The Ringmaster's Daughter Part 4

I didn't forget my mother, she would never be forgotten, but I liked having the flat to myself. Few people of my age had a flat of their own.

For a while I had no one to accompany me to the theatre or cinema, and that was something I missed, but soon I began to invite girls out. I didn't feel shy about it, I had no trouble in going up to a strange girl in the schoolyard and asking her out to a film or a theatre. Sometimes I met girls on the bus or in the shops, or in the centre of town. I felt it was better to ask a stranger out than to approach one of girls in my cla.s.s.

Asking a girl in my cla.s.s could easily be misunderstood and, in addition, it required a certain amount of following up.

Even though I didn't know the girl I was inviting out, her appearance always gave me some clue as to what she was like, and I could take a guess at how old she was, too.

It was easy to get talking to girls, and I was rarely turned down. They laughed, but from the manner in which I put the question, they didn't think it the slightest bit odd that I should ask them out, even though we'd never spoken before. I asked in a way that gave them the feeling of being chosen. And they had been, too. I didn't invite out every girl I saw.

The girls liked the fact that I had my own flat. One by one I brought them home for cheese and wine or om- elettes and lager. Sometimes they stayed the night, and only rarely the same girl twice. If I allowed the same girl to visit several times, it started to engender a sort of frustration about not being invited even more often.

Occasionally, demands were made that I wasn't in a position to fulfil, and then I had to explain. I could have skipped the explanation, but I've always had a facility for making myself understood.

No one resented being invited to just one play, one evening out, one overnight stay. The problems only began after four or six such visits. It was a paradox. A girl with whom I'd spent a night was usually content with the fun she'd had. She didn't rush out into town and begin to prattle about it either. Most of them thought a one-night stand with a stranger a bit embarra.s.sing. But as soon as their visits approached double figures, they began to complain, began to talk to girlfriends about it and to take it virtually for granted that the number of sleep overs would run into three and four figures.

I've never pulled the wool over girls' eyes. I never promised them supper before we'd been to the cinema or theatre, I never promised them a bed before we'd finished the meal, and I never held out any expectations of a return visit. I could be generous with my compliments, because I really did value such female company, but I never gave the impression that I wanted, or was even in a position, to commit myself for a longer period. In order to avoid mis- understandings I might stress, while lending a girl a towel, a toothbrush or in certain cases my mother's old dressing- gown, that even though it was nice to entertain someone for the night, she mustn't read more into it than that - a pleasant interlude. If I was especially fond of the girl, perhaps more fond of her than all the others put together, I felt it my sacred duty to make clear that I wasn't look- ing for any commitments. This made an impression, none of them rushed for the door. It seemed that plain speak- ing only made an overnight stay all the more exciting.

You often set more store by things you don't expect to be repeated, than those you believe will go on ad infin- itum.

It was fun having a succession of girls over for visits, because each was interested in something different. A few went to the bookshelf and pulled out particular books that interested them. A girl called Irene sat flicking through The World of Art, and another called Randi began reading aloud from Karl Evang's book on s.e.xual enlightenment. I'd dipped into it when I was little, but I considered it rather dated now.

One of the girls immediately seated herself at the green piano and gave a faltering performance of one of Chopin's nocturnes - she was called Ranveig, I think - while Turid improvised tunes from the musical Hair by strumming some basic chords. At least fifty per cent of them just wanted to put on a record as soon as they entered the living-room. I had Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, Simon & Garfunkel and Peter, Paul & Mary. One blue-eyed blonde insisted that we listen to Karius and Baktus as well, but no one had yet shown any interest in Tchaikovsky or Puccini. The first time this happened was when, quite by chance, I met Hege again, sometime towards the end of May.

Hege had completed the Sixth Form college course in music, and when she came home after we'd been to the cinema to see The Graduate, she immediately went to the piano and played the whole of Rachmaninov's piano concerto no. 2 in C Minor. The concert lasted over half an hour and, for a brief moment, before she'd got far into the Adagio, I was convinced I was in love with her. But as soon as she began the concluding Allegro, I realised it was the music that had captivated me and not the pianist. As we went into the bedroom, she had fits of laughter when I reminded her of the theft of a red Fiat and the subsequent romance in a shed. Now we were adults, we hadn't seen each other since grammar school days.

Hege stayed at my place for three nights, but when she realised that we weren't proper lovers, she left on the fourth day and never got in touch again. I didn't find it hard to see her point of view. We'd known each other since we were children, and were almost too close to play at adult games just for the sake of it.

I believe Metre Man felt as I did, because he was par- ticularly grouchy during the three days Hege was in the flat.

He rushed about the living-room and kitchen and drilled with his bamboo cane right in front of her eyes. It was a mystery to me that she couldn't see him.

