Beatles (55 page)

‘How’s it goin’?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, fine.’

‘Have you been to Denmark?’

He shook his head.

‘Haven’t done anything special. You?’

‘Alternative celebrations,’ I grinned. ‘Stayin’ away from bars.’

We ordered another round and the sun crept behind a branch. A group of exhausted merry-makers in crumpled outfits and green caps staggered through the landscape. We were served beers and drank in silence.

‘What are you going to do now?’ Jørgen asked at length.

‘Don’t know. Try to find a summer job. Earn myself some bread. And you? The military?’

‘No. I got out of it.’

‘Terrific! Me too! Said I was crazy. How did you wangle it?’

‘Told them the truth,’ Jørgen answered.

The beer tasted flat on the palate. I was beginning to feel I had had my fill. I was beginning to be run down. I was tired to the core. I ordered another half litre.

‘Going to England when the results are out,’ said Jørgen. ‘If I pass.’

‘Course you’ll pass! Will you be spendin’ the whole summer there?’

‘I’m going to live there. In London.’

There was a barrier between us, a bar. We finished our beers. People were leaving. We shuffled off as well. We stopped on the bridge and looked down into the water. It smelt of sewage. We went on. I had nowhere else to go, so walked with Jørgen some of the way.

‘Did
War and Peace
give you a taste for more theatre?’

I laughed.

‘Not at all. The stage is not the place for me.’

‘I’m going to apply for a place at a drama school in London. Where my friend is a student.’

The Monolith towered over us. I thought it seemed luminescent in the pitch dark. Couples were frolicking on white benches, there was the sound of activity behind the trees and bushes, the whole park was steaming, it was almost impossible to breathe.

We crossed over to Dogland and were suddenly alone. I needed a pee and stood by a post. Jørgen stood behind me scraping his shoes on the shingle.

‘Like to come and visit me in London?’

‘Course I would. If I’m passin’ that way.’

‘I’ll send you the address.’

We mooched onwards. And then we were not alone any more. They came from behind us, we turned and they encircled us. There were seven or eight of them, and I recognised some of the faces, from another time when I was crossing Dogland and it was winter.

I showed them my finger, but it didn’t work.

‘Bloody bum bandits!’ hissed one of them, grabbing Jørgen. ‘Filthy buttfuckers!’

Jørgen stood mouth agape, his arms down by his side. One of them slapped him. Jørgen didn’t react, he stared into the distance with dry, terror-stricken eyes. One of the others jabbed me. Their faces shone. They had dog-eyes.

‘And you do the Nordic combined, do you, sweetie? Which do you like best, cross country or ski jumping?’

I thumped him even though I knew it was useless. I got a knee in my back and a ringed fist scraped across my nose.

Jørgen tried to run for it. They caught him like a lobster in a trap. He lashed out in all directions, just swung, without aiming, without hitting anyone, he was like a windmill. They laughed and kicked him backwards and forwards. Then I heard an ugly sound. The ringleader stood there with a flick knife in his hand, the blade shot out, long, thin, pointed. The others retreated a little. Jørgen stood crying with his hands over his ears. I didn’t react until it had happened. Blood gushed from Jørgen’s face and his cheek opened like a caesarean section. Then I tasted an iron fist and kissed the grass.

Someone was shaking me. Someone was sniffing at me and whimpering. I thrust open my eyes and stared into the black face of a poodle. Above me, an old man stood shaking his head. Then he poked me with his stick. I rolled over and caught sight of Jørgen. He was lying on his stomach with his arms outstretched in the grass, motionless.

‘Ambulance,’ I snuffled. ‘Ring the hospital!’

I crawled on all fours across to Jørgen, turned him carefully. His face was slashed from temple to chin. My hand was drenched. Blood was pouring out of his fly.

Seb’s room smelt freshly washed and clean. His grandmother had been there to tidy up, chuck out all the mouldy crusts and empty the bins. The results were out. We had passed. Ola had received his pay and holiday money and laid on Upper Ten Scotch and bock beer. The new Beatles record lay on the windowsill. ‘Let It Be’. But it was not new, it had been recorded long before
Abbey Road,
it was over a year old.

We toasted each other.

‘How’s your snitch?’ Gunnar asked.

‘Can feel it’s there,’ I said, carefully feeling it with my hand, pain shot through my head like a scimitar.

‘Why did they go for Jørgen with a knife then?’ Seb enquired.

