We had chatted about everything under the sun then too, but never so much as a word about dad, it was a kind of implicit rule.
I had never thought about that before.
But we couldn’t talk about him now, that would have been inconceivable.
Why?
Perhaps it was bound up with loyalty. Perhaps with a fear of being overheard. But irrespective of what had happened during the day and irrespective of how upset I was, I never talked to them about it. To Yngve on his own, yes, but not when the three of us were together.
Then it was as though a dam had burst. Everything suddenly flowed into the same channel, into the same valley, which was soon full of something that excluded everything else.
Yngve began to talk about himself, and it wasn’t long before we were going through one incident after the other. Yngve told us about the time the B-Max supermarket opened and he was sent off with a shopping list and some money, under strict instructions to bring back a receipt. He had done that, but the sum in his hand hadn’t tallied with the till receipt and dad had marched him into the cellar and given him a beating. He told us about the time his bike had had a puncture and dad had walloped him. I, for my part, had never been beaten; for some reason dad had always treated Yngve worse. But I talked about the times he had slapped me and the times he had locked me in the cellar, and the point of these stories was always the same: his fury was always triggered by some petty detail, some utter triviality, and as such was actually comical. At any rate we laughed when we told the stories. Once I had left a pair of gloves on the bus and he slapped me in the face when he found out. I had leaned against the wobbly table in the hall and sent it flying and he came over and hit me. It was absolutely absurd! I lived in fear of him, I said, and Yngve said dad controlled him and his thoughts, even now.
Mum said nothing. She sat listening, looking at me then Yngve. Sometimes her eyes seemed to go blank. She had heard about most of these incidents before, but now there was such a plethora of them she might well have been overwhelmed.
‘He had such chaos inside him,’ she said at length. ‘More than I realised. I saw him angry of course. I didn’t see him hitting you. He never did when I was around. And you didn’t say anything. I tried to compensate for his bouts of anger. To give you something else. .’
‘Relax, Mum,’ I said. ‘We got through it. That was then, not now.’
‘We always talked a lot, didn’t we,’ she said. ‘And he was manipulative. He was. Very. But he did also have some self-awareness. He made that clear to me. So I. . well, I always saw it from his side, what happened. He said he had so little communication with you, and it was because I stood between you and him. And in a way that’s true. You always turned to me. When he was there you left. I had a bad conscience about that.’
‘What happened happened, and it’s fine,’ Yngve said. ‘But what I have a problem with is that when you moved here I was left to cope on my own. You didn’t help me. I was seventeen years old, at gymnas and had no money.’
Mum took a deep breath.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I was loyal to him. I shouldn’t have been. That was wrong of me. It was a big mistake.’
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘It’s over, all of it. It’s just us now.’
Mum lit a cigarette. I looked at Yngve.
‘What shall we do tomorrow then?’
He shrugged.
‘What do you feel like doing?’
‘Swimming maybe?’
‘Or we could go to town? Check out some record shops and cafés?’
He turned to mum. ‘Can I borrow your car?’
‘Yes, you can.’
Mum went to bed half an hour later. I knew all she was thinking about was what we had been saying and she would be lying awake and reflecting. I didn’t want her to feel like this, to be so tormented by it, she didn’t deserve that, but there was nothing I could do.
When we heard the creaks in the ceiling on the other side of the living room Yngve looked at me.
‘Coming out for a smoke?’
I nodded.
We walked quietly into the hall, put on shoes and jackets and crept out to the opposite side of the house from where she was sleeping.
‘When are you going to tell her you smoke?’ I said, watching the flame from the lighter flicker across his face, the glow that came to life when the lighter died.
I heard him blowing out the smoke.
‘When will you?’
‘I’m sixteen. I’m not allowed to smoke. But you’re bloody twenty.’
‘All right, all right.’
I was offended and walked a few steps into the garden. There was a heavy aroma coming from the big bush with white flowers at the end of the potato patch. What was it called again?
The sky was light, the forest beyond the river dark.
‘Did you ever see mum and dad hug?’ Yngve said.
I walked back to him.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Not that I can remember. Did you?’
He nodded in front of me in the semi-darkness.
‘Once. It was in Hove, so I must have been five. Dad was yelling at mum so much she burst into tears. She was standing in the kitchen crying. He went into the living room. Then he went back and put his arms around her and consoled her. That’s the only time.’
I started to cry. But it was dark, and not a sound came from me, so he didn’t notice.
Before we left for town I went to find mum. She was wandering around the garden with a pair of large gloves on, trimming the edges of the beds with shears.
‘Could you give me some money?’ I said. ‘I spent all I had in Denmark.’
‘I’ll see what I’ve got,’ she said, and went indoors to get her bag. I followed.
‘Is fifty OK?’ she said, taking a green banknote from her purse.
‘Have you got a hundred? I was thinking of buying a record or two.’
She counted her coins.
‘Ninety. That’s all, I’m afraid.’
‘It’ll have to do then,’ I said, went back to the car, which stood idling on the gravel drive, and got in beside Yngve, who was wearing his Ray-Bans.
‘I’m going to buy myself a pair when I get the money,’ I said, pointing to the sunglasses.
He set off down the hill.
‘Buy them when you get your first study loan,’ he said.
‘That’s two years away.’
‘You’ll have to get a job then. Piling planks at Boen or whatever it is you do there.’
‘I was thinking of doing record reviews,’ I said. ‘And interviewing bands and so on.’
‘Oh?’ he said. ‘That sounds like a good idea. Who for?’
‘Nye Sørlandet.’
We drove along the narrow road under the deciduous trees, past the old white houses, the river glinting beneath us. When we reached the waterfall and I saw some figures lying on the cliff beside it I turned to him.
‘Let’s go swimming afterwards. We can fit in both,’ I said.
‘Could do,’ he said. ‘At Hamresanden?’
‘Ye-es.’
‘Do they sell ice cream there?’
‘Of course they do. They may even have soft ice cream.’
I took Yngve to Platebørsen, the record shop in the town’s old børs, the stock exchange, a situation I relished, now I was the one who knew where everything was and what was good.
He held up a record. ‘Have you got this one?’
‘No? What is it?’
‘The Church. The Blurred Crusade. You’ve got to have this one.’
‘OK. I’ll get it.’
I also had enough money for a Nice Price record and bought the Talking Heads’ 77. Yngve was going to wait until his study loan came through before he bought any records.
We sat down in the café outside the library and smoked and drank coffee. I hoped someone I knew would come by, so that Yngve wouldn’t think I had no friends in town and because the ones I had would see me sitting with Yngve.