‘Lend me a tenner, will you,’ Stig asked.
‘What you gonna do with it?’
‘That’s neither here nor there. You’ll get it back tomorrow,’ he said and added: ‘Goin’ to Pernille.’
Gunnar took ten kroner from a drawer.
‘Great,’ said Stig. ‘Great! My records are at your disposal.’
He had a badge on the lapel of his jacket, looked like a star.
‘What’s that?’ I asked, pointing.
‘Victory to the Front National de Liberté,’ he said.
‘Are the Americans still droppin’ napalm?’ I wondered.
‘Yes, and how. But the FNL will soon chase ’em out.’
He went into a crouch and sprayed the room with bullets. Then he was gone.
Guerrilla.
We sat for a while looking at the open door. Then Gunnar pulled out the crumpled letter and smoothed it on his thigh.
‘Let’s read the rest,’ he said.
‘Let’s,’ I said, sitting beside him.
We all went, the whole gang. It cost a hundred kroner and Mum and Dad had promised to pay, and I had enough pocket money already, fifty shiny ones. Five o’clock, the first Friday in May, we were on our way. It was a big deal. It was the biggest. The weather had done an about-turn, cold fronts and gales were back. But it didn’t matter. We were going south. We went up the gangway in single file with rucksacks, sleeping bags and new football boots. It was a solemn occasion, so solemn that our backs straightened and our heads were held high. But inside smouldered a wild joy, a bonfire of expectations that would set the whole of Denmark alight.
It was half an hour to departure. We were directed to the bottom of the ship where we were to sleep in reclining seats. Åge stood on a chair and shouted:
‘Alright, lads, I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: this is not your average holiday trip! We’re going to play football! We’re going to trounce the Danes!’
We stamped in rhythm and sang the Frigg chant. Åge calmed us down.
‘And you know all this, too, but I’ll tell you once more anyway! Do you hear me?’
‘Yes!’ we shouted.
‘Has everyone got food vouchers?’
‘Yes!’ we shouted.
‘It’ll buy you a meal in the cafeteria at the back of the boat. Before seven o’clock! Okay?’
‘Yes!’ we shouted.
‘And all of you, you have to be back down here by ten! By ten!’
‘Yes,’ came the response, with a little less enthusiasm.
‘And alcohol! Alcohol is off-limits!’
A few scattered shouts.
‘Anyone caught drinking alcohol will be dropped from the team! Understood!’
The ship lurched. It was approaching five. We charged upstairs and onto the deck. All our parents were standing on the quayside waving like crazy. Then the gangway was removed and the boat slipped away, reversed and turned on a five øre coin.
We leaned over the gunnels with the wind whipping tears from our eyes. King Olav cut through the waves. Oslo fjord was a nightmare. Gunnar and Ola were green in the gills before we had passed Nesodden.
I pointed to the shore.
‘There’s the House!’ I cried.
Then we were past it. Ola’s head was drooping.
‘I-i-if it’s rocky here, think what it’s g-g-gonna be like after Færder lighthouse!’
Gunnar moaned.
‘My dad’s been on the sea with waves twenty metres high,’ Seb boasted. ‘The Atlantic. They were so high they couldn’t see the sky when they were in a trough!’
Ola went first, by Drøbak. Gunnar clung to the railing.
The gulls hovered above and below us. You could stretch out a hand and pat them on the beak.
‘Let’s go and get somethin’ to eat,’ Seb said.
That was when Gunnar disappeared. He staggered off holding a hand over his mouth. Seb and I looked at each other.
‘Landlubbers!’ he grinned.
Gunnar and Ola were out of the running. They had been given some seasickness tablets by Åge and were laid out. Seb and I ate red sausages and mashed potatoes and later that evening we found the midfield and strikers up on the sun deck. It was dark, they were laughing and gulls were screaming. They were standing by the wall with five miniature bottles of Larsen cognac and three Tuborgs.
‘All Danish girls bang like shithouse doors,’ the right wing said. His eyes glowed like redcurrants.
‘Do you know what “to have it off” is in Danish?’ the centre half said. ‘Kneppe!’
‘To button?’
‘I’m going to kneppe my trousers!’ the right wing howled and the laughter spread through the darkness.