Lots of girls wanted to go out on to the veranda. My mother had always had a nice display in her window-boxes, and I couldn't bring myself to leave them untended that first spring after her death. I'd dug out and thrown away everything that was in the boxes from the previous year and then filled them to the brim with compost and planted a ma.s.s of bulbs. The result was surprisingly good. That spring the boxes on the veranda were bursting with lilies, crocuses and tulips as never before, and many of the girls showed how impressed they were with my green fingers. When the weather was fine we sometimes sat on the veranda looking out across the city with a gla.s.s of Martini or Dubonnet in our hands.

I had, naturally, to explain how I came to live alone, and as a consequence I showed some of them my mother's wardrobe. They were often allowed to take away a dress they fancied, or a suit or a coat. First, they had to try them on to see if they fitted; every time it was like a little fas.h.i.+on show. Then, just for fun, I might magic up a pair of gloves, a shawl or an elegant evening handbag just as they were about to leave. I was especially fond of the young woman who inherited the Persian lambskin coat. Her name was Therese and tears welled in her eyes as I folded the fleece up and slipped it into a large paper bag. But I don't think it was mere grat.i.tude for the coat that moved her so much. I believe she saw the gift as part of some courts.h.i.+p ritual, or at any rate some deeply felt declaration of love, resonating with overtones and undertones and so, yet again, I had to explain myself. I told my father I'd given all the clothes to the Salvation Army, and he accepted this without demur - perhaps he'd forgotten the Persian lambskin coat - but it was the girls who'd helped themselves to most of her wardrobe, and some of them also made themselves useful by sorting out the things which just needed throwing away. It was six months before all of mother's clothes were out of the flat.

Occasionally someone I'd spent the night with would look the other way when we met in the street, but there were so many girls in Oslo in those days that it never caused any recruitment problem. In the early seventies spending a night with someone was no big deal. I remember thinking that I'd been born at the right time. For instance, it wouldn't have been such fun for a man of my age to have had his own flat twenty years earlier.

I was on nodding terms with many girls in the city even before I'd left Sixth Form college, but I'd never yet been in love. I felt too adult for that, I felt I was far too mature for the girls I a.s.sociated with. It was here that a certain dualism was developing. I certainly didn't feel too adult for their bodies. But a woman isn't merely a body, and clearly a man isn't either. I was convinced that one day I'd meet a woman whom I could love with both body and soul. Perhaps that was the reason I began to go off on long hikes by myself.

One day I'd find her and, if she was like me, it wouldn't be at a discotheque or in some youth group. A skiing hut was much more likely. And, in fact, I did meet her at Ullevlseter, but that wasn't until the middle of June.

At nursery school I'd enjoyed sitting in a corner watching all the children playing. Now the children were older, almost grown-up. It wasn't so thrilling to watch big children's games, or at least not the one called celebrating the end of school exams. I had a preference for pre- rather than post- school activities. For some weeks it was harder to find theatre companions and female visitors. There was too much going on in town.

Almost every day I set out on long walks in the forests round the northern suburbs of Oslo. I took the train to Finse and roamed the Hardanger plateau too, and I walked down Aurlandsdalen and got the train home from Flm. I loved travelling by train, I enjoyed studying the people on it, and I found it hugely satisfying to let my mind wander as I moved through the landscape. School was over, in a few weeks I'd have certificates to say I'd pa.s.sed with distinction in all subjects except gymnastics. I had nothing else to do but go walking and ride the train. My father was to pay me my allowance right up until 15 September.

When I was out mooching around on my own, I always took a notebook and pencil with me. I was particularly fond of turning things over in my mind as I walked. I thought all the time, but I found it easier to give free rein to my imagination while I was outdoors and moving, than sitting in a chair at home in the flat. Schiller pointed out that when man plays he is free, for then he follows his own rules. He had a point, but the thing could just as easily be turned the other way round: it was easier to play with thoughts and ideas when I was roaming at will on the Hardanger plateau than pacing about hour after hour between four walls, like some dormitory town detainee. And there was another thing: Metre Man kept to the flat by and large. He would occasionally appear in town, but it was very seldom that he turned up in the forest or on the Hardanger plateau.

My thoughts were fresher and bolder when I was walking, and new subjects and synopses streamed into my mind. At home I had large catalogues and indexes of my collection of plots for short stories, novels, plays and films.

I'd typed up my best ideas before filing the pages away in a ring-binder. Once completed, I hardly ever took a synopsis out and looked at it again.

The notion of filling out any of my ideas still hadn't occurred to me. Hatching out tightly worked plots was only a hobby, little more than a weakness or an idiosyncrasy. Just as some people collect coins or stamps, I collected my own thoughts and ideas.

Once, one of the girls began flicking through one of my binders. She'd taken it off the shelf in my work-room and began reading it aloud. She didn't get invited to spend the night, omelettes and lager was enough. From then on I kept all the binders and indexes securely locked in two solid cupboards beneath the bookshelves in the living- room.

