The Kingdom

by Jo Nesbo

  ‘You’re in the pump area of a fucking service station,’ I said, pointing at the large SMOKING PROHIBITED sign.

  I didn’t see him move, but suddenly he was right up close to me, so close I wouldn’t be able to put any power into a punch.

  ‘And what do you propose to do about it?’ he said, his voice even lower.

  Not Sørlandet. Denmark. His speed worried me more than his muscles. That, and the aggression, the will, no, the lust to do harm that shone from his small eyes. It was like staring into the mouth of a fucking pit bull. It was like the time I tried cocaine. I did it once, and that sure didn’t leave me wanting more either. I was scared. Yes, I was. And it struck me that this was how they must have felt, those boys and men at Årtun, in the second before they got hammered. They had known, as I knew now, that the man in front of them was stronger, faster and had a willingness to cross certain lines that I knew I didn’t possess. It was staring into that willingness, and that madness, that made me back off.

  ‘I don’t propose to do anything at all,’ I said, my voice as quiet as his. ‘You have a merry Christmas in hell.’

  He grinned and stepped back himself. Never took his eyes off me. I’m guessing he saw something of the same in me as I had seen in him, and showed his respect by not turning his back on me before he had to, in order to slip into the low, white, torpedo-shaped sports car. A Jaguar E-Type, a late-seventies model. Danish plates. Wide summer tyres.

  ‘Roy!’ The voice came from behind me. ‘Roy!’

  I turned. It was Stanley. He was on his way out of the door, loaded down with bags from which I could see Christmas wrapping paper sticking out. He staggered over to me. ‘Good to see you back!’ He offered me his cheek since his hands weren’t free and I gave him a quick hug.

  ‘Ha! Men buying Christmas presents on 23 December at a service station,’ I said.

  ‘Typical, isn’t it?’ Stanley laughed. ‘I came here because there are queues in all the other shops. Dan Krane says in today’s paper that there’s a record turnover in Os, never before have so many spent so much on Christmas presents.’ He wrinkled his brow. ‘You look pale, nothing wrong I hope?’

  ‘No no,’ I said, and heard the low roar and then growling as it rolled away down the highway. ‘Seen that car before?’

  ‘Yes, I saw it driving off when I called in at Dan’s office earlier today. Smart-looking beast. Seems like a lot of people have been getting themselves these smart-looking beasts recently. But not you. And not Dan. He was looking pale today too, as it happens. I hope it’s not flu doing the rounds, because I’m counting on a quiet Christmas, you hear?’

  The low white car slid away into the December darkness. Southwards. On its way home to the Amazon.

  ‘How’s that finger?’

  I held up my right hand with the stiff middle finger. ‘It’s still fit for purpose.’

  Stanley laughed obligingly at the stupid joke. ‘Good. And how’s Carl?’

  ‘Everything as it should be, I think. I only came home today.’

  Stanley seemed to be on the point of saying something else but changed his mind. ‘We’ll talk later, Roy. By the way, I’m having my annual open-house breakfast on Boxing Day. Like to come?’

  ‘Thanks, but I’ll be heading back early on Boxing Day, have to get back to work.’

  ‘New Year’s Eve then? I’m having a party. Mostly single people you know.’

  I smiled. ‘Lonely hearts club?’

  ‘In a way.’ He smiled back at me. ‘See you there?’

  I shook my head. ‘I got Christmas Eve off on condition I work New Year’s Eve. But thanks.’

  We wished each other a merry Christmas and I crossed the car park and unlocked the door to the workshop. That old familiar smell came rolling out as I opened it. Engine oil, car shampoo, scorched metal and oily rags. Not even pinnekjøtt, wood fires and sprigs of spruce smell as good as that cocktail there. I turned on the light. Everything was just as I had left it.

