Beatles (21 page)

‘Football,’ I said. ‘Here to play football.’

We were by Nina’s room. Her mother knocked on the door, opened it and pushed me through the opening.

Nina sat there with big eyes staring at me, bewildered. Beside her sat a herbert with a guitar in his lap and a wry smile. It definitely was not her cousin.

‘Kim,’ Nina stammered. ‘Is that you!’

It was.

‘I’ll get you something to drink,’ her mother wheezed and left.

I stood in the doorway.

‘Hello,’ was all I said.

‘I’d completely forgotten,’ she stuttered, ashamed.

I searched feverishly for something to say.

‘Can I catch a bus from here?’ I asked.

‘You can,’ the guitarist friend said. ‘At the bottom of the road. It goes straight to City Hall Square.’

I got the message. Nina eyed us both at the same time.

‘This is Kim from Oslo,’ she said, pointing to me. ‘And this is Jesper.’

Jesper played guitar for us. His long, blond hair hung over his forehead. Jesper sang in English.

I checked my watch. Inside I was a void.

‘Are you coming to the match?’ I asked.

Nina stared at the floor.

‘I’d completely forgotten about it,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t. Jesper’s playing in Hornbæk tonight. He plays in a band.’

We said no more. Jesper played another song. Then he peered up at me.

‘Match?’ he asked. ‘Football?’

‘Against Fremad,’ Nina explained. I supposed that she wanted to prove that she had read my wretched letter.

‘Oooh! Watch out! They’re really good!’

I had to leave before the mother returned. I could have left without saying a word, about-faced on the spot. I had every right, but I wasn’t in my right mind. Instead, and I hated myself as I did it, I asked, ‘What about tomorrow?’

Nina averted her face.

‘I’d completely forgotten,’ she repeated. ‘We’re going to be in Hornbæk for the weekend.’

Jesper strummed a chord. Defeat was a reality. All that was left was to drag myself off the field of battle, bleeding, crushed, disgrace dribbling from the corners of my mouth. But my body was so leaden. I had to use force. Having finally managed to turn, I stood face to face with the mother bearing a tray of bottles. I walked past her, found the front door and walked down the front path, walked, didn’t run, didn’t look back.

And my back burned like the copper roof on Kronborg Castle in the sun.

I took a taxi back. It cost three kroner more. I had ten kroner left. My expectations had turned to blackened ashes. I wanted to murder a Dane.

The Danes were called Jesper and Ebbe and Ib and Eske, the whole lot of them. They thought they were on a dancing course and squealed as soon as you went near them. One strong word and they had their noses in the grass. They had been weaned on pastries and
buns and cream. And the referee was a partisan baker and the home crowd stood on the sideline with their beer and sagging bellies.

‘Long balls,’ Åge yelled. ‘Long balls.’

Dribbling was out of the question. They could balance the ball on their tongues if they were of a mind. For us it was all about getting in their way as much as possible. Seb was battling on the left wing but didn’t whip in one decent centre. Gunnar couldn’t get into the penalty area. Willy and Kjetil’s pinpoint passing was deftly broken up by the Danish centre half. But Aksel was a kangaroo in goal. He pouched every shot they made. We kept the score down to 0–0 going into the break. Åge gathered us around him.

‘Well done, lads,’ he whispered. ‘The Danes are getting tired. Accuracy’s on the wane.’

Kåre gave us some juice from a huge plastic bottle.

‘We’ve got ’em on the run,’ he said every time he filled a mug.

Round two started with a Danish tidal wave. They flooded the pitch towards the goal. Aksel was a fishing net between the posts, The Flying Dutchman from Hoff. The Danes became desperate. Aksel had pysched them out. Their heads hung at every goal kick, they could hardly be bothered to run after the ball.

That was when it happened. A slippery Dane won the ball in the centre, spun round and came charging towards me. Stop him, a voice said inside me. Stop him. I stopped him. I used an old trick. Instead of tracking back I ran straight for him. I met him with my shoulder, pole-axed him at thigh height and dumped him in the grass like a sack. I passed the ball back to Aksel.

But the referee had blown his whistle. And all the Danish pastries thronged around me. I wondered which one would strike first. The baker forced his way through the melee, stood three centimetres from my face and pointed to the dressing rooms. I left the field amid a shower of invective. Åge greeted me with glowering eyes. I took a seat on the bench beside Ola. The Danish butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-his-mouth-boy had got to his feet, limped around and grimaced at the skies.

‘Wouldn’t even get into drama school,’ I said.

