It was weeks before I told Line that our shared project would have to wait due to image and financial considerations. She wasn’t happy at all. In fact, she was so upset that she was willing to give up both the holiday cottage and the new house if necessary. I assured her it would only be for a short period, that the sacrifice would enable us to determine our own future. The words coming out of my mouth were Finn’s. They were the very arguments he had used on me. I couldn’t help feeling a touch of sadness when Line finally gave in and agreed that Outer Demons would be followed by two more books of the same genre. But after that no more splatter stories, as she referred to them.
When everyone had sworn to accept the plan, all I had to do was sit down and write. Only it wasn’t as straightforward as that. I felt like a cow that had been allowed to graze outside for some months, but had now been herded back to the darkness of the cowshed for the foreseeable future.
Moreover, there were plenty of other distractions. I was still invited to take part in interviews and talk shows. I had become the guy they called whenever there was a discussion of violence in literature, on television, in films or in computer games. I agreed to participate in anything from Saturday evening entertainment to writing columns in the local paper. The interruptions were welcome. They provided me with an excuse for not writing, because I had nothing to write. Every time I sat in front of the computer, the ability to express myself coherently deserted me. I was incapable of thinking of plots or structures. As my frustration rose, I invented more and more displacement activities. I always found time to go out with Bjarne, carry out domestic duties or simply let myself be swallowed up in the bosom of my family with Line and my daughter.
I opened up socially, but I shut down in terms of work. I told no one, not even Line, that I wasn’t producing anything at all. She had sufficient delicacy not to ask too many questions and I sensed her tacit acceptance that I would complete the splatter trilogy without her, as long as I was present in the family. And present I was. I was the superdaddy who always had time to play with his daughter and I was the attentive husband who supported his wife in her career as a dancer.
All the things I failed to do as a writer, I achieved as a father, and fathers make babies, so when Line told me she was pregnant again, I was overwhelmed not only with joy, but also relief. Now I had yet another reason for not working, a project that no one would ever blame me for investing all my energy in. The best excuse in the world.
I’m fascinated by how the subconscious works. Sometimes I think there is a tug of war between the two halves of the brain, a battle between will and intuition. If one lets go, the other wins. When I tried to force myself to write or plot a story nothing happened, but when I adjusted to being a full-time father and postponed my writing, the story appeared effortlessly.
The idea for Inner Demons came shortly after Line got pregnant with our second daughter. We lay in bed, naked and sweaty after making love, and I rested my head in her lap while she ran her fingers through my hair. She wasn’t showing very much yet, but her breasts had grown and were a little tender – to my great irritation, because she was quite hysterical when I handled them and I, in turn, couldn’t get enough of them. Line’s breasts weren’t large, but when she was pregnant they grew to the size of a good handful and they hung perfectly.
I don’t know how we got on to the subject, but we started talking about childbirth in earlier times, how tough it must have been without anaesthetic and how many maternal and infant deaths must have occurred. How would it affect a child to have been subjected to a traumatic birth where its mother had died, and the child had to live its life knowing it had caused its mother’s death? It was this idea that started fermenting inside me and it would later form the premise for Inner Demons.
Line stopped dancing, but maintained her contacts to the profession through her job as an assistant at the Bellevue Theatre. This meant that I was alone with Ironika during the day and could focus on writing and looking after my daughter. It was almost like when I wrote Outer Demons, a father–daughter collaboration that brought us closer together.
Perhaps Line felt marginalized? One day she claimed I was shutting her out and she was scared I was becoming too involved with my work. She didn’t know precisely what I wrote, that was between me and Ironika, but she was aware that it was affecting me. I didn’t share her view and couldn’t understand her concern at all. The script grew day by day and with it my self-esteem as a writer returned. I had forgotten my ambitions with Join The Club and got a kick out of seeing the number of pages for Inner Demons increase, so perhaps she was right, I might have seemed a little distant and tired when I had written that day’s quota of words. She considered taking early maternity leave, but I persuaded her to carry on for the benefit of her own career. Not because I couldn’t work when she was at home, but I treasured the fixed routine of taking Ironika to and from nursery, and the pleasure of playing with her when she couldn’t entertain herself. Line probably envied our closeness. It was as if Ironika and I shared a secret. We’d exchange private glances during dinner that went completely over Line’s head. I felt a bit sorry for her, but we enjoyed our little game and I attached no further importance to its effect on Line.
Meanwhile Line’s stomach grew and I followed her body’s development closely. When Line had been pregnant with Ironika, I had been too busy with the various jobs I needed to do to pay the rent, but this time I had front-row seats. Apart from the fascinating study of how the female body changes, I had a secondary motive: it was of the utmost importance that every detail about pregnancy and birth was correct in the book. It’s possible I may have been a little too curious. One evening when I was exploring her stomach and groin as usual, she pointed out that it would be nice if I could talk to her face rather than to her genitals for once.
A few days later something happened for which Line never forgave me.
Ironika had been in a sulk all morning and refused to go to nursery. This irritated me. I had hoped to be able to write four or five pages that day, but my daughter had now reached an age where she demanded constant attention. I tried to strike a deal with her. She would be allowed to stay at home if she could look after herself. I made myself a cup of coffee and sat down at the computer to work. The agreement with my daughter lasted ten minutes, then she appeared in the doorway with her plastic kitchen equipment and insisted we bake a cake. I tried very hard to control myself, but eventually I got rather angry. In a stern voice I told my daughter to go downstairs to the living room, play on her own and be quiet. If she didn’t do that, I would take her to nursery and leave her there until the next day. It was an empty threat, of course, but it worked, and a crestfallen Ironika left my study and padded downstairs.
Not long after there was a crash from the kitchen followed by clattering sounds and a scream from my daughter.
I leapt up, ran downstairs and into the kitchen. Ironika was lying on the floor, sobbing. She was surrounded by knives, forks and other cutlery. She must have decided to bake a cake on her own and could just about reach the kitchen drawer, which she had pulled out, causing the utensils to rain down on her. To my horror, I saw a dark puddle of blood under her thigh and it was spreading with alarming speed. I lifted her up on the table, pulled down her trousers and spotted a deep cut to her inner thigh. It was a clear cut from one of the carving knives and the sight of blood pouring from it made me dizzy. I got hold of some tea towels and tied one around her thigh and closed the cut itself with another. Ironika was still howling, but she was also turning disturbingly pale.