Next Christmas I’d get him some shorts, I said to myself, and shouted his name.
He turned round and waited.
“Hello,” he said.
“Anything new?” I said as we clasped hands.
He shook his head.
His face was broad and freckled, his lips were broad, his nose was broad, his eyes deep and dark, even though they were blue. He was rather short in stature, and stocky too.
We’d been friends since nursery school, so, apart from my brother, Trond was the person I knew best in all the world.
“What’s this not coming out with us all about?” he said as we carried on down the road.
“Got to go to work,” I said.
Something dark sprang into my mind.
Liam.
If only he was all right.
“So have I,” he said. “And I’ve got to be up at four.”
I shrugged.
“I’m not you. I need more sleep than that.”
“There’s not many nights like this in a year,” he said.
“Not here, anyway!” I said. “Anyway, we’ll see. I don’t suppose a beer or two’s going to make much difference.”
“You’re getting less and less rock’n’roll by the month, you do know?” he said. “Shacking up, nursery school job.”
“Look who’s talking! Still living with his mum and dad and working in a bakery.”
“At least I don’t go to bed at half past nine.”
“No, you only start yawning your head off at six,” I said. “Remember when we went to see the Ziggy Stardust film at the film club? Oh, sorry, you wouldn’t, would you, you slept all the way through it.”
Farther down, the old sardine factory came into view.
“I might have a new song, by the way,” I said.
“Yeah?” said Trond. “That’s good news.”
“Not sure how good it is, though. It’s only the lyrics, really. And a rough idea of how it could go.”
“Great,” he said.
“Probably not, actually,” I said. “Not sure I even want to say what it’s called, it’s that stupid.”
“What’s it called?”
“Shall we go round and see if they’re here yet?” I said, indicating with a nod of my head the outdoor cafe area on the other side of the building.
“Don’t try and worm your way out,” he said. “Come on, what’s it called?”
I looked at him and grinned without saying anything. He grinned back.
Frode and Kenneth were sitting at one of the tables with a beer each, their guitar cases beside them on the decking. They waved to us and we went over.
“Emil’s got a new song,” Trond said. “Only it’s so crap he can’t tell us what it’s called.”
“ ‘Heartstorm,’ ” I said.
“Mathilde dumped you, has she?” Frode said with a snort.
“What’s best, ‘a storm in the heart’ or ‘a storm in my heart’?”
“Both sound good to me,” Trond said.
“Neither, they both sound rubbish,” said Frode.
I’d like to see you come up with something better, I thought to myself, but kept my mouth shut. Frode could be a right turd sometimes, but I’d never played with a better guitarist. Never over-embellishing, always getting it right.
“We can always tweak the lyrics,” I said. “Have you got the key?”
Kenneth, who rarely said anything unless someone spoke to him, nodded.
They drank up and we went inside, into the old factory building to the rehearsal room we used. Just as we’d got set up and tuned, my phone thrummed in my pocket. It was Mathilde.
How come you were so miffed in the park? I LOVE you, you know that, she wrote.
I wasn’t miffed! I wrote back. Just exhausted after work. You’re everything I want!
I was about to put it away when she sent another:
Come and see me at work afterward?
Nothing I’d rather do! I typed back, only then becoming aware of the others standing demonstratively motionless, waiting for me. I slipped the phone back into my pocket.
“Sorry,” I said. “Shall we run through the set first?”
* * *
—
An hour later, after we’d gone through all the songs, we stopped for a break. Frode and Kenneth went outside for a smoke. Trond and I stayed put.
I read through the lyrics for the new song and felt mostly like keeping them to myself, but messaged them to the others anyway.
A lull at first
then comes the wind
ah, then comes the wind
Then comes the rain
ah, then comes the rain
And the storm is breaking loose
no sign of a truce
A storm in the heart
rain and wind
we were meant to be twinned
A storm in the heart
rain and wind
we were meant to be twinned
The streets of the heart are empty
the words you say torment me
The wind bends the trees of the heart
the rain keeps us ever apart
The heart’s heavens are dark
the rain of the heart our mark
A storm in the heart
rain and wind
we were meant to be twinned
A storm in the heart
rain and wind
we were meant to be twinned
A lull at first
then comes the wind,
ah, then comes the wind
Then comes the rain
ah, then comes the rain
Trond’s phone pinged behind me.
“Really good, Emil,” he said a minute later.
“Do you think so?” I turned to face him. He was sitting leaning forward with his elbows on his thighs, phone in hand.
“Yeah, really good,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said.
There was a knock on the door, and I went over to let them in.
“The heart is a fart!” said Frode.
“Very funny,” I said.
