Beyond the Truth by Anne Holt

Author:Anne Holt
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Atlantic Books
Published: 2016-07-21T04:00:00+00:00

The prostitutes never turned up. Mary had delayed dinner by an hour and a half and phoned four different cellphone numbers without obtaining any answer anywhere. In the end she had heaved a deep sigh and kept up a continuous litany of complaint, as if it had been her own children who had let her down. Her mood improved when all the others were seated at the table, wide-eyed, and the food was praised resoundingly.

By around nine o’clock the spacious living room was an absolute riot of Christmas wrapping paper and snacks, half-filled glasses and soft-drink bottles, games, clothes, and books. Mary had unwillingly agreed to turn off all the power-operated decorations before they ate. Now the children were pestering to have them switched on again, but Mary had succumbed to a bribe of a carton of cigarettes and insisted that Father Christmas in the corner had gone to sleep for the night. He was tired out, you see, and they ought to allow him a little break from all the commotion. Billy T. crawled around the floor with Jenny on his back. The four-year-old, dressed in a far-too-large pair of bright-red pajamas, was waving a Barbie doll about.

“Present from Daddy,” she yelled in delight, kissing the Muslim Barbie’s burka.

Billy T. bumped past Hanne’s chair while trying to make camel noises. The look he gave her was brimming with gratitude. Hanne merely smiled and shrugged slightly. She had checked the contents of the bag he had brought last Sunday. As she thought, it had contained no gifts from Billy T. to his wife and daughter. Probably he had shelled out all his money on presents for his sons. Hanne had bought an Afghani Barbie and a miniature doll’s house for the little girl, and a deep-red cashmere sweater for Tone-Marit. To crown it all, she had tricked Billy T. out to the bathroom during the commotion before dinner and made him write gift cards in his own handwriting, to avoid being exposed.

Håkon and Karen’s children were busy assembling a racetrack. Håkon, slightly tipsy, was sitting rosy-cheeked on the settee with his son’s Game Boy, while Karen, Tone-Marit, and Mary played Scrabble at the newly cleared dining table.

“You can’t write that,” Karen said, laughing. “‘Gooday’ … it should be ‘good day’. Two words, and not written like that.”

“Do you say ‘good day’?” Mary asked peevishly, creating a dramatic pause between the words, with an emphasis on the “d” in good. “Does anybody say it like that?”

“No, but—”

“Let her write ‘gooday’,” Tone-Marit said. “We can surely have slightly different rules for Mary.”

“Different rules, no!”

Furious, Mary threw the letters away.

“I don’t need different rules, you know! I don’t want special treatment, no I don’t!”

“Scrabble might not be quite the best game for you,” Hanne said. “Shall we go and do the washing-up, you and I?”

The doorbell rang.

At first no one really paid any attention. Then Tone-Marit looked in surprise at Nefis. Karen inclined her head.

“Are you expecting someone? Now?”

She glanced at the clock.

“No,” Nefis said, taken aback.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.