‘Was Nina at h-h-home?’ Ola asked.

‘No,’ I said.

The match was restarted with a free kick that stuck in Aksel’s clutches like a sticky bun. The right wing took my position. Seb trapped a long ball, moved into the centre and sent the ball to Gunnar who raced past him and threaded it through to Willy who made for the dead ball line where he forced a corner.

Finn took it. He had the team’s most sensitive left foot and screwed in the ball in front of the goal, Seb jumped highest and headed the ball into the keeper’s hands, but the goalie lost his footing and fell on his back with the ball in his lap and over the line. He tried to fling it out, but it was too late. The ball was in the goal. 1–0. The Danes’ heads dropped and the crowd hurled beer bottles. 1–0. Twenty minutes left to play.

Now the whole team was back in defence. There wasn’t a Norwegian in Fremad’s half. Åge ran along the touchline waving his arms. Aksel directed the defensive wall forwards and backwards, the pastries ran like madmen, but this was not cunning tactics, it was blind panic. Then it happened. Ten minutes left, 1–0, and a Danish salami lets fly with a cannon. Aksel is horizontal in the air, like a boa, nudges the ball out for a corner with the nail on his little finger. But he lands awkwardly, lands on top of his right arm and gives a chilling scream as he hits the ground. Åge and Kåre rush over to him with a sponge and Solo. But it’s no use. Aksel is taken off. The Danes grin. Beside me sits Ola, the reserve goalkeeper, face as green as a mouldy old tea bag. Åge and Kåre return with Aksel between them. Right arm hanging limp.

Åge points to Ola.

‘Your turn,’ he says. ‘Get ready.’

I help him with his laces, his hands are fluttering like birds’ wings.

‘Relax,’ I said. ‘It’ll be fine.’

With his good arm, Aksel slaps him on the back.

‘Best of luck!’

We push him on his way. He jogs over to the goal and takes up his position between the posts. The corner is whipped in. Ola flies out and, as though standing in the midst of a swarm of mosquitoes, throws a wild punch at the ball. And he hits it. It sails through the air in a wonderful parabola to the midfield, and the Danes have to run again.

‘Good!’ yells Åge. ‘Keep the ball out!’

There are five minutes left. It’s the biggest battle in Copenhagen since Napoleon was there. There are at least fifteen men around the ball at all times. It’s hand-to-hand stuff. Two minutes left. Then a Danish stork crashes to the ground and the baker whistles and points to the penalty spot. At this point Åge is trying to tear the skin off his face. Ola is alone between the posts, never seen him so small. I sprint around the pitch and stand behind the goal, behind Ola. The Danes take up positions. The captain places the ball on the spot and walks back nine paces. Ola crouches down, looks like a dung beetle from where I am. I watch the captain. He scratches his thigh. I look into his eyes.

‘Right,’ I whisper to Ola. ‘Dive to your right!’

Then he runs up, Ola flings himself to the right, the ball hits his body and bounces off him, nineteen men charge forward, Ola gets to his feet, staggers out and falls on the ball. The horde comes to a sudden halt one millimetre from the crown of his head. Ola holds his arms around his head as if it were the ball. Then he is lifted up, the hero of the hour. Åge does a war dance. Ola stands there with the ball in his hands, not quite knowing what has happened. Then he kicks it out of play. But it doesn’t matter for the yeast has gone out of the buns. They have given up. The referee checks his watch, adds a minute, then blows his whistle until his cheeks bulge like red tomatoes. We have won. Norway 1 Denmark 0. Ola is chaired off and thrown into the air, he almost doesn’t come back down. Åge falls to his knees with his hands clasped together. I turn my back on everything and stroll down to the changing rooms, sit there with bowed head, feeling I was worth less than a casserole lid.

Gunnar was the first to arrive.

‘Ola’s greater than Gordon Banks!’ he shouted.

He studied me close up.

‘Come on, you’re not annoyed because you were sent off, are you!’

I finished the Solo.

‘Bloody hell, you earned us respect. One sendin’ off and the puddin’ started to wobble.’

The others carried Ola in. Kåre pulled out a crate of lemonade and everyone collapsed on the benches with exhaustion.

Ola sat beside me.

‘Neat save,’ I said. ‘Class act.’

Ola gave a weary smile.

‘I l-l-looked him in the eye,’ he said. ‘Then he didn’t have a h-h-hope!’

