It's Fine By Me (16 page)

‘Oh. Jesus!’ The manager sees all the blood and says Jesus again. Then he looks at me.

‘What happened to you? Your ear is bleeding.’ I touch my earlobe, and there is blood on my fingers.

‘The spatula knife,’ I say.

‘The spatula?’ Then it dawns on him. ‘So where the hell were you standing?’

‘By the stacker.’ Everyone looks back at the belt. In the wall behind the half-filled pallet is Elk’s spatula knife, centimetres into the plaster.

‘Oh, Jesus,’ the foreman says. ‘You could have had your skull sliced in two!’ He runs his hand through the hair he has left and leaves the concourse smoking nervously and goes up to the office where he spends most of the day flicking through pornographic magazines.

We wash off the blood, remove the ripped rubber blanket and stretch a new one around the drum, and we can go home.

In the cloakroom, the ever-hip Trond says: ‘At least I’m no longer the only one here with a pierced ear.’

The next day Trond calls me over. He is behind the press cleaning up. We have finished the print run and have to wash everything down before we start afresh.

‘Just look there,’ he says.

In the water tank, Elk’s fingers are floating. They are swollen and look like big snails. I throw up straight into the tank. The foreman, who is doing his inspection tour has recovered well from yesterday’s ordeal and says:

‘You’ll have to clean that up yourself, Sletten!’ And I have to wash the tank and remove my vomit and Elk’s three fingers.

‘I don’t want to watch this,’ Trond says, making himself scarce. I don’t really know what to do with the fingers. In the end I wrap them in some waste paper and throw them in the rubbish container. And then I go to the toilet and throw up once more.

It’s dark on my way home from the late shift. No one lives in this area. Along the road down to the Metro station there are nothing but factories and warehouses, and in a few offices the lights are still on. The old street lamps are hanging on rotting posts and swing in the wind and creak in their rusting metal holders, and most of them are smashed anyway. I am walking alone. There is no one else going my way that I feel like talking to. Trond lives in Lørenskog, and he has a car and all, and besides, I have fallen out with plenty of people.

The early winter gloom devours everything. Litter blows down the gravel road, through the grey I can see the white of it rolling along the ditches, and it’s so quiet I can hear the rustle and the echo of my footsteps. Beneath the railway bridge it is totally dark, but then I see the lights from the Metro station, so I walk the last stretch a little faster. I pay at the barrier where a sleepy ticket collector sits reading the magazine I work on every day. He could have saved himself the trouble, it won’t make him any smarter. Down the steps I can hear my heart beating.

The train arrives on schedule. Inside the carriage I try to read, but I am tired, and before I am even able to concentrate, I see Linderud station disappearing behind me, so I just have to put the book in my bag.

I am the only person to get off at Veitvet. There is a hollow echo between the concrete walls on my way down the stairs, and another sleepy ticket collector is sitting at the barrier reading the same magazine. Perhaps Oslo Transport Company buys up remaindered copies, hell, I don’t know, but I am about to drop a remark. I decide not to. It’s half-past eleven, and my whole body is aching. When I close my eyes, I can see the fingers in the tank.

I go out through the glass door by the Narvesen kiosk, and as I’m about to start down the steps to Veitvetveien, someone behind me shouts softly.

‘Hi, Audun!’ I turn. And there are Dole and Willy plus two others. Dole is smiling. I am a dead man. Quickly and quietly they spread out: they know how to do this, they have seen it in films, and there is no point trying to escape. I rest the bag against the railings. This is the moment I have to rise out of myself and become someone else: Martin Eden or Jean-Paul Belmondo or Albert Finney in
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
. I too have seen the films. It will be all right. Arvid and I used to talk about it, it’s the only way to keep your dignity. Or else they own you. I smile at Dole and splay my hands.

‘Out late?’ I say. He smiles back, There’s one thing we both know: I am finished. And then the film unravels. A man in dark clothes comes skulking along the walls from the shopping centre. Geir’s bar has just closed, and he is
not too steady on his feet, but still he can probably make it wherever he wants to go. I don’t know if it’s him, his face is shrouded in the darkness by the station, and I am not used to seeing him here among the houses and streets and shopping centres, but it looks like his walk, and as he slips by, I say to Dole:

‘Just wait a moment!’ and take a few steps after the man and shout: ‘Hey, you! Stop,’ although I am not really sure I want him to stop. But anyway, he doesn’t stop. I am about to run after him, and his back melts into the shadows up towards Trondhjemsveien and the woods on the other side, and Dole leaps out and blocks my way.

