I don’t want to, and then I have to. I thump my fist on the pillow, thrust the duvet aside, jump out and run downstairs in my underpants only, knowing the phone is bound to stop the second I pick it up. It always does. But it keeps ringing, and I grab the receiver and shout into it: ‘Yes, hello, what is it?’
‘Jesus, you got a hangover?’ It’s Arvid. I am frozen, I cover one foot with the other and try to make myself as small as I can, but I am one seventy-eight tall and practically naked.
‘Shit, don’t you know the working class have a right to weekends off? By the way, this is a rare honour.’
‘And the same to you. Anyway, you’re not supposed to rest, you’re supposed to work the time you’re on this earth. You must seize the day and the hour, you have to go skiing with me in the woods. The snow is great, and I need some air. Imagine a Kvikklunsj chocolate bar and cocoa in Lilloseter or Sinober.’
At least he’s trying. And I think: come on, Arvid, and say:
‘Sinober’s too far. And I haven’t had my skis on for two years. I don’t even know where they are. Isn’t it damned cold?’
‘Don’t forget Ingstad out on the tundra. In the mornings he had to thaw the dogs over the fire. That was cold. Minus fifteen is more like a sauna. Find your skis, you’ve got them in the cellar, I know you have. See you out by the military camp in an hour. Green Swix is good for waxing. Goodbye.’
He hangs up, and there is only silence. I stand listening. Where is my mother? I go upstairs and knock on her bedroom door, and when she doesn’t answer, I open it. The room is empty, the bed’s been made. I look at my watch. It’s just nine o’clock, and it’s a Sunday, and then the telephone rings again. I’m still half naked, every room is cold, and I curse and have to go back downstairs.
It’s Kari.
‘Is Mamma there?’ She says Mamma.
‘No, in fact she’s not, I don’t know where she is. I’ve just got up. The telephone keeps ringing, I’m standing here stark naked, and I’m freezing my arse off.’
‘Audun?’
‘Yes.’
‘I want to come home, Audun. I don’t want to spend Christmas here. I want to come home.’ She whispers the last words. ‘I think I have to hang up,’ she says quickly, and then it’s the dialling tone. I stand with the receiver in my hand, listening, and all I hear is the beep.
‘Kari?’ I say before I even start thinking, and then I slam the receiver down and go upstairs to my room and search for clothes. I find a thick jumper and a pair of old skiing pants at the back of the wardrobe and red knee socks. Then I go down to the kitchen and put the kettle on for coffee. Where did I last see the ski wax? I go to the worktop and pull out drawer number two under the cutlery and there they are: small tins of red, blue and green Swix. In the country it was always the firewood box we rummaged through, when something went missing, and here, when the odd item disappears, it ends up below the cutlery in drawer number two. The skis are on the fire escape outside the kitchen window, I suddenly remember. They have been there for two years. I pick up the green Swix, hold it in my hand, weigh it, and then I see the photograph of Kari with her newborn baby on the wall above the kitchen table. I put the tin back, close the drawer and go out into the hall and dial Arvid’s number. He picks up.
‘Hi,’ I say. ‘Is your father there?’
‘My father?’
‘Yes, your father. Can I have a word with your father?’
‘Christ. OK. Don’t go away.’ He puts down the phone, and I hear him walk into the living room and call up the stairs, and then all goes quiet, and after a couple of minutes a door is shut, and Arvid’s father says:
‘Hello?’
‘Hello, it’s Audun. I know this is a little over the top, but I have to ask. Would it be possible to borrow your car for two or three hours today? It’s my sister in Kløfta. I think there’s a crisis, and I need to go. The bus takes too long. I’ll be careful. Word of honour.’
‘Well, actually I was going to use it myself today, but I suppose it can wait. It’s important, you say?’
‘I think it is. It would be cool of you. I have no one else to ask.’
‘Then you’d best be going right away.’
‘I’m already there. Thank you very much.’
I guess a reefer jacket and red knee stockings is not the latest fashion, but there is no time to change, and I lock the door as I leave. Wherever my mother is, she has her own key. And then I remember the kettle on the stove and have to go back in. I hurry through the hall, and in the kitchen I pull the kettle off the hotplate and close the lid with a bang. I start to sweat under my jacket by the stove and remember that this was the day I had planned to stay in bed and just take things one after the other. I slice off a chunk of brown bread before I leave and chew on it as I lock up and hurry along the Sing-Sing gallery.
I come out of the tower at ground level and run in the snow between the houses and across Veitvetveien. There are two cars stranded by the kerb with their iced-up windows and starter motors sounding like bad attacks of bronchitis as the drivers inside twist the keys. The frosty mist from my mouth fans out in the air, and coming down Veitvetsvingen, I see Arvid standing on the road by the car with the key dangling from his mitten.
‘If there’s a crisis, I’ll go with you,’ he says.
‘Sorry about the skiing trip.’ I rub my ears, there is an ice-cold wind, as there always is, and I haven’t worn a cap for years.
‘No problem. At least I’ll get some fresh air, I’ll just roll down the window.’
‘Oh no, you don’t.’
We pull the grey tarpaulin off the car. It is unwieldy and stiff, and when we fold it there is a cracking noise, and with a struggle we force it into the boot. The windows are ice-free, and the car starts first time. There is no nonsense with Frank Jansen’s car.
‘You can tell your father I’ll pay for the petrol.’
‘He’d expect nothing less,’ Arvid says.
We drive round the bend and along Grevlingveien towards the shopping centre and then up to Trondhjemsveien. I switch on the heating and the fan starts humming, and then there is a smell of something burning, and only very slowly does the car thaw out. We keep our mittens on. The road is nearly empty, only the occasional lorry steams past, and then we are lost in a spray of snow, and I have to cut the speed to keep the car on the road, and then suddenly the road gets all slippery, and I really have to concentrate.
Driving with your mittens on is difficult. My hands slip on the steering wheel and I clench them so hard my whole body goes tense, and my neck feels so stiff I can hardly turn my head. We drive without speaking. Everything out there is white, but the roads have been cleared, and the trees that glide past bristle with rime and crystallised snow. I give up on the mittens, pull them off, and the wheel is cold and damp against my palms, and we can see the white smoke curling upwards from the chimneys on every rooftop. We drive past Grorud, with the church, and the school down in the valley, and Lake Stemmerud up in the woods, where we used to swim in the summer. I almost drowned there once, but then it was thirty degrees plus. I was diving and hit my head on the bottom and didn’t have the strength to swim ashore, so instead I crawled along the bottom until my lungs were screaming. It was just my luck I didn’t crawl the wrong way. It was so embarrassing I didn’t tell anyone.
Arvid says nothing until Gjelleråsen Ridge:
‘Is it a serious crisis, you think?’