‘Christ knows,’ I said.

I had been to hospital to visit him, but I hadn’t been allowed in. I had not been allowed in. Jørgen did not let anyone in. His mother stood outside crying. He had been given fifty-one stitches. I had to leave. I was not allowed in to see Jørgen.

Seb put on ‘Morrison Hotel’. We mixed lukewarm water with the whisky. We didn’t say much. It was as though we knew it was the last evening we would be together for a long time.

‘When are you goin’?’ I asked Seb at length.

‘When I get a letter from my dad.’

‘What will you do when we’ve gone our separate ways?’ Gunnar asked.

I hummed and hawed, I had no idea.

‘Start studyin’ or somethin’.’

‘Are we goin’ to play ‘Let It Be’ then?’ Ola said.

We opened a few beers, couldn’t be bothered to go into the corridor to pee, took turns to have a leak in the sink.

‘What’s your brother goin’ to do this summer?’ Seb asked.

‘Goin’ to Mardøla,’ Gunnar said. ‘Would’ve gone there myself if I could have.’

‘Bloody great talk he gave about anarchism, by the way. Got to agree with a lot of what he says, haven’t you?’

‘Well, some. But the basic thrust is wrong. You think monopoly capitalists are good boys who will release the production means without a fight.’

‘That’s not true,’ Seb interrupted. ‘We just think that the socialism you support is so bloody authoritarian. Isn’t it. People should be able to choose. What did Stalin do, eh? Smashed the faces of all those who disagreed. How many was it he buried, Gunnar? Ten million or thirty million?’

‘Stalin had good and bad sides,’ Gunnar said. ‘And how many Russians fell in the battle against Nazism, eh? If it hadn’t been for Stalin we’d be lyin’ in ovens, the whole lot of us. Wouldn’t we.’

But this was not the night for confrontations. We drank slowly and stayed cool. We talked about May 1, when Stig and Seb were booted out of the procession. We sat reminiscing and became a little sentimental and grinned into our beer.

‘Put The Beatles single on now, will you!’ said Ola.

‘Vigdis asked after you the other day,’ Seb said.

Ola cowered and looked like an angry bull.

‘Shall we go and get her?’ I suggested.

‘Don’t arse about, boys!’ Ola shouted. ‘Don’t arse about! I can’t
help it that Kirsten lives in Trondheim, can I. I’m gonna visit her when I’m on leave!’

We patted him on the back and served him some bock and Upper Ten. He calmed down. Then we were quiet for a long time, it was a strange evening.

‘Dad had to give up his shop,’ Gunnar said apropos of nothing. ‘Workin’ in Bonus now.’

He said no more than that. I didn’t say that I had seen him. Gunnar mixed a red-coloured drink and knocked it back.

‘Have you heard McCartney’s solo album?’ Seb asked.

I shook my head.

‘And you who thought he’d snuffed it!’

‘I bloody did not!’

Seb grinned and leaned against the wall.

‘You bloody did! You were on your knees.’

Ola and Gunnar chortled.

‘Did you believe it?’

‘I’m not a complete bonehead, am I. Course I didn’t think McCartney was dead!’

They contented themselves with that. The hours ebbed away. It was dark, but not completely dark. Seb closed the window.

‘My dad’s goin’ on about my taking the final school exams,’ Ola said. ‘One-year course. Do you think that’d work?’

Of course it would. Nothing was impossible. Then we talked a bit about all the pressure on us to be something, all the plans that were being made for us, we were going to be bank directors, shop managers, hotel proprietors and ship owners if our parents’ dreams were to come true.

We chuckled and drank a toast to the future.

‘Put “Let It Be” on before we fall asleep,’ Ola said.

But we fell asleep anyway, all four of us, each in a corner while the room went blue and the town beneath us became quieter and the alcohol in the brain relaxed its grip and goldfish swam in front of our red eyes. And so we slept on the last evening, the last night, for a long time.

We were awoken by banging and shouting. It was Seb, who had
fetched the post. There was a letter from his father. He stood among the bottles and read aloud while we straightened our hair, swallowed bad breath and peered around for cigarettes and beer dregs. Seb was supposed to meet his father in Bordeaux where the
Bolero
was moored for unloading. He just had to pack his kitbag. Seb’s face shone with pleasure. Then he turned the sheet over, went all serious, sat down on the floor and stared at each of us.

‘Listen here, boys.
Listen
here! Dad’s written about
Dragon
!’