‘That was a new one,’ he says, ‘but it won’t fuckin’ work, Audun, you’re goin’ nowhere.’ And then he lashes out. I am not prepared for it, my guard isn’t up yet, and he hits me in the mouth. I am about to shout ‘Wait!’ but it hurts so much the word doesn’t reach my lips, and they are all over me, the four of them, punching and kicking, and I get my beating, with no dignity, Martin Eden and Albert Finney are over the hills and long gone. Finally, I am on the asphalt and all I can do is protect my face. Dole gives me a last kick and says:

‘Goodnight, Audun,’ and clatters down the stairs with the others. I hear Willy’s laughter, and then they are gone.

I am not sure I’m able to stand up. There is a smell of dust and beer and tarmac. I lick my lips. I can’t feel my mouth, but it tastes of blood. It hurts to breathe, I cough and the pain shoots across my ribcage. Dole’s last kick was vicious.
I lift myself up, I can just about do it, my arms stiff and sore, and finally I get on my feet. Straight ahead is the sign for the bowling alley. It’s dark inside, but the sign is luminous. I look towards the stairs. There is my bag. I walk slowly over and pick it up. It’s painful. I can hardly bend down. I look around. Everything is quiet by the Metro. If anyone saw what happened, they have legged it. I look in through the station windows. The ticket collector is hunched over a crossword. He is deaf and blind. How he can even see that crossword is beyond me. He can go to hell.

I can’t go home like this. My mother will be hysterical and start fussing and ask me all kinds of questions. I don’t think I can face it. I hold the bag close to my chest and spit. There is a red spot on the asphalt. I put my hand to my mouth, and I can feel how my upper lip is split. I need help for this. Very slowly I walk round the shopping centre, past the rear entrance to Geir’s bar and down past the youth club and the post office. If I keep my back straight, my chest doesn’t hurt so much.

‘Anything comes up, you know where I live,’ old Abrahamsen said. He lives at the far end of Veitvetsvingen in a three-room terraced house. I take him at his word. I don’t know where else to go. I could go to Arvid’s, but I have hardly seen him the last month, and I would feel awkward.

I come to the bend in the road. There are cars parked the whole way down. People have more cars than they used to. I cough as gently as I can and ring the bell of the last house. When the bell stops ringing, it is dead quiet. I turn to see if anyone is standing there gawping, but there is no
one about. I have two holes in my trousers, one on each knee, and there’s only one button left on my jacket. A noise comes from behind the door, and then it opens and old Abrahamsen peers out. He’s in his underwear. Of course he is, it’s late. I check my watch, but it’s broken and stopped at ten to twelve.

‘I’ll be damned, it’s that boy.’ He smiles. I try to smile back, but I cannot: moving my lips hurts too much. He opens the door and the light streams out from the hall. I close my eyes.

‘For fuck’s sake, Audun, what’s this you look like? Get yourself in here.’ I squint and try, but I can’t move my left leg up his steps. It has gone all stiff. He comes outside and supports my arm, and I limp indoors. I have never been to his place before. I had pictured an old man’s flat with an oilcloth on the table, elks in the sunset, discoloured wall lamps and unwashed, brown coffee mugs. But the walls are freshly painted and covered with framed pictures and photographs and the kitchen is spotless. In the living room there are several paintings and two bookshelves, and there is a zebra skin hanging on the longest wall. There is not one picture of anything in Norway. He sees what I am looking at and says:

‘I was a seaman. You didn’t know, did you? Can you manage to take your clothes off?’ I nod. I can if I have to.

‘You need to take a shower to see what’s what.’ I nod again and start to undress. The jacket and the shirt I can do, but I can’t do the trousers, it feels like my ribs crack when I bend down. I look at him and shrug and shake my head.

‘If it’s fine with you, I can do it,’ he says, and I nod. It’s
fine with me. And old Abrahamsen kneels down and pulls off my jeans and boots. His hair has gone grey, but it’s all there, the sinewy arms in the vest work at my laces, he is quick and his muscles ripple, it looks good, and I think: to look like that when you’re past sixty.

He pushes me gently towards the bathroom. I stop him, I want to tell him something, but it’s too difficult, it turns to mush in my mouth, and I make a sign with my hand. He goes to fetch paper and a pencil. I write: ‘Could you please call my mother and tell her not to worry?’ And I add the telephone number.

‘I’ll sort that out, Audun. You take that shower.’

