A Modern Family

by Helga Flatland

  Standing here in the kitchen with Liv now, watching Håkon and Dad outside the window, that feeling gains new ground. The feeling that has haunted me more and more often and in very different ways over this past year, a sense of genuine jealousy, the feeling that I want what Liv and Håkon have: attention, consideration, sympathy, comfort – I want to be recognised as being just as important, perhaps even more so.

  Mum arrives last. I haven’t spoken to her since that evening I spent at hers a few weeks ago. This is the first time we’ve all been together since Italy. I don’t know how much contact Mum and Dad have had with each other, how much he knows, but he’s quick to embrace her in his usual way, as if it’s entirely normal now for them to greet one another in this distanced manner. It’s hard to wrap my head around and I look at Liv and Håkon to see if they’re reacting to what’s happening, but Liv is standing with her back to them stirring the contents of a pan while Håkon is in the middle of a conversation with Agnar. It’s as if nothing has happened, everything going on at this moment in time could easily have unfolded in precisely the same way a year ago, five years ago, and I don’t know if we’re good at pretending or if the change is simply less tangible in practice than it is in theory.

  ‘Hedda has something she’d like to give you,’ Liv says, coming through into the living room from the kitchen, rubbing her hands against her thighs, looking around at everyone, her eyes lingering on me. ‘Something she’s really been looking forward to handing out, just so you all know.’

  I summon all of my effort to raise a smile.

  ‘Hedda,’ Liv calls upstairs.

  Hedda comes downstairs in a blue Disney Frozen dress, then hands out folded pieces of paper on which someone has written our names. On my piece, Hedda has drawn a long, red line with a curl at one end. Inside the folded sheet are two more squiggles in the middle of the page, one blue and one black, and a Merry Christmas sticker. Mum and Dad have been given a card together, and they seem to be attempting to outdo one another in describing to Hedda just how fantastic her squiggles are, guessing them to be Father Christmas or a reindeer or perhaps a Christmas tree? Hedda smiles and shakes her head.

  ‘It’s a stone,’ she says contentedly.

  ‘A stone!’ Mum and Dad cry in chorus, both equally animated.

  All of a sudden, a silence falls and they look anywhere but at one another, almost embarrassed by their shared outburst – for a short moment perhaps they are reminded of everything they still share, of all the years together, the experiences and memories accumulated within their bodies, which no doubt reveal themselves several times a day in just the same way without them thinking much about it or perhaps even realising.

  ‘And is this a stone, too?’ I ask Hedda, crouching down in front of her with my Christmas card to fill the silence that has suddenly descended upon us, pointing at the blue squiggle inside the card.

  Hedda shakes her head and giggles hesitantly, still too young to sense disappointment or to feel at all offended when no one can make out what she’s drawn, simply contented with her pencil strokes, which make no attempt to imitate reality, and which have now evolved into some kind of guessing game. She’s still wary of me, uncertain about approaching me; she remains watchful, acting differently to the way she does around others in the family.

  ‘I think it looks a little bit like Daddy,’ I remark without looking at Olaf, holding Hedda’s gaze. ‘This is his head, and this big circle is his tummy,’ I say, pointing at the biggest squiggle.

  Hedda breaks into laughter, safer in the knowledge that I’m joking around with her, getting closer to her, and I feel her breath on my face as she laughs. I want to hold her tiny body close to mine, to feel her arms around my neck.

  ‘Time to eat,’ Liv says.

  ‘This is lovely, Liv,’ Mum says as we eat the venison stew Liv has made. ‘Have you added something to it?’

  Something means something other than what’s in Mum’s recipe, which she inherited from her own mother.

  ‘I added star anise to the stock,’ Liv replies, and Mum nods approvingly. ‘It’s just as nice without it, really, it was just something a friend recommended I try,’ Liv adds quickly, apologetically.

  ‘I think it might even be better with,’ I say, looking at Mum and smiling.

  ‘Yes, as I said, it’s very tasty,’ she replies.

