See You Tomorrow by Tore Renberg

Author:Tore Renberg [Tore Renberg]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781909807822
Publisher: Arcadia Books Limited
Published: 2014-10-30T16:00:00+00:00

54. YOU NEED TO BREATHE EASY (Sandra)

She walks by the clothes racks with her hand out, her fingers running along the material of garment after garment.

The light in Hennes & Mauritz is cold and glaring; she’s been there a half-hour without really looking at one single article of clothing. Other customers have come in, the clock has ticked, past five o’clock, getting on for six, work and school are finished, outside the sun is sinking on the horizon, the afternoon is slipping into evening.

She’s had to stop several times and draw breath, close her eyes and swallow so as not to burst out crying. If this is love, she doesn’t understand what it wants with her. She thought love would make her feel good. But what it’s doing is dishing out pain, rending and tearing at her and thrusting her into something unknown and dangerous.

We were supposed to be good to one another, Daniel.

Sandra holds an ocean-blue headscarf between her fingers. She can’t remember having picked it out to look at. Blue, her mother always says, blue suits you, Sandra, nice colour on you, brings out your eyes.

She pays. 69.50. She goes out of the shop and down the escalators, out into the fading light on Domkirkeplassen, the square in front of the cathedral. A normal day in Stavanger. Market traders selling fruit and vegetables, a thin man with a hot-dog stand at the entrance to the SR-Bank chatting with passers-by, a beggar wearing a shawl, a 7-Eleven cup in her hands, sitting cross-legged in Laugmannsgaten, and over by ‘Ting’, a junkie in light-coloured jeans and a tracksuit top selling Asfalt.

Sandra notices daily life around her, but doesn’t take it in. She feels small, she feels afraid. She keeps her eyes lowered, tightens her grip on her H&M bag, enters Arneageren Square, without looking at anyone and steering clear of the teenagers sitting outside Kulturhuset; she opens the door to McDonald’s.

Sandra hopes Malene comes soon, because right now she needs a friend. She’s taken out her mobile a thousand times and begun writing a text to Daniel, a thousand times she’s pulled his number up on the screen to ring it.

Dear, precious, Daniel. Nothing matters, nothing apart from you and me.

Daniel, you’re everything to me. I love you.

She hasn’t sent either message. She doesn’t like what she has written. Is this how it is? Does love bring out all the pain inside people? Is that love’s secret, the one the Bible doesn’t dare talk about? Maybe this is what every grown-up knows, but avoids saying to their children. Maybe that’s why all grown-ups have something of an ash-grey look in their eyes. Because they know that love is the same as pain.

Sandra orders a cheeseburger and a coke. She sits down with her back against the wall, sets the tray on the table in front of her. She takes a sip of her drink, but can’t taste anything. She lifts up the cheeseburger, brings it to her mouth, takes a bite, not good.

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