Beatles (30 page)

‘In the summer,’ he sighed.

‘Nina, too.’

I walked through Frogner Park on my way home. It was criss-crossed with ski tracks but I didn’t see anyone. I strolled round Dogland, deserted there too, there wasn’t even a dog around. The Monolith was there as always, and the statues were active in the dark. I thought about Nina and Henny, that one day the snow would be gone and that the evenings would be light and warm and almost unbearable. All of a sudden five statues woke up and came towards me from all directions. Their steps were silent, but I heard their breathing and then the movements. I stopped and felt an acrid, burning taste in my mouth. A torch was switched on and shone in my face. I saw nothing. They saw me.

‘Out looking for queers, are you?’ a voice asked.

The burning sensation filled my mouth and nose. The Frogner gang.

They came closer. They blinded me with the torch. A knuckled fist tapped my head. I felt the pain before it came.

‘Aren’t you one of those bloody commie bastards?’ a voice said.

I tried to shield my eyes. They brushed my hands away.

‘Answer me, dickhead! You commie shit! You’re the type that goes on those demos for the chinks.’

They shone the light closer.

‘Didn’t I tell you! He’s got slit-eyes.’

I ran forward as fast as I could, found a gap and dived through. They raced after me with the cone of light dancing through the dark. I tripped, fell headlong, my hand hit something, a stone, a stone in the middle of winter! I grabbed it, stood up slowly and swivelled round with my arm raised ready to throw. They stopped too and shone the light on the hand holding the stone. Then they came closer again. I threw. I threw as hard as I could and heard a scream as a shadow held its head and slumped to the ground. Then they were on me. Two held me, one shone the torch and one punched. The fifth was on the ground moaning. I threw up, the one in front of me worked himself up into a fury and kneed me in the balls. Then they let go and I fell in the snow holding my crotch and crying.

The last man had come to and walked towards me. They were still shining the torch, the light hurt my eyes. I was dragged to my feet again, they held me from behind and the one I had hit with the stone stood in front of me, breathing heavily. Then he took my right hand, I didn’t have the strength to resist, I gave paw, like a craven dog. He carefully bent back my index finger and when it could go no further he pushed with all his strength. I heard a revolting sound, then everything went black.

When I awoke I was lying in the snow spitting blood. Don’t remember how I got home, only that I had lost the keys and Mum let out a scream when she opened the door. It took quite a long time to explain that I had tripped, fallen on my face and scraped it on a block of ice beneath the snow, ending up with my nose in the earth. She cleaned my wounds with iodine, and put on plasters and
gauze everywhere. The only place that really hurt was my finger. But I said nothing about it. Lay awake all night feeling the pain in my finger, I couldn’t get my mind off it, and in fact there was some pleasure in it for there was so much other shit to think about, but now I was just one big finger, one single swollen finger that hurt a hell of a lot.

Mum spotted it at breakfast one morning. Impossible to hide. The grazes on my face had begun to heal, but the finger was there. I tried to force it into the handle of the tea cup. It wouldn’t go.

‘What’ve you done to your finger!’ my mother shouted, leaning over the table.

‘Sprained it when I tripped that night,’ I said.

Dad peered over his paper.

‘You should’ve gone to casualty,’ he said.

‘Casualty! It doesn’t hurt at all!’

But the first week my finger had glowed with pain, I could have used it as a reading lamp in the evenings. Every single night I lay there feeling, just feeling, and it taught me something about pain. Then the pain subsided bit by bit, it was like falling asleep or waking, and in the end the finger stuck out like a question mark, a refugee on my hand.

I said nothing about what happened in Frogner Park to the others, either. Don’t know quite why not. Perhaps it had something to do with the stone, that I had thrown a stone. Or that I liked having a secret. I said nothing. But I couldn’t get away from the finger. Even if I kept my hand in my pocket somebody would see it.

‘What’ve you done to your finger?’ Gunnar asked one day at the baker’s in the lunch break.

‘Picked my nose,’ I said.

‘Don’t take the piss! It looks like a bent paper clip!’

‘I was finger wrestling with my uncle,’ I said.

Fortunately the bell rang and we shot up Skovveien. Then it was Kerr’s Pink’s turn. He refused to correct my essay.
What it Means to be Courageous
was the title and I was very pleased, I had written five pages about how it wasn’t possible to be courageous unless you were frightened first.

