Mia Krüger waited until the rear lights on the taxi had disappeared before pulling her woolly hat further down over her ears and heading towards Hegdehaugsveien. The thought of her cold, sparsely furnished flat held little appeal. She would not be able to sleep. Besides, she wanted another drink. She needed to lose herself.
Friday night in the city of Oslo. She tightened her jacket around her and walked through the streets with her head down, lacking the energy to make eye contact with the people she passed, the normal world she would never be allowed to join. People who went to work Monday to Friday and partied at the weekend. She nodded briefly to the bouncer. The pub was busy, but the table in the far corner where she liked to hide was free. How very convenient. She ordered a Guinness and a Jägermeister and slid down on the red sofa. Everyone else was there with someone. She was in the corner alone. Apart from this world. Smiling faces with glasses in both hands, out with friends, with other people, while she sat alone in the corner, feeling a kind of responsibility for them all.
Get a grip.
Mia knocked back the Jägermeister, washed it down with a swig of her Guinness and shook her head.
Are you feeling sorry for yourself?
No, she really had to get her act together. This was not like her. She took out the notepad and pen from her bag and placed them on the table in front of her. Who was she? She was Mia Krüger, wasn’t she? Was she going to just sit here, wallowing in self-pity? Hell, no. There had to be limits. Mia opened her notepad, took the cap off the pen and found a blank page. The psychologist. It was his fault.
I think your job is making you ill.
Total bullshit. She regretted it now, agreeing to have therapy. Letting some idiot into her head, making her think that it was true, that she needed fixing. She had kept him at arm’s length, really she had. In every session. Said yes and no where she was supposed to, and yet he had got under her skin.
The idea there was something wrong with her.
Screw that. She made up her mind at that moment, helped along by the warmth of the alcohol, that they could think whatever the hell they liked. Mikkelson, Mattias Wang, even Munch; she knew exactly the kind of person she was, and she was just fine.
They had undermined her. Tiny, whispering voices coming at her from all sides, but now she was drawing a line. She waved over the waiter and pointed to her empty shot glass, and soon afterwards another Jägermeister appeared on her table. What the hell did they know about what it was like to be her? More text messages from her therapist. Shall I make you another appointment? I think that would be a good idea. Munch’s eyes across the table. I think you need to rest.
Tossers.
Mia smiled to herself, drank a mouthful of Guinness and put pen to paper.
Blank sheets.
Important. Look at everything afresh.
Strong. She felt strong again. Whether or not it was the alcohol talking made no difference right now. She emptied her Guinness, waved another round over to the table and ignored the commotion in the pub with a smile on her lips. Her pen flew across the paper.
Camilla. The chosen one. Mother. Birth. Seventeen years old. Ditzy. Unconventional. Feathers. Owl? Death? Strangled. Why strangled? Why something around her neck? Breathing? Air. Breath is life? Her arms. In the forest? Why wasn’t she dressed?
Mia knocked back a big swig of the dark beer without taking any notice of what was happening around her. She wrote ritual over her last notes and moved the pen to the opposite page of the notepad, wrote basement at the top, drained her shot glass quickly and put pen to paper again.
Dark. Darkness. Animals? What is it about animals? Why are you an animal? Food. Animal feed. Why are you not allowed to eat, Camilla? Who is watching you? Why is he watching you? And why are you not wearing the wig when you are running on the wheel? When he is looking at you? Why is he looking at you? Because it is you without the wig? Why are you yourself in the basement? But not when you’re lying in the forest?
Mia ordered another round, although she had yet to finish her Guinness. She emptied her glass, just in time for the next round to arrive, raised the small shot glass to her lips and leaned back slightly in the red sofa in order to glance at her notes.
She was on to something.
She was livid that she had allowed them to mess with her mind. She would never let it happen again.
She was definitely on to something.
Mia popped the pen in her mouth. One: as you lie before us, new, different. In the forest. On the feathers. Protected? New born? Two: when you’re an animal in the cage, when you run on the wheel, when you have to perform. Do you have to perform, Camilla? Do you have to show what you can do?
Mia turned the page and let the pen race across the next blank sheet.
Mother? Did you want to become a mother, Camilla? Did you want a child? The chosen one. Why were you the chosen one? Were you going to be the mother? Of the child?
Mia became aware of someone standing by her table, the waiter probably, and tried to wave him away, she had plenty in her glasses, but the person refused to move.
‘Mia Krüger?’ the figure said, and though Mia would rather be left alone, she looked up reluctantly from her notes.
‘Yes?’
A young man was standing in front of her. He wore a black suit and a freshly ironed white shirt but had a beanie pulled over his head.
‘I’m busy,’ Mia said.
The young man took off the beanie and bushy hair appeared, black on both sides with a white stripe down the middle.
Mia could feel her irritation build. She was on to something. The answer was somewhere on the papers in front of her.
‘I’m Skunk,’ the young man introduced himself.
‘What?’
‘My name is Skunk,’ the young man said again, smiling crookedly at her. ‘Are you still busy?’