Sitting in the garden at Ma’s and Grandpa’s. Me and Mona, Grandpa and Ma. Smoking and drinking beer. Ice-cold beer can in my hand. Green beer can beaded with glittering drops of condensation. Straight out of Ma’s cool bag. I take a little sip and sit there gazing at the garden, running my eye over the long green grass, dandelions sticking up all over the place and Grandpa’s old Chrysler parked alongside the shed. It’s crazy, really, what a great car, and it’s just sitting there rusting away. I should really do it up. Some day when the mood takes me I should maybe suggest that to Grandpa, it would cost a fair bit and it’s a lot of work, but it would look bloody brilliant, I’m sure it would. Ah well, we’ll see. I rest the beer can on my stomach, shut my eyes and lay my head back. Feel the sun warm on my face. Burning my forehead.
“You got to hand it to them, though, them darkies,” Grandpa says,
Carrying on with what he was saying. Talking about all the darkies that have been coming to the town lately. I open my eyes and look at him. At his tanned, wrinkled face. Lean face. Shiny with sweat. He rearranges the hanky on his head, a white checked hankie that’s supposed to protect his scalp from the sun.
“They’ve got respect for their old folk,” he says.
“Yeah, that’s true,” I say.
“They don’t leave their parents to rot in an old folks’ home.”
“Nope,” I say.
Short pause.
“To think that’s what this society’s come to,” he goes on.
“Hmm,” I say.
“I’d never have had the conscience to pack my parents off to such a place when they were alive. They took care of me when I was young, and when they got old it went without fucking saying that I’d take care of them.”
I nod. Take another sip of my beer.
“Aye, that’s life for you,” Grandpa says.
“Would you stop your bloody bellyaching,” Ma suddenly bursts out, narrowing her eyes and shaking her head. “I’ve got no plans to pack you off to the old folks’ home just yet, so you can relax,” she adds, running a hand through her blue-black hair. She sits back in her camping chair, shutting her eyes and looking exasperated, then she opens her eyes and snorts, shooting another glance at Grandpa.
It takes me a moment to catch on, but then I realize what she’s talking about. Because that rant of Grandpa’s was obviously aimed at Ma. He’s scared he’s going to wind up in the old folks’ home and he’s trying to tell her that he wants, and expects, her to carry on looking after him. That’s why he’s going on like this. He sits there gawping at Ma, trying to look baffled. His nearly toothless mouth hanging open. Like a little black hole in his lean face.
“What the fuck are you jabbering about,” he says.
He stops. Turns to me, looks at Mona. Flings out a hand and gives us a look, as if to say, “Did you ever hear anything like it?” I look at him and give a little shrug. Look at Mona. She’s feeling a bit uncomfortable. I can tell by her face. She avoids my eye, pretends to be interested in something under the table, like she’s trying to flick off an insect or something. She doesn’t like it when they fight.
“Aw, don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about,” Ma says, waving her hand at Grandpa, and I see the flab on her upper arm wobble, bingo wings flapping from side to side.
Grandpa stares at her. The baffled look seems to fade from his face. He looks angry now, offended.
“And don’t you sit there harping on about what you’ve got or haven’t got the conscience for either,” Ma goes on, looking straight at Grandpa. “You weren’t the fuckin’ one that wore yourself out tending to your own parents at the end, were you? Oh, no, because you left that job to my ma,” she says. “You had the conscience to do that, all right.”
Silence.
No sound except the low drone of a lawnmower a few gardens away.
“Somebody had to work and bring in some money,” Grandpa mutters.
I see Ma’s mouth drop open as he says it. Then she turns to me, looks at me like she can’t believe her ears. A look of astonishment. Then amusement. I eye her, just for a second, and then I burst out laughing. I can’t help it. One thing Grandpa could never be accused of is hard work. I don’t think he’s ever had a proper job in his life, so he laid himself wide open there. It looks like he’s realized that himself now. And he starts to chuckle too. Laughs his creaky laugh as he picks up his beer can, takes a swig.
Then Mona dares to raise her eyes again. She doesn’t look uncomfortable any more, not now that we’re all laughing. She smiles and looks almost happy. Relieved.