  I went into the sleeping alcove and got a shirt from the cupboard. Entered the office, which was the smallest room and the quickest to heat up, turned the fan heater on full blast. Looked at my watch. She might arrive at any time. It was no longer that old, spotty-faced guy at the petrol pumps who was making my heart pound like a piston. Thud thud. I checked myself in the mirror, neatened my hair. Dry throat. Like when I was taking the theory exam. I straightened the licence plate from Basutoland, it had a tendency to slip round on its nail when the cold came and the walls compressed, same thing in the summer, only the other way.

  I jerked so the office chair screeched when there was a sudden knock on the window.

  I stared out into the darkness. Saw first just my own reflection, but then also her face. It was within mine, as though we were one and the same person.

  I got to my feet and went to the door.

  ‘Brr,’ she said and slipped inside. ‘It is cold! Good job I’m getting toughened up with the ice-bathing.’

  ‘Ice-bathing,’ I repeated, and my voice was all over the place, just air and thickness. I stood there bolt upright, my arms sticking out from my body, as naturally relaxed as a scarecrow.

  ‘Yes, can you imagine? Rita Willumsen’s an ice-bather and she persuaded me and a few other women to join her, three mornings a week, but now I’m the only one left still with her, she bores a hole in the ice and then plop, in we go.’ She spoke quickly and breathlessly and I was glad it wasn’t just me who was feeling tense.

  And then she stopped and looked up at me. She had changed the simple, elegant architect’s coat for a quilted jacket, black, as was the hat she wore pulled down over her ears. But it was her. It really was Shannon. A woman I had been with in a very concrete, physical sense, and yet it was as though she, here, now, had stepped out of a dream. A dream that had been recurring since 3 September. And now, here she stood, her eyes bright with joy, and a laughing mouth I had kissed goodnight 110 times since that day.

  ‘I didn’t hear the Cadillac,’ I said. ‘And yes, it’s really good to see you.’

  She put her head back and laughed. And that laughter loosened something inside me, like a snowdrift grown so heavy that even the slightest thaw caused it to collapse.

  ‘I parked in the light, in front of the station,’ said Shannon.

  ‘And I still love you,’ I said.

  She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. I saw her swallow, her eyes glisten, and I didn’t know it was tears until one fell onto her cheek and ran and ran.

  And then we were in each other’s arms.

  * * *

  —

  When we got back to the farm two hours later, Carl sat snoring in Dad’s armchair.

  I said I was going up to bed and heard Shannon wake Carl as I climbed the stairs.

  That night, for the first time in over a year, I didn’t dream of Shannon.

  Instead I dreamed of falling.

  49

  CHRISTMAS EVE FOR THREE.

  I slept until twelve, had worked like a Trojan over the last few weeks and had a lot of catching up on sleep to do. Went downstairs, said Happy Christmas, heated up the coffee and browsed through an old Christmas magazine, explained some of the unique Norwegian Christmas traditions to Shannon, helped Carl mash the swedes. Carl and Shannon hardly exchanged a word. I cleared snow, even though it was obvious none had fallen over the last couple of days, changed the birds’ Christmas sheaf, made porridge and took a bowl to the barn for the barn elf, hit the punchbag a few times. Put my skis on out in the yard. Skied the first few metres along some unusually broad tyre tracks left by summer tyres. Stumped up and over the snow piled alongside the road and then made my own tracks as I set off in the direction of the hotel building site.

  For some reason the view of the building site up there on the bare mountain made me think of the moon landing
. Emptiness, stillness, and the sense of something man-made that was out of place in the landscape. The large, prefabricated timber modules Carl had talked about were held up on the foundations by steel cables that would, according to the engineers, keep everything in place even in gusts of hurricane force. This being Christmas week and holidays, there were no lights on in the workmen’s sheds. Darkness fell.

  On the way back I heard a long, sad and familiar sound, but saw no bird.

  * * *

  —

  I don’t know how long we sat around the table, probably not more than an hour, but it felt like four. The pinnekjøtt was probably excellent, Carl at least was full of praise for it, and Shannon looked down at the food, smiled and said thank you, politely. Carl had charge of the bottle of aquavit, but he kept refilling my glass, so that had to mean I was knocking it back too. Carl described the big Santa Claus parade in Toronto where he and Shannon had met for the first time, when they joined the parade along with mutual friends who had made and decorated the sleigh they sat in. The temperature had been minus twenty-five and Carl had offered to keep her hands warm beneath the sheepskin rugs.