‘A mess!’ Kerr’s Pink yelled, smacking my essay book down on the table. ‘Do you think I’m a trained palaeographer! Eh! The Dead Sea scrolls are easier to read than this scribble.’

‘What’s a palaeographer?’ I asked.

‘Now you’re stretching my patience, Kim,’ he shouted. ‘Now you’re stretching my patience beyond all reason!’

I showed him my finger. He stared at it in astonishment, held it up to the light. The whole class strained across their desks to stare at my finger.

Kerr’s Pink became silky smooth again.

‘Why didn’t you say that to begin with, Kim?’

I retracted my finger and put it in my pocket. Afterwards I showed it to Skinke and was let off the gym lesson. I decided my finger would hurt until we did gym outdoors.

The finger had its advantages.

But one day Ola came to school with something that outdid my finger by some distance. He came with his hat pulled down over his ears, his eyes barely visible.

He tried to walk past unnoticed.

‘Hi, Ola!’ we yelled. ‘You wearin’ a hat, are you?’

He stopped with his back to us.

‘Looks like it, doesn’t it!’

We crowded round him. It was a terrific woollen hat with a big tassel and a red border with skiers all the way round his head.

‘Did you knit it yourself?’ Seb asked, trying to goad him.

Ola twisted away with a roar.

‘You cold, Ola?’ Gunnar asked.

He tried to make off. We ran after him and hauled him back to the shed.

‘Isn’t it a bit warm to be wearin’ a hat?’ I wondered.

Ola pointed all around him.

‘Still s-s-snow on the ground,’ he said.

‘Slush,’ we corrected. ‘No one goes around with a hat on now.’

‘
I
do!’ Ola yelled.

‘Not any more,’ we said.

It was not easy taking off his hat. He pulled it down over his face
with both hands as we yanked at the tassel. He flailed around him and shouted a lot, but in the end he had to surrender.

We stood there with his hat in our hands.

We stared at Ola, horror pumping through us in furious surges.

We went closer.

‘What’ve you done?’ we asked.

‘Me!’ Ola screamed. ‘I’ve done sod all! It was my dad.’

We gave him back his hat.

‘How?’

‘Last night,’ Ola mumbled. ‘W-w-woke up this mornin’ and it’d happened. He’d cut my hair while I was s-s-sleepin’.’

An all-over cut. It was worse than a basin cut and a crop at the same time. His skull was shiny round his ears and at the back, and his fringe was non-existent.

We clenched our fists and stood in silence for a long time, it was the worst thing that had happened on the home front since Dragon ate the firecrackers.

The bell rang. We didn’t care.

Ola pulled down his hat.

‘I’m not takin’ it off for the l-l-lesson! I’m not bloody takin’ it off for the l-l-lesson. I’ll say I’ve got eczema!’

‘You do that!’ we said.

‘Buggered if I’m goin’ home today. Sod ’em!’

Ola forced his hat down further.

We went to my place after school. Sweat was running down Ola’s neck, but he kept his hat on until we were safely inside the door. Then he flung it off and breathed a sigh of relief.

Mum peeped in, saw Ola and smiled.

‘Hair looks nice,’ she said.

She glanced at me.

‘You see, Kim. You could have a haircut like that, too.’

We froze her out.

‘Parents,’ Seb said. ‘Parents are bastards.’

‘My dad’s refused to give Stig any pocket money until he gets a haircut,’ Gunnar told us.

‘Shouldn’t be allowed,’ I said.

‘They’re pissed off because they haven’t got any hair,’ Gunnar said.

‘I’m never g-g-goin’ home,’ Ola said.

Mum came in with some tea and the last Christmas biscuits, four gingerbread men. Weren’t quite sure if we should take food from the enemy, but we relented in the end.

‘I’m never g-g-goin’ home again,’ Ola repeated.

He meant it.

Ola stayed where he was.

Gunnar and Seb looked at their watches. They stayed, too.

Dad came home from the bank, we heard him whistling in the hall.

Mum poked her head in.

‘Aren’t you going to eat?’ she asked.

‘Full,’ I said.

Ola didn’t move.

It was evening.

Then the telephone rang.

‘If it’s for me, I’m not here,’ Ola hissed.

Mum was at the door again.

‘Your parents are on the phone, Gunnar.’

Gunnar got up slowly and Mum waited.

‘Is there something up?’ she asked.

