Latin males had a reputation for being womanizers seemed reason enough for her to fool a nice Italian musicianfriend of mine into believing that she fancied him, only then to give him the brush-off in the most humiliating fashion. “There, that’ll give him some idea of what life’s like for women in his country,” she said afterwards.
I don’t remember exactly how we got to know her, but I do remember that we were both very surprised to meet a girl who was genuinely interested in the same things as us. Despite the reckless, almost sinister sides of her character, we hit it off with her right from the start, and there were times when we slept and ate almost more at her house than we did at our own, something which made Oddrun, Silje’s mother, very happy. “If you want to stay young,” she used to say, “you have to spend time with young people.” And when word got around that Oddrun had a voracious sexual appetite and enjoyed the company of young men, she laughed that coarse, husky laugh of hers; it would never have occurred to her to be more discreet or hold herself more aloof. Quite the opposite. Oddrun liked being provocative and shocking people. Once, when you were helping her to change the washer on the tap for the garden hose and she noticed the retired army officer who lived next door watching the two of you through binoculars from his living room window, she suddenly pulled you to her and kissed you full on the lips. Back inside the house she could hardly stop laughing. “That phone of his will be red hot till tomorrow morning, I bet you,” she said.
Oddrun didn’t seem to give a toss what people thought of her. She would sit on her balcony, knocking back the drink on a Tuesday morning while people walked by down below. She would march straight into the newsagent’s and buy Playgirl no matter how big a queue there was, and instead of hiding it in her bedroom she’d leave it lying on one of the bookshelves in the living room. But according to my mumshe hadn’t always been like that. Silje’s father had been a Freemason and businessman with a reputation to maintain. He had expected Oddrun to be respectable and presentable at the very least, and it wasn’t until the early Eighties, after he had contracted some sort of lung disease and died, that Oddrun “became hellbent on being a Bohemian and doing all the things her husband wouldn’t let her do,” as Mum put it.
Silje pretended to despair of Oddrun’s unconventional habits, the little scandals she caused and the way she occasionally set tongues wagging, but from the way she acted it was clear that she was actually proud of this side of her mother and admired it. “Oh, Mum, for heaven’s sake,” she would say, rolling her eyes. “Oh, God, I’m so mortified,” she would sigh, putting her hands to her face. But unlike you and me, who were still embarrassed by and blushed for our mothers, she never blushed, not at all, she simply laughed at it all and the very next day she would be entertaining friends and acquaintances with the latest antics of her crazy Bohemian mother. Oddrun, for her part, knew that Silje was only pretending to be shocked and dismayed and she responded to this playacting with a little playacting of her own: “What?” she would say, frowning and looking as though she had no idea what was so shocking about what she had just said or done.
And we admired her and looked up to her as much as Silje did. She was well-read, well-informed and intelligent and we found it hard to understand how a woman like her could take the time to talk to us as often and at such length as she did, why she would ask us in for a cup of tea even if Silje wasn’t home, why she invited us to her parties and treated us exactly the same as all of her other, adult, guests.
She didn’t hold the sort of parties that Mum and the other adults I knew held, though. She held salons. And at her salonsshe served apéritifs in long-stemmed, wide-bowled
I don’t remember exactly how we got to know her, but I do remember that we were both very surprised to meet a girl who was genuinely interested in the same things as us. Despite the reckless, almost sinister sides of her character, we hit it off with her right from the start, and there were times when we slept and ate almost more at her house than we did at our own, something which made Oddrun, Silje’s mother, very happy. “If you want to stay young,” she used to say, “you have to spend time with young people.” And when word got around that Oddrun had a voracious sexual appetite and enjoyed the company of young men, she laughed that coarse, husky laugh of hers; it would never have occurred to her to be more discreet or hold herself more aloof. Quite the opposite. Oddrun liked being provocative and shocking people. Once, when you were helping her to change the washer on the tap for the garden hose and she noticed the retired army officer who lived next door watching the two of you through binoculars from his living room window, she suddenly pulled you to her and kissed you full on the lips. Back inside the house she could hardly stop laughing. “That phone of his will be red hot till tomorrow morning, I bet you,” she said.
Oddrun didn’t seem to give a toss what people thought of her. She would sit on her balcony, knocking back the drink on a Tuesday morning while people walked by down below. She would march straight into the newsagent’s and buy Playgirl no matter how big a queue there was, and instead of hiding it in her bedroom she’d leave it lying on one of the bookshelves in the living room. But according to my mumshe hadn’t always been like that. Silje’s father had been a Freemason and businessman with a reputation to maintain. He had expected Oddrun to be respectable and presentable at the very least, and it wasn’t until the early Eighties, after he had contracted some sort of lung disease and died, that Oddrun “became hellbent on being a Bohemian and doing all the things her husband wouldn’t let her do,” as Mum put it.
Silje pretended to despair of Oddrun’s unconventional habits, the little scandals she caused and the way she occasionally set tongues wagging, but from the way she acted it was clear that she was actually proud of this side of her mother and admired it. “Oh, Mum, for heaven’s sake,” she would say, rolling her eyes. “Oh, God, I’m so mortified,” she would sigh, putting her hands to her face. But unlike you and me, who were still embarrassed by and blushed for our mothers, she never blushed, not at all, she simply laughed at it all and the very next day she would be entertaining friends and acquaintances with the latest antics of her crazy Bohemian mother. Oddrun, for her part, knew that Silje was only pretending to be shocked and dismayed and she responded to this playacting with a little playacting of her own: “What?” she would say, frowning and looking as though she had no idea what was so shocking about what she had just said or done.
And we admired her and looked up to her as much as Silje did. She was well-read, well-informed and intelligent and we found it hard to understand how a woman like her could take the time to talk to us as often and at such length as she did, why she would ask us in for a cup of tea even if Silje wasn’t home, why she invited us to her parties and treated us exactly the same as all of her other, adult, guests.
She didn’t hold the sort of parties that Mum and the other adults I knew held, though. She held salons. And at her salonsshe served apéritifs in long-stemmed, wide-bowled
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