I do. The water is lukewarm and pleasant. It runs red down my stomach and on to the white, painted cement floor, like a rusty snake coiling, and then tapers down the drain. Carefully I dry myself and look into the mirror. Jesus Christ.

He knocks on the door and comes in with plasters and iodine in a little bottle. He stands watching me, shaking his head.

‘How do you feel?’ he says.

‘It hurts.’

‘A lot?’

I nod. He opens the bottle, cleans the wounds with some cotton wool and puts on the plasters. I stand quite still with my eyes closed. Once, by mistake, his elbow touches my ribs. I groan. He presses his finger softly in a few places. I groan again.

‘A couple of broken ribs would be my guess,’ he says, ‘it hurts, but it’s no disaster. Well, this is as much as I can do.
I’m not sure about your lip, though. You’ll need to go to casualty with that.’ He tilts his head and smiles.

‘I remember one time I looked a bit like you do now. I was about your age too. It was in Hull, that was, a few years after the First World War. I had signed on a freight vessel. A Dane beat me up, I didn’t stand a chance. He was two metres of muscle from Hirtshals. We became friends later on. We’d had a pint too many, that’s all. You know, I could tell you some things about Hull. It was a great place. Not many people liked it, but I did. And here’s me telling stories. You need some clothes.’

He goes out and rummages around in a wardrobe and returns with a worn, grey suit, measures me up with one eye pinched and helps me on with the trousers. The suit fits and feels good. It’s clean.

‘That’s it, you have to look presentable in casualty, otherwise they won’t treat you properly.’ He rings for a taxi and puts on a jumper, jacket and shoes. He is going with me.

In the taxi down Trondhjemsveien, I huddle in the corner of the back seat. I feel better now, the engine hums and ticks over like a taxi should. I could have gone to sleep had it not been for my aching mouth and chest. I close my eyes and then old Abrahamsen says:

‘I don’t have to tell you, Audun, you know for yourself. You’re eighteen years old. It’s a tricky time. There’s so much going on, and later some say it was the best time they ever had, and some say it was the worst, and they’re both right. People live different lives. People
are
different. Some get the cream, always, oh, I’ve seen them. But one thing is certain: at some point everything changes. You’re not
eighteen all your life. That may not be much of a consolation, but take a hint from someone who’s on the outside looking in: you’ll get through this. I’m dead sure.’

The doctor is tired and irritable. The first thing he says:

‘Is this your doing?’ looking old Abrahamsen in the eye.

‘Thanks for the compliment. Could I have done all that to such a strong fellow without a single scratch in return? Thank you very much!’ He bows, and the doctor is even more irritable. He tells me to get on the table, where I lie flat and he shines a lamp in my face and leans over me. There are black rings under his eyes and he needs a shave.

‘Right,’ he says, ‘you have a choice. I can either stitch you up without an anaesthetic and it will heal just fine, or you can have an injection, and you’ll look into the mirror three weeks from now wondering where you got the hare lip.’ He talks like James Cagney, if Cagney had spoken Norwegian, there is a touch of American movie about the room, and it isn’t much of a choice.

‘No anaethedic,’ I say.

When he has finished he puts a big plaster over the cut, giving me a snub nose, he winds a bandage round my chest, and to his back I say ‘Thank you very much’.

‘OK, next,’ he shouts through the door, and we go down the corridor, past reception and on through the double doors to the square in front and look for a taxi. I am dizzy with fatigue and pain, and in the car I say the only right thing.

‘Tell me bou Hull.’

Old Abrahamsen smiles and tells me about Hull. About sailing down the Humber past fishing boats bow to stern all the way from Grimsby, and the old paddle steamer carrying passengers to and fro across the Humber and the old wooden wharves that must be long gone by now, but they smelt of fish and tar, reeking of a hundred years of sweat and toil when the sun was out, and quiet Sundays in Pearson Park where old men in white shirts and braces played bowls in the shade under the trees, the measured strides of men past seventy and the far-off clicks when the wooden bowls collided. It was so quiet you could hear your watch tick and your heart beat. And old Abrahamsen was young and lay on the grass kissing Mona O’Finley from Dublin. Her father had fled Ireland after 1916 and settled in 14 Pendrill Street, a grey house in a row of grey houses, off Beverley Road heading east. Oh, he liked Hull all right, there was not much of an upper class there, and on some days all you could hear around the harbour was Danish and Norwegian. And if talking to your neighbours was not what you fancied, you could go and have a pint at the Polar Bear, the finest pub in the world, where men in faded blue clothes were discussing trade union politics and poetry.