“What are you laughing at?”
Mum looks at her, nods at Grandpa.
“Him. He wouldn’t have dragged himself out of his fuckin’ easy chair if the bloody house’d been on fire,” she says. “So it’s a bit rich him making himself out to be this great old worker.”
And we crack up again. Nice one, Ma, and we roar with laughter.
“I don’t know – what I’ve got to fuckin’ put up with,” Grandpa sighs.
But he laughs as well. He likes these stories about himself and he chuckles as he lifts his beer again. He takes another swig then rests the can on his pot belly. I study him as I sit there: funny-looking body he has, when you think about it, with his stick-thin arms and legs and a stomach like a football.
Couple of seconds.
Then a voice shouts: “Excuse me.”
The laughter kind of peters out. I look behind me and there’s Ma’s and Grandpa’s neighbour. Over by the rubbish bins, looking at us.
“Can I have a word with you?” he says, nodding at Ma.
“Talk away,” Ma says.
“If you could maybe come over here for a moment.”
“I can hear you perfectly well from here,” Ma says.
Silence for a second, then:
“You can’t keep dumping so much in the bins that the lids won’t shut,” he says. He motions with his head towards the bins without taking his eyes off Mum.
“Yeah, I can, as you can fuckin’ well see.”
The neighbour looks at the grass. Shuts his eyes and sighs. Opens his eyes again.
“The crows are pecking holes in the bags,” he says. “And they’re dragging the rubbish into my garden.”
“Ah, so they must know where it belongs, then,” Ma says.
And then she turns to us, laughs that rough smoker’s laugh of hers. A hoarse cackle. Sidelong glance turning her eyes into two black slits in her plump face. I look across at the neighbour and grin. And Grandpa’s laughing creakily on the other side of the table. The neighbour doesn’t say anything, he eyes us for a moment or two then he just shakes his head and walks away. As if to say there’s no point in talking to us right now. As if to say how hopeless we are.
“Bloody clown,” Ma says. Says it loud enough for the neighbour to hear. Sits and stares at him for a couple of seconds and then she turns to us. “Maybe he should have thought about it before he blocked our view with that eyesore of a garage of his,” she says.
“Nine hundred thousand kroner that garage cost,” Grandpa says. “Remote controlled door and Christ knows what all.”
“Oh aye, nothin’ but the best,” Ma says. “But he got the babysitter pregnant, so life’s not all roses over there either, I don’t think.”
She looks at me and grins. And I grin back. Look across at Mona as I raise my beer can to my lips and swallow the last drops. She tucks her fine, fair hair behind her ear and gives me a faint smile. Feeling uncomfortable again. She doesn’t like it when there’s fighting and arguing. Never has done. And anyway, she understands why the neighbour is pissed off about the bins. She feels obliged to take Ma’s side, but she probably feels some sympathy for the guy. That’s maybe why she’s smiling that faint smile of hers. She’s trying to grin and be like us, but she can’t quite manage it.
I set the empty can on the table, flip open the lid of the cool bag and take out another beer.
“Well, well, look who it is!” Ma cries suddenly.
I look up as I flip the lid closed again. It’s Jørgen and Sara. Jørgen raises a hand in silent greeting. Sara eyes us, smiling a little uncertainly, she probably feels a bit daunted, seeing all Jørgen’s family gathered together like this. She doesn’t really look straight at us either. A bit shy.
“Are you still wearin’ that hat?” Grandpa says. “It’s thirty degrees out here.”
Jørgen just grins, says nothing.
“Ach, that’s just the style wi’ the kids now,” Ma says.
Grandpa shakes his head sadly. Tips his head back, takes a swig from his beer can and sets it back on his pot belly.
“What on earth have you done to yourself, Jørgen?” Mona asks suddenly.
And only now do I notice that he’s got a shiner, one brow purple and swollen and the eye half-closed. It’s a wonder he can see out of it at all.
“Fell off my skateboard,” he says.
He plants his hands on the arms of the one free camping chair and eases himself down into it, looks at us and smirks as he pulls his snus tin out of his jeans pocket, a smirk designed to let us know that he didn’t take a tumble on his skateboard at all. He’s just saying that, and now he wants us to ask how he really got his black eye. I look at him and grin.
