He leans forward and peers on to the neighbouring balcony. Exactly like their own. A plastic table and four chairs. The only thing different is the clothes hanging up to dry. A vest, a green towel, bikini bottoms. White with dark red hearts. Water dripping from it. The girl from the pool is his neighbour.
The balcony door is ajar. Maybe she’s alone in the apartment too. If her bikini’s hanging out here, what is she wearing? What if she’s in the shower… He listens out for the sound of running water. No sounds coming from there. Go and knock. Ask to borrow something or other. Matches, for example. Why would he need matches in the middle of the day? Steal one of his mother’s cigarettes. The two cartons she bought at the duty-free before boarding the plane are on her bedside table. She won’t notice if one packet is missing. Ask the girl next door if she wants one.
A door banging on the other side. He races through the room, opens up, sticks his head out.
It is her. Further down the path. On her way to the pools. She’s wearing a skirt, and a top. If he’d been just a little bit quicker…
The dining room is full. He has to search for the table. They’re sitting next to the stage. A bottle of red wine on the table, half full. Arne’s drinking beer, so Mother’s the one that’s been knocking back the wine. She’s sitting with her back turned, but he can see that she’s already a bit tipsy. Head on one side. The more she drinks, the more of an angle to her head. Nini in the baby chair is asleep. Truls is munching on a sausage. His face lights up when he sees his big brother. At that same moment Jo catches sight of her two tables away, the girl from the next-door apartment. He refuses to be seen with his mother and Arne, the way they show themselves up; stops a few metres away from them. Luckily the girl hasn’t seen him.
– Aren’t you going to have shomeshing to eat then, Jo? Mother says, and she’s further gone than he thought.
– Ain’t hungry. Just had a hot dog.
It’s true. Apart from the bit about the hot dog. His stomach is still churning from having swum halfway to Africa underwater. His head, too. His whole body.
– What rubbish, says Arne.
– Let him decide himself, Mother says, defending him, as if that was any help.
– Off to meet some friends.
– On you go, Mother waves.
– Come back here afterwards and take Truls and Nini with you, Arne commands.
– What are you going to do?
Mother tries to smile. – You look after them this evening, so Arne and I can have some time off. It is our holiday, you know.
– Time off so you can get sloshed, Jo mutters.
– What was that you just said? Arne growls.
Jo glances over towards the girl’s table. The fat girl with the fair hair is sitting there too. And two grown-ups. They’re busy eating. It’s much too hot in the dining room. Jo has never liked the heat. Feels as though something is about to happen. When he closes his eyes, it gets pitch dark. Opening them again, the shadow reappears. It’s carrying something that looks like a sledgehammer… He turns and leaves before anyone else notices it.
– He-ey, Joe.
Someone calls to him in English. Jo stops by the edge of the pool and looks round. In a deckchair over by the wall he sees the man he spoke to yesterday evening. The one who wanted Jo to call him Jacket. A candle burns on a table beside him. He’s sitting reading a book.
– Hi, says Jo, and feels his breath calming down out here in the dark.
– Busy? asks the man, who obviously wants to talk to him today as well.
Jo takes a step closer. Jacket is still wearing the khaki shorts and short-sleeved black shirt.
– Everything okay now? The business with your mother and all that?
Jo doesn’t answer.
– Why not sit down for a few minutes? Jacket waves his hand towards the neighbouring deckchair. Jo perches on the edge of it.
– What are you reading? he asks, just for something to say.
Jacket holds up a little sliver of a book. – A long poem.
– Poem?
– Actually a story. A journey through a dead world. Or a world of the dead.
– Like a ghost story?
– Exactly, Jacket exclaims. – I’ve read it lots of times. But I still don’t know what’s going to happen in the end.
Jo wonders what he means by that.
– The part I’m reading now is called ‘Death by Water’.
– So maybe it’s about drowning, Jo guesses.
– Yes. A young man. A Phoenician.
– Phoenician? Jo interrupts. – You mean the people who lived here thousands of years ago?
Jacket’s eyebrows rise and form twin arches. – Well I must say, Jo, you sure do pay attention in school.
Jo does. He’s as clever as he can be bothered to be.
– So he drowns, this Phoenician, he affirms, trying to make his voice sound as if it doesn’t matter. – A soldier, maybe?
– Actually a travelling salesman, it would seem. He’s been floating in the sea for fourteen days already. Not much left of him; skin and muscles have stripped away from the bone. He was probably quite rich, but that’s not much use to him now. Lying down there in another world in the depths, can’t even hear a seagull cry.
Jo suddenly feels cheered up. Jacket likes to talk to him. He isn’t just pretending.
– Pretty good way to die, he says quickly, with a glance across at the grown-up in the flickering candlelight.
Jacket sits there and studies his face. – I’ve been thinking about the conversation we had last night, he said finally.
This man has been on TV lots of times, and now he’s sitting here one metre away, in the flesh, and thinking about things a twelve year old said to him. Suddenly Jo is on the alert.
– Was there all that much to think about?
Jacket lights a smoke.
– How about one for me too?
– What do you think Mother would say if a grown-up stranger started you smoking?
Jo snorts. – It’s got nothing to do with her. She’d never find out. If she did find out, she wouldn’t give a damn. Anyway, I’ve smoked lots before.
Jacket hands him the cigarette. – You’ll have to make do with one drag. If you squeal, I’ll be in trouble. Wouldn’t take a lot more than that to get me on the front page of VG and Dagbladet and Seen and Heard and you name it.
Jo grins. – I’d get well paid for it. The thousand-kroner reward.
– Exactly, says Jacket. – Celebrity on sunshine holiday lures child with cigarettes.
Jo has to laugh. He takes a deep drag on the cigarette and holds it down, feeling at once that delicious dizziness.
– I always see you alone here, he observes after another puff.
– I am alone here.
– You go away on holiday on your own? Don’t you have a family and all that?
Again Jacket looks at him for a long time.
– I needed to get away for a while, he answers, leaning back in the deckchair. – Made up my mind the night before, jumped on board a plane, ended up here by chance. Surprisingly good place. Might buy a house here.
Not many grown-ups live like that. Suddenly just up and off on a plane. Buy a house on Crete if they can be bothered to.
– So that business with your mother, it’s all okay now?
For some reason or other Jacket returns to the subject Jo least of all wants to talk about. He doesn’t answer, and maybe Jacket finally understands; at least he stops going on about it. Instead Jo begins to talk about the girl in the next-door apartment. She’s got long legs and tits and she’s a real looker. Just the right haughtiness, a bit of a princess like.