Long shudders like electric shocks went through me as she lay there, her eyes wide open, staring up at me.
No, no, no.
I hadn’t even penetrated her. A couple of centimetres maybe, no more. And then it was over. I fell on top of her and kissed her neck. She pushed me away and half sat up. I reached out for her, touched her breasts, but she just got up, pulled on her panties and tights and left the room.
~ ~ ~
In the morning I woke to a discussion outside my half-open door. I recognised the voices of Espen, Trond and the girl from the night before. No, she said, it wasn’t me. Yes, it was. I saw you. You went into his bedroom. No, it wasn’t, she said. But we saw you. Yes, I went in with him, he was going to sleep, but I came out again at once, she said. Nothing happened. Ha ha ha! said Espen. You were shagging in there. No, we weren’t, she said. And where were you going just now? Were you going in? Why would you go in if you hadn’t shagged? You know him, don’t you? No. I was going to collect something I’d left there. What was that? My bag.
I hastily got up, put on a pair of trousers and a T-shirt, grabbed her bag and went out to them.
‘Here you are,’ I said, passing her the bag. ‘You forgot this.’
‘Thank you,’ she said without meeting my eyes, and went downstairs.
‘What a bloody mess the house is in,’ Espen said.
‘I can imagine,’ I said.
‘I’ll help you to tidy up.’
‘Great.’
‘I’ll get Gisle and Trond to give a hand.’ He looked at me. ‘Did you shag Beate then?’
‘Was that her name?’ I said. ‘Yes, I did.’
‘She says you didn’t.’
‘I heard.’
‘Why?’
‘How should I know?’ I said.
Our eyes met.
‘Well,’ I said. ‘Better go down and inspect the hell.’
There was nothing that could be done about the door, it would have to be changed. Nor about the slashes to the table. But all the rest? Couldn’t that be scrubbed clean? We tidied up and cleaned the house all morning. Espen, Gisle and Trond went home at one, I continued on my own with a steadily increasing sense of panic in my chest because no matter how much I tidied and cleaned, the place still looked as if a party had hit it.
Mum came at five. I went out to meet her so that it wouldn’t come as a shock. I didn’t want her to see it before I had told her.
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘Hi,’ she said. ‘How did it go?’
‘Not so well, I’m afraid,’ I said.
‘Oh?’ she said. ‘What happened?’
‘It got a bit out of control. Someone kicked in the bathroom door, among other things. And there are quite a few other bits and pieces. You’d better see for yourself. I’m extremely sorry.’
She looked at me.
‘I had a feeling it would be like this,’ she said. ‘We’d better go in and see.’
When the inspection was over, she sat down at the kitchen table, ran both hands over her face and looked up at me.
‘It’s dreadful,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘What shall we do about the door?’ she said. ‘We can’t afford a new one.’
‘Are we so hard up?’
‘I’m afraid so. Who kicked it in?’
‘Someone called Christian. An idiot.’
‘Surely he should replace it?’
‘I can tell him to.’
‘You do that.’
She got up with a sigh.
‘I suppose we’d better eat,’ she said. ‘I think there are some pollock fillets in the fridge. Shall we have those?’
‘OK.’
She went to the hall and hung up her coat, I found the two packs of fish, she started washing some potatoes while I sliced the frozen blocks into pieces.
‘We’ve had this conversation before,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘You have to make your own decisions. And if they’re poor ones you have to live with the consequences.’
‘Of course,’ I said, and sprinkled flour, salt and pepper onto a plate, turned the, by now soft, fish in the mixture, put the frying pan on the hob and watched the knob of butter slide across the black surface as the heat took hold, not unlike a house, it struck me, when the clay base it stands on starts slipping. Slow, erect, with a final dignity before it subsides.
‘A year’s wear and tear in one night,’ she said. ‘Or even more.’
‘The house was built in 1880,’ I said. ‘One year’s not so much.’
She ignored me.
‘You’re eighteen years old. I can’t tell you what to do any more. I can’t control you. All I can do is be here for you and hope you will turn to me if you need help.’
‘OK.’
‘I could have tried to stop you, but why should I? You’re an adult and you have to take responsibility for your actions. I trust you. You’re free to do what you want. But you have to trust me too. In other words, treat me like an adult. And what we share is this house. We share the responsibility for it.’
She squirted some soap onto one hand, rubbed both of them together under the running tap and dried them on the kitchen towel.
‘You’re washing your hands of me, I can see,’ I said.
She raised a smile, but it was mirthless.
‘This is serious, Karl Ove. I’m worried about you.’
‘You have no reason to be,’ I said. ‘What happened here, well. . it was a russ party, no more, no less.’
She didn’t answer, I put the fish fillets into the pan, diced an onion and added the little cubes, poured in a can of tomatoes, sprinkled in spices and sat down with the Saturday newspaper, flicked through to the page where my Prince article, which I had handed in several weeks ago, had finally appeared in print. I held it up for her.
‘Have you read it?’ I said.
On the Monday I went to Christian and told him the door was smashed beyond repair. Oh yes, he said. You kicked it in, I said. Yes, it was me, he said. So you should replace it, I think, I said. No, he said. What do you mean no? I said. I mean what I said, he replied. No. It was your party. But it was you who broke the door, I said. Yes, he said. So you won’t replace it? I said. No, he said. And then he turned and left.
When I got back home from school there was a letter with a foreign stamp in the post box. I opened it at once and read it walking up the hill. It was from the manager of the Grand Hotel in Lucerne. He wrote that, unfortunately, all the rooms were registered by surnames and therefore he couldn’t help me with Melanie’s address, but I could try the two travel bureaus involved, whose addresses he added afterwards: one in Philadelphia and one in Lugano.