“Yeah, right, and the band played believe it if you like,” I say.
I say what he wants me to say. Give him the chance to tell us what’s he’s dying to tell us. Because I know something’s happened that he’s proud of. That much I get.
Jørgen grins, waggles his head as he slips a snus sachet under his lip.
“Well, come on, tell us,” I say.
“There’s not much to tell,” Jørgen says, putting the lid on the snus tin and slipping it back into his pocket. “I just got into a bit of a discussion with a guy in a taxi queue last night.”
“And he won the discussion, I see,” Ma says, nodding at Jørgen’s black eye.
“Ahhh,” Jørgen says, “Well, maybe you should see the other guy before you say that.”
I give a little laugh. And Jørgen looks at me and smiles, tobacco sachet glistening at me. It’s like I thought. He looks proud. Proud and happy. Ma gives a little laugh as well.
“Too right,” she says.
She exhales through her nose as she leans over the camping table. Drops her cigarette butt into my empty beer can. I hear the quick hiss as the glowing tip hits the dregs at the bottom.
“But don’t you go getting into any trouble, Jørgen,” Grandpa says sternly. “No shenanigans.”
I turn to him. And Ma turns to him. We both stare at him in amazement. He’s a fine one to go playing the man of peace, and I don’t think. There’s damn fucking few that’ve been in as much trouble over the years as he has. He looks at me, then at Ma. And then he bursts out laughing. It was just a joke and he gives that dry, creaky laugh of his. Acting all holier-than-thou again, like he did a minute ago. He tricked us again, the old rogue. And me and Ma and Jørgen, we laugh as well. And Mona laughs. I don’t think she has any idea what Grandpa was like in his younger days, but I think she realizes that we’re laughing for much the same reason as when Grandpa was making himself out be to this great old worker, so she laughs along with us. She even gives her head a little shake, as if the idea of Grandpa playing the man of peace is just too ridiculous for words. It’s a way of trying to seem like one of the family. I realize that. I look at her and smile. I like the fact that she’s making an effort to be one of us, part of the family. It makes me happy.
“Jørgen, for fuck’s sake,” Ma suddenly cries. “What are you doing – taking the last free chair and letting your girlfriend stand!”
“Yeah, well … I was here first,” Jørgen says, flinging out his arms, acting all innocent.
“Heh-heh,” I laugh, tipping my head back. “A fine fuckin’ gentleman you are.”
I eye him for a second, then I turn to Sara. Smile and shake my head, looking like I despair of him and sympathize with her. I always do this, it’s a way of showing her that I like her and approve of her, that I like her so much I’ll side with her rather than with my own son, or something like that.
“Is he always like this?” I say.
“Yes, actually,” she says softly, smiling.
“Oy!” Jørgen cries, looking up at her like he’s offended.
“Aw, come on, Jørgen,” Ma says. “Give the girl the chair and get yourself another one out of the shed. You’ll never get anywhere if you treat the ladies like that, you know.”
“Christ – nag, nag, nag,” Jørgen sighs, grinning as he gets up.
Ma glances across at Sara, nods to her.
“Aha, that got him moving” she says. “As soon as he thinks he might not get into your pants. Christ all-fuckingmighty, typical man, eh?”
She lets out a hoarse cackle, looks at Sara. The girl doesn’t say anything, just tries to give a little laugh but it doesn’t quite work, comes out as a strained giggle. It embarrasses her a bit when Ma talks like this. I’ve noticed it before, and it shows now too. She’s probably not used to grown-ups talking to her like this, she’s only fifteen so it’s maybe not so surprising, she’s just a girl.
“Yeah, like father, like son,” Mona says.
She looks at Ma and laughs. Shoots a cheeky glance at me then looks at Ma again. And Ma laughs back.
“Yeah, do most of their thinking with that other head, both of them,” she says. “Isn’t that right, Sara?”
Sara doesn’t say anything. She smiles faintly, doesn’t quite know where to look. Going a bit pink now, too. I look at her and smile. Maybe I should change the subject before Ma follows this up with more sex talk. She’s sitting there squirming, poor thing.
