‘But it’s huge; you’ll never even get it into the tent, will you?’
Simon had borrowed a little two-person tent. He shrugged expansively and said, ‘I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.’
Gunnar came in as well, to wish him a good trip. He expected he would still be asleep when they left the next morning. He looked at the big suitcase and shook his head.
He gave his son a goodnight hug and a few words of advice.
‘Be yourself and stand up for what you believe in!’
It was a short night.
Early on Tuesday morning, Tone crept quietly out of the bed where Gunnar was still sleeping. She wondered how she was going to wake Simon; they had, as always, stayed up chatting too long last night.
She put on the coffee machine, got some food out ready and went downstairs, through the basement sitting room and into Simon’s room. The pale morning light filtered through the blue curtains and their pattern of the boy with the football and skateboard. The luminous heart above the bed, which at night shone with a greenish tinge, merged almost entirely into the ceiling in the early-morning light.
Simon was lying on his back with his arms flung straight out. His breathing was deep and even.
‘Simon, time to wake up!’ called Tone. ‘You’ve got a plane to catch!’
Not a murmur.
‘Simon!’
Not a grunt.
‘Simon! You’re off to Utøya!’
Tone stood there admiring the peaceful face of her tall elder son and decided she might just as well lie down beside him and wake him in a more gentle fashion. ‘Simon,’ she said, this time in a coaxing whisper. She stroked his shoulder and chest. It was tempting just to fall asleep there.
Simon had always been a cuddly boy; from an early age he had liked curling up beside his mother in bed and sleeping where she was. He could lie there for ages, close and cosy. Imagine him still being happy to snuggle up to his mum!
Tone had made herself comfortable on his arm. She pinched his chest, where just a few wisps of hair had started to grow. He wriggled slightly and went on sleeping. She lay there dozing for a moment before she looked at her watch and leapt up.
‘Simon!’
She pulled him with all the strength she could muster.
He was in his usual morning daze; it would take at least an hour for him to wake up and that was an hour they did not have. He hauled himself into a sitting position in bed and put on his clothes as she passed them to him. He could not face eating anything, but Tone had made sure there were some slices of pizza left over from the one she had made the previous evening and put them in a bag in the outside pocket of his suitcase.
She wondered if he had packed everything he would need. It was the first time he would be going on a trip without her knowing exactly what he had with him. But there was no time to worry about that now.
The eighteen-year-old got into the driver’s seat. He enjoyed driving, but this morning he pulled in at the first bus stop.
‘You’ll have to drive, Mum. I’m too tired.’
Tone smiled. Simon was dozing off, but then he came to with a start. ‘Did I say I’d promised Mari Siljebråten a lift?’
Tone put her foot down a little. The birch forest was glimmering, pale and beautiful. For the first part of the journey they had a view over the fjord and later, as they approached Bardu, they could see up to the mountains of Troms. Simon had woken, and mother and son now talked about love. Simon and his girlfriend had just decided to split up, and Tone was the first person he had told. They had been drifting apart, and at the end of the summer he would go off for his military service in Stavanger and she would start her teacher training course in Tromsø. But what was love, really?
‘Oh, you’ll both find out in due course,’ Tone said gently.
‘I don’t know if I want to carry on studying after I finish my military service, Mum,’ he said.
‘Of course you do,’ said Tone. ‘But there’s no rush. Take one thing at a time: you’ve got your whole life ahead of you.’
Simon smiled. He was hungry for everything: experience, adventure, love.
As they came into Bardu they drove past Anders Kristiansen’s green house, where his father was in the process of laying new flagstones in the drive. In the Kristiansens’ garden there was a little hut with just one room, Anders’s Cabin. In there he had a TV and a stereo and some bottles of tequila, his very own little party venue. Anders and his father had built it together, with decent foundations and properly insulated floor, walls and roof. His mother had made curtains for it. The cabin in the garden was to be somewhere the teenagers could be left in peace.
A bit further up the ridge, in what was called Bardu Beverly Hills, Tone turned in at Mari Siljebråten’s house. Pretty, fair-haired and brimming with vitality, she was ready and waiting for them. She called goodbye to her mother and jumped into the back seat. Mari, a couple of years older than Simon, was the leader of the Troms delegation to Utøya that year.
‘Gunnar Linaker and I have been arranging things like crazy for three days and I think we’ve covered it all, so now I can look forward to this properly!’
Gunnar, the son of the local priest, was the county secretary for AUF Troms and had grown up in the house next door to Mari. He was the one who always had an overview of all the youth organisation’s activities. He booked the tickets and sorted out the departures of the Troms youngsters from three different airports, Bardufoss, Harstad and Tromsø. He had rung the parents of all the under-eighteens who had signed up in good time, to make sure they knew what would happen on Utøya. While Mari fretted, he stayed calm.
‘Gunnar’s gone on ahead, he’s already on the island,’ said Mari. ‘But Hanne’s waiting for us at the airport.’
Hanne was Gunnar’s younger sister, and had also been active in the AUF since her early teens.
On their way to the airport at the Bardufoss military base the delegation leader received instructions from Tone.
‘Can you make sure Simon gets some breakfast down him.’
‘He’ll get his bread and Nugatti, and maybe even a slice of gherkin on top,’ laughed Mari. She was used to Simon forgetting to eat. And being picky about his food. Food was just fuel to him, but like a car he didn’t run on just anything. At last year’s summer camp in Russian Karelia, where he had represented Troms along with Anders and Iril from Bardu, they had been served nothing but cabbage soup. He had refused to eat vegetables for a long time afterwards.
‘Remember to answer all your phone calls, Simon. Remember to answer all your texts. Otherwise I shall stop paying your phone bill.’
‘Yes Mum, but my phone loses its charge so quickly it’s generally not even on.’
Tone knew that. That was why she had bought him a new mobile phone. But it was a secret. It was to be for his nineteenth birthday on 25 July, barely a week from now. She had the cake all ready in the freezer. ‘Simon’s 19th’, said the label on the plastic bag, and she would ice and decorate it on the day.
They were there.
Simon’s mother hugged him. She gave one cheek a kiss, then the other. So it wouldn’t be jealous, they always said.
Mari laughed at the pair of them.
‘And would you like a mumhug, too?’ Tone asked. Mari’s two cheeks also got their kisses.
Tone stood watching them as they walked away. God, what a handsome son I’ve got!
His best mate had taken him to the solarium because he always looked so pale, and now he was tanned and fit.
He’s so happy with all those girls, his mother thought as she watched the delegation gather at the entrance. It seemed to be all girls on that flight, which would suit him just fine, Tone chuckled to herself.