‘There are only five potatoes,’ Yngve said. ‘There isn’t even enough for one each!’
‘I can go without,’ mum said. ‘Then you can have one each.’
‘Even so,’ Yngve said. ‘One paltry potato for Christmas dinner. .’
I helped him to carry in the dishes of food. Steaming lamb ribs, square pieces of roast pork with crackling, some with tiny bristles intact, mashed swede, sauerkraut, red cabbage, five potatoes.
The lamb was delicious, grandad had cured it, soaked it in water and cooked it to perfection. The sole criticism of the meal, the most important in the year, was the lack of potatoes. You should never skimp on anything, and certainly not the potatoes! But I recovered from my disappointment and no one else seemed to give it a thought. Grandma sat hunched over the table trembling, but her mind was clear, her eyes were clear, she saw us and she was pleased to have us there, I could see. Just the fact that we were there, that was enough for her and always had been. Grandad wolfed down the meat, his chin glistening with fat. Kjartan hardly touched the food, he rambled on about Heidegger and Nietzsche, a poet called Hölderlin and someone called Arne Ruste, to whom he had sent poems and who had made some kind comments. He mentioned several other names in his monologue and all of them were spoken with a familiarity he seemed to assume everyone shared.
When the meal was over Yngve and I carried the plates and dishes out while mum whisked the cream for the rice pudding. Kjartan sat in silence alone with his parents.
‘I suggest we institute a Heidegger-free zone,’ Yngve said.
Mum laughed. ‘But it is quite interesting,’ she said.
‘Perhaps not on Christmas Eve?’ I said.
‘No, you’re probably right there,’ she said.
‘Shall we have the dessert a bit later?’ Yngve said. ‘I’m absolutely full.’
‘Me too,’ I said. ‘The lamb was good this year.’
‘Yes, it was,’ mum said. ‘Bit salty though maybe?’
‘No, no,’ Yngve said. ‘It was just right. It was perfect.’
‘Shall we start on the presents then?’ I said.
‘Could do,’ Yngve said.
‘Will you do the honours?’
‘OK.’
I was given an EP by Yngve, The Dukes of Stratosphear, a sweater and Wandrup’s Bjørneboe biography by mum, a torch by Kjartan and a big slice of salmon by my grandparents, as well as a cheque for two hundred kroner. I gave mum a cassette of Vivaldi she could listen to in the car, Yngve the solo LP by Marty Willson-Piper, the guitarist in The Church, Kjartan a novel by Jan Kjærstad. Yngve read out the names in a confident voice and distributed the presents with a firm hand, I scrunched up the wrapping paper, threw it into the roaring wood burner and took occasional sips from the cognac grandad had brought in. Yngve passed him a present from Kjellaug and Magne’s youngest daughter Ingrid, born many years after her siblings, and when he opened it and saw what it was he stiffened. Suddenly he was on his feet and heading for the wood burner.
‘What did you get?’ mum said. ‘Don’t throw it away!’
Grandad opened the stove door. Mum hurried over.
‘You can’t burn it,’ she said, and took the present from him.
Grandad looked hostile and bewildered at the same time.
‘Let me see,’ I said. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s a plaster cast of her hand,’ mum said.
The impression of a small hand in plaster, why would he want to burn that?
Kjartan laughed. ‘Johannes is superstitious,’ he said. ‘It means death, that does.’
‘Yes, it does,’ grandad said. ‘I don’t want to see it.’
‘We’ll put it here then,’ mum said, putting the plaster cast out of sight. ‘She made it at the nursery and sent it to you. You can’t throw it away, you know that.’
Grandad said nothing.
Was that a smile on grandma’s lips?
Yngve passed Kjartan a present from him. A bottle of wine.
‘Bull’s eye,’ Kjartan said. He was sitting on a chair at the back of the room with a glass of cognac in his hand, wearing a milder, more conciliatory expression on his face now.
‘Perhaps we could listen to our records on your stereo tomorrow, could we?’ I said.
‘Yes, help yourselves.’
Kjartan was sitting by the Christmas tree, which wasn’t quite straight, it was leaning towards him, and then while I was looking him in the eye I saw on the margins of my vision that it had started to move. He turned his head. His eyes lit up in panic. The next second the tree crashed down on top of him.
Grandad burst into laughter. Yngve and mum and I laughed too. Kjartan jumped up from his chair. Yngve and I straightened the tree, screwed it into position again and moved it against the wall.
‘Even the tree won’t leave me in peace,’ Kjartan said, running a hand through his hair, and then sat down again.
‘Skål,’ Yngve said. ‘And Happy Christmas!’
Over Christmas we took the express boat to Bergen and flew from there to Kjevik. Mefisto was ecstatic to see us when we arrived, almost clawing my trousers to pieces when I let him lie on my lap during supper.
It was good to be home and it was good to have Yngve there.
The next day he wanted to visit our grandparents on dad’s side, he hadn’t seen them since the summer, and I went with him.
Grandma beamed when she saw us standing on the doorstep. Grandad was in his office, she said as we were going upstairs, and Yngve immediately sat down in his chair. With him the atmosphere with grandma was not as humdrum as it was when I was there on my own; Yngve was much better at hitting the right tone in our family: he joked, made grandma laugh and had fun with her in a way that I would never be capable of, even if I practised for a hundred years.
Suddenly, completely out of the blue, she looked at Yngve and asked him if he had bought something nice with the money.
‘What money?’ he said.
I flushed scarlet.
‘The money we gave you,’ grandma said.
‘I haven’t been given any money,’ Yngve said.
‘I forgot to pass it on to you,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’
Grandma stared at me as if she couldn’t believe her ears. ‘You didn’t give it to him?’
‘I’m really sorry. I forgot.’
‘Did you spend it?’
‘Yes, but I only borrowed it. I was going to give him the money back in Sørbøvåg and then I forgot.’
She got up and went out.
Yngve sent me a quizzical look.
‘We were given a hundred kroner each,’ I said. ‘I simply forgot to give you yours. You’ll get it later.’
Grandma came in with a hundred-krone note in her hand and gave it to Yngve.
‘There we are,’ she said. ‘Now let’s forget all about it.’
Yngve did in fact get together with Kristin on New Year’s Eve. I saw it all. From the moment they met and she looked up at him with her head tilted and a smile. He had said something and seemed strangely shy. I laughed inwardly. He was in love! Afterwards they didn’t talk but they did cast occasional glances at each other.
Suddenly they were sitting opposite each other at a long wooden table. Yngve was talking to Trond; she was talking to one of her friends.
They sent each other furtive looks.
Still talking.
Then Yngve got up and was gone for a short while, sat back down, continued to chat to Trond. Picked up a slip of paper and a pen, wrote something.
And then he pushed the slip of paper over to Kristin!
She looked at him, looked at the piece of paper and read what he had written. Looked at him, pinched her thumb and first finger together several times, and he passed her the pen.
She wrote something, pushed the sheet across, he read it. Got up and went over to her, and then suddenly they were immersed in deep conversation, there were only the two of them in the room, and the next time I saw them they were kissing. He had managed it!