Dancing in the Dark: My Struggle Book 4 Read Online Free PDF Page A

that my mood had changed completely from one moment to the next.
    On the station platform she stood beside me, hands in her rear pockets and a little rucksack on her back. There were six minutes to go before the train was due to leave. People were still getting on board.
    ‘I’m just going to nip over to the kiosk,’ she said, eyeing me. ‘Anything you need?’
    I shook my head.
    ‘Oh, yes, a Coke.’
    She dashed over to the Narvesen kiosk. Hilde looked at me and smiled. Lars’s eyes were wandering. Eirik was gazing in the direction of the harbour.
    ‘Now that you’re venturing out into the big wide world, I’ll give you a piece of advice,’ he said, turning to me.
    ‘Oh yes?’ I said.
    ‘Think before you act. Make sure you’re never caught with your pants down. And you’ll survive. If, for example, you want some of your pupils to suck you off, for God’s sake do it
behind
the teacher’s desk. Not in front. OK?’
    ‘Isn’t that double standards?’ I said.
    He laughed.
    ‘And if, while you’re up north, you’ve got to slap a girlfriend around, do it so the bruises don’t show,’ Hilde said. ‘Never the face, however much you might feel like it.’
    ‘Do you think I should have two, then? One down here and one up there?’
    ‘Why not?’ she said.
    ‘One you hit and one you don’t,’ Eirik said. ‘Can’t get a better balance than that.’
    ‘Any more advice?’ I said.
    ‘I saw an interview with an old actor on TV once,’ Lars said. ‘He was asked whether there was anything he’d learned over the course of a long life he’d like to pass on to the viewers. He said yes, there was. The shower curtain. Make sure it was inside the bath, not outside. Otherwise when you turned the water on it would go all over the floor.’
    We laughed. Lars, pleased with himself, looked around.
    Behind him, Line came back empty-handed.
    ‘The queue was too long,’ she said. ‘But I suppose they’ll have a bar on board.’
    ‘They do,’ I said.
    ‘Shall we go?’
    ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Thet was thet, as Fleksnes used to say. No more Kristiansand!’
    They hugged me in turn. That was something I had started doing in the second class: whenever we met we hugged.
    Then I slung my kitbag over my back, grabbed my case and followed Line onto the train. They waved a few times, the train set off and they strolled down to the car park.
    It was unbelievable that was only two days ago.
    I put down the book and, while rolling another cigarette and taking a swig of lukewarm coffee, read the three sentences I had written.
    Down the hill the shop was less busy. I went for an apple from the kitchen and sat down at the typewriter again. In the course of the next hour I wrote three pages. About two boys on an estate, and it was good as far as I could judge. Perhaps three more pages and it would be finished. And that wasn’t bad, finishing a short story on the first whole day up here. At that rate I could have a collection ready by Christmas!
    As I was rinsing the dregs from the coffee pot I saw a car coming up the road from the shop. It stopped outside the caretaker’s house and two men, who looked to be in their mid-twenties, got out. Both were well built, one was tall, the other smaller and rounder. I held the pot under the tap until it was full and put it on the hotplate. The two men were walking up the hill. I stepped to the side so that they couldn’t see me through the window.
    Their footsteps stopped outside the porch.
    Were they coming to see me?
    One of them said something to the other. The ring of the doorbell pierced the silence of the flat.
    I wiped my hands on my thighs, went into the hall and opened the door.
    The smaller of the two stretched out a hand. His face was square, his chin curved and jutting, his mouth small, his eyes were alert. He had a black moustache and stubble on his jaw. A heavy gold chain around his neck.
    ‘I’m Remi,’ he said.
    Embarrassed, I shook his hand.
    ‘Karl Ove