did it! Can we go outside and fly it? Can we do it now?’
He picked up the remote control in one hand and the finished helicopter in the other, tentatively, as if he didn’t quite trust it not to fall apart.
‘It’s too cold. Much too cold. As I said yesterday, it could be weeks before we can take it outside.’
‘But Dad …’
‘You promised, Marcus. You promised not to go on about it. Why don’t you ring Rolf instead and ask if he’s coming home for our special lunch?’
The boy hesitated for a moment before putting everything down without a word. Suddenly he brightened up with a smile.
‘Granny and the others are here!’ he shouted, running out of the room.
The door slammed behind him. The sound rang in Marcus’s ears until once again only the faint snoring of the oblivious dogs and the crackling of the fire filled the enormous room. Marcus’s gaze rested on the fire, then swept around the room.
He really did live in a cliché.
The house in Åsen.
It was large, but set back from the road so that only the top floor was visible to passers-by. When he bought the house he had decided to remove the ridiculous wooden panelling on the outside, along with the turf roof and the portico in front of the garage, which bore the legend
Home Sweet Home
, roughly carved and with a dragon’s head at either end. Just when he was about to tackle the panelling, Rolf had entered his and young Marcus’s lives. Rolf had laughed until he cried when he saw the house in all its glory for the first time, and he refused to move in unless Marcus promised to keep the more eccentric and what one might call rustic elements.
‘We’re an extended family with a twist,’ Rolf would laugh.
A little bit richer than most, Marcus thought, but he said nothing.
Rolf wasn’t thinking about the money. He was thinking about their family life, with little Marcus and a wide circle of aunts and uncles and cousins, his grandmother and friends who came and went and were almost always at the house in Åsen; he was thinking about the dogs and the annual hunting trip in the autumn with friends, old friends, boys Marcus had grown up with and never lost contact with. Rolf always laughed so heartily at the happy, ordinary, trivial life they led.
Rolf was always so happy.
Everything had turned out the way Marcus had hoped.
He had even managed to use his father’s money for something good. His father had consigned him to oblivion and regarded him as a lost soul. By condemning his son’s future, Georg Koll had paradoxically given him a new one. The first, wild years lay behind him, and Marcus had managed to avoid the disease that had brutally taken so many of those he knew, in pain and embarrassment and often loneliness. He was deeply grateful for this, and when he burned the letter from his father he resolved that Georg Koll would be wrong. Utterly and emphatically wrong. Marcus would be what his father had never been: a man.
‘Dad!’
The boy came running into the room, his arms flung wide.
‘They’re all coming! Rolf said the bulldog had three puppies and everything was fine and he’s on his way home and he’s looking forward to—’
‘Good, good.’ Marcus laughed and got up to accompany the boy into the hallway. He could hear several cars in the courtyard; the guests were arriving.
He stopped in the doorway for a moment and looked around.
The doubt which had tormented and nagged him for several weeks had finally gone. He had a sharp instinct, and had made a fortune by following it. In the early summer of 2007 he had spent weeks fighting a strong urge to sell up and get out of the stock market. He had sat up night after night with analyses and reports, but the only sign he could see that something was wrong was the stagnation of the US property market. When the first downgrading of bonds linked to the unsafe sub-prime loans came later that summer, he made his decision overnight. Over a period of three months he cashed in more
He picked up the remote control in one hand and the finished helicopter in the other, tentatively, as if he didn’t quite trust it not to fall apart.
‘It’s too cold. Much too cold. As I said yesterday, it could be weeks before we can take it outside.’
‘But Dad …’
‘You promised, Marcus. You promised not to go on about it. Why don’t you ring Rolf instead and ask if he’s coming home for our special lunch?’
The boy hesitated for a moment before putting everything down without a word. Suddenly he brightened up with a smile.
‘Granny and the others are here!’ he shouted, running out of the room.
The door slammed behind him. The sound rang in Marcus’s ears until once again only the faint snoring of the oblivious dogs and the crackling of the fire filled the enormous room. Marcus’s gaze rested on the fire, then swept around the room.
He really did live in a cliché.
The house in Åsen.
It was large, but set back from the road so that only the top floor was visible to passers-by. When he bought the house he had decided to remove the ridiculous wooden panelling on the outside, along with the turf roof and the portico in front of the garage, which bore the legend
Home Sweet Home
, roughly carved and with a dragon’s head at either end. Just when he was about to tackle the panelling, Rolf had entered his and young Marcus’s lives. Rolf had laughed until he cried when he saw the house in all its glory for the first time, and he refused to move in unless Marcus promised to keep the more eccentric and what one might call rustic elements.
‘We’re an extended family with a twist,’ Rolf would laugh.
A little bit richer than most, Marcus thought, but he said nothing.
Rolf wasn’t thinking about the money. He was thinking about their family life, with little Marcus and a wide circle of aunts and uncles and cousins, his grandmother and friends who came and went and were almost always at the house in Åsen; he was thinking about the dogs and the annual hunting trip in the autumn with friends, old friends, boys Marcus had grown up with and never lost contact with. Rolf always laughed so heartily at the happy, ordinary, trivial life they led.
Rolf was always so happy.
Everything had turned out the way Marcus had hoped.
He had even managed to use his father’s money for something good. His father had consigned him to oblivion and regarded him as a lost soul. By condemning his son’s future, Georg Koll had paradoxically given him a new one. The first, wild years lay behind him, and Marcus had managed to avoid the disease that had brutally taken so many of those he knew, in pain and embarrassment and often loneliness. He was deeply grateful for this, and when he burned the letter from his father he resolved that Georg Koll would be wrong. Utterly and emphatically wrong. Marcus would be what his father had never been: a man.
‘Dad!’
The boy came running into the room, his arms flung wide.
‘They’re all coming! Rolf said the bulldog had three puppies and everything was fine and he’s on his way home and he’s looking forward to—’
‘Good, good.’ Marcus laughed and got up to accompany the boy into the hallway. He could hear several cars in the courtyard; the guests were arriving.
He stopped in the doorway for a moment and looked around.
The doubt which had tormented and nagged him for several weeks had finally gone. He had a sharp instinct, and had made a fortune by following it. In the early summer of 2007 he had spent weeks fighting a strong urge to sell up and get out of the stock market. He had sat up night after night with analyses and reports, but the only sign he could see that something was wrong was the stagnation of the US property market. When the first downgrading of bonds linked to the unsafe sub-prime loans came later that summer, he made his decision overnight. Over a period of three months he cashed in more
Similar Books
