Child Wonder Read Free Page A

words, and when she had signed a form and the new sofa was standing by the sitting-room wall where hitherto we had had nothing, but where actually it fitted very well, she had to lie down on it for a while. So did I. I lay beside her and drew in her fragrances and felt her arms around me as I instantly fell asleep: pansies, hair lacquer, shoe leather and 4711
eau de Cologne.
I didn’t wake until two hours later, under a blanket, while Mother was making supper in the kitchen, humming, as she always did.
    There was no set dinner today, it was fried pork and eggs, the kind of supper that can still outdo any dinner. And over the meal she explained to me that there was something called H.P. which, in short, meant you didn’t have to save
before
you bought something, you could do it afterwards, which in turn meant there was a chance we wouldn’t need to wait so long to go and buy a bookcase either, not to mention one of those television sets that were invading the flats around us, so I wouldn’t have to run up to Essi’s every time there was something on which was not to be missed.
    These were indeed heady prospects. But there was something about her that evening that still made me uneasy, something that seemed to have collapsed inside her and with it had gone her composure and peace of mind, and I – who had just been through a traumatic experience of my own – did not sleep as well that night as I usually did.
    Next day I came straight back from school again, this time I found Mother at her post, ready to receive Ingrid Olaussen, and at once I got down to preparing myself, motivated by a number of reproving cautions, as though we were about to take an exam, they were quite unnecessary, it goes without saying, if there was anything I had taken on board, it was the seriousness of the matter.
    “Are you alright?” I said.
    “What do you mean?” she said, going over to look at herself in the mirror, returning and growling: “You haven’t got some little scheme up your sleeve, have you?”
    I didn’t even know what she was referring to. And within no time at all she was herself again, shooting a sympathetic glance down at me, and saying she knew this wasn’t easy for me, but there was no alternative, did I realise that?
    I realised that.
    We were of one mind.
    Ingrid Olaussen arrived half an hour late and turned out to be employed at the hair salon in Lofthusveien, she looked the part too, like a twenty-year-old, even though she must have been Mother’s age. She had heaped-up, rust-red hair, with a little grey hat perched on top, adorned with a string of pearls, black droplets, so it looked as though her hair was crying. Furthermore, she smoked filter cigarettes, and it wasn’t just her handwriting that was spiky, casting an eye over the room she had the nerve to say:
    “Basic, right. Shouldn’t you have said that in the ad?”
    I didn’t know what that meant, but Mother’s face went through three or four familiar stages before she blurted out that it was easy for someone who didn’t have a clue what it cost to put ads in the newspaper to say that.
    Confronted with which statement, Ingrid Olaussen just took a long drag on her cigarette and cast around for an ashtray. But none was offered. Now Mother wanted to call off the whole business, and said that in fact we had changed our minds and needed the room ourselves.
    “Sorry you’ve come on a wild goose chase.”
    She even opened the front door for her. But then all of a sudden Ingrid Olaussen looked deeply unhappy. Her coiffed head slumped to her bosom, and her long, ungainly body began to sway.
    “Goodness gracious, don’t you feel well?”
    Mother led her by the coat sleeve into the sitting room, sat her down on the new sofa and asked if she wanted a glass of water or a cup of coffee.
    Then something even more incomprehensible happened. Ingrid Olaussen did want a cup of coffee, yes, she did, but before Mother managed to put on the kettle, she began to