I kiss him again, try to open his mouth with my own. A party boat sails slowly by out on the fjord. It glides past in the distance, I can only see its lanterns, but the sound carries over the water, I can hear singing and shouting, the odd word. The music is turned up loud, a Norwegian summer hit from the Nineties, and people screech along at the top of their voices.

‘That fucking song,’ Kristoffer mumbles, I can’t tell if he’s muttering the words to me or to himself, and then he drifts off.

I rest against his chest, he’s motionless, smacks his lips in his sleep, I stroke his stomach, slip a hand under his T-shirt, let it rest there. I’m not cold. My head is spinning and I hope I’m not going to have to throw up, and I fall asleep; it begins to grow light.

99

Chapter 14

I kneel before the toilet and stick my fingers down my throat, as far back as I can, my hand wet with spit, my stomach contracting. Whenever I close my eyes the sense of careening off course returns; I groan and sweat and retch, gripped by brief convulsions before it comes up. Pale red in parts, it must be the ceviche, I gather my hair and hold it at the nape of my neck with one hand, supporting myself with the other, pulling myself close to the toilet and contorting with each fresh convulsion, my eyes streaming. Afterwards I rest my head on the porcelain toilet bowl and gasp at the sense of release, light and empty, on the brink of sleep, nothing can top the feeling of having just thrown up. Whirling around inside my head is that same fucking song, I spend ages in the shower with my arms by my sides and feel myself starting to come to again, I turn the temperature up a few notches, standing there until my skin reddens. I look in the mirror as I brush my teeth. I look old today. Two deep lines run from the outer corners of my eyes and diagonally down each cheek. Still, I’m attractive, it has to be said. Nothing happened, I tell myself. It’s safe to 100emerge, nothing happened. Something inside me quivers with excitement, an illicit shudder deep down in my gut, nothing happened, but we came close, it’s impossible, but still, we came close.