Free Encircling by Carl Frode Tiller

what he’s up to, but he doesn’t get it, just goes on talking.
    “You don’t?” he asks, acting amazed. He takes a last puff, stubs out his cigarette in the ashtray. “Well, you may have forgotten it, but I haven’t, I can tell you. An experience like that leaves its mark,” he says and laughs as he turns to Hilde, nods at me: “He was a bit of a joker that one, you know!”
    “Were you, Jon?” Hilde asks, leaning forward and stubbing out her cigarette as well. Sits back in her chair again, regards me, looking slightly surprised, impressed almost.
    I don’t answer straight away.
    “Hmm?” she asks.
    And then I feel it starting to work on me. It’s so stupid, but I’m flattered in spite of myself. I glance down at my feet, then up again, can’t help smiling a little, as good as admitting that I was a bit of a joker, not just withdrawn and shy, and that I could be wild and unruly, too. It’s not true, but it feels good to be seen that way.
    “I wouldn’t have thought that of you,” Hilde says.
    I look at her. And she looks at me, looks at me with soft, kind eyes, eyes that are a little too soft and kind actually. Her smile is a little too kind, too. And suddenly I realize that she knows this is all just a pack of lies, that she’s pretending to believe Eskil’s story because she feels sorry for me, that she pities me. A moment, then the hint of pleasure I had felt at the flattery drains away and shame comes flooding back. I mean, how small can you be, how much of a little brother can you be. Eskil lends me his owntraits and I sit here like a fool, accepting them. Sit here, giving the impression that I long to be like him. As if I look up to him, a smug, swaggering right-winger, the last thing in the world I’d want to be, for Christ’s sake. What the hell’s the matter with me? Hilde doesn’t take her eyes off me, she knows I’m wise to the whole charade and that I’m ashamed, I can tell by her face that she knows.
    “Well, well,” Hilde says, trying to change the subject somehow, get me out of this before it becomes too embarrassing. She opens her mouth, about to say something, but before she can do so Mum appears, I hear the floor creak as she steps out onto the veranda, and both Eskil and Hilde turn, look at her.
    “Not quite done yet,” Mum says. “But it won’t be long now.”
    “Mmm,” Eskil says, leans back in his chair, laces his fingers together and makes a horrible cracking sound with his knuckles, as if to show how much he’s looking forward to dinner.
    “It smells great,” Hilde says.
    “Delicious,” Eskil says.
    “Ah, well, I’m not sure it’ll taste as good as it smells,” Mum says.
    “Oh, I’m sure it will!” Eskil says.
    “I’m not all that used to baking fish in the oven,” Mum says. She’s not about to give in, she’s bringing herself down so that Eskil and Hilde will feel moved to protest and contradict her, so bloody typical, sitting there craving compliments.
    “You made it once before when we were here and it was delicious,” Eskil says.
    “Was it?”
    “Oh, yes. We were still talking about that meal weeks later,” he says, looking at Mum and nodding, and Mum smiles gratefully back at him. Un-fucking-believable, he’s lying in his teeth and we all know it, we all know he’s exaggerating, but it doesn’t seem to matter. It’s so fucking ridiculous.
    “Oh, by the way, let me know if you run out,” Eskil goes on. “I’ll get someone to nip over with a fresh batch for you.”
    “Oh, yes, please!” Mum exclaims happily. “But can you do that?”
    “Ah, what wouldn’t I do for my old Mum,” Eskil says.
    I look at him, he’s got some fucking nerve, he’s never there for Mum, he hardly ever comes to see her, and yet he has the gall to talk like this. He looks at Mum and laughs. And Mum laughs too. He’s never been there for her, not even when she was at her lowest, and yet she laughs when he talks about doing things for her, as if she’s