We sensed a large shadow standing behind us. Everything went quiet. Åge. White hands and red eyes. Then, so help me, he switched on a torch and shone it in our faces. More and more faces appeared, they loomed up out of the dark, face after face, a luminous white in the beam from Åge’s torch. It was more or less the whole team. He didn’t want the game against Fremad to be a walkover.
Åge sighed.
‘Throw the bottles over board,’ he said.
A few seconds passed. Åge switched off the torch.
‘I can’t see you,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to see you.’
Arms swung through the air. A gull screamed.
Åge switched the torch back on.
‘Poor do,’ he said.
Then he herded us down to where the deadbeats were reclined, gasping through open mouths, with lifeless pupils and stomachs like barrage balloons. The waves crashed through us. Aksel was the first to throw up. It splashed onto the floor. Then it was the right wing’s turn. I held my stomach, but it didn’t help. I sprinted for the toilet, stood with the rest of the defence and emptied my guts like a bucket. Seb was the only one to survive. He lay back sleeping and snoring with a tiny grin on his face, and somewhere up in heaven there was dance music and the cries of seagulls.
We arrived in Denmark with our guts inside out, we were driven by coach through Copenhagen and installed in a school. The pitch was close by, green and soft. We limped through the first training session. The match was due to start at five.
Åge paced up and down with a furrowed brow talking tactics.
‘Denmark is better technically,’ he said. ‘They play a Polish game. But we’ll outdo them in fitness. We’ll wear them down. Long balls. Make them work. Make them run themselves into the ground!’
At twelve there was a break. I asked Åge if I could take a couple of hours off because I had family in Copenhagen and I wanted to visit them.
He gave me a sceptical look.
‘Can you find your way around alone?’
‘Christ, yes. Been here loads of times.’
‘Back by three then.’
I raced down to the changing room, showered and put on clean clothes, a new roll neck sweater, burgundy. Hair didn’t look half bad either. When it was wet I could fold it behind my ears and it flipped up at the back. I rushed out into the street, patted my pocket where I kept my money, fifty Norwegian kroner gave you sixty Danish kroner and Dad had got me the best rate at the bank. A taxi drew up, I jumped in, wowee, I was on my way to see Nina.
The driver whistled and ate a Danish pastry.
The taxi meter ticked away like a clock. I had no idea how far it was to Strandvejen.
‘I’ve only got sixty kroner,’ I stammered.
He glanced over his shoulder with crumbs around his satisfied mouth.
‘Uhuh. Only sixty kroner, sonny Jim. That’s enough to get you all the way to bloody Norway!’
I pressed my nose against the glass. Strange to be in a completely new place. Tingle of excitement. Pigeons. Hot dog stalls. Black bikes. I rolled down the window. Bakery smells. Freshly baked cakes and bread.
I leaned back against the seat, closed my eyes and felt happy. Happy and completely calm, couldn’t remember ever experiencing that before. I could balance on the
tightrope now without a safety net, without a pole, that’s how calm I was. For a moment I struggled to recall what Nina looked like, but now she was taking shape, her face was close to mine, her features quite distinct, I could feel her breath and her hair. Apple. That’s how she was. I slumped back into the seat as we drove along Øresund with white yachts bobbing up and down against the light blue sky.
It cost twenty kroner. Strandvejen 41 was quite a handsome house with a large garden and a view of Sweden. I wasn’t so calm any more. Fear lay like a needle in my stomach. I straightened my hair behind a fence post, took a deep breath and walked through the gate. It was a long way to the house, several hundred metres at least. Perhaps she had seen me from the window already. She must have been waiting. I almost broke into a run and finally reached the door. I couldn’t hear a sound. She hadn’t seen me yet. Then I rang. Time passed. Someone came. It was her mother. She cast a gentle eye over me. My voice had deserted me.
‘Do you want to see Nina?’ she asked.
Was she out of her mind? Didn’t she recognise me? My heart slowly drained into my boots.
Then she remembered me.
‘But aren’t you… aren’t you Kim?’
I was. I feared the worst.
‘Do come in. Nina’s in her room.’
I followed her. It was too late to turn round now. Strangely enough, I was calmness itself again, as though I had reached the other side, where I had nothing more to lose.
