Beatles (8 page)

It was spring and we were waiting. We were waiting for Frogner Lido to open. They had already started cleaning the pools. This year I would dive from the ten-metre board, that was a cert, I had the jump in me now. But I had competitors. I cut out a picture of the Russian, Alexei Leonov, hanging in space, a murky, ghost-like photo I didn’t quite believe at first. It looked a bit like the first photographs Dad took before he learned how to focus. He floated like that for ten minutes, in the endless blue abyss, tied to his space vehicle by a thin thread, an umbilical cord. And not long after it was the Americans’ turn. This time the picture was sharper, more credible, because you could see the earth in the background. Edward White hung outside his capsule for twenty-one minutes. Afterwards he said he hadn’t felt at all giddy, it had almost been like swimming. And then I visualised the enormous ocean, I was standing at the bottom of a colossal sea, and far above me, at night, swam goldfish ten times bigger than us, large, golden ships sailing slowly by. Once they had been part of the sun. Perhaps that was also how the suicide victim in Bygdøy had seen it, before his eyes were extinguished. And we waited for the Hand Grenade Man, but the town was quiet, just cycle bells, birds and bands practising.

And, of course, we were waiting for May 17. The day arrived with torrential rain. We met by the fountain in Gyldenløvesgate at three in the morning. It was pouring down and the wind was coming from the west, but that was not important, so long as we could light our matches. Between us we had thirty-five firecrackers, twenty bangers and sixteen jumping jacks. We let off two firecrackers to get into the mood as it were. They sounded a bit feeble, but were loud enough to wake people close by. Then we moved to Urra Park. There was almost no one about, we heard just a few scattered bangs and some cars full of prommers honking their horns in the rain, celebrating the end of secondary school.

‘We’ll have to find somewhere dry,’ George said.

‘An entrance to a block of flats,’ I suggested.

We sneaked through the nearest doorway. The acoustics were good, a stone floor and stone walls. Ringo lit the match and put it to the fuse, it hissed, then I threw the whole thing towards the stairs and the postboxes. It exploded before we got out, a terrible bang, parting the hair at the back of our heads.

‘That’ll have w-w-woken them up,’ panted Ringo as we sprinted down Briskebyveien, past Galleri Albin Upp. We didn’t stop until we were in Urra Park. The clock on the church tower showed half past three. It was still raining. We threw a few bangers at the wall but they were already too soggy. We suspended the bombardment, listened, there was a lorry-load of prommers down in Holtegata. We ran to the railings and caught sight of the red lorry bumping its way up towards Hegdehaugsveien. At the back were a group of soaking wet students shouting at the top of their voices. Then it was just the rain we could hear, continuous, cold rain, falling like stair-rods from the sky, the wind had dropped.

‘Let’s save the rest for later,’ Seb said. ‘When the weather’s better.’

We lit a cigarette instead, and my empty stomach reacted like a spin drier, I was whirled around, and the others were the same, we banged into each other and spun off in all directions before regaining balance on our way down to Briskeby.

‘Perhaps the Hand Grenade Man’ll strike today,’ Seb exclaimed.

‘Shit,’ whispered Gunnar. ‘In the procession. A hand grenade in the middle of the procession. I’m not bloody doin’ the procession this year.’

‘Just think about me bangin’ the d-d-drum then!’ Ola said. ‘You c-c-can’t just c-c-clear off like that!’

‘Of course we’ll be in the procession, too,’ I said.

And then the tension was back, as though your spine was an electric pylon. My whole being hummed. And in one dreadful flash I saw bleeding bodies, smashed faces, dead children clutching their little flags. At that moment I heard the song in my head, the one Gunnar’s brother had played us. ‘Masters Of War’.

Then it was back home for breakfast and a change of clothes. It was no use, I looked forward to the time in the future when I could wear the clothes I liked, but it seemed an eternity away, and Mum and Dad’s voices were at my ear. At last I stood there wearing, from the bottom up, shiny black shoes, grey trousers with a crease, white shirt and blue tie, blazer with silver buttons, a huge ribbon across my chest, a flag in hand and sailor’s cap atop. No, not a cap, but hair plastered down with water like a dishcloth on my skull, yuk, my mother was jigging round me clapping her hands and my father was
giving me that man-to-man look. I made for the door before the firecrackers set themselves off.