  ‘Delicious,’ Dad says, chipping in, preventing the conversation from becoming any more loaded. ‘And lovely butter from Kviteseid, I see,’ he says, slathering a piece of cracker bread with it.

  ‘Watch yourself with that butter, Sverre,’ Mum says, and I watch as she immediately realises that she’s spoken out of habit. Her expression is the same as when they spoke in unison before, and she laughs disarmingly. ‘I imagine you still have slightly high blood pressure?’

  Dad looks momentarily annoyed, impatience flashing across his face, ready to say something until he smothers the desire with his next thought, turning to face Agnar instead.

  ‘Caught any good Pokémon lately?’ he asks.

  ‘I don’t do that any more, got bored,’ Agnar replies.

  Dad looks deflated and I feel for him, he seems so alone.

  Liv looks down at her plate. Håkon looks out of the window. Olaf glances at Liv every so often. I wonder if everyone around the table feels the way I do, as if someone has to shatter this smooth surface; I can’t imagine anyone other than Olaf and Hedda failing to pick up on the atmosphere.

  ‘Well, I’ve got some news, as it happens,’ Dad says. ‘I’m going to be retiring in January.’

  I hope it was Dad’s decision, that he hasn’t done it for Mum’s sake, in an attempt to save their marriage while she’s busy moving on.

  ‘Congratulations,’ Olaf replies, inquisitive. ‘What’s next on the cards for you?’

  No confrontation. Anticlimax! I texted Simen under the table during dessert. I’m not going to say anything if nobody else does, I had told him before leaving. But what are you hoping they might say? Simen asked. I fell silent. I don’t know what I want them to say, I just want someone to put something into words, to poke holes in this supposed normality that I feel like I’ve found myself stuck in. It needs to be talked about, I concluded, there’s so much left unsaid, it’s always there, under the surface, and that’s not how we are, I continued with vaguely ulterior motives. He nodded without taking the hint; it’s probably best if someone else starts that conversation, you don’t always have to be the one to take responsibility for things. Plus, if you don’t say anything, someone else will have to. He was wrong about that, though, none of the others appeared to feel compelled to make anything other than the most matter-of-course additions to the conversation. Any sign of conflict was quashed before it was fully articulated. If they weren’t my own family, I would have regarded the unspoken cooperation with great fascination, the way in which everyone played their own part in taking responsibility either for protecting or smoothing things over for someone else, who would do the same thing in turn during the next loaded silence, and so it went on – everyone has been saved and has saved someone else, it’s equal, and nobody could possibly feel that they’ve been walked all over or treated unfairly.

  Neither Mum nor Dad want to be the first to leave, thereby giving the other the opportunity to spend some time alone with the children and grandchildren. Perhaps I’m the only one to notice it, but the atmosphere between them is different now than it was when they announced their divorce. I don’t know what they agreed, what they hoped might happen or what the cooperation Mum had boasted about them being so capable of actually involved, other than the fact that they might be able to look after Agnar and Hedda together now and then.

  Eventually Håkon breaks things up, he has somewhere he needs to be, he says. In the past we would have fired a barrage of questions at him about who he was off to meet, but nobody dares tease him now, the atmosphere is so tense that it wouldn’t bear up under the pressure of any slip-ups such as Håkon’s frustration
in the face of any questions, not even mock frustration. He looks at Dad, who’s also standing up and bidding farewell to everyone, clearly preparing to drive Håkon wherever it is he’s going. Mum looks relieved, says she also has to go home and get to bed. Liv and I both look at the clock at the same time, it’s nine o’clock.

  ‘Do you think she’s off out to meet him now?’ Liv asks.