‘Nina’s going to be surprised,’ her mother chatted. ‘Are you here with your parents?’
Hadn’t she received my letter? Hadn’t she read it? Hadn’t she told her parents I was on my way?
I didn’t care.
‘Football,’ I said. ‘Here to play football.’
We were by Nina’s room. Her mother knocked on the door, opened it and pushed me through the opening.
Nina sat there with big eyes staring at me, bewildered. Beside her sat a herbert with a guitar in his lap and a wry smile. It definitely was not her cousin.
‘Kim,’ Nina stammered. ‘Is that you!’
It was.
‘I’ll get you something to drink,’ her mother wheezed and left.
I stood in the doorway.
‘Hello,’ was all I said.
‘I’d completely forgotten,’ she stuttered, ashamed.
I searched feverishly for something to say.
‘Can I catch a bus from here?’ I asked.
‘You can,’ the guitarist friend said. ‘At the bottom of the road. It goes straight to City Hall Square.’
I got the message. Nina eyed us both at the same time.
‘This is Kim from Oslo,’ she said, pointing to me. ‘And this is Jesper.’
Jesper played guitar for us. His long, blond hair hung over his forehead. Jesper sang in English.
I checked my watch. Inside I was a void.
‘Are you coming to the match?’ I asked.
Nina stared at the floor.
‘I’d completely forgotten about it,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t. Jesper’s playing in Hornbæk tonight. He plays in a band.’
We said no more. Jesper played another song. Then he peered up at me.
‘Match?’ he asked. ‘Football?’
‘Against Fremad,’ Nina explained. I supposed that she wanted to prove that she had read my wretched letter.
‘Oooh! Watch out! They’re really good!’
I had to leave before the mother returned. I could have left without saying a word, about-faced on the spot. I had every right, but I wasn’t in my right mind. Instead, and I hated myself as I did it, I asked, ‘What about tomorrow?’
Nina averted her face.
‘I’d completely forgotten,’ she repeated. ‘We’re going to be in Hornbæk for the weekend.’
Jesper strummed a chord. Defeat was a reality. All that was left was to drag myself off the field of battle, bleeding, crushed, disgrace dribbling from the corners of my mouth. But my body was so leaden. I had to use force. Having finally managed to turn, I stood face to face with the mother bearing a tray of bottles. I walked past her, found the front door and walked down the front path, walked, didn’t run, didn’t look back.
And my back burned like the copper roof on Kronborg Castle in the sun.
I took a taxi back. It cost three kroner more. I had ten kroner left. My expectations had turned to blackened ashes. I wanted to murder a Dane.
The Danes were called Jesper and Ebbe and Ib and Eske, the whole lot of them. They thought they were on a dancing course and squealed as soon as you went near them. One strong word and they had their noses in the grass. They had been weaned on pastries and buns and cream. And the referee was a partisan baker and the home crowd stood on the sideline with their beer and sagging bellies.
‘Long balls,’ Åge yelled. ‘Long balls.’
Dribbling was out of the question. They could balance the ball on their tongues if they were of a mind. For us it was all about getting in their way as much as possible. Seb was battling on the left wing but didn’t whip in one decent centre. Gunnar couldn’t get into the penalty area. Willy and Kjetil’s pinpoint passing was deftly broken up by the Danish centre half. But Aksel was a kangaroo in goal. He pouched every shot they made. We kept the score down to 0–0 going into the break. Åge gathered us around him.
‘Well done, lads,’ he whispered. ‘The Danes are getting tired. Accuracy’s on the wane.’
Kåre gave us some juice from a huge plastic bottle.
‘We’ve got ’em on the run,’ he said every time he filled a mug.
Round two started with a Danish tidal wave. They flooded the pitch towards the goal. Aksel was a fishing net between the posts, The Flying Dutchman from Hoff. The Danes became desperate. Aksel had pysched them out. Their heads hung at every goal kick, they could hardly be bothered to run after the ball.
That was when it happened. A slippery Dane won the ball in the centre, spun round and came charging towards me. Stop him, a voice said inside me. Stop him. I stopped him. I used an old trick. Instead of tracking back I ran straight for him. I met him with my shoulder, pole-axed him at thigh height and dumped him in the grass like a sack. I passed the ball back to Aksel.
