If only I hadn’t got so drunk.
If only I hadn’t got so drunk, I would never have drowned myself in self-pity.
If only I hadn’t got so drunk, I would have realized that he was sleeping with his eyes closed.
If only I hadn’t got so drunk, I . . .
After dinner and coffee we take a walk through the fields, towards the shallows. To the west, the lighthouse flashes. To the east, a vague glow announces moonrise. Every once in a while the nervous cry of a redshank sounds in the darkness, the suppressed keewee-ee-ee-eet of an alarmed lapwing. We pass a field of sheep that stare at us as we go by, as though we’re the first humans they’ve ever seen. We don’t say much.
Bo says, ‘It really is quiet.’
I say nothing.
Bo says, ‘What are we going to do?’
I say, ‘Walk a little. Go drink some coffee.’
We follow the darkened asphalt between two ditches that reflect the night sky. The fresh air is not having its desired effect on me. Instead of perking up, I become sadder at every step. Maybe it’s because, in the dark, I have to do without the reassurance of this unchanging landscape. Maybe it’s because, in the dark, death is more real than life. Maybe it’s because Bo won’t match my pace – something that has never bothered me before, but now it does.
We walk back to the village, with a slight detour. The houses wait for us with lighted windows that are inviting and excluding, all at the same time. We go into the first café we find and sit at a table by the window. There aren’t many other customers.
‘Evening.’
‘Good evening.’
A boy with blushing cheeks and an enormous pair of hands takes our order: one coffee, one hot chocolate with whipped cream. I take cognac along with my coffee, Bo takes a glass of water. Just as the boy is putting our steaming cups in front of us, a group of young people comes into the café. It’s the two boys and three girls we’ve seen twice already. It seems they’ve decided to see for themselves whether Hollum’s as nice as Bo said this morning. To judge from the expression on the face of one of the girls, the conclusion is already affirmative – it’s the girl with the black baseball cap. As she shuffles past our table, she grants Bo a pearly smile. Even my gloom is lightened by it. Bo mumbles a barely perceptible ‘Hello’ and begins stirring his hot chocolate vigorously.
I say nothing.
Bo says, ‘You think Ellen misses us, a little bit?’ He’d asked that at dinner, too.
‘She’s pleased to be shot of us for a while. Or at least me.’ That’s what I’d told him at dinner, too.
We drink in silence. The group of five is sitting at the bar behind us. The girl with the cap has positioned herself in such a way that she can talk to her friends while keeping an eye on Bo. I see her gaze wander regularly to our table.
I don’t say anything. I’m thinking. How long have girls been falling for him? I’ve never noticed it before, and Bo would be the last one to talk about it – if he’s even noticed. Oh that terrific, terrible uncertainty of puberty, in which even the most unequivocal feminine signal can never be unequivocal enough. In which every temptation is also cause for alarm, when your self-esteem is as vulnerable as a sandcastle in the surf. Because what one moment seems a probability bordering on certainty may turn out the next to be an absolute impossibility. Because you know nothing, and understand nothing. Or is that an old man talking? Are today’s adolescents much wiser than that? I look at Bo and think: no, that uncertainty is of all ages. But I can’t be too certain. After all, what do I know about him – except that he is not my son?
‘I have to go to the toilet.’
He gets up. The eyes of the girl-with-the-cap flash in his direction. Bo looks around hesitantly. By watching her expression, I can see the exact moment their gazes cross. That smile again. (Chimpanzees also show each other their teeth as a sign of reassurance – unlike many other animals, including dogs. Grinning at a mean dog can have nasty consequences. Not grinning at a mean dog can, too. Smiling at someone you desire is almost always a good first move.) I can’t see whether Bo is smiling back, but he shuffles right past her on his way to the toilet. I catch myself envying him. I take a quick swig of my cognac and turn to stare out of the window, even though my view is largely obscured by the reflection in the glass.
Bo is flirting.
Bo isn’t a little boy any more.
Oh, what the hell, I’d lost him anyway.
What a ridiculous, pitiful thought!
It’s nice for him. That’s right, it’s nice for him. And what’s more, she’s a nice girl.
What do you know about it, you old windbag?
Well, a nice girl is a nice girl. That never changes. I still have an eye for that.
But Bo’s taste may be different.
Is taste inherited, or is it learned? The fact that men like big tits is biologically determined, the sociobiologists say. Big tits and broad hips. It’s been studied. I glance over at the corner of the bar where the girl with the cap is sitting. She’s not there any more. Ridiculous of me to wonder about that. I don’t even like big tits.
Where is she?
Gone to the toilet, obviously. Is the door of the ladies’ in the same alcove as the gents’? Must be. From where I’m sitting, I can’t see either of them. Is she waiting for him? I wouldn’t have dared to do that, back then. But then, times have changed. Haven’t they? No. Monika probably did things like that, too. She lost her virginity when she was thirteen. Thirteen! When she told me that, I’d been speechless. It took me six months to work up the courage to tell her that she was the first.
Thirteen . . . I felt like such an ass. But my inexperience, when I finally dared to confess it, had a remarkable effect on Monika.
‘Really?’ she asked.
‘Really,’ I said.
She looked at me questioningly for a while. Then she smiled (that smile, that smile!) and said, ‘Then you’re a natural.’ Whether she really meant it, or whether she was only saying it to make me feel good, I couldn’t have cared less; after that, we fucked even more.
‘You’ve got some catching up to do,’ Monika said.
‘That you saved all that for me,’ Monika said.
‘How sweet!’ Monika said.
And she taught me everything there was to be taught about sex. And after that I taught her what it meant when sex came forth out of true love, because that, she said, was something she’d never experienced before.
That’s how we riveted ourselves together.
What God brings together, say the priests and pastors, let no man put asunder. But what man brings together, I say in turn, God cannot put asunder. Not even if he hires a hit-man. Not even if . . . not even then? No, not even then, I tell myself. And I order another cognac. In the hope that I’ll keep believing it.
Bo still hasn’t come back from the men’s room.