“You have had a bust-up with Mathilde, haven’t you?” he said with his biggest grin.
“Can we use it, or can’t we?” I said, and went and sat down, picking up my guitar in the process.
“We can,” he said. “But the heart/apart rhyme might not be the most original.”
“No, you’re right,” I said. “I can mumble it there, though. Michael Stipe style, so no one catches on.”
“Or we can just get rid,” he said. “It shouldn’t make much difference.”
“How about ‘the trees of the heart fall foul’?” I said. “And then something that rhymes with ‘foul’?”
“Growl!” said Frode. “ ‘The bear of the heart says growl.’ ”
Without warning, tears came to my eyes and I turned away. Right, that’s fucking it, I said to myself, blinking a few times as I faced the wall, then switched off my amp, unstrapped my guitar and put it away in the case.
“What are you doing?” Frode said. “It was only a joke! You weren’t supposed to take it like that!”
I picked up the case and went toward the door. I knew I shouldn’t say anything, just go, and leave them with something to think about.
“I’ve had it up to here with you,” I said, looking straight at Frode. “I put my soul into those lyrics, in case you want to know.”
He threw up his arms.
“For Christ’s sake, man, it was a joke! How self-important can you get?”
I slammed the door after me and walked slowly through the empty corridor, stopping for a moment outside to give them a ch
ance to catch up with me.
No one came.
They were probably sitting there laughing at me.
But it was my band. They were my songs.
I started off up the hill.
I’d made a fool of myself. Shown them how weak I was.
But I couldn’t go back. That would be even weaker.
My phone rang.
It was Frode.
I stood and looked at his name on the display. If I didn’t answer, the band would be finished. And it would be my fault.
Was that what I wanted?
I pictured the confusion in Mathilde’s eyes when I turned up early, and imagined what my explanation was going to sound like to her: “Frode was teasing me, so I left.”
It was better to humiliate myself in front of them than in front of her, I reasoned, and took the call.
“Sorry, Emil,” Frode said. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
“You didn’t,” I said. “But thanks anyway.”
“Are you coming back, then?”
“Yes,” I said, hung up and turned round.
Far out in the fjord, a ship looked like it was having a piss, a great jet of water arcing out from it into the air. The water glittered in the sunlight. Now and then, the air shimmered like a rainbow. It was like I was dreaming, the humiliation I felt was so enormous it completely took over my whole outlook, as if I had no say in the matter.
I shut out the hum of voices from the cafe and went through the empty corridor to the rehearsal room while trying not to feel anything.
The others pretended nothing had happened, and I was grateful for it. But I couldn’t pretend. I’d been too stupid for that.
“I’m sorry I went off like that,” I said. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“Don’t think about it,” Frode said. “Writing’s a sensitive business.”
“It’s not that,” I said.
“No,” he said. “I just thought I’d say so to lighten things up a bit.”
“Can we play some damn music now?” said Trond.
* * *
—
After the rehearsal we stayed behind for a few beers, standing at the bar of the crowded cafe outside. We talked about what we always talked about, the band and the songs, and how we could go about recording our material. Fredrik turned up in a pair of marine-blue shorts, white shirt and boat shoes, and hung out with us for a bit for appearances’ sake—it was a fair bit of money he wanted to borrow this time—but he couldn’t disguise how he didn’t belong with us and left again at the first opportunity, when a fat guy with sweat stains under his arms squeezed between us and raised two fingers in the air to indicate his order to the barman. Fredrik, who’d been forced to step aside, caught my attention.
“I reckon I’ll be off,” he said. “See you at the weekend, though.”
“You’re coming? Brilliant!” I said.
“It’s hard to believe you two are brothers,” said Frode after he’d gone.
“And that he’s borrowing from you instead of the other way round,” said Trond.
The guy with the sweaty armpits lifted his two pints high into the air and forged a path through the throng.
“Do you know who that is?” Frode said, lowering his voice and watching him as he went.
I shook my head.
“Lindland. The guy who interviewed Heksa that time.”
“Was that him?”
“Yes. They demoted him to the arts section after that.”
“That would be a promotion in my world,” I said.
“He’s a bit of a dick.”
“So’s Heksa,” I said.
Frode snorted.
“There’s no word for what he is.”
“I went to nursery school with him,” said Kenneth.
We all looked at him.
“With Heksa?” said Frode.
Kenneth nodded casually and slurped his beer.
“How come you never told us that before?”
He shrugged.
“No one ever asked.”
“Of course no one ever asked!” said Frode. “How the hell were we supposed to know there was anything to ask about?”
“What was he like?” I said.
Kenneth shrugged again.
“Just normal. A bit timid, maybe.”