We were awake at once and leaned closer.

‘Dad’s written about Dragon! Wow! Listen here! Dragon was on board a ship sailin’ round South America. Christ. And some prick of an American officer kept takin’ the piss out of him because of his face. And do you know what Dragon did! Dragon stabbed ’im. Stabbed and killed the bastard. And then he jumped overboard! Dragon jumped into the sea and was gone!’

‘Must’ve drowned, I suppose?’ Ola whispered.

Seb went quiet.

‘Says here there are loads of sharks in the waters. Must’ve been eaten by a bloody shark.’

We thought about May 17 when the firework had exploded in Dragon’s face. We didn’t utter another word for a long time. Then Gunnar said, ‘Wonder if his Mick Jagger signature was genuine.’

And then they departed, the seaman and the soldiers, while I was left behind in the hot, stinking town where the tarmac melted beneath your feet, June 1970, when the cinemas were the coolest places to be and the beer was never cold enough.

I moved my things down to Seb’s, namely, a few records, a few books, a change of clothing. My mother asked whether I was going to Nesodden, I doubted it, and she cried a little as the taxi drove off, I sat in the back seat with a sleeping bag and cardboard boxes, went down Svoldergate without a care. I bought a cold chicken and white wine for the evening, celebrated the occasion on my own, considered going to see Vigdis, but changed my mind, this evening was mine. I hung my clothes in the wardrobe, put away my records, propped my books against the wall, Mao’s
Little Red Book, The Anarchistic Reader, The New Testament, Kykelipi
and
Victoria,
didn’t quite know why I
had brought that particular one, had to be a huge mistake, was given it by Grandma at Christmas 1965, old edition, smelt a bit of Bible when I sniffed it. It said ‘A Love Story’ on the cover and inside there was a faded drawing of a man sitting with bowed head crying while flowers and blood rained down over him, pretty slushy, I hadn’t even read it. Then the book opened at some random page and out fell a flower, a flower, a pressed red poppy, I was sure that I had thrown it away, it fell to the floor and disintegrated, turned to dust, it was so dry. I collected the remains as well as I could, put them in a cup, and I was sure that if I made tea in the cup now, a spirit would emerge in the room, and if I drank it, I would go wherever Nina was.

I was a bit dismayed when I woke up the next morning, woke up alone, sweating from the heat, in my own room for the first time. I opened the window and heard the City Hall clock strike eleven. It was a pleasure and a delight. I was free. I let out a huge howl across the town, a mating cry, a call for mischief. Then a window shot open beneath me and a girl peered out. It was Vigdis from the lift.

‘Hiya,’ she said.

‘Is that an invitation?’ I said.

She laughed and looked up at me.

‘Are you livin’ there now?’

‘Yep. Old Seb has gone to sea.’

‘Is Ola in the military?’

‘Madla naval base. Yellow Submarine.’

Then we retreated to our respective rooms and a problem announced its presence with undreamed of potency. Money. I didn’t have any money for breakfast. I gave the matter some deep thought over a coffee. When I had finished cogitating I went out to find a telephone box and rang City Parks and Gardens. I could begin the following day.

And so I became a gardener. I planted tulips in St Hanshaugen Park and drank lukewarm beer at Friluften. I watered the grass in Frogner Park and threw a Frisbee with a dozy bunch high on booze and spliffs. These were days on a slack leash. I was on nodding terms with all the bums and freaks in the whole of Oslo. But one morning I was sent to Slottsparken with a hoe and a fork to turn the soil. The
sun spread like a crushed plum across the blind, light blue sky, there was not a breath of wind and life passed in slow motion. I dug the earth and turned it over for about half an hour, then I reckoned that was enough, knotted my shirt around my head and sat behind a tree. I must have fallen asleep. For when I awoke Pelle was there with his piglets behind him. The park had come to life, people were lying all over the scorched grass, a record player was playing a warped Fleetwood Mac LP, a thin guitar sound competed with a couple of sleepy birds, smoke from pipes of peace rose into the air.

‘Horizontal council worker,’ Pelle grinned. ‘Got any bread goin’ spare?’

Hard to refuse anyone on a day like this, even though Pelle was an uncouth bastard. I forked out a couple of tens and they made their way over to another group. They were sitting and blowing smoke skywards. I closed my eyes to recharge myself for another spell with the fork. Then Pelle was there again, a smoking joint hidden behind his cupped fingers.