  ‘She was shaking like a leaf, but said no thanks.’ Carl laughed.

  ‘I didn’t know you,’ said Shannon. ‘And you were wearing a mask.’

  ‘A Father Christmas mask,’ said Carl, looking at me. ‘Who are you going to trust if you don’t trust Father Christmas?’

  ‘It’s OK, you’ve taken the mask off now,’ said Shannon.

  After the meal I helped Shannon clear the table. In the kitchen she rinsed the plates with warm water and I ran my hand over the small of her back.

  ‘Don’t,’ she said in a quiet voice.

  ‘Shannon...’

  ‘Don’t!’ She turned towards me. There were tears in her eyes.

  ‘We can’t just carry on as though nothing has happened,’ I said.

  ‘We must.’

  ‘Why must we?’

  ‘You don’t understand. We must, believe me. So just do as I tell you.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Carry on as though nothing has happened. Jesus Christ, nothing has happened. It was...it was just...’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t nothing. It was everything. I know it. And you know it too.’

  ‘Please, Roy. I’m asking you.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘But what is it you’re afraid of? That he’ll hit you again? Because if he so much as touches you...’

  She uttered a sound, part-laughter, part-sob. ‘It’s not me who’s in danger, Roy.’

  ‘Me? You’re afraid Carl might beat me up?’ I smiled. I didn’t want to, but I did.

  ‘Not beat you up,’ she said. She folded her arms across her chest as though she were cold, and she must have been, because the outside temperature had fallen rapidly, and the walls had started to creak.

  ‘Presents!’ cried Carl from the living room. ‘Someone’s put presents under a bloody spruce tree in here!’

  * * *

  —

  Shannon went to bed early, complaining of a headache. Carl wanted to smoke and insisted that we wrap up warmly and sit out in the winter garden, which is obviously a highly fucking misleading name when the thermometer falls below fifteen minus.

  Carl pulled out two cigars from his jacket pocket. Held one of them out to me. I shook my head and held up my snuffbox.

  ‘Come on,’ said Carl. ‘Got to get in training for when you and me light the victory cigars, don’t you know.’

  ‘An optimist again?’

  ‘Always the optimist, that’s me.’

  ‘Last time we spoke there were a couple of problems,’ I said.

  ‘There were?’

  ‘Cash flow. And Dan Krane poking about.’

  ‘Problems are there to be solved,’ said Carl, puffing out a mixture of condensed air and cigar smoke.

  ‘And how did you solve those?’

  ‘The important thing is, they were solved.’

  ‘Maybe the solution to both problems is connected to Willumsen in some way?’

  ‘Willumsen? What makes you think that?’

  ‘Only that the cigar you’ve got there is the same brand as he hands out to people he’s doing deals with.’

  Carl removed the cigar and looked at the red band. ‘Is it?’

  ‘Yes. So they aren’t particularly exclusive.’

  ‘No? You could’ve have fooled me.’

  ‘So what sort of deal have you done with Willumsen?’

  Carl sucked on the cigar. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think you’ve borrowed money from him.’

  ‘Cripes. And some people think I’m the brainy one.’

  ‘Have you? Have you sold your soul to Willumsen, Carl?’

  ‘My soul?’ Carl emptied the last drop of aquavit into the absurdly small glass. ‘Didn’t know you believed in souls, Roy.’

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘It’s always a buyer’s market when it comes to souls, Roy, and looked at in that light he gave me a good price for mine. Plus, his business can’t afford to let this village go under. And by now he’s so heavily into the hotel that if I fall, then he falls too. If you’re going to borrow from someone, Roy, it’s important to borrow a lot. That way you’ve got as much hold on them as they have on you.’ He raised his glass to me.

  I had neither glass nor response. ‘What did he get in security?’ I asked.

  ‘What security does Willumsen usually ask for?’

