‘Not one of them?’
‘No.’
He stared at me in disbelief. ‘And there was me going round thinking at least one of us had struck lucky this year. Then you tell me you didn’t either.’
I looked at him and smiled, clinked my bottle against his, drank the last drop, opened another.
‘Who did you have your eye on?’ I said.
‘Tone,’ he said.
That was the girl who had rejected my approach while she was brushing her teeth.
‘Yes, she’s nice, she is,’ I said. ‘I had a go at her as well, but she wasn’t at all interested.’
‘No, it’s not easy,’ he said. ‘But I’ve got a chance. We’re going inter-railing together. Well, not just us two, there are four others as well, but, Jesus, a month travelling together through Europe, surely there’s got to be a chance.’
‘You’re inter-railing?’
He nodded.
‘Me too,’ I said. ‘Well, it’s not inter-railing. I’m going to hitch down through Europe with a friend after the Roskilde Festival.’
‘Then I’ll do my best to avoid you,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to warm her up and prime her just so that you can take over.’
‘You must have a very high opinion of my qualities as a seducer,’ I said. ‘If there’s one thing I can’t do, it’s that.’
‘My strategy is to be present,’ he said. ‘That’s the only chance I have. Amble along behind her like a dog, always be there, and then hope she’ll cuddle me sooner or later.’
I shuddered. ‘That’s a terrifying image.’
‘Yes, it is, but it’s true.’
‘That’s why it’s so terrifying. There’s a bit of the doggie about me as well.’
He stuck out his tongue and panted heavily a few times.
‘Anyone else you’ve been trotting along behind this year?’ I said.
‘Liv,’ he said, staring straight at me.
‘Liv?’ I said.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘All the girls of our age have left the village. But she’s unbelievably pretty. Don’t you think?’
‘Yes,’ I said with a smile. ‘Have you seen her body? Her bum?’
‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘She’s fantastic. Camilla is not bad either.’
‘No, that’s true,’ I said. ‘But at least Liv’s sixteen. Camilla’s only fifteen.’
‘Who gives that a second thought?’ he said.
‘You’re right there.’
We opened another beer. He smiled, his face was bathed in sunlight.
‘Her breasts,’ he said. ‘Have you seen them?’
‘Naturally,’ I said. ‘I’ve hardly looked at anything else in the lessons with them.’
‘She is pretty. But she can’t beat Liv.’
‘No,’ I said.
I turned and gazed into the distance. A car was coming up the hill from the fish hall, further along the road a child was holding a stick and hitting the poles used to demarcate the edge of the road in deep snow. A seagull was sitting on the ridge of our roof and surveying the scene.
‘And then there’s Andrea,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘She’s a real stunner too. Have you seen her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Actually, I’ve thought a lot about her,’ I said.
‘I can imagine,’ he said.
‘What else could we do?’ I said. ‘They were the only ones around!’
We laughed and said skål.
‘She’s got such incredible eyes,’ I said. ‘And what long legs she has.’
‘Yes. What about Vivian then?’
‘Nothing compared to her sister.’
‘No, that’s true. But she has something. A charm of her own.’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you think would happen if anyone heard this conversation?’ I said.
He shrugged.
‘We’d never get a teaching job again. That’s for sure.’
He laughed and raised his bottle to me.
‘A skål for schoolgirls!’ he said.
‘Skål!’ I said.
‘What about their mothers then?’ he said.
‘I’ve never thought about them.’
‘Haven’t you?’
‘Have you?’
‘Oh yes, of course I have.’
‘I think I might have been a little in love with Andrea,’ I said.
‘I had a soft spot for her too,’ he said. ‘But I wasn’t in love. Liv, on the other hand. She brightened my days.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But it’s good it’s all over.’
‘Yes,’ he said.
The next day I packed my things, taped up the cardboard boxes again and carried them to Nils Erik’s car. He was going to drive me down to the express boat quay in Finnsnes, where I would have them sent to Bergen. Apart from the new stereo, some records and quite a few books, my belongings were identical to those that had come up the year before.
Once that was done I fried some sausages and potatoes, which I ate with Nils Erik in the kitchen. This was my last meal in the village. Nils Erik would be staying on for a few more weeks, he was planning to spend the time walking, and except for my bedroom, which I lightly dusted, he would see to cleaning the house.
‘I’ll keep the deposit on the bottles as my reward,’ he said with a smile. ‘It’ll tot up.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Shall we go then?’
He nodded, and we got into the car. We slowly drew away, said our goodbyes to east and west, and for every metre we covered part of the village disappeared for good for me, I didn’t look back and I would never, under any circumstances, set foot here again.
The chapel disappeared, the post office disappeared, Andrea and Roald’s house disappeared, Hege and Vidar’s house disappeared, and then the shop was gone, and my old flat, and Sture’s house. And there went the community centre and the football pitch, and then the school. .
I leaned back in my seat.
‘How absolutely wonderful that it’s over,’ I said as the darkness of the tunnel filled the car. ‘I’ll never do a job again in my life, that’s for sure.’
‘So you are a shipowner’s son after all?’ Nils Erik said.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Same shipping, new wrapping,’ he said. ‘Whack a cassette in, will you.’
After a night in a cheap hotel in Tromsø I caught a flight for Bergen the next morning, and at three I jumped off the airport bus in Bryggen and headed for the Hotel Orion, where Yngve worked as a receptionist. I was wearing black cotton trousers, wide at the thighs, a white shirt, a black suit jacket, black shoes and a pair of Wayfarer Ray-Bans. Slung over my shoulder was my seaman’s kitbag. The sun was shining, the water in Vågen glittered, a gentle wind blew in across the fjord.
I saw myself as a kind of primeval inhabitant going to a city for the first time because every time a car revved or a bus or a lorry thundered past I gave a start, and the sight of all these faces moving back and forth on the pavement made me feel insecure. Then I was reminded of something Yngve had once said, that his friend Pål always called them prime evil inhabitants, and once that was in your mind it was impossible to see anything else.
I smiled and gleefully slung the kitbag over my other shoulder.
Yngve was at the reception desk when I entered, wearing the hotel uniform, hunched over a little map on the counter explaining something to an elderly couple in shorts, caps and bumbags. He looked up and motioned with his head to the sofa, where I slumped down.
As soon as the Americans had gone he came over.
‘I’ll have finished in about ten minutes. Then I’ll have to get changed and we’ll be off. OK?’
‘OK,’ I said.
He had a car now, a little red Japanese number he had leased from the volleyball team he played for, and half an hour later we were heading for his flat in Solheimsviken. It was situated some way up the mountainside, towards the end of a long row of brick-built terraced houses originally designed for shipyard workers.