But the referee had blown his whistle. And all the Danish pastries thronged around me. I wondered which one would strike first. The baker forced his way through the melee, stood three centimetres from my face and pointed to the dressing rooms. I left the field amid a shower of invective. Åge greeted me with glowering eyes. I took a seat on the bench beside Ola. The Danish butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-his-mouth-boy had got to his feet, limped around and grimaced at the skies.
‘Wouldn’t even get into drama school,’ I said.
‘Was Nina at h-h-home?’ Ola asked.
‘No,’ I said.
The match was restarted with a free kick that stuck in Aksel’s clutches like a sticky bun. The right wing took my position. Seb trapped a long ball, moved into the centre and sent the ball to Gunnar who raced past him and threaded it through to Willy who made for the dead ball line where he forced a corner.
Finn took it. He had the team’s most sensitive left foot and screwed in the ball in front of the goal, Seb jumped highest and headed the ball into the keeper’s hands, but the goalie lost his footing and fell on his back with the ball in his lap and over the line. He tried to fling it out, but it was too late. The ball was in the goal. 1–0. The Danes’ heads dropped and the crowd hurled beer bottles. 1–0. Twenty minutes left to play.
Now the whole team was back in defence. There wasn’t a Norwegian in Fremad’s half. Åge ran along the touchline waving his arms. Aksel directed the defensive wall forwards and backwards, the pastries ran like madmen, but this was not cunning tactics, it was blind panic. Then it happened. Ten minutes left, 1–0, and a Danish salami lets fly with a cannon. Aksel is horizontal in the air, like a boa, nudges the ball out for a corner with the nail on his little finger. But he lands awkwardly, lands on top of his right arm and gives
a chilling scream as he hits the ground. Åge and Kåre rush over to him with a sponge and Solo. But it’s no use. Aksel is taken off. The Danes grin. Beside me sits Ola, the reserve goalkeeper, face as green as a mouldy old tea bag. Åge and Kåre return with Aksel between them. Right arm hanging limp.
Åge points to Ola.
‘Your turn,’ he says. ‘Get ready.’
I help him with his laces, his hands are fluttering like birds’ wings.
‘Relax,’ I said. ‘It’ll be fine.’
With his good arm, Aksel slaps him on the back.
‘Best of luck!’
We push him on his way. He jogs over to the goal and takes up his position between the posts. The corner is whipped in. Ola flies out and, as though standing in the midst of a swarm of mosquitoes, throws a wild punch at the ball. And he hits it. It sails through the air in a wonderful parabola to the midfield, and the Danes have to run again.
‘Good!’ yells Åge. ‘Keep the ball out!’
There are five minutes left. It’s the biggest battle in Copenhagen since Napoleon was there. There are at least fifteen men around the ball at all times. It’s hand-to-hand stuff. Two minutes left. Then a Danish stork crashes to the ground and the baker whistles and points to the penalty spot. At this point Åge is trying to tear the skin off his face. Ola is alone between the posts, never seen him so small. I sprint around the pitch and stand behind the goal, behind Ola. The Danes take up positions. The captain places the ball on the spot and walks back nine paces. Ola crouches down, looks like a dung beetle from where I am. I watch the captain. He scratches his thigh. I look into his eyes.
‘Right,’ I whisper to Ola. ‘Dive to your right!’
Then he runs up, Ola flings himself to the right, the ball hits his body and bounces off him, nineteen men charge forward, Ola gets to his feet, staggers out and falls on the ball. The horde comes to a sudden halt one millimetre from the crown of his head. Ola holds his arms around his head as if it were the ball. Then he is lifted up, the hero of the hour. Åge does a war dance. Ola stands there with the ball in his hands, not quite knowing what has happened. Then he kicks it out of play. But it doesn’t matter for the yeast has gone out of the buns. They have given up. The referee checks his watch, adds a minute, then blows his whistle until his cheeks bulge like red tomatoes. We have won. Norway 1 Denmark 0. Ola is chaired off and thrown into the air, he almost doesn’t come back down. Åge falls to his knees with his hands clasped together. I turn my back on everything and stroll down to the changing rooms, sit there with bowed head, feeling I was worth less than a casserole lid.