  I nodded. Just your word. Your soul. But in that case the loan couldn’t really be all that big.

  ‘But let’s talk about something else besides money, it’s so boring. Willumsen has invited Shannon and me to his New Year party.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ I said curtly. Willumsen’s New Year party was where everybody who was somebody in the village gathered. Old and current council chairmen, landowners selling off their land for cabins, those with money, and those with farms big enough to pretend they had. Everyone on the inside of an invisible divide here in the village, the existence of which everyone who was inside it denied, of course.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Carl. ‘So what was the problem with my lovely little Cadillac?’

  I coughed. ‘Minor stuff. It’s no wonder, it’s done a lot of kilometres and been driven hard. Lot of steep hills here in Os.’

  ‘So nothing that can’t be repaired?’

  I shrugged. ‘Sure I can do a temporary repair, but it might be time to think about getting rid of that jalopy. Get yourself a new car.’

  Carl looked at me. ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Cadillacs are complicated. When small parts start to go it’s a warning there’s bigger trouble on the way. And you’re no grease monkey when it comes to cars, are you?’

  Carl wrinkled his brow. ‘Maybe not, but that’s the only car I want. Can you repair it or can’t you?’

  I shrugged. ‘You’re the boss.’

  ‘Good,’ he said and sucked on his cigar. Took it out and looked at it. ‘In a way it’s a shame they never got to see what you and I achieved in life, Roy.’

  ‘Mum and Dad, you mean?’

  ‘Yes. What d’you think Dad would be doing now if he was alive?’

  ‘Scratching on the inside of his coffin lid,’ I said.

  Carl looked at me. Then he started to laugh. I shuddered. Looked at my watch and forced a yawn.

  That night I dreamed about falling again. I was standing on the edge of Huken and heard Mum and Dad calling to me down there, calling me to join them. I leaned over the edge, the way Carl had described the old sheriff doing before he fell. I couldn’t see the front of the car that was closest to the rock face, and at the back, on top of the boot, two huge ravens were sitting. They took off and came flying up towards me and as they got clos
er I saw they had Carl and Shannon’s faces. As they passed me I heard Shannon cry out twice, and I woke with a start. I stared out into the darkness and held my breath, but not a sound came from the bedroom.

  * * *

  —

  On Christmas Day I lay in bed for as long as I could stand it. By the time I got up Carl and Shannon had left for the church service. I’d seen them from the window, middle class, subtly dressed up. They drove off in the Subaru. I hung around the house and the barn, repaired a couple of things. Heard the crisp ringing of the church bells wafting all the way up from the village on the cold air. Then I drove down to the workshop and started on the Cadillac. There was enough there to keep me busy until far into the evening. At nine I called Carl, told him the car was ready and suggested he come down and fetch it.

  ‘I’m in no fit state to drive,’ he said. As though I hadn’t reckoned on that.

  ‘Send Shannon then,’ I said.

  I heard his hesitation. ‘Then the Subaru will have to stay down at your place,’ he said. And two meaningless thoughts flitted across my brain. That by your place he meant the workshop, which meant that he thought of the farm as his place.

  ‘I’ll drive the Subaru and Shannon the Cadillac,’ I said.

  ‘That leaves the Volvo behind.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Then I’ll drive the Cadillac up and Shannon can drive me back down to pick up the Volvo.’

  ‘Goats and oats,’ said Carl.

  I held my breath. Had he really just said that? That leaving Shannon and I alone at the same place was like leaving the goat alone with the sack of oats? How long had he known? What was going to happen now?

  ‘You still there?’ said Carl.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, strangely calm. And I felt it now, I felt the relief. Yes. It was going to be brutal, but at least now I could stop slinking around like a fucking cheat. ‘Come again, Carl,’ I said. ‘What was that about goats and oats?’

  ‘The goat,’ Carl said patiently. ‘That has to stay in the rowing boat both ways, right? Oh, it’s too complicated. Just leave the Cadillac outside the workshop and come back here, and Shannon or I can fetch it later. Thanks for the work, bro. Now come up and have a drink with me.’