We didn’t answer. Gunnar stared at us, nonplussed. Then he left with my mother.

‘H-h-hope he doesn’t s-s-say anythin’,’ Ola muttered.

After a while Gunnar returned.

‘Gotta go home,’ he said. ‘Gotta help Dad carry some sacks of spuds. Stig’s gone on strike because he doesn’t get any pocket money.’

‘You didn’t s-s-say anythin’, did you?’ Ola asked.

‘What about?’

‘That I was h-h-here, of course!’

‘Yes, I did. Why?’

‘That’s what you shouldn’t’ve said!’ I pointed out.

‘It was only my mum!’

‘Yes, and why do you think she asked, eh?’

Gunnar realised he had put his foot in it. He collapsed on the sofa with a bright red face.

Straight after, there was a ring at the door. We sat and waited. If it was Ola’s dad, we would barricade the door. We listened. A girl’s voice. For a moment my stomach contracted and all my blood raced into my finger. Then it passed. It was Åse, Ola’s sister.

Wow. She had grown. Hardly recognised her. We sat gaping at her. Ola stared out of the window, his ears glowing.

‘Aren’t you coming home?’ Åse asked.

‘N-n-no!’ said Ola.

‘It’s chops today. We’re waiting for you.’

Ola turned slowly.

‘Chops?’

‘Yes, are you coming?’

Ola didn’t answer.

Seb and Gunnar began to put on their coats. Åse stood in the doorway smiling at her big brother.

‘There’s a letter for you from Trondheim,’ she said.

Ola’s ears glowed again, his hands fidgeted.

‘Trondheim,’ he echoed.

Gunnar, Seb and I exchanged glances. Trondheim?

‘Are you coming soon or what?’

Ola pulled on the rucksack and pressed the hat down over his head.

‘On one c-c-condition,’ he said. ‘That I don’t have to sit at the s-s-same table as Dad!’

Then we wandered out. We were pretty hungry, all of us. Ola repeated the condition in a loud voice.

‘I’m not sittin’ at the s-s-same table as Dad! That’s f-f-final!’

It was a fight to the death, either or. Either Ola or the desperado hairdresser from Solli.

Ola wore his hat for a long time that year. We went out quite a lot, there was a restlessness that drove us out in the evening, even though it was slushy and the record player had new batteries. Outside were the streets. That was where we were.

One evening Gunnar said, ‘Beginnin’ to get fed up.’

‘Fed up with what?’

‘With walkin’.’

But we continued. Especially on Saturday evenings when we wandered all over, listening to music from open windows where someone was having a party. Then we stopped, looked up, hurried on. Unpleasant stories about these parties were doing the rounds, about bouncers being struck down with crowbars, TVs being chucked out of windows, walls being painted black, books being burned in the bath. We shuddered. We listened to music from open windows, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Animals, The Beatles, The Beatles, the echo of laughter, bawling, sometimes crying. We hurried home.

But it was not long before we were out and about again. It was only a sleepy Wednesday evening, there was no music in the streets and the snow lay in the gutters, grey slush. As usual Seb was with Guri, hadn’t seen much of him in recent weeks. We walked past the shop where Goose had been caught.
Closed due to illness
. A wooden board had been nailed up inside the doorway. I felt the backwash and for a moment I saw Goose standing in the gleam of the street lamp, motionless in the circle of light, and all around was all the darkness he would have to enter sooner or later.

‘There’s S-S-Seb!’ Ola shouted.

It was Seb and Guri and another girl. They were on their way up to Urra Park. We called and they stopped.

Two girls. Seb looked a bit wild to our eyes. He was holding Guri’s hand and the other girl leaning against the railing had long, brown hair, her face was tanned, it seemed to glow like a Red Indian’s.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘My name’s Sidsel. I’m in the same class as Guri at Fagerborg.’

We mumbled our names and the conversation ground to a halt.

Guri giggled. Seb whistled. We stood stamping and shuffling our feet.

‘I’m cold,’ Sidsel said.

And then we continued walking together.

‘You must be cold, too,’ Sidsel said, looking at Ola.

He pulled down his hat.

‘N-n-no, I’ve g-g-got eczema.’

Sidsel moved over to the other side, next to Gunnar. Ola cursed and gnashed his teeth.

Seb offered cigarettes round. I produced some matches and lit up for Guri. In the light she noticed my finger.