Burned

He has given it plenty of thought and come to the conclusion that if she wants to drink herself to death, then far be it from him to stop her. She seemed only mildly interested when he got married, attended Jonas’s christening for less than an hour. She didn’t even cry when Jonas died, though she turned up for his funeral. She was one of the last mourners to arrive and she didn’t sit at the front with the rest of the family; she stood at the back and left the church as soon as the service had ended. Not even when Henning was a patient at Haukeland Hospital, in the Burns Unit, did she visit him or call to ask how he was. When he was transferred to Sunnaas Rehabilitation Centre, she visited only twice and never stayed for more than thirty minutes. She barely looked at him, hardly said a word.

Liqueur, Marlboro Lights and gossip magazines.

He feels he can’t deny her these pleasures, the only three she has left, at the age of sixty-two. She barely eats, though he stocks up her fridge at regular intervals. He tries to vary her diet, get her to eat some protein, calcium, essential nutrients, but she has very little appetite.

Every now and then, he cooks for her and sits at the small kitchen table while they have dinner. They don’t speak. They just eat and listen to the radio. Henning likes listening to the radio. Especially when he is with his mother.

He doesn’t know why she is so angry with him, but it’s probably because he hasn’t made something of himself, unlike his sister — Trine Juul-Osmundsen, who is Norway’s Minister for Justice. She seems to be making quite a name for herself. She is well liked, even by the police. But he only knows that because his mother told him.

He isn’t in touch with his sister. That’s how she wants it. He stopped trying long ago. He isn’t sure how they ended up like this, but at some point in their lives, Trine stopped talking to him. She left home when she turned eighteen and never came back, not even for Christmas. But she wrote; to her mother, never to him. He wasn’t even invited to her wedding.

The Juul family. Not exactly a happy one. But it’s the only one he has.

Chapter 17

He looks at the piano. It stands up against the wall. He used to love playing it, but he doesn’t know if he still can. It has nothing to do with his hands. His fingers work fine, despite the scars.

He recalls the night Nora told him she was pregnant. It was shortly after their wedding and it was a planned pregnancy, but they had heard about many couples who had tried for years without success. Henning and Nora, however, fell pregnant at their first attempt. Bull’s-eye.

He was working on a story when Nora came into his study. He could tell from her face that something had happened. She was nervous, but excited. Brimming with fear and awe of what they had started, the responsibility they were taking on.

I’m pregnant, Henning.

He recalls her voice. Cautious, trembling. The smile, which soon spread across her face before giving way to an uncertainty he couldn’t help but love. He got up, embraced her, kissed her.

Christ, how he had kissed her.

Nora was just over seven weeks pregnant that evening. He remembers her going to bed early because she felt nauseous. He sat alone for a long time, thinking, listening to the silence in the flat. Then he sat down at the piano. At the time, he was working very hard and he hadn’t played for ages. But it is always the same when he sits down at the keyboard after a long break. Everything he plays sounds fine.

That evening, he composed possibly the finest song he has ever written. He woke Nora up and dragged her out of bed to play it to her. Nauseous and magnificent, she stood behind him as his fingers caressed the black and white keys. The tune was soft and melancholic.

Nora rested her hands on his shoulders, bent down and hugged him from behind. Henning called the song ‘Little Friend’. Once Jonas was born, he often played it to him. Jonas liked to hear it in the evening, before going to bed. Henning wrote the lyrics too, but he is bad at writing lyrics, so he tended to hum along, mostly.

He should have played ‘Little Friend’ at the funeral, but he was in a wheelchair, encased in plaster and bandages. A friend could have played it, obviously, but it wouldn’t have been the same. It should have been him.

Henning hummed while the vicar spoke. He hasn’t hummed since.

*