‘Yes, fine,’ I said. I could feel my shirt sticking to my chest. Was it noticeable? I wondered.
‘What a nice apartment,’ Linda said. ‘Are there three bedrooms?’
‘Yes,’ Erik said.
He always looked so wily, always looked as though he had got something on the people he spoke to, it was hard to know where you stood with him; that half-smile of his could equally well have been sarcastic or congenial or tentative. If he’d had a pronounced or strong character, that might well have bothered me, but he was dithery in a weak-minded, irresolute kind of way, so whatever he might be thinking didn’t worry me in the slightest. My attention was focused on Vanja. She was standing close to Linda and looking down at the floor.
‘The others are in the kitchen,’ Erik said. ‘There’s some wine there, if you fancy a glass.’
Heidi had already entered the room, she was standing in front of a shelf with a wooden snail in her hand. It had wheels and a string you could pull.
I nodded to the two parents down the hall.
‘Hi,’ they said.
What was his name, now? Johan? Or Jacob? And hers? Was it Mia? Oh hell. Of course. Robin, that was it.
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘You all right?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘What about you two?’
‘Everything’s fine, thank you.’
I smiled at them. They smiled back. Vanja let go of Linda and hesitantly entered the room where the children were playing. For a while she stood observing them. Then it was as if she had decided to take the plunge.
‘I’ve got golden shoes!’ she said.
She bent forward and took off one shoe, held it up in the air in case anyone wanted to see. But no one did. When she realised that she put it back on.
‘Wouldn’t you like to play with the children over there?’ I suggested. ‘Can you see? There’ve got a big doll’s house.’
She went over, sat down beside them but did nothing, just sat watching.
Linda lifted Heidi and carried her to the kitchen. I followed. Everyone said hello, we returned the greeting, sat down at the long table, I was by the window. They were talking about cheap air tickets, how they started out dirt cheap, slowly became more expensive as you had to pay one surcharge after another, until you were left with a ticket that cost as much as those from more expensive airlines. Then the topic moved to buying CO2 quotas and after that to the newly introduced chartered train journeys. I could definitely have offered an opinion about that, but I didn’t — small talk is one of the infinite number of talents I haven’t mastered — so I sat nodding at what was said, as usual, smiling when others smiled, while ardently wishing myself miles away. In front of the worktop was Stella’s mother, Frida, making some kind of salad dressing. She was no longer with Erik, and even though they were good at working together where Stella was concerned, you could still occasionally notice the tension and irritation between them at committee meetings in the nursery. She was blonde, had high cheekbones and narrow eyes, a long, slim body, and she knew how to dress, but she was much too pleased with herself, too self-centred for me to find her attractive. I have no problem with uninteresting or unoriginal people — they may have other, more important attributes, such as warmth, consideration, friendliness, a sense of humour or talents such as being able to make a conversation flow to generate an atmosphere of ease around them, the ability to make a family function — but I feel almost physically ill in the presence of boring people who consider themselves especially interesting and who blow their own trumpets.
She placed the dish of what I thought was a dressing but which turned out to be a ‘dip’ on a board beside a dish of carrot sticks and one of cucumber sticks. At that moment Vanja came into the room. When she had located us she came over and stood close.
‘I want to go home,’ she said softly.
‘We’ve only just got here!’ I said.
‘We’re going to stay a bit longer,’ Linda said. ‘And look, now you’re all getting some goodies!’ Was she was referring to the vegetables on the board?
She had to be.
They were crazy in this country.
‘I’ll go with you,’ I said to Vanja. ‘Come on.’
‘Will you take Heidi as well?’ Linda asked.
I nodded, and with Vanja at my heels I carried her into the room where the children were. Frida followed holding the board. She placed it on a little table in the middle of the floor.
‘Here’s something to eat,’ she said. ‘Before the cake arrives.’
The children, three girls and a boy, went on playing with the doll’s house. In the other room two boys were running around. Erik was in there, by the stereo system with a CD in his hand.
‘I’ve got a bit of Norwegian jazz here,’ he said. ‘Are you a jazz fan?’
‘We-ell…’ I said.
‘Norway has a great jazz scene,’ he said.
‘Who’s that you have there?’ I asked.
He showed me the cover. It was a band I had never heard of.
‘Great,’ I said.
Vanja was standing behind Heidi trying to lift her. Heidi was protesting.
‘She says no, Vanja,’ I said. ‘Put her down.’
As she carried on I went over to them.
‘Don’t you want a carrot?’ I asked.
‘No,’ Vanja said.
‘But there’s a dip,’ I said. Went over to the table, took a carrot stick and dunked it in the white, presumably cream-based, dip and put it in my mouth.
‘Mm,’ I said. ‘It’s good!’
Why couldn’t they have given them sausages, ice cream and pop? Lollipops? Jelly? Chocolate pudding?
What a stupid, bloody idiotic country this was. All the young women drank water in such vast quantities it was coming out of their ears, they thought it was ‘beneficial’ and ‘healthy’, but all it did was send the graph of incontinent young people soaring. Children ate wholemeal pasta and wholemeal bread and all sorts of weird coarse-grained rice which their stomachs could not digest properly, but that didn’t matter because it was ‘beneficial’, it was ‘healthy’, it was ‘wholesome’. Oh, they were confusing food with the mind, they thought they could eat their way to being better human beings without understanding that food is one thing and the notions food evokes another. And if you said that, if you said anything of that kind, you were either reactionary or just a Norwegian, in other words ten years behind.
‘I don’t want any,’ Vanja said. ‘I’m not hungry.’
‘OK, OK,’ I said. ‘But look here. Have you seen this? It’s a train set. Shall we build it?’
She nodded, and we sat down behind the other children. I began to lay railway track in an arc while helping Vanja to fit her pieces. Heidi had moved into the other room, where she walked alongside the bookcase studying everything in it. Whenever the two boys’ capers became too boisterous she swivelled round and glared at them.
Erik finally put on a CD and turned up the volume. Piano, bass and a myriad of percussion instruments that a certain type of jazz drummer adores — the kind that bangs stones against each other or uses whatever materials happen to be at hand. For me it sometimes meant nothing, and sometimes I found it ridiculous. I hated it when the audience applauded at jazz concerts.
Erik was nodding to the music, then turned, sent me a wink and went into the kitchen. At that moment the doorbell rang. It was Linus and his son Achilles. Linus had a pinch of snus under his top lip, was wearing black trousers, a dark coat and beneath it a white shirt. His fair hair was a touch unkempt, the eyes peering into the flat were honest and naïve.
‘Hello!’ he said. ‘How are you doing?’
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘And you?’
‘Yep, jogging along.’
Achilles, who was small with large dark eyes, took off his jacket and shoes while staring at the children behind me. Children are like dogs, they always find their own in crowds. Vanja eyed him as well. He was her favourite, he was the one she had chosen to take over the role of Alexander. But after he had removed his outer clothing he went straight over to the other children, and there was nothing Vanja could do to stop him. Linus slipped into the kitchen, and the glint I thought I detected in his eye could only have been his anticipation of a chance to have a chat.