  We’re sitting on the steps that lead out into the garden at the back of the house, each wrapped in a blanket. We’ve brought the remainder of the bottle of wine out with us and we share a cigarette. Liv sits with her left hand to her ear, rubbing a finger around and down towards her earlobe, just as Dad does when he’s reading or doing his sudoku, holding the cigarette in her free hand. It’s been more than a year since I last had a cigarette and I feel immediately dizzy. Liv pulls out an ash tray from behind a flower pot, the contents of which suggest she’s smoked her way through at least fifty cigarettes in recent days, the ends still orange and fresh. I don’t mention it. This is a delicate situation in itself, Liv and I on the steps together, sitting just as we have done what must surely be a thousand times before, yet it feels entirely new and crucial all the same.

  ‘Perhaps,’ I say, glancing at her to gauge her reaction, trying to work out if she’s just as upset, but if so, she pulls herself together, seemingly calm. ‘Isn’t it a little odd that she only told Håkon about this Morten chap? I wonder if she expected him to tell us so she wouldn’t have to, or if she was actually trying to shield us from it,’ I continue.

  Liv takes a long drag on the cigarette. She nods.

  ‘Olaf has met someone too,’ she says all of a sudden.

  I’m caught completely off-guard. It can’t be possible, it would never have occurred to me. I’ve always considered their relationship to be static, unchanging, just like Mum and Dad’s, in fact – constant in a calm and safe and, quite honestly, very boring way. I turn to look up at the window, as if to check that Olaf is quite himself, and see him washing a saucepan at the kitchen sink. I feel a sudden urge to run inside, grab him by the throat and drown him in the sink.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I ask.

  ‘Well, not met, not like that,’ Liv begins. ‘He’s in love with another woman, someone from work,’ she continues, then starts to laugh. ‘Well, I think it’s a woman, at least, I haven’t actually asked.’

  ‘But what happened?’

  ‘Nothing’s happened,’ Liv says. ‘He’s just fallen in love.’

  ‘So, nothing’s happened between them?’ I ask.

  ‘No. Nothing other than the fact that I can clearly imagine the way he behaves around her.’

  I can’t imagine Olaf behaving in a way that demonstrates anything other than calm enchantment with Liv, and it’s almost embarrassing to picture him as miserably lovestruck.

  ‘Is she in love with him?’ I ask.

  ‘No, I don’t know. Neither does he, for that matter, he hasn’t spoken to her about it.’

  ‘So, he’s just told you he’s in love with one of his colleagues?’

  Liv nods, then takes a few large swigs of wine. How stupid is it possible to be? I think to myself about Olaf. And egotistical. And clichéd.

  ‘But,’ I begin, then pause, feeling the need to weigh up my words to ensure that Liv can’t write off my question as a mark of my lack of experience and shy away once again from showing this level of confidence and trust in me, an experience that makes me so happy, in spite of everything. ‘Why?’

  ‘Why what?’ Liv asks.

  ‘Why did he tell you if there’s nothing more to it than that?’

  ‘Probably because he wants to be honest,’ Liv replies. ‘Or perhaps to provoke a reaction. To threaten me, maybe.’

  ‘Why would he want to threaten you?’

  ‘To make me pull myself together, to show me the consequences of my actions.’

  ‘What actions?’

  I no longer care if Liv thinks me childish and inexperienced, it’s probably true, anyway, I just want to understand what’s going on, I don’t know what’s happened between Liv and Olaf and I’m scared by how little I know, how different and unpredictable everything is, the fact that Liv hasn’t called me to tell me about this, that she’s relaying it to me now in such a controlled, filtered fashion, pulling herself together for my benefit.

  ‘The way I’ve been acting,’ she says. ‘I haven’t been functioning properly for the past six months, I feel like everything’s falling apart, myself and my marriage included, even though it’s actually Mum and Dad’s marriage that’s gone to pot. I don’t know why I’m so affected when you and Håkon are so untouched by it, I’ve been so childish, so childish, it’s just…’

  She stops. Shrugs. Takes a puff of her third cigarette.