As I walked through Aurlandsdalen, an idea came to me. It was a completely novel one, and was linked to the fact that I'd just got to know a young author at Club 7. He was only four or five years older than me. I'd treated him to a bottle of wine, and we'd spent the whole evening talking in that Mecca of avant-garde pop music. Despite his tough, John Lennon gla.s.ses, his profusion of hair and beard and a pa.s.sably shabby corduroy suit, he was fairly inane, but at least he wasn't as immature as my contemporaries, celebrating their exams. I pulled out some notes I'd written earlier in the day, three or four closely written pages comprising the detailed plot of a novel. I let him skim through it, and he was extremely impressed. He glanced up at me with an envious look, then heaped inordinate praise on what I'd shown him. It didn't surprise me. I knew I'd shown him a brilliant idea for a novel, but I took no pleasure in being praised, not by such a young and inexperienced author anyway. That wasn't why I'd shown him my notes. 'If you pay for the wine, I'll give you those notes,' I said. He just gawped. 'You're an author, after all,' I pointed out. 'I promise never to say where you got the idea from, but you must pay for the wine and give me fifty kroner.' So he refunded me the money I'd laid out on the wine, and a hundred kroner on top. At Club 7 you had to pay for a bottle of wine before it was opened. Just as I was taking the money, I saw Metre Man on the premises. He was strutting irritably amongst the cafe tables, then he suddenly turned towards our table and shook his bamboo cane at me.

Today that young man with the John Lennon gla.s.ses is one of the country's leading authors, and he turned fifty not long ago. I was to meet him on many subsequent occasions and now I take ten per cent of everything he earns from his books. But only he and I know that.

In Aurlandsdalen I stood for a long time in front of a large pothole called 'Little h.e.l.l', and it was here it struck me for the first time that all those ideas of mine might actually provide me with a living after all. I was in possession of a commodity with which certain people weren't over- endowed. I wasn't vain and had no wish to be famous, but I was short of money and I didn't plan on getting a summer job. Nor would I have anything to live on after 15 September. My father had made it crystal clear that after that date the tap would be turned firmly off. But, as he said, I would probably go on to study, and every student got a student loan. What my father didn't realise was that I couldn't possibly live on such a thing anyway. My female visitors alone broke any budget that the State Educational Loan Fund might advance. In addition, if I was short of money my freedom of movement was curtailed. This was an idea I didn't like at all.

That sudden inspiration touched me only lightly, the same way all impulses settled on my consciousness. The reason I mention it here is merely to show that I can recall the exact time and place where the idea first was born. It was as I stood staring down into Little h.e.l.l. I remember thinking it was a good idea, it was a meta-idea, an idea that took a firm grasp of all the other ideas I'd had and seemed to slot them into place.

Looking back now, it's rather tempting to regard that hike through Aurlandsdalen as my pact with the devil.

While I was out walking in the countryside, I often thought of all the years that had gone by. Something was over, and something new was just about to begin. I had to find myself a respectable, but anonymous, place in society.

I was already sometimes unable to distinguish between recalled reality and recalled fantasy. This was the result of my special talent for harbouring vivid memories of my imagin- ary world while at the same time having a somewhat hazy recollection of real life. It could scare me, it could make me a trifle nervous, but it is over-simplistic to conclude that I had a traumatic childhood and that I therefore repressed it.

My mother thought I had an unhappy childhood - she knew no better. Personally, I regarded my childhood as particularly rich.

I remember how I once flew over the city. I looked down on all the houses and was free to choose where to land and which living-rooms and bedrooms to peep into. Looking through the windows, I could see how a wide cross-section of people lived, and there was no secret I couldn't share. I witnessed everything from various forms of domestic dis- turbance to the most bizarre s.e.xual deviations. It was like studying monkeys in a cage, and sometimes I felt ashamed of my own species. Once I saw a man and a woman having s.e.x on a large, deep-pile rug while a girl of two or three sat watching from the sofa. I thought it unnatural. Another time I watched a man who was lying on a big double bed romping with two women at once. It didn't arouse my moral indignation, but there were many other observations that could leave me shaken. On one occasion, and unable to intervene, I witnessed a vicious fight over money. I wasn't quite sure, but it looked rather like one man was left for dead inside the flat after the other had made off.

These are obviously remembered fantasy, but I learnt from such fantasies. They were often full of insight. Much of the material for the many detective novels I later inspired was gathered from these mental journeys. Usually, a detective novel has a plot that can be condensed into a single page. The author's skill is simply to keep this kernel of factual information back. The detective must spend time - and use cunning - to arrive at the solution. That's what the readers like. Piece by piece, the investigator gets a better idea of what has actually happened. He must also be decoyed up blind alleys, but as the picture gradually becomes clearer and more complete, the readers feel clever, they believe that they have helped to solve the case them- selves.

