Lazy Days Read Online Free PDF Page B

fine. And I think you should tell them some­thing, a story maybe, preferably something funny that doesn’t of­fend any nationality or any individual, and it would be an advan­tage if it was new to me.

Telemann trawls the town in search of orange blossom water. The Lidl in Olympiastrasse hasn’t got it. He looks for some immigrant shops, but it’s difficult to find one. Who the hell would emigrate to Mixing Part Churches? In the end, however, he finds a Turkish grocery and his orange blossom water. He is going to make some Arab pancakes with orange blossom syrup. That will give the Baders something to think about, he reckons. They will be expecting pork knuckle and sauerkraut, or maybe something so ur-Norwegian as boiled cod, but they will be getting Arab pancakes with orange blossom syrup. Telemann has to smile. And for dessert it is going to be caramelised pineapple with hot chocolate sauce. Nigella, all of it. Incidentally, it is several days since he has thought about her. The daydream about Nigella and Kate Bush was a heady mix. There has been a lot to process. Just accepting that he is so primitive has come at a cost. I’ve never seen myself that way, Telemann reflects. I think I’m like so, but if I give free rein to my feelings it is quite clear I am quite a different person. I’ve never come face to face with myself. That’s why I never get going with my theatre work. Not knowing myself is an obstacle. Honesty is the word that suddenly comes to Telemann’s mind. In every respect. If I am primitive I have to dare to be primitive lock, stock and barrel. If anyone gets hurt they will have to get hurt. Dishonest theatre is poor theatre. Telemann stops at this point. The bag with the orange blossom water is dangling limply from his clenched fist. He has been struck by a great truth, he believes, in the main street of Mixing Part Churches, slap, bang in the middle of the morning. Honesty is always the best policy. He has to be a hundred per cent honest. To Nina, to the kids, to the Baders and to himself. It is myself I have never met, Sarah Kane once wrote, Telemann remembers. And now he is thinking on those lines himself. He is thinking like a theatre person. Theatre thoughts. At last. Bloody hell. This is going to be theatre.

What did he say?
    Herr Bader says that the caramelised pineapples are very good and he was wondering if he might be so bold as to take one more.
    Help yourself.
    What did you say just now?
    I’m just saying to the Baders that you’re going to tell us a story and that I’m a bit curious because I haven’t heard it before.
    Hm. It’s nothing much. It’s just something that happened to me in April. An accident.
    An accident?
    Yes, a minor one.
    And you haven’t told me about it?
    No.
    Why not?
    I think I repressed the whole incident.
    But now you’ve remembered it?
    Yes.
    OK. Fire away.
    Will you translate as I talk or shall I stop now and then?
    I’ll translate as you talk.
    OK. It happened when you were at a seminar. I can’t quite remember where you were…
    I was at Voksenåsen.
    Voksenåsen?
    Yes, that place up in Holmenkollåsen that Norway ceded to Sweden after the war.
    I thought we weren’t going to talk about the war.
    We’re not.
    OK. Anyway it happened while you were there.
    Alright.
    What was that you said?
    I was just explaining to them that the story itself hasn’t begun yet.
    I’m starting now.
    Great.
    So you were at the seminar and I had taken Heidi to tennis and was on my way to pick up Berthold and Sabine, who were visiting friends, and I was driving towards Skøyen, and I was about to turn off a smaller road onto a bigger one, and a cyclist came up on the right, on the pave­ment, and there was loads of snow, and it was dark too, and the cyclist braked hard as I approached, not very fast, I have to emphasise that, I was driving extremely slowly and carefully. As usual. The cyclist hit his front brake too hard and went over the handlebars, he did a sort of