Of course it’s Arne that opens the door. He scowls at him and disappears into the crapper. Before Jo has got his sandals on, he sticks his head out and with his face full of shaving foam mumbles:
– When you go out again, take the kids with you.
– They haven’t eaten yet, Jo protests. But Truls is already hanging on to his arm. He can’t stand the thought of dragging Truls around. Should do, though, so he doesn’t have to be around in the apartment when Mother wakes up. Doesn’t have to see his mother roll out of bed and creep into the bathroom to puke up. That’s what she’s been doing all night, but Truls has slept like a stone. Nini too, naturally, after her double dose of sleeping pills.
It’s a half-hour before his baby sister has eaten up her Cheerios and her yoghurt. Mother is still sleeping. Arne’s wandering about the place scowling, but as long as Jo is looking after the kids, he keeps his mouth shut. Then he squashes water wings and a beach ball and Truls’s diving mask into a plastic bag and presses it into Jo’s hands and bundles them out.
– Boiling, shrieks Nini, hopping up and down as though on a hotplate, and he has to put her in the pushchair and go back in again and fetch her sandals.
By the kids’ pool he parks them in an empty deckchair. Wiggles the water wings on to Nini’s chalk-white arms. Suntan lotion, he thinks. Dismisses the thought of going back to the apartment yet again.
– Now you’ll take good care of her, he urges Truls.
– Where are you going?
– Trip down to the beach.
– I’m coming with you.
– No you’re bloody well not. You stay here and look after Nini. You think you’re here on holiday or something?
Truls gets that hangdog look that Jo can’t stand.
– Hey, pull yourself together, right? Can’t you take a joke? I won’t be long. Make sure her water wings are on properly.
He picks up his towel and starts to leave, turns and repeats what he said about the wings: – Blow them up properly. If she drowns, it’s your fault.
He runs down the steps. The sun is insanely hot. He hates the heat. Slumps down in the shadow of a stone at the end of the beach. Even there the sand is baking. Sit there like that till he boils. Until everything becomes intolerable except hurling himself into the water. Green flag today. The sea’s not moving.
Some people his own age are playing volleyball. They’re pretty good, he can see that, especially the tall lad with the fair curls. He watches them. The tall lad notices and waves. Jo doesn’t realise at first that the wave is to him. Gets up from the shade, takes a couple of steps out on to the glowing sand.
– Wanna play, the boy shouts in Norwegian.
Jo isn’t sure. He’s okay at volleyball. Football’s what he’s good at.
– Haven’t you got anything to wear on your head? the boy asks. – Your brains’ll burn up.
– Forgot my cap.
The other boy has a look round.
– Wait a sec.
He sprints up to the first row of straw parasols. Talks to some grown-ups lying there. Comes back with a white headscarf with gold trimming.
– Here, this’ll do you.
Jo looks up into the other boy’s face. Can’t recall having seen him either on the plane or in the restaurant. Of course he must know that Jo’s mother was stinking drunk and broke her glass by the pool and was sick in the toilet at the bar. But he doesn’t look at him with contempt, or like he pities him. Jo doesn’t know which he hates more.
– You play for us. My name’s Daniel.
The boy says the names of the others, too. Two Swedish boys, and one that sounds Finnish.
They win three sets. Mostly because Daniel gets the most difficult balls and has such an amazingly hard smash.
– Do you play for a club? Jo asks.
Daniel wrinkles his nose, like volleyball isn’t worth talking about. He pulls off his vest and shoes and sprints down to the water’s edge, and then on out so the water foams around his knees. The others follow, Jo too. All of them seem to have been there for a while; they’re tanned. He hasn’t had the sun on his body for months. He keeps his yellow T-shirt on.
– First one out to the buoys, Daniel shouts.
Jo reacts at once and dives in, crawling as fast as he can. Halfway out, he notices a shadow beside him, like a dolphin, or a shark. It glides past and away.
Jo reaches the buoy first and turns to wait for the others.
– You’re a good swimmer, says Daniel from behind the buoy, waiting, hanging on by an arm. He doesn’t seem even slightly out of breath.
– I’m better underwater, Jo pants, annoyed, gripping the buoy; so close that their faces are almost touching.
– Then let’s try that going back, Daniel suggests.
Jo spits. – On out, he says. – Let’s keep on going out.
Daniel glances at the horizon, then laughs. – Say when.
Jo listens to his own breathing. Waits until it’s slow and deep enough. Takes a few big breaths and makes a sign with his hand. They dive.
He lets Daniel swim in front. It’s like gliding through a room of molten glass. The turquoise light gathers in unstable bunches, then disappears down into the darkness. He swims easily. Don’t use up all your energy. At school they used a stopwatch to see who could hold their breath the longest. No one got even close to his record. Over two minutes. One of the doubters held a hand in front of his nose and mouth to check if he was cheating. He wasn’t cheating. He quite simply stopped breathing. Could stop for ever if necessary…
Daniel’s some way ahead of him; Jo sees his feet kicking through the columns of light. Keep going between the chilly currents, down even deeper, down towards a stream of tiny black fish, feel the blood begin to pound in his head. You might burst a blood vessel in your brain, his mother shouted once after he surfaced, and now he starts thinking about blood bursting up out of his brain and folding round it like a warm cloth. He feels dizzy. Must have air, his urgent thought, but he carries on, and that willpower comes from something that is not him, something that has started to appear in him, something he might be… Far ahead: Daniel’s feet. They’re pointing straight down, so he has given up. You must surface, your brain will explode, he hears his mother’s voice scream, but he doesn’t come up. He passes Daniel’s feet and keeps going until the pillars of light around him start to dim. Only then does he kick out and his head bursts through the surface of the water.
– You’re completely crazy, Daniel shouts over to him. The voice is distant, coming from the far side of a wall. Jo can’t answer. A mass of small black fish are still swirling round in the white light, and his stomach is on its way up through his throat. He floats back in towards land, towards Daniel, just about managing to move his arms. Tries to force a grin that says he agrees: That’s right, I’m crazy.
Mother and Arne have gone out by the time he lets himself back in. They must have taken Truls and Nini, because Jo didn’t see them by the kids’ pool as he ran past. Not too long since Mother was here, he says to himself, because there’s still that rancid smell in the toilet. He finishes quickly, sits down in the living room, which is also where he and Truls and Nini sleep. The sofa hasn’t been made up and the mattresses are on the floor. He turns on the air-conditioning, switches the TV on. The news in Greek. A bus accident, people crawling out of a broken window, some of them with blood all over their faces. He pulls back the bedclothes and stretches out on the sofa, his whole body still aching from the beating he gave Daniel at underwater swimming. Drops off for a few moments. Wakes to a sound. A cartoon on TV. He switches off, pads out on to the balcony. It’s like walking into a baker’s oven. The sun is directly above the roof of the house. He locates the thin grey line that divides sea from sky. If he swims out towards it and keeps going on and on, he’ll reach land in Africa. Meet warriors on camels there, robed in white against the sandstorms.