It was no longer raining as we marched out of the playground towards Stortorget, but the sky was ominously dark. The girls were wearing white dresses and red ribbons in their hair, they were shivering in the cold, and of course we weren’t flag-bearers, the creeps could do that, but Ringo was playing drums, we could hear that, he was wearing a blue uniform, knitted cap and almost as many medals as Oscar Mathisen. Lue was strutting alongside, sporting a black suit, see-through raincoat and a student’s cap plus tassel fastened to his shoulder with a large safety pin. Behind us walked Nina and Guri and all the plaits from 7C, they were scrutinised, and it would have been better if they had gone in front of us, it was not good to have them at our backs, wily creatures that they were. And then the whole band began to play, more off-key than the previous year, and shouts rang out and flags were waved.

‘How much money’ve you got for ice creams?’ George asked.

‘Don’t wanna buy ice creams today,’ I said.

‘You don’t want to!’

‘Want to spend it in Urra Park.’

‘My dad sent me an envelope with four tenners in it,’ George went on. ‘From the Persian Gulf. That’s enough for eighteen ice creams, fifteen hot dogs and six Cokes.’

‘We can eat ice cream at my house,’ John said. ‘Dad’s put by a carton of nut ice cream.’

In Stortorget the temperature had sunk below zero and there was snow in the air. We went to see Ringo. He looked smart and embarrassed, but then it started to rain again and the band leader was distributing see-through capes like the one Lue was wearing, and so Ringo didn’t look smart any more.

‘He looks like a johnnie,’ George laughed, but Ringo became dangerously annoyed.

‘Do I buggery! Look in the mirror and you’ll see a real p-p-prick!’

‘Wasn’t meant like that,’ George said to mollify him. ‘Got a pack of Consulates for afterwards.’

‘And if the Hand Grenade Man strikes, we’ll rely on you,’ I said.

‘Fine!’

John’s face went as grey as crispbread.

‘Don’t, for Christ’s sake, talk about the Hand Grenade Man!’

The procession began to move. We took our places and marched towards Karl Johansgate. All the bands were playing over each other, one worse than the next, and hysterical parents stood along the route, screaming and waving, and I pretended to be a victorious soldier returning from war, receiving applause from the crowds. We were heroes, I pretended to limp, the girls were looking at me unable to restrain their tears, waving white embroidered handkerchiefs, blowing me kisses, brave, wounded soldier. And all of a sudden an image appeared to me, crystal clear, it had been in the newspaper, in
Dagsrevyen
, and had been shown on TV: a small Vietnamese girl hobbling along with a stick, barefoot, naked chest, one arm covered in bandages. And behind her what looked like ruins, it is difficult to see, but I imagine dead people there, dead and burned and maimed, her family. The little girl staggers out of the ruins, past me, and she emits a terrible cry, and she is so afraid and desperate, I wonder where she will go and to whom.

‘This is where it’ll happen,’ John whispered.

‘Eh?’

‘The Hand Grenade Bastard. This is where he’ll bung it. In the middle of Karl Johan.’

We had reached the Studenten bar. I heard friendly shouts from the pavement and there were my mother and father jumping up and down and waving. I was happy that at least they hadn’t brought the little stepladder with them.

Approaching the Royal Palace, John was pale and quiet. The tension had begun to exert a hold on me too, anticipation of something, of a catastrophe, sweet and repulsive at the same time. There were two ambulances and a Red Cross bus by one of the side streets, but I supposed they were there every May 17. A Chinese firecracker was let off on the lawn, it sounded like a shower of bombs and we clung to each other. Now there were only a hundred metres left. The King was standing on the balcony waving his top hat, Prince Harald was there too with a few ladies, we took a deep breath and crept past. By the guardroom the procession was breaking up like a line of confused ants and we sought safety by the statue of Camilla Collett,
sat down on the rock, put our flags on the wet grass and smoked a menthol cigarette.

Ringo ambled along after a quarter of an hour, with the drum over his shoulder and cap in hand. At that moment the clouds parted and the sun embraced Slottsparken, the park around the Royal Palace, and the sound of three cheers rang out.

‘You were more off-key than last year,’ George said. ‘But you were better than the Ruseløkka lot.’

‘Someone put a f-f-firecracker down the tuba,’ Ringo explained. ‘In the qu-qu-quietest p-p-part. Thought it was the H-H-Hand Grenade Man, I did!’