We laughed about it and clinked our glasses together. When I left half an hour or so later, with Trond who had a bus to catch to take him out to Fantoft, I actually had a good feeling in my chest. How idiotic it would have been, to chuck the band in just because a few little feelings had been hurt.
* * *
—
Mathilde looked up from the reception desk when I came in through the door, and the smile she gave me was something no one could have faked.
It made me so happy I leaned across the desk and kissed her, even if she did always keep telling me not to when she was at work.
“You look so incredibly sexy in that uniform,” I said softly, and kissed her on the throat. She shoved me away with a smile, the way you would with a boisterous dog.
“How was the rehearsal?” she said.
“Excellent,” I said.
“Great!” she said.
“What about you?” I said.
Instead of answering me she nodded toward the street outside where two buses pulled up, one after the other.
“It’s going to be chaos here any minute,” she said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“That’s OK,” I said. “I’m a bit whacked, anyway.”
“Will you phone me before you go to bed?”
“Of course,” I said, and kissed her again.
“I miss you already,” I said as the first of the tourists came in and she directed her smile toward them rather than me.
“Ciao, Emilio,” she said, and flashed her eyes at me.
Outside in the street, where the air, so hot it felt like the Mediterranean, was saturated with darkness, I put my earphones in and browsed the albums on my phone. I hated playlists—apart from the ones I sent Mathilde, that is. I decided on Bill Callahan’s Apocalypse. “He’s got a deep voice!” the kids had said when I’d played it to them. And he had, too.
Liam, little Liam, please be all right.
The bus was already waiting behind the shopping center when I got to the stop. I switched to David Crosby’s If I Could Only Remember My Name and listened to it all the way up to the hospital. I really liked the warmth of those seventies productions, and the lightness in the playing, all the little licks and riffs they kept tossing in, with no one straining themselves, just dropping by the studio in the afternoon and laying something down before going off to the beach, smoking a bit of grass, having a dip in the sea or whatever they did then, before going back and doing a few more takes. They could play. The music was alive. The way people are alive.
But mostly I liked the warmth of the sound.
At the bus stop outside the hospital I replied to a couple of texts before going into the Narvesen and buying a tube of Pringles, a 7 Up and some sweets. That would get Trond going if he could see me, I thought to myself with a smile. Cola dummies and licorice caramels instead of heroin.
I took a photo and sent it to him, texting that this was what I wanted on our rider when we got famous.
Better than carrots, any rate, he replied.
And rather a hole in the tooth than a hole in the soul, I typed back.
He replied after I’d paid and gone out.
That’s where you’re wrong. How many good songs do you know about toothache?
You had to think about that, didn’t you? I wrote and started walking up the hill with the phone still in my hand in case he replied. He didn’t, and after a bit I slipped it back into my pocket again. The sky a
bove me was blue-black, and the dark fells that loomed on all sides made it seem like I was looking up at the stars from the bottom of a well.
I shifted my guitar case to my other hand and regretted not having waited a bit longer for the other bus that would have taken me all the way, when suddenly the birds began to sing.
I stopped. Above the fells, day was dawning.
It couldn’t be!
I swiveled round. On the other side, a light rose into the sky.
It wasn’t the sun. It wasn’t the moon. It was a kind of star.
But how big it was!
I put my guitar case down, got my phone out and called Mathilde.
The birds were chirping madly all the way up the slope of the fell. A faint, ghostly veil appeared.
“Hi!” she said. “Off to bed already?”
“No, I’m not even home yet,” I said. “There’s something in the sky. Have you seen it?”
“No?” she said.
“A gigantic star or something. It’s really weird. The birds have all started singing. I’m standing on the road just below the house.”
“Oh,” she said.
“You’ve got to go out and look as soon as you get the chance,” I said. “It’s amazing.”
“I will,” she said.
“OK,” I said. “I’ll call you again in a few minutes.”
I hung up and walked the last bit of the way, turning round all the time to look at the star or whatever it was, which was rising disturbingly quickly now.
We rented the whole of the first floor plus two attic rooms from an old lady who lived on her own, and we paid a pittance in rent. As I opened the gate and went up the path, I saw the flickering light of the TV in her living room. For a brief moment I wondered whether to ring her doorbell and tell her to come outside and see, but it would probably only give her a heart attack, I thought, and instead I just followed the path to our entrance round the back.
As I put the key in the door, there was a heavy rustle from the woods just behind the house.
A deer, I thought.
Something came charging.
I wheeled round and saw a figure come hurtling from the trees. It was a man. He halted abruptly beside the apple tree and bent forward, hands on knees, gasping for breath as he stared back in the direction from which he’d come.
The Morning Star Page 11
