No, I played Led Zeppelin at full volume, summoned all the concentration I had and tried to race ahead with a new short story. When darkness fell I let it enter the flat too, apart from on the desk, where a small lamp shone like an island in the night. There was me and my writing, an island of light in the darkness, that was how I imagined it. And then I went to bed and slept until the alarm clock woke me and another Monday at Håfjord School began.
The first thing the pupils did when I entered the classroom was to tease me about Irene.
I let them run on, then fixed them with a stare, said, now that’s enough of that nonsense, we have to start work if anything is to become of you. They took out their books and started work, I walked around and helped them, I liked the way they went from being a small chatty giggly class to falling into step and just being themselves.
Sitting like this, without speaking, without looking at each other, fully occupied with their own work, it was as though their ages melted away. Not that I no longer saw them as children, it wasn’t being children that defined them but their personalities, who they were in themselves and probably always would be.
I didn’t think about Irene much at school, these thoughts came afterwards, alone in my flat, like an adrenaline rush through my body. And then the despair. Never one without the other. She saw a purpose in us, she wanted something from me, and although I liked her I wasn’t in love, to start with we had nothing to talk about. I wanted to have her, but that was all I wanted.
Was she in love with me?
I doubted it. It was probably more that I was different, not one of her classmates but a teacher, not a thirty-or a forty-year-old but still her age, not from here but from the south.
In a year I would be gone, and she would still be here in her last year at gymnas. That wasn’t the best basis for a relationship, was it? Besides, I was going to write and I couldn’t tie up all my weekends, which I would have to do if this became serious.
In my head the arguments raged to and fro. On Tuesday we had a football match, it took us an hour to get to the pitch, which was made of shale and became so dusty that the players looked like Bedouin shadows. We lost narrowly, but I scored a goal in the melee after a corner. On Wednesday I received my first copy of Vinduet, the new journal I had subscribed to, in the post. The theme was literature’s relationship with other art forms, I couldn’t grasp any of it, but the mere fact that I had a literary journal on my desk was good enough. In the evening Hege came by, she had gone up to the school to do some work and on her way back she had decided on an impulse to see how I was. On Thursday I went to Finnsnes with Nils Erik, we went to the Vinmonopol and the library, I bought a bottle of vodka and took out two novels by Thomas Mann, The Confessions of Felix Krull and Doctor Faustus. On Friday I went to school to ring Irene. There was no one in the staffroom and I took my time, brewed up a jug of coffee, watched some TV, paced to and fro a good deal. In the end I went into the cubicle, put the note on which I had written her number on the machine, dialled the number and put the receiver to my ear.
Her mother answered. I introduced myself, she called, ‘Irene, it’s Karl Ove,’ I heard footsteps and some thumping.
‘Hi!’ she said.
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘How are you? Has something happened? You sound so serious.’
Her slightly husky voice was more obvious on the phone, where there was nothing to distract your attention. It made her sound incredibly sexy.
‘I don’t know. .’ I said.
There was so much that created doubt as far as she was concerned. Wasn’t I just the first best person to come along? We had seen each other on the bus, for God’s sake. And she hadn’t offered me any resistance at all, she had just got into bed, ready for anything.
‘Tell me now,’ she said.
What was I doing? Should I finish it over the phone? That was cowardly, it had to be done face to face.
‘No, there’s nothing,’ I said. ‘It’s just. . well, I’m not in the best frame of mind right now. But it’s nothing serious. Bit silly, that’s all.’
‘Why? Has something happened? Are you homesick?’
‘Maybe a bit,’ I said. ‘I don’t know. It’ll be fine. Tomorrow it’ll be gone.’
‘Oh, I wish I could be there to comfort you,’ she said. ‘I miss you!’
‘I miss you too,’ I said.
‘Can we meet tomorrow?’
If she was being picked up at twelve, as on the previous occasion, it would be nigh on impossible to finish the relationship. Because it would have to be done straight away, you couldn’t stay together with someone for four hours, as before, perhaps end up in bed together again and then go your separate ways. If I did it at once, what would she do in the meantime, before her lift arrived?
‘That’s no good,’ I said. ‘I’m busy then. What about Sunday?’
‘I have to go to Finnsnes again.’
‘Come here first! You can catch the bus from Håfjord. That would work.’
‘Maybe. Yes, I can do that.’
‘Good!’ I said. ‘See you then.’
‘See you then. Take care!’
‘Take care, Irene.’
The next morning I was stopped by a group of boys standing outside the shop, they asked how I was getting on, fine, I said, did I want to go to a party later that day, they asked, where, I said, it’s no big deal, they said, we’ll just be sitting around drinking up at Edvald’s, come up if you fancy it, no need to bring any booze, we’ve got enough.
Leaving them and walking up to my flat, I thought about how open people were here, inviting me to all sorts of events although I was not one of them, and I pondered why. What did they want from a Kristiansander with a black coat, a beret and progressive musical tastes, why take him in tow in the evening? At home going out demanded planning, lots of obstacles had to be overcome, you didn’t just turn up at someone’s house or sit down at a table in a bar with someone you vaguely knew. Everyone had their own circle, and if you didn’t, you were on the margins. Here there may have been similar circles, but if so they were open. In the few weeks I had lived here the most striking discovery was that everyone was accepted. Not necessarily liked, but always accepted. They didn’t have to wave to me and invite me out, but they did, and not just a few people but everyone.
Perhaps the answer was they had to, it was as simple as that. There were so few of them that they couldn’t afford to leave anyone out. Or else it was their attitude to life that was different, rawer, more casual. If you lived your life on a boat deck, if you did hard physical work every day and drank as soon as you were on shore, there was no reason to bother with petty clockwork-like social etiquette and distinctions. A more natural course of action was to proffer the hand of friendship, say join us, have a drink, have you heard about the time. .?