Read Online Encircling by Carl Frode Tiller - Free Book Online Page B

force them across the lawn. Then I hear their voices, hear Mum’s laughter and Eskil’s loud, domineering voice, jolly and animated. Sounds like they’re having fun. Mum laughs again and Eskil laughs, gives his booming laugh. And now I hear Hilde laugh too. All three of them are sitting there laughing, and here Iam, about to walk in and ruin everything again, about to kill the mood. A moment, and then it hits me, because it’s true, not just something I’m saying so I can wallow in self-pity, it’s actually true. I stop dead, swallow, stand perfectly still. I’m bleeding inside, the urge to turn around grows and I feel more and more like just doing a runner, getting out of there, but I can’t, they might think I’d drowned or something, they might organize a search party and all that, you never know, better take off straight after dinner, drive over to the cottage, or maybe to Wenche’s. Don’t feel like seeing Wenche either, but it would be better than staying here. I shut my eyes and open them again, force my feet round the corner of the house and up to the veranda. They’re all smoking, Mum with her roll-up, Eskil and Hilde with their Marlboros. As soon as they see me they fall silent, the laughter dissolves and dies away, only for a second and then it’s as if they realize that this is precisely what has happened and they try to pick up where they left off, chuckle and make a few desultory remarks so it won’t be too awkward, try to sort of gloss over it.
    “I don’t know where you get it all from,” Mum says to Eskil, she never tires of saying this, it seems. I look at her, she shakes her head as she leans forward and stubs out her cigarette, ventures another little laugh. She acts like it’s no big deal, me coming back like this, but it doesn’t quite work, she’s uncomfortable, I can tell by her face.
    One beat, then everyone turns to look at me, all casual like.
    “Ah, you’re back,” Eskil says.
    “Yes,” I say. “And just when you were having such a nice time,” I add. I feel a pang of remorse as soon as I’ve said it – I was only saying what they were all thinking – but still,I shouldn’t have said it, it just came out. There’s silence. I keep my eyes on the floor as I walk over, aching more and more inside, bleeding. I try to smile, to look as if I don’t care, but don’t quite manage it, smile this agonized smile, a grim smile. Raise my eyes as I pull up the empty patio chair, see Mum give her wan smile, trying to appear plucky and long-suffering again. A moment, then she gets up.
    “Oh, well,” she says, groaning softly and putting a hand to her back as she straightens up. “I’d better see if dinner’s ready,” she says, then she slips past me, not even looking at me.
    Silence again.
    “Well,” Eskil says, blowing cigarette smoke down his nose, then pausing for a moment. “So, how was the water?”
    “Not bad,” I say, trying to hold his gaze, trying to look confident, but not quite managing it.
    “Where did you swim?”
    “Off the beach.”
    He nods, says nothing for a moment. Then: “That’s where you pulled the shorts off me,” he says.
    I look at him, puzzled. What the hell’s he on about, it was him that pulled the shorts off me, not the other way round.
    “Did I ever tell you about that?” he asks, turning to Hilde and nodding at me. “Packed beach, and this little bugger goes and pulls the shorts off me. Some of the girls from my class were there and all, Christ, I was mortified,” he says, turns and looks at me again. One beat. Then suddenly it dawns on me what he’s up to, he’s trying to lend me some of his own traits now, giving me the starring role in one of his countless stories about himself, hoping to make me feel better. This is his way of boasting about me, his way of saving the situation.
    “Do you remember?” he asks.
    “No, I don’t remember,” I say, looking at him, holding his gaze for a second, trying to show him that I know