovel, full of bottles, which they had demolished to build a new house. But the story wasn’t genuine, everything sounded false, I was going nowhere. So I tried another tack, in the same house, where two brothers are asleep at night, their father is dead, one lies looking at the other sleeping. That sounded equally false, and my despair grew, would I ever be able to write another novel?
The first Monday after I had returned from London I told Linda we couldn’t meet the next evening because I had to work through the night. Yes, fine, no problem. At nine she texted me, I answered, she sent another message, she was out with Cora, they were at a place nearby having a beer, I texted, have a good time, said I loved her, a couple more texts went to and fro, then all went quiet and I thought she had gone back to her place. But she hadn’t, at around twelve she knocked on my door.
‘Are you here?’ I said. ‘I told you I was going to write.’
‘Yes, but your texts were so warm and loving. I thought you would want me to come.’
‘I have to work,’ I said. ‘I’m serious.’
‘I understand,’ she said, already out of her jacket and shoes. ‘But can’t I sleep here while you’re working?’
‘You know I won’t be able to. I can’t even write with a cat in the room.’
‘You’ve never tried with me in the room. I may have a good effect.’
Even though I was angry I couldn’t bring myself to say no. I had no right to be because what I was implying was that the miserable manuscript I was writing was more important than her. At that moment it was, but I couldn’t say that.
‘OK,’ I said.
We drank tea and smoked in front of the open window, then she undressed and went to bed. The room was small, the desk was barely a metre away, it was impossible to concentrate with her in the room, and the fact that she had come despite knowing I didn’t want her to gave me a feeling of suffocation. But I didn’t want to go to bed either, to let her win, so after half an hour I got up and told her I was going out. This was a demonstration, it was my way of saying I couldn’t put up with this, and so I went into the misty streets of Söder, bought a grilled sausage at a petrol station, sat in the park below the flat and smoked five cigarettes in quick succession while surveying the glittering town beneath me and wondering what the hell was going on. How the hell had I ended up in this situation?
The next night I worked through till the morning, slept all day, spent a couple of hours at hers, came back and wrote all night, slept and was woken by Linda in the afternoon, she wanted to speak. We went for a walk.
‘Don’t you want to be with me any more?’ she asked.
‘Yes, of course I do,’ I said.
‘But we aren’t together. We don’t see each other.’
‘Yes, but I have to work. Surely you understand that.’
‘Well, not that you have to work at night. I love you, so I want to be with you.’
‘But I have to work,’ I repeated.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘If you keep doing this, it’s over.’
‘You can’t mean that.’
She eyed me.
‘I damn well do. Just you try me.’
‘You can’t control me like that,’ I said.
‘I’m not controlling you. It’s a reasonable request. We’re in a relationship, and I don’t want to be on my own the whole time.’