‘Okay.’ His father has the decency to look nervous now, realizing he definitely hit the wrong tone.
‘Why don’t you say something to her? Why do you let her talk badly to you, and to me, over every little thing?’
‘Storm, I—’
‘No, seriously. Why do you put up with her bullshit? And why do I have to?’
‘Your m— Bianka does a lot of stuff for us, Storm. She, uh, works very hard for me and you to have a good life. She loves us and just… just gets frustrated sometimes, I guess.’
Storm rolls his eyes incredulously. It’s as though Bianka has actually cast a spell on his father and no matter how unreasonably she behaves or how extreme her demands become, Emil never questions her. ‘Okay. So let me ask you this. Why is the atmosphere so much better when she isn’t here? And have you even noticed how different she is around other people? It’s like she has this whole persona that just comes out.’
Emil sighs and after a long while, nods. ‘Look. I don’t think that’s quite fair. But I’ll talk to her. I do agree that she can be, uh, unusually reactive at home.’
Storm nods. They sit a while in silence across from each other, Storm chasing a couple of limp leftover cornflakes around in the bowl with his spoon. He breathes consciously through wave after wave of bitter anger at the thought that it could be like this, all the time – Emil and Storm. Storm and Emil. He contemplates whether now is the right moment to broach the subject of the letter, but decides against it. It feels like too big a conversation for early in the morning. Besides, Storm wants to work out how he himself feels about it before discussing it with his father. And if there’s one thing Storm has learned as a result of his skiing success, it is not to be overly reactive. Even when something unexpected and shocking happens – especially then. It could end up costing you everything.
‘Hey,’ says Emil. ‘I was thinking we could do something together this weekend, just the two of us. How about we drive down to Brighton? Check out the beach and the nightlife? I hear it’s buzzy and we need to start exploring a bit more of the UK.’
Storm nods, but feels strangely distant.
*
In the car, the atmosphere between them is light again, the conversation about Bianka forgotten. Storm briefly wonders what she’s doing in this moment, whether she’s thinking of them at all. Then he wonders what Bianka even thinks of the life she shares with him and his father; she’s never, in all the years he’s known her, seemed especially happy.
As they head south out of London, a sudden rainstorm slows traffic down until it gets so bad that they can hardly make out the road and they have to slow down to a crawl with the hazards on. For a long while they sit there listening to loud music as the rain slams against the windscreen, Storm’s favourite playlist of Norwegian hip-hop. The rain eventually lets up and Emil turns off the hazards and urges the Tesla into the faster lane, which is moving properly again now. Storm turns down the volume dial on the radio and clears his throat. His voice comes out loud and clear, as though he’s been planning to say this, though he hasn’t. In fact, he’s never asked before, not like this – directly. But since the letter arrived, he realizes that he wants to know more.
‘Dad. I need you to tell me about my mother.’
Emil glances at his son and for a moment, Storm tries to picture himself the way his father must see him in this moment. No longer a little boy, Storm is as tall as a man, though his lankiness gives away his youth. He has dark-brown eyes, unlike Emil’s steely blue ones, and an unruly mop of thick dark-blond hair. Emil doesn’t look surprised or annoyed; he must have anticipated that the day would come when Storm would start asking proper questions about his mother, and not be satisfied with the vague answers he’d been given in childhood.
‘Of course. What do you want to know?’
‘More. What she was like. I feel – I feel as though I only know her name and what she did. Not who she was.’
Emil nods, then begins to talk, and when he speaks of her, Storm notices that his father’s face lights up in a way he’s never seen before, as though there is an extra switch inside him that has just been flicked on for the first time.
‘Well, she was really funny. Nobody has made me laugh like she did. She loved to travel. That’s one of the things I’ve thought about after… After what happened. That I’m glad we made time to travel as much as we did. Her favourite was India, for all the reasons that it was probably my least favourite – she loved the colours, the smells, the chaos, the noise of Mumbai and Kolkata. And the humid heat of the countryside. We went twice, before you were born.’
‘Do you have pictures?’
‘From India?’
‘Yeah.’
His father hesitates and keeps his eyes firmly on the busy road. They’re just coming into Brighton and Emil manoeuvres the car across a busy roundabout. The rain has let up completely and a brilliant sun is reflected in puddles and windows, and the streets are filled with swarms of young people smiling and talking, mostly walking in the direction they’re driving, toward the beach. Storm stares at them; it feels safer than looking at his father, and besides, he’s fascinated by the sheer crowds. He’s not used to them, having grown up in quiet Norway. He wonders if that is one of the things that fascinated his mother about India.
‘Yes. I do. I – uh – put them away up in the attic, years ago. But I do have them.’
‘I want to see them.’
Emil hesitates again, but after a quick glance at Storm’s face, realizes he’s absolutely serious and nods.
‘Where are they now, exactly?’
‘I – I believe some of them are in London at the new house. In the attic. We had almost everything personal from Oslo shipped here because the company paid anyway, so—’
‘Why weren’t there ever any pictures of her at home?’
‘You know your, uh, m—, uh, Bianka, felt a little strange about having lots of pictures of her around.’
‘And I feel a little strange about the fact that, thanks to her, I’ve only ever seen a few photos of my actual mother. We never even speak about her.’
‘I’m sorry, Storm. I know I haven’t always handled it very well. I’ve never known how to talk about her with you. It has sometimes just seemed better to wait for you to ask. That’s what the child psychologist said, too.’
‘Well, I’m asking now.’
‘Yes. And you can ask me anything you want about her. I want you to know that.’
‘Okay, tell me more.’
‘Well. She was quite geeky, too, and collected lots of little trinkets from our travels, everything from ticket stubs to faded rocks that had once been part of temples, you know, that kind of thing.’
‘And where is all of that stuff?’
‘We, uh, had to get rid of quite a lot of it when we moved to Slemdal. After she died.’
‘We.’ Storm can feel his father shoot him a sharp glance. Emil chooses to ignore the little dig and continues speaking of Storm’s mother as they come to a stop in a gridlocked line of traffic queuing for an underground garage by the beachfront. The water is a gorgeous shade of blue, the beach is busy, and the atmosphere is relaxed and happy, a contrast to the conversation Storm and his father are having.
Emil’s face is bright and animated as he speaks of Mia, telling Storm about the time she tried to convince Emil to move to Italy, and the time she hitchhiked to France with a friend, and the time she bought a boar’s head at an auction on a whim. When he finishes speaking, they’ve just parked, Emil squeezing the big Tesla into a spot so small Storm has to climb over and exit from his dad’s side. As they emerge back into the bright daylight and head toward the beach, Emil looks crestfallen and drained, but from the way he spoke of Mia, it is clear to Storm that he really loved her and needed to speak about her as much as Storm needed to hear about her.