“Want a beer, Sara?” I say, looking across at her as I bend down, flip up the lid of the cool bag and take out a can.
“No thanks,” Sara says.
“You don’t want a beer?” Ma says. “Christ, you’ve got yourself a sensible lass there, Jørgen,” she goes on, turning to Jørgen as he comes back carrying another camping chair. He doesn’t answer right away, he’s tripped over some bit of rubbish that’s lying hidden in the long grass. He stumbles forward a couple of steps but manages to stay on his feet, curses under his breath as he looks back to see what it was, then turns round again and carries on over to us.
“Yeah, well, I don’t know if she’s as sensible as all that,” he says. He puts down the chair, looks at Sara and gives a sly grin. A grin that hints at something that Sara has done, a grin that’s meant to let us know there’s more to Sara than meets the eye, that she’s not as innocent as she seems or as we might think. And Sara plays along. Smiling, giving him a kind of stern look, like she’s warning him not to say any more.
“What? What’re you looking at me like that for?” Jørgen cries, raising his eyebrows and acting flabbergasted as he sets the chair down. “I’ve never said a word about how you’ve been feeding the fish for three days in a row,” he says, and then he claps a hand to his mouth and goggles his eyes, acting as if it just slipped out. “Oops,” he says, laughing.
“Shut up, you,” Sara says, making a show of being annoyed and giving Jørgen a dig with her elbow, but she likes him talking about her like this, I can tell. She’s sitting there smiling. And the rest of us chuckle. It wasn’t all that funny, but we chuckle anyway, because Jørgen and Sara are inviting us to. This is something they’re doing to make Sara seem more like one of us, I realize that. They’re trying to show us that Sara’s a grown-up too, that she’s not a kid; that that’s not why she refused a beer when I offered her one, and it’s not because, doctor’s daughter that she is, she thinks we’re too common for her to drink beer with either, it’s purely because she’s been drunk three days in a row.
“Yeah, well the fish need to eat too, you know,” I say, and I look at Jørgen and smile. And he smiles back. Christ he’s got so big lately, Jørgen. I don’t quite know what it is about him, but he seems to have become so grown-up in such a short time. Maybe it’s his voice, the fact that his voice has got deeper. Or his eyebrows maybe, they’ve got darker and thicker. His hair is as fair as it’s always been, but his eyebrows are almost black now and that makes him look a bit more grown-up somehow.
“Talkin’ of food,” Ma says. “I’m bloody starving. I think we should start making dinner. Jørgen, can you get the barbecue going?” she says.
Jørgen nods, gets up and wanders back over to the shed. He stops at the spot where he almost fell last time, bends down and picks up a rusty length of pipe, some old guttering, it looks like. That’s what he tripped over, he chucks it into the nettles over by the Chrysler.
“It’s pork chops for dinner,” Ma says, looking at Mona as she plants her hands on the arms of her chair and pushes herself to her feet. “We were really supposed to be having prawns, but Grandpa didn’t want them.”
“I don’t eat prawns,” Grandpa says, picking up his beer can and taking a swig.
“Oh, but they’re so good,” Mona says, smiling.
“Aye, but I miss the old woman that bloody much every time I smell them,” he says.
“Oh?” Mona says.
She looks at him, doesn’t get the joke.
But I laugh. And Ma laughs, she looks at Grandpa and laughs so hard her rolls of fat jiggle. Her eyes narrow when she laughs as heartily as this, turning into two black slits in her podgy face. And Grandpa creaks contentedly, he likes being the funny man, Grandpa does, likes to be the one who makes everybody laugh.
“Oh, God,” Mona says, she’s just got the joke and now she cracks up as well.
The only one not laughing is Sara, she looks at us, smiling uncertainly. She has no idea what we’re laughing at.
“Don’t you get it?” Ma says, looking at Sara.
“No,” Sara says, shaking her head, the corners of her mouth lifting slightly in a smile.