I learnt from dreams as well. A dream could be like an open book. At the time I had two or three recurrent dream landscapes, as well as a few dream characters who manifested themselves at regular intervals. I was convinced they weren't just a reflex to stimuli from the external world; far from it, they represented something new, they were genuine new experiences from which I learnt and which have moulded me into the man I am today. But where did the dreams come from? I couldn't work out if all my dreams and mental journeys were the fruits of specially sensitive antennae attuned to things that came from outside, or if I had some sonar of the soul that was able to detect layer upon layer of secrets from a bottomless well within me.

I no longer dreamt of the little man with the cane, though I wouldn't have minded meeting him in a sleeping dream. It would have been far preferable to dream about him than have him roaming around the flat the whole time.

I made even more spectacular mental journeys, too. I went to the moon, for example, long before Armstrong and Aldrin. I remember once standing on the surface of the moon and looking up at the earth. High up there were all the people. It has since become a cliche, but years before Armstrong made that giant leap for mankind, I found myself on the moon discovering for the first time how tragi-comic all wars and national boundaries were. I was possibly twelve when I made that journey of the mind. Ever since then, I've had a heightened sense of all the trivialities with which people pack their lives. Praise and punishment, fame and honour seemed even more farcical.

Some of my mental travels took me even further into s.p.a.ce. I once went on a time-machine trip and arrived back on earth before there was any life here. I moved over the face of the waters, and the earth lay like a bud that's ready to burst, because I knew that life on earth would begin soon.

That was about five billion years before Gerhardsen's first government.

Or I could rove about on mental wings to various places in the city, like the fly-loft in a theatre where I could sit high up, just beneath the roof, and gaze down at all the actors. On one occasion the little man was seated on a lighting batten only five feet away from me. He glanced furtively at me with a world-weary face and said in a thick voice: So you're here as well, are you? Can't I ever do anything on my own? That was a bit rich coming from him.

I kept on getting new ideas. Sometimes they breathed down my neck, fluttered like b.u.t.terflies in my stomach, or ached like open wounds. I bled stories and narratives, my brain effervesced with novel concepts. It was as if this fever-red lava welled up from the hot crater within me.

Relieving the pressure of my thoughts was a constant necessity, almost ceaselessly having to go somewhere where I could sit discreetly with a pencil and paper and let them all out. My excretions might consist of long conversations between two or more voices in my head, and frequently on specific ontological, epistemological or aesthetic subjects.

One voice might say: It is perfectly clear to me that the human being has an eternal soul, which only inhabits a body of flesh and blood for a short while. The other voice might answer: No, no. Man is an animal just like any other. What you term the soul is inextricably linked to a brain, and the brain is ephemeral. Or, as the Buddha said on his deathbed: All that is composite is transitory.

Such dialogues could soon run to dozens of sheets of A4 paper, but it always felt good to get them out of my head.

And yet, no sooner had I transferred them to paper, than I was full of voices again and had to relieve myself once more.

The dialogues I spewed out might just as easily be of a thoroughly mundane nature. One voice might say: So there you are. Couldn't you at least have phoned to say you'd be late?

And the other voice would answer: I told you the meeting might last a long time. Then the first voice again: You don't mean to say you've been sitting in a meeting all this time? It's almost midday! And so the row would begin.

I never worked out in advance what such introductory exchanges presaged. Indeed, it was to avoid thinking about it that I willingly sat down and wrote the entire altercation out, so as to get it out of my system. The only way to get relief from an over-active mind was to fix its impulses in writing.

Occasionally I would bathe my brain in alcohol and, when I did, the spirit would flow back out again as stories; it was as if the liquid evaporated and got distilled as pure intellect. Though alcohol had a very stimulating effect on my imagination, it also dampened my angst about it too. It both primed the engine within me and gave me strength to endure its workings. I might have a shoal of thoughts in my head, but after a few drinks I was man enough to corner them all.

When I woke up in the morning I couldn't always remember what I'd been writing or making notes about the evening before, or at least, the very last thing I'd scribbled on the writing pad after a couple of bottles of wine. Then, it could be exciting to sling on a dressing gown and saunter into my work-room just to cast a glance over my desk. It wasn't inconceivable that something interesting might be lying there and, if I found a sheaf of notes I had no recollection of writing, it was almost like receiving a mysterious doc.u.ment that had come to me via automatic writing.

Perhaps one driving force behind my imagination and my periodic drinking was that thing I was always trying to forget, but which I couldn't really remember either. Why did I expend so much energy forgetting something that I couldn't even recollect?

Only the countryside and visits from girls could provide me with brief interludes of a kind of intellectual peace.

I was a natural mystic even before I began Sixth Form college. I saw the world as a thing dreamlike and bewitched.