We looked across at the palace. The procession had dispersed now. But he could strike again later, at any time.

The sun disappeared again, taking the colours and shouts with it. A dark cloud encircled us and the first raindrops beat down on our heads.

‘Let’s go to my place for some ice cream,’ John said.

People fled in all directions, charged past us with prams, children and dogs in tow. Trumpets and ribbons were left lying in the dirt with trampled flags and a pair of shoes someone had abandoned. We were already so wet that it didn’t make sense to run. We just squelched out of the park, up to Briskeby, bought some sausages from The Man on the Steps, where we met a few giggle-pusses from the C class standing on tiptoe under a large umbrella and drinking Coke through a straw. We walked right past them, down Farmers’ Hill, without a turn of the head. After all, we had our pride.

As we rounded the corner, Ringo said:

‘Better a plaited twat than a t-t-twat in p-p-plaits.’

We laughed at that for a long time, wedged a firecracker in a dog turd, lit it and ran for cover behind the lake. It was the biggest shower of shit since the time we broke into the school garden and ate three kilos of plums and two cabbages.

At Gunnar’s house we ate a boxful of ice lollies and then sat round the record player. Ola placed the drum between his legs, grabbed the drumsticks and hammered away. ‘From Me To You’ went tolerably well, but he lost the beat in ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’. He was lagging behind, puffing and panting. In ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, though, he was
really in the groove, his nose was twitching like a contented hare’s, towards the end he had a go on other things in the room, the lamp, the model boat, the Meccano set, the racquet, the medals on his chest were rattling like castanets, it was the best thing we had heard or seen since the woodwork teacher, Woodentop, had got his huge nose stuck in the lathe the previous year.

We took a breather. Ola was lying on his back. The door burst open and the doorway was filled by Ernst Jespersen, grocer and mild-mannered man in an over-sized suit, tall and rangy 1948 regional 1,500 metres champion.

‘You’re having a good time,’ he said.

‘Oh, yes,’ we nodded in unison.

‘The rain has let up,’ he said.

We looked outside. So it had.

‘By the way,’ he said, his gaze passing round the room and fixing on Gunnar. ‘By the way,’ he said. ‘Do you know anything about a missing cigar, Gunnar?’

Ola began to cough. Gunnar’s mien at once matched his white shirt, perfect winter camouflage.

‘Do you?’ his father persisted, his voice a little sharper at the edges.

Gunnar had already given himself away, the expression in his eyes, in his face, mouth, his whole body, it said everything there was to say, to perfection, nothing less, nothing more. Nevertheless, he made an effort and it sounded pathetic.

‘Which cigar?’ Gunnar asked.

‘A Havana cigar,’ his father said. ‘A Havana cigar which I had expressly put by for today.’

Gunnar was about to say something. I winced on his behalf, hoping he would tell him the truth, but at that moment Stig came out of his room, behind his father. His hair was longer than ever, he looked a bit like Brian Jones. And he was wearing some dead hip trousers with brown stripes and flares, the lot. He looked at his father, stretched his mouth into a big grin and said:

‘Sorry, Dad. It was me. I smoked it with Rudolf and Nag.’

‘
My Havana cigar
!’

‘I didn’t know it was so precious, Dad. There were so many of them.’

Gunnar’s father poked the air with a bent index finger.

‘You didn’t know it was so precious? No. That must have been why you took that
particular
one, was it, because it
didn’t
look like anything special. Are you trying to make me laugh?’

‘Sorry, Dad. I’ll be more careful next time.’

Stig winked at us and the door was shut.

‘I can’t do it,’ Gunnar said, ashamed of himself.

‘You gotta either tell the truth,’ I said. ‘Or you gotta lie. There’s no inbetween.’

Gunnar pondered. We heard his father rummaging around in the sitting room. On the floor above someone was playing the national anthem.

‘Then I’ll have to tell the truth,’ Gunnar said. ‘I can’t lie.’

After the prommers’ procession Ringo went to do some drumming outside the old people’s home. John, George and I mooched around the town waiting for four o’clock to come because that was when Urra Park opened. We set off a few firecrackers, chucked a banger through an open window, heard a terrific explosion but we were already three blocks away.

We stopped around a corner, leaned against a wall and were covered in sweat.

‘Shit,’ said George. ‘I can’t be bothered with this tie any more.’