In the evening songs and games and food were on the menu at the school. The Danes joined us. The Danes were good losers. I wasn’t. At eight I put my boots on the shelf and told Åge I felt poorly, must have been a temperature. He placed two fingers on my forehead and nodded. I went downstairs and lay down. I’ve got a temperature, I thought. So I lay there, alone in the massive gymnasium with the smell of bodies and sweat and socks hanging from the ceiling like a heavy curtain. Alone in the light blue sleeping bag stuck to my skin. I felt so old and drained. Punished. I couldn’t get my mind off Nina and Jesper. I hated him. I hated them both. I had been given the brush-off, made fun of and trampled on. Then I must have fallen asleep, at any rate I woke up to someone shaking me. It was Gunnar. It was darker, I could just see all the sleeping bags scattered across the floor like huge larvae in the night.

‘Hi,’ Gunnar whispered. ‘Are you asleep?’

‘I was,’ I said.

He rolled closer.

‘Are you ill?’

‘Temperature,’ I said. ‘Probably a draught on the boat.’

He came even closer.

‘Wasn’t Nina at home?’

‘Nope.’

‘But you’d written, hadn’t you?’

‘Yep. She was at home. Yet she wasn’t.’

Gunnar didn’t understand that.

‘Cut out the riddles!’

‘She was with someone else,’ my mouth said.

I woke in a boiling hot swimming pool. I was under water. The surface danced and flickered above me and a crowd of people were standing around the edge peering down at me. I swam up to them and banged my head against the sun.

It was the day after. Don’t remember much about it. Didn’t even feel like a hot dog. I sat on a bench feeding the pigeons while the others ran up Copenhagen Round Tower. I sat on a bench feeding the pigeons while the others were in the zoo. They managed to get me to board the boat home, but I was not bloody going down to the bottom, not bloody likely. I sat in a deckchair on the sun deck and went to sleep. When I woke it was quite dark and someone had covered me with two thick rugs. Carefully, I felt around. My head was as clear as a mountain stream. I stood up. I saw a knot of people and lights some distance away. Above me, the stars flickered. The boat left a white trail in its wake. A ship passed on the port side. I could hear music and voices.

‘He’s woken up!’ someone said behind me. ‘The roughneck’s woken up.’

It was Gunnar. He came with Seb and Ola.

‘Are you better?’ Seb asked.

‘Fine,’ I said.

‘Thought it was best with the rugs,’ Ola mumbled. ‘So the g-g-gulls wouldn’t shit on you!’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘They saved me.’

Seb had something in those large pockets of his. Beer cans. They grinned and took a swig each. I didn’t want any.

‘Åge’s in the bar,’ Seb said. ‘Pretty pissed.’

‘With a w-w-woman!’ Ola panted. ‘Danish b-b-blonde. With knockers a metre long!’

‘Looks like Marilyn Monroe,’ Gunnar daydreamed, drinking from the can.

Ola tipped backwards, caught himself and leaned forwards.

‘Do you know what my dad does?’ he grinned. ‘Eh? He washes his h-h-hair in beer!’

Ola split his sides and threw his beer can in the air.

‘What does he do, did you say?’ Gunnar yelled.

‘W-w-washes his hair in beer! Promotes g-g-growth!’

He laughed soundlessly with an open mouth, then poured the rest of the beer down his neck and looked totally deranged.

We carried him to the railings where he treated the gulls to some half-digested chunks of red sausage. The waves roared beneath us.

‘Bloody hell,’ Ola groaned, bringing up some more chunks.

‘Best if we stay here a while,’ Seb said with a grin and took out another can. He had cans everywhere.

I could feel the fever at the back of my head again, like cold terror now. There was a glass partition between us. I could not reach them. I had been sent off again. Didn’t want to lose them too.

‘Bet you don’t think I dare stand on the railing,’ I said.

They looked at me and laughed. Ola raised his head and guffawed, too.

‘Don’t fart about,’ was all Gunnar said.

It was fairly broad, but curved. And slippery, probably. I was wearing plimsolls.

‘Shall we join the others downstairs,’ Seb suggested, finishing his beer.

I jumped up onto the railing, supporting myself with my hands. There were no lights to be seen on the horizon now, only blackness. The waves beat against my ear drums. Then I found my balance, straightened up with my arms outstretched. I started walking. Gunnar, Seb and Ola recoiled, their eyes white balls. I walked along the railing. My heart was caught between two beats. Time took a break. The waves stood up and froze. The wind fell and died. Then Gunnar ran forward in the dark, grabbed me and pulled me down. We rolled over each other on the deck with Gunnar holding me in an iron grip. Then he slapped me. He slapped me across the middle of the face.