“D’you mean to tell me the twat of a doctor’s daughter doesn’t smell?” Ma says. She gives that hoarse smoker’s laugh of hers, glances round at the rest of us while Grandpa creaks even louder than his camping chair and Mona has to put a hand over her mouth to save spraying beer all over the table. I look across at Sara, she’s flushed and smiling, like she’s in on the joke but she’s not comfortable. And Mona just laughs more and more, laughing with her eyes squeezed shut. I can’t really remember ever seeing her laugh like this before. Maybe she’s just laughing at Ma’s comment, or maybe it’s also because she’s not the one sitting there feeling uncomfortable. Maybe she’s enjoying seeing Sara in the same position that she used to be in and maybe that makes her feel a bit more like part of the family, I don’t know.
I turn to Ma.
“For Christ’s sake, Ma,” I sigh, but I shake my head and laugh as well, I can’t help it.
“Aw, she knows I’m only fuckin’ jokin’, right?” Ma says.
“She’s fifteen years old,” I say.
“I know how old she is,” Ma says.
“Yeah, but …”
“You think a fifteen-year-old can’t take hearing something like that? How d’you think fifteen-year-olds talk when they’re with other fifteen-year-olds, eh? They’d make me sound like a Sunday school teacher in comparison, I bet,” she says.
She picks up her pack of cigarettes, pulls out a cigarette and sticks it in her mouth, shuts one eye as she lights it.
I look at her, feel like saying something about it maybe making Sara feel a bit uneasy to hear grown-ups like us using the sort of language she might use with her chums. A lot of kids do, it confuses them when we adults aren’t as boring and responsible as they expect us to be. I should maybe say something like that, but I don’t, I just shake my head helplessly and laugh.
“Right, now I need to get some food inside me,” Ma says, tilting her head back and blowing a smoke ring. “Anybody want to give me a hand in the kitchen?”
Mona and Sara both get up right away. “Of course,” Mona says. And off they go. Ma first, with her cigarette between her fingers, spare tyre hanging over the strings of her bikini bottoms, wobbling heavily with every step she takes. Then Mona and Sara. Mona wearing the black T-shirt with the words “Stiff Nipples” on the front, Sara in a yellow woolly hat and a pair of those hip-hop pants, both of them thin as stick insects. I sit for a moment just watching them, then I grab the cool bag and stand up.
“I’ll get some more beer,” I say. “It is 2006, after all, so I guess we can let the women do all the work.”
I grin at Grandpa and Grandpa grins back. Then I walk off. Feel the long grass tickling my legs. Place a hand on the rail and go up the steps and into the hall, join the others in the kitchen.
“I can set the table while you’re doing that,” Sara says. She has her back to me, she has opened the kitchen cabinet and is taking out the plates.
“Nah, we’ll use paper plates,” Ma says, taking a puff on her cigarette and nodding at a bag of paper plates on the worktop. “Saves us having to wash up afterwards,” she says.
Sara turns to look at her, still with her hands on the plates. She looks unsure, almost as if she’s trying to work out whether Ma’s being serious. It’s probably considered a bit common to eat off paper plates where Sara comes from, they probably don’t use paper plates, or certainly not when they’ve got company.
“Oh, but I can do the washing-up,” Sara says.
“But Sara, pet, we’ve got enough paper plates, haven’t we?” Ma asks. Her cigarette dangles from her lip and she puffs smoke as she crosses to the worktop, picks up the bag and holds it up. “Oh yeah, plenty,” she says, tossing the bag to Sara and Sara has to drop her hands fast to catch it. She stands there holding the paper plates, looking like she’s just been handed a bag of radioactive waste.
“Sara’s worried about the environment you see, Grandma,” Jørgen says, right behind me.
I turn and look at him, he’s leaning against the doorjamb, grinning.
“That’s why she wants to eat off proper plates,” he adds.
“Aw, Christ, don’t tell me you’re one of them?” Ma says. “Well, in that case of course we’ll eat off proper plates,” she says, talking with her cigarette in her mouth. Her voice sounds funny when she does that and the cigarette bobs up and down.
“No, no,” Sara begs.
“But of course we’ll use proper plates.”
“Oh no, please, not for my sake.”
Ma opens the fridge door, takes out a pack of pork chops.