  You’re not childish, Liv, it’s me who’s been self-centred. That’s what I should have said, I think to myself now, on my way to work a few days later. I couldn’t bring myself to say much more at the time, and we had sat there in silence for a short while before I’d asked if she wanted me to beat him up for her, at which point she laughed and said, but he hasn’t done anything wrong, Ellen, things aren’t that black and white. She brushed cigarette ash off the step beside her, mulled over something that she chose not to share with me after I’d killed the conversation with my stupid attempt at a joke, and then she smiled at me as she stood up. It’s too cold to sit outside, you’ll end up with cystitis, she said. Come on, let’s go in and see if Olaf has any more wine for us.

  I had another glass of wine at the kitchen table with Olaf and Liv, feeling upset when I saw his arm draped over the back of her chair, the apparent normality of the situation. On one hand I wanted to cry out to him to pack up his things and go to hell, and on the other hand I wanted to implore him to stay with her. I’m still torn: my instinct to protect her made me want to scratch his eyes out, to defend Liv against every disloyal thought to have crossed his mind, yet the self-centred part of me couldn’t bear the idea of a break-up, the changes and all of the turmoil it would bring.

  Christmas is fast approaching; Oslo is dark and without a hint of snow to speak of, the glittering imitation stars and Christmas bells hanging over Karl Johans gate appear misplaced. Anything resembling Christmas spirit is long gone now, my friends complain, referring to the childlike sense of anticipation and joy that only ever emerge in momentary flickers of nostalgia. The only natural continuation of any so-called Christmas spirit comes in the attempt to recreate the same feeling in one’s own children. Over the past few years, celebrating Christmas as an adult without children has been a void that I’ve filled with work and few thoughts of the festive season beyond the family traditions that I’ve come to take for granted.

  I’d have given a lot this year to sink into the same stable pattern of events that once inspired a restless longing to escape, the predictability of everything being done in the same way, year after year. I was actually supposed to celebrate Christmas with Simen and his family this year, but after Mum sent a message yesterday hijacking Christmas Eve, writing that it would be held at hers, I told Simen that it would be impossible to leave the others in the lurch this year of all years. We’re having Christmas Eve at mine this year, she wrote. I sent a message to Liv to see if she knew if Dad would be coming too, happy to have an excuse to get in touch with her, continuing our cautious return to normality. She still hasn’t replied, and perhaps it was inconsiderate of me to message her when she probably has enough on her plate. Simen almost seemed relieved to hear that I’d have to spend this year with Mum, and for the second time in three days he said it wouldn’t be a disaster for us to do our own things. I couldn’t tell him that wasn’t what I’d meant, that actually I’d meant that he and I should both go to Mum’s together. But we’re not a family, there’s no reason to pretend, Simen’s relieved body language seemed to tell me, and I couldn’t muster the energy to object.

  A politician is sitting outside the office, waiting. I’ve no recollection of having arranged
a meeting today. I check the calendar on my phone and there’s nothing in today’s square other than a large, red P. In November last year I signed up to a fertility calendar that would inform me where I was in my cycle. I haven’t made a note of any meeting; I can’t even remember what it might be about. Rikke, who I employed last year, comes to my rescue. She’s twenty-six years old with two master’s degrees, and had applied for numerous positions before ending up with us.

  ‘So, you’re ready for a debate, I take it?’ she says to the politician.

  ‘Well, we’ll see about that,’ he replies, and I remember then that we’re going to be coaching him and devising a strategy for a television debate.

  I let Rikke take charge.

  ‘The most important thing is that you feel in control, don’t let anyone else take the lead. You need to own the situation, not the other way around,’ Rikke says.

  In the middle of December, Mum is admitted to hospital with chest pains. Liv called me in the middle of a presentation I was holding at the university; I always leave my phone in front of me on the lectern so I can check the time as I go. I still hadn’t heard back from her about Christmas, and I thought that might be what she was calling about, so I turned the phone over to hide the screen and finished my presentation. When I called her back, she was on her way to Ullevål Hospital. She didn’t know anything other than the fact that Mum had been taken there in an ambulance, that’s what Dad had told her. How did Dad know? I asked. I don’t know, Ellen, but that’s hardly the most important thing now, Liv said, and it was only then that it hit me that something might be seriously wrong.