He wasn’t in a bad mood. He wasn’t angry. Just preoccupied.
“Have you been up to see Grandma and Grandad recently?” I asked.
He looked at me.
“Yes, I have,” he said. “Dropped in yesterday afternoon. Why do you ask?”
“No special reason,” I said, feeling my cheeks flushing. “Just wondered.”
I had cut off all the meat I could with the knife. Now I put the bone in my mouth and began to gnaw. Dad did the same. I put down the bone and drank the water.
“Thanks for making me a meal,” I said, and got up.
“Was the parents’ evening at six, did you say?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered.
“Are you staying here?”
“Think so.”
“Then I’ll come and get you afterward and we can drive up to Sannes. Is that alright?”
“Yeah, course.”
I was writing an essay about an advertisement for a sports drink when he came back. The door opening, the surge of sounds from the town, the thudding of footsteps on the hall floor. His voice.
“Karl Ove? Are you ready? Let’s get going.”
I had packed everything I would need in my bag and satchel, they were at bursting point because I was staying for a month and didn’t quite know what I might need.
He watched me as I came downstairs. He shook his head. But he wasn’t angry. There was something else.
“How did it go?” I asked without meeting his eyes, even though that was one of his bugbears.
“How did it go? Well, I’ll tell you how it went. I was given an earful by your math teacher. That’s how it went. Vestby, isn’t it?’
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I had no idea. I was caught completely off-guard.”
“So what did he say?” I asked and started to get dressed, infinitely relieved that Dad had kept his temper.
“He said you sat with your feet on the table in lessons, and that you were obstreperous and smart-alecky, and talked in class and you didn’t do class-work or your homework. If this continues he will fail you. That’s what he said. Is it true?”
“Yes, I suppose it is in a way,” I said, straightening up, dressed and ready to go.
“He blamed me, you know. He went on at me for having such a lout as a son.”
I cringed.
“What did you say to him?”
“I gave him an earful. Your behavior at school is his responsibility. Not mine. But it wasn’t exactly pleasant. As I’m sure you understand.”
“I do,” I said. “Sorry.”
“Fat lot of good that is. That’s the last parents’ evening I’ll ever go to, that’s for sure. Well then. Shall we go?”
We went out to the street, to the car. Dad got in, leaned over, and unlocked my side.
“Can you open up at the back as well?” I asked.
He didn’t answer, just did it. I put the bag and the satchel in the trunk, closed the lid carefully so as not to rouse his ire, took a seat at the front, pulled the belt across my chest, and clicked the buckle into the locking mechanism.
“That was excruciatingly embarrassing, no two ways about it,” Dad said, starting the engine. The dashboard lit up. The car in front of us and a section of the slope down to the river as well. “But what’s he like as a teacher, this Vestby?”
“Pretty bad. He’s got discipline problems. No one respects him. And he can’t teach either.”
“He got some of the top university grades ever recorded, did you know that?” Dad said.
“No, I didn’t,” I said.
He reversed a few meters, swung out onto the road, turned, and began to head out of town. The heater roared, the tire studs bit into the tarmac with a regular high-pitched whirr. He drove fast as usual. One hand on the wheel, one resting on the seat beside the gear stick. My stomach quivered, tiny flashes of happiness shot into my body for this had never happened before. He had never taken my side. He had never chosen to overlook anything reprehensible in my behavior. Handing over my report before the summer and Christmas holiday was always something I had anticipated with dread during the previous weeks. The slightest critical remark and his fury washed over me. The same with parents’ evenings. The tiniest comment about my talking too much or a lack of care was followed by a venting of anger. Not to mention the few times I had been given a note to take home. That was Judgment Day. All hell broke loose.
Was it because I was becoming an adult that he treated me in this way?
Were we becoming equals?
I felt an urge to look at him as he sat there with his eyes fixed on the road as we raced along. But I could not, I would have to say something then, and I had nothing to say.
Half an hour later we went up the last hill and entered the drive in front of our house. With the engine still running, Dad got out to open the garage door. I walked to the front door and unlocked it. Remembered our bags, went back as Dad switched off the engine and the red taillights died.
“Could you open the trunk?” I asked.
He nodded, inserted the key, and twisted. The lid rose like the tail of a whale, it seemed to me. Going into the house, I knew at once he had been cleaning. It smelled of green soap, the rooms were tidy, the floors shiny. And the dried-up cat shit on the sofa upstairs, that was gone.
Of course he had done it because my mother was coming home. But even though there was a specific reason and he had not done it simply because it had been so unbelievably filthy and disgusting there, it was a relief to me. Some order had been reestablished. Not that I had been worried or anything, it was more that I found it unsettling, especially as it had not been the only sign. Something about him had changed during the autumn. Presumably because of the way we lived, he and I together, barely that, it was palpable. He had never had any friends, never had people around at home, apart from the family. The only people he knew were colleagues and neighbors, when we were in Tromøya, I should add; here he didn’t even know the neighbors. Although just a few weeks after Mom had moved to Bergen to study he had organized a gathering with a few work colleagues in the house at Sannes, they were going to have a little party, and he wondered whether I might perhaps spend that night in town? If I felt lonely I could always go up to my grandparents’ if I wanted. But being alone was the last thing I feared, and he dropped by in the morning with a frozen pizza, Coke, and chips for me, which I ate in front of the television.
The next morning I caught the bus to Jan Vidar’s, stayed a few hours, and then bussed back up to our house. The door was locked. I opened the garage to check whether he had just gone for a walk, or taken the car. It was empty. I walked back to the house and let myself in. On the table in the living room there were a few empty bottles of wine, the ashtrays were full, but considering no one had cleaned up it didn’t look too bad, and I thought it must have been a small party. The stereo set was usually in the barn, but he had put it on a table beside the radiator, and I knelt down in front of the limited selection of records partly stacked against a chair leg and partly scattered across the floor. They were the ones he had played for as long as I could remember. Pink Floyd. Joe Dassin. Arja Saijonmaa. Johnny Cash. Elvis Presley. Bach. Vivaldi. He must have played the last two before the party started, or perhaps it was this morning. But the rest of the music wasn’t very party-like either. I stood up and went into the kitchen, where there were a few unwashed plates and glasses in the sink, opened the fridge, which apart from a couple of bottles of white wine and some beers was as good as empty, and continued up the stairs to the first floor. The door to Dad’s bedroom was open. I went over and looked inside. The bed from Mom’s room had been moved in and was next to Dad’s in the middle of the floor. So it had got late, and since they had been drinking and the house was so far off the beaten track that a taxi to town, or Vennesla, where Dad worked, would have been much too expensive, someone had slept over. My room was untouched, I grabbed what I needed, and although I had planned to sleep there I went back to town. Something unfamiliar had descended over all the things in the house.