“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of doing it for your sake,” she says. “We’ll do it for the environment, of course. It would be just too bad if the oceans were to rise just because the Williamsens insisted on eating off paper plates.”
She slaps the pack of chops down onto the worktop, turns to us and gives that rough, hoarse laugh of hers again and Sara smiles that slightly uncertain smile. She’s finding it hard to get used to this sort of humour. Something tells her she’s being made a fool of and laughed at, I can tell by her face. She looks almost hurt now, poor thing. Jørgen should say something, explain to her that there’s no harm in it, but he doesn’t, he just stands there grinning and Sara’s still smiling that uncertain smile of hers, a stiff, strained smile, and Ma laughs, and Mona laughs, feeling more and more like part of the family the more awkward Sara feels, so it seems. She’s screaming with laughter now, shaking her head at how funny Ma is.
I look at Sara and smile. I’m just about to say that she shouldn’t mind us, this is just how we are, but I don’t get that far.
“But you eat meat, right?” Ma says. She flicks her cigarette out of the open kitchen window and turns to Sara.
“C’mon Ma, just because you care about the environment doesn’t mean you have to be a vegetarian,” I say, glancing at Sara and giving a little laugh, as if to say: don’t mind Ma, but then I see that Sara’s blushing, she stands there red-faced and smiling and Jørgen grins back at me.
“You don’t eat meat either?” Ma cries, jutting her head forward and staring at the girl.
“No,” Sara says with a little titter.
“So what the hell am I going to give you to eat?”
“I can just have whatever you’re having with the chops,” Sara says. “That’ll be fine, really.”
“Well, in that case it’ll be potato salad with ketchup,” Ma retorts.
Mona and Jørgen laugh and Sara just stands there, red-faced and smiling.
“You could have a little bit, though, surely?” Ma says.
“No thanks,” Sara says with a strained little laugh.
“Just a little chop?”
I see how Sara seems to shrink. She’s still smiling, but she’s feeling less and less happy, poor thing, I can tell just by looking at her.
“Ma, honestly, would you just leave it,” I say. I’m smiling, but the look I give her says I’m serious. She looks at me, raises her eyebrows.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, a little bit of meat’s not going to hurt the girl,” she says.
“Yeah, but that’s not what this is about, is it?” I say.
“Oh, isn’t it? So what is it about?” she asks. “If it’s the pig then it was dead last time I checked, so she doesn’t need to worry about that anyway.”
And then Mona laughs again. Ma turns to look at her and she laughs as well. It’s like they’re allies now, these two. A couple of seconds then Ma turns to Sara. She lays her fingers lightly on the girl’s arm, looks at her and smiles.
“No, no, that’s for you to decide, of course,” she says. She takes the plates out of the cabinet and hands them to Sara. “Here, you take these environmentally friendly plates and set the table, pet, and while you’re doing that I’ll see if there isn’t a pack of birdseed left over from Grandpa’s budgie.”
And she glances at Mona and laughs again. And Mona laughs back. I look at Sara and smile, try to reassure her with a smile, but she doesn’t look at me. She keeps her eyes front as she walks across the kitchen, red-faced and smiling. Jørgen looks at her and grins, teasing her a little because she still hasn’t figured out how to cope with his family. She’s met us all a few times now, but she still seems just as unsure and Jørgen finds that funny, I can tell. He goes on grinning as he puts his arm round Sara’s shoulder and walks her out to the garden.
“Ma,” I say. “She’s fifteen.”
“Still?” Ma says.
More laughter from Mona.
“I’m just trying to say you need to go a bit easy on her. You scare her,” I say.
“Okay, okay,” Ma says, not even looking at me. She kind of waves me away with a flick of her hand.
I’m just about to say that she might do it for Jørgen’s sake, at least, because if Sara doesn’t feel welcome that affects him too. But I don’t say anything. Ma’s never going to understand why Sara shouldn’t feel welcome anyway, so there’s no point. I look at her for a second, smile helplessly and shake my head, then I open the fridge door and take out two six packs of beer, pop them in the cool bag and step into the passage. As I come out into the hall I hear the whoosh-whoosh of Ma’s asthma inhaler.