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Authors: Tom McCulloch
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Flashbacks in the heat. Naples. Summer of â02, working the roads for the mafia gangs. A similar clinging dust, jackhammers still ringing as he tried to sleep in that broiling shack. And the Italians were always pissed off about something. The English were much quieter.
Apart from Boss Hogg. A big-bellied cowboy in a white hard hat. Move your delicate arse and move it now , back into that hard sun, the ring road a tightening noose and the traffic stunning. In Norway you could drive miles without meeting another car. Here, the busier the road the faster the drivers, hair trigger primed when forced to slow down. Jonas couldnât imagine a Norwegian opening a conversation with an account of the route taken and why, the other options, that swine of a junction twelve bottleneck. All these lives boxed in hot metal.
He stuck to boats. Canal barges on the heat-hazed river that curved under the road bridge, half a mile downhill from the fix site. A rhythm locked on, a shovel of tar and a glance at the river, the hard sun glinting, broken, white mirrors on the black roofs of the moored boats.
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He had lunch down there. Slumber-time by the moving stillness, feet in the water and eyes closed. When he opened them years had passed, a rowing boat on the far bank and two kids dangling bow lines. Letâs call them Jonas and Axel. Big Haakon keeping a wary eye, a benevolent giant.
Haakon was the first to take them out on the water, Jonasâs dad interested only in his golf handicap and Axelâs in the ice hockey he excelled at before the booze. They once tried to settle on one word that summed up what their fathers thought of them. It took a while.
Bothersome.
Haakon taught them about fishing with the same easy patience he taught them about plants and trees. Simple things like telling a mackerel from a herring by the patterns on their backs, hookless techniques like worm-blobs for catching eels, more scientific stuff like image refraction . Always kneel when youâre fishing. Remember to keep your shadow off the water.
Axel chose Big Haakonâs rowing boat as the getaway vessel when he ran away. Haakon said nothing but knew he was camping wild on the forested island on the other side of the point.
Aegirâs Isle. They named it after the Norse god of the sea. For three nights Jonas sneaked out, Axel rowing across to get him. They sat by the fire, eating tinned sardines and honing the design of the hut that would let them live there permanently. It was easy to believe, back then, that freedom was as simple as choosing it. No one had told them about dreams, all those faces, like a series of last visits and who knows when the Big Black would finally fall.
A coot shrieked. Jonas flinched and watched the moorhen flee. The rowing boat boys pulled up their lines. Two crayfish they smashed on the gunwale. He couldnât hold back the traffic, the noose, tighter and louder. He heard the storm and saw the night ferry again, Larvik to Hirtshals, Eva and Anya and a hollowness in his gut. The sun dimmed and he shivered.
It was unsettling how something which never happened somehow persisted as dark patches on memoryâs big canvas, so that nothing remembered was certain, not even the jewels hidden away and protected so closely.
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âBergen?â
âYes,â said Jonas.
âI remember Bergen.â
âIt must have been different then.â
âWho knows, Iâve never been back. Might not have changed a bit. Those houses by the harbour, ancient they were. Maybe the place hasnât changed in hundreds of years. Certainly seemed like that when the night-lights were on. Reflections on the water. Nothing like it, Jonas.â
âI remember it well.â
âIf you remember it then what are you doing here?â
âI could ask the same.â
But Jonas never did. To know the end of the story was to end its telling, and the telling was the reason he sought out old Sam tonight as
Apart from Boss Hogg. A big-bellied cowboy in a white hard hat. Move your delicate arse and move it now , back into that hard sun, the ring road a tightening noose and the traffic stunning. In Norway you could drive miles without meeting another car. Here, the busier the road the faster the drivers, hair trigger primed when forced to slow down. Jonas couldnât imagine a Norwegian opening a conversation with an account of the route taken and why, the other options, that swine of a junction twelve bottleneck. All these lives boxed in hot metal.
He stuck to boats. Canal barges on the heat-hazed river that curved under the road bridge, half a mile downhill from the fix site. A rhythm locked on, a shovel of tar and a glance at the river, the hard sun glinting, broken, white mirrors on the black roofs of the moored boats.
Â
He had lunch down there. Slumber-time by the moving stillness, feet in the water and eyes closed. When he opened them years had passed, a rowing boat on the far bank and two kids dangling bow lines. Letâs call them Jonas and Axel. Big Haakon keeping a wary eye, a benevolent giant.
Haakon was the first to take them out on the water, Jonasâs dad interested only in his golf handicap and Axelâs in the ice hockey he excelled at before the booze. They once tried to settle on one word that summed up what their fathers thought of them. It took a while.
Bothersome.
Haakon taught them about fishing with the same easy patience he taught them about plants and trees. Simple things like telling a mackerel from a herring by the patterns on their backs, hookless techniques like worm-blobs for catching eels, more scientific stuff like image refraction . Always kneel when youâre fishing. Remember to keep your shadow off the water.
Axel chose Big Haakonâs rowing boat as the getaway vessel when he ran away. Haakon said nothing but knew he was camping wild on the forested island on the other side of the point.
Aegirâs Isle. They named it after the Norse god of the sea. For three nights Jonas sneaked out, Axel rowing across to get him. They sat by the fire, eating tinned sardines and honing the design of the hut that would let them live there permanently. It was easy to believe, back then, that freedom was as simple as choosing it. No one had told them about dreams, all those faces, like a series of last visits and who knows when the Big Black would finally fall.
A coot shrieked. Jonas flinched and watched the moorhen flee. The rowing boat boys pulled up their lines. Two crayfish they smashed on the gunwale. He couldnât hold back the traffic, the noose, tighter and louder. He heard the storm and saw the night ferry again, Larvik to Hirtshals, Eva and Anya and a hollowness in his gut. The sun dimmed and he shivered.
It was unsettling how something which never happened somehow persisted as dark patches on memoryâs big canvas, so that nothing remembered was certain, not even the jewels hidden away and protected so closely.
Â
âBergen?â
âYes,â said Jonas.
âI remember Bergen.â
âIt must have been different then.â
âWho knows, Iâve never been back. Might not have changed a bit. Those houses by the harbour, ancient they were. Maybe the place hasnât changed in hundreds of years. Certainly seemed like that when the night-lights were on. Reflections on the water. Nothing like it, Jonas.â
âI remember it well.â
âIf you remember it then what are you doing here?â
âI could ask the same.â
But Jonas never did. To know the end of the story was to end its telling, and the telling was the reason he sought out old Sam tonight as
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