she really wanted to do was turn back rather than stagger on.
They had arrived. Soft light shone out from every window of the restaurant at the top of Grefsenkollen. The car park was full of vehicles which would presumably remain there well into the following day. As Tuva and Synnove moved closer, a large group of people in party clothes spilled out of the main entrance. Most stopped on the wide steps as they raised their glasses of champagne and exclaimed at the view. Three men had their arms full of rockets, and stumbled off around the corner to let them off in the car park.
‘Here,’ Tuva panted, moving over to the fence surrounding the terrace at the bottom of the steps. ‘It’s actually nicer here than back at my place.’
Out in the fjord the boats began to sound their sirens. Behind Tuva and Synnove the guests were shrieking with delight at the fireworks, at the party, at the new, empty year ahead of them. The entire sky was lit up, fireworks crackling and sparkling, whistling and squealing, howling and banging in front of them and overhead.
‘Happy New Year,’ Tuva said tentatively, slipping an arm around her.
Synnove didn’t reply. She leaned against the fence and looked out over Oslo. 2009 was only a few seconds old, and if the emotions she was feeling were representative of the new year, the next twelve months were going to be appalling.
What she didn’t know, of course, was that Marianne Kleive was exactly 8,100 metres from the spot where she was standing. If she had known, it is unlikely that it would have made her any happier.
For the first time in her life, Synnove Hessel cried her way into a new year.
Erik Lysgaard had promised Lukas that he wouldn’t cry.
‘Dad! Dad!’
Erik gave a start. At first he had refused to go home with his son. It was only when Lukas threatened to bring the whole family to Nubbebakken and organize some kind of party for the children that he had agreed to come. He had promised not to cry. He hadn’t promised to talk.
The children had finally fallen asleep. Astrid, Lukas’s wife, was standing in the doorway in her dressing gown. She gave her father-in-law a wan smile and raised a hand in a limp goodnight. The evening had been something of a trial.
Lukas, in blue and white striped pyjamas and with shabby slippers on his bare feet, crouched down next to his father’s chair, but didn’t touch him.
‘Were you asleep?’
‘I think I was. I must have nodded off while you were getting ready for bed.’
‘It’s time you went to bed as well, Dad. I’ve sorted out the guest room for you.’
‘I’d rather sit here, Lukas.’
‘That’s not on, Dad. You need to go to bed.’
‘Actually, I can make my own decisions. I’m perfectly fine sitting here.’
Lukas got up.
‘You’re behaving as if you’re the only one who’s grieving,’ he said wearily. ‘I don’t recognize you, Dad. You’re… you’re just completely self-centred. You don’t even notice that I’m struggling, you don’t notice that the kids are missing their grandma, you don’t notice that-’
‘Of course I do. I notice all of it. I just can’t do anything about it.’
Lukas trudged around the room in the semi-darkness. Blew out a candle in the window. Picked up a teddy bear from the floor and placed it on the bookcase. Bit his nails. Outside everything was silent. From the bathroom he could hear Astrid flushing the toilet, then the faint creak as she closed the bedroom door behind her.
‘Why didn’t you lie?’ he asked all of a sudden.
His father looked up.
‘Lie?’
‘Why didn’t you just make up a story about why Mum was out walking? Why didn’t you say she wanted some fresh air or something? That you’d had a row. Anything. Why did you tell the police it was nothing to do with them?’
‘Because it’s true. If I’d made something up it would have been a lie. I don’t lie. It’s important to me that I don’t lie. You of all people should know that.’
‘But clamming up completely is OK?’
Lukas threw his arms wide in a gesture of resignation.
‘Daddy, why…?’
He stopped himself when his father looked him straight in the eye with something that resembled a smile in his expression.
‘You haven’t called me daddy since you were ten,’ he said.
‘I have to ask you about something.’
‘You won’t get an answer. You must have realized that by now. I’m not going to tell why your mother was out-’
‘Not that,’ Lukas said quickly. ‘It’s something else.’
His father said nothing, but at least he was maintaining eye contact.
‘I’ve always had a kind of feeling,’ Lukas began tentatively, ‘that I was sharing Mum with someone else.’
‘We shared your mother with Jesus.’
‘That’s not what I mean.’
He stood there at a loss for a moment, then sat down on the sofa. It was so deep that leaning forward was uncomfortable. At the same time, he was too tense to lean back against the cushions. In the end he got up again.
‘Have I got a sister or brother somewhere?’
The expression which suddenly came over his father’s face frightened him. Erik’s eyes darkened. His mouth grew strained, surrounded by coarse, deep lines. His eyebrows contracted. His hands, which had been resting on his knee, clenched so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
‘I hadn’t expected that from you,’ he said, his voice unrecognizable.
‘But I… Did you and Mum, or just Mum…? I mean… you’ve always been together, and this business with Jesus in the forest-’
‘Hold your tongue!’
His father stood up. This time he didn’t raise his hand; he simply stood there, his eyes flashing and his lower lip trembling almost imperceptibly.
‘Ask yourself,’ he said, his tone icy. ‘Ask yourself if Eva Karin – your mother, my wife – has a child she refuses to acknowledge.’
‘I’m asking you, Dad! And I’m not necessarily saying that she didn’t want to acknowledge…’
His father started to walk away. ‘I’m going to bed,’ he said, but turned abruptly when he reached the door. ‘And I am never, ever going to answer that kind of question. Ask yourself, Lukas.
Lukas was left alone in the room.
‘I’m asking you,’ he whispered. ‘I’m asking you, Dad.’
If his father had just said yes.
It was impossible to go to bed. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep. He had asked a question and expected an answer. Hoped for an answer. Everything would fall into place if his father had just confirmed that there was a child out there. An older child, older than Lukas, an explanation for everything.
But his father had refused.
Lukas lay down on the sofa without taking off his slippers. He pulled a woollen blanket over him, right up to his chin, the way his mother used to tuck him in when he was little. He lay there without sleeping until the morning came, a pitch-black start to the new year.
