The Jealousy Man and Other Stories
- Автор: Несбё Ю
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: Alfred A. Knopf
- ISBN: 978-0-593-32100-3
- Переводчик: Robert Ferguson
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Jealousy Man and Other Stories». Краткое содержание книги:
A detective with a nose for jealousy is on the trail of a man suspected of murdering his twin; a bereaved father must decide whether vengeance has a place in the new world order after a pandemic brings about the collapse of society; a garbage man fresh off a bender tries to piece together what happened the night before; a hired assassin matches wits against his greatest adversary in a dangerous game for survival; and an instantly electric connection between passengers on a flight to London may spell romance, or something more sinister.
With Nesbø’s characteristic gift for outstanding atmosphere and gut-wrenching revelations, The Jealousy Man confirms that he is at the peak of his abilities.
In all honesty in England there isn’t much climbing, and certainly not in and around Oxford, but my fellow Led Zeppelin fan Trevor Biggs, the slightly chubby, good-natured, red-haired son of a factory worker from Sheffield, told me of friends that climbed in the Peak District close to his home town. Trevor turned into a kind of regular wingman for me. With his outgoing manner and warm sense of humour he attracted people — guys as well as girls — who would join us at our table. Often it was these girls who, after a time, turned their attention to me. Trevor also owned a run-down but still functioning Toyota HiAce van, the outstanding virtue of which was that it had seat warmers. When I suggested to him that he could combine climbing with visits to his parents and in addition share the petrol costs with two others he went for the idea immediately.
That was the start of three years of weekend trips and climbing. The drive didn’t take more than two and a half hours, but to get as much climbing as possible out of the weekends we spent the nights in a tent, in the van or — if the weather was particularly bad — at Trevor’s parents’ house.
In the course of that first year I soon became better than Trevor, perhaps because I was more dedicated and more concerned to impress — or at least not to disappoint — Monique. She was and remained far superior to us. Not because she was particularly strong, but that small, neat body flew up the walls with the technique, balance and footwork of a ballet dancer. She understood climbing in a way that Trevor and I could only dream of. I, and in due course Trevor, did not really begin to get going until we were able to find sites where the climbing was done in handholds and ledges, where what was needed was brute physical strength. But it was Monique’s advice, her encouragement and her ability to share in our joys and minor triumphs that kept me and Trevor going. And the sound of her sparkling, happy laughter echoing between the rock faces because Trevor or I had once again fallen and dangled there at the end of a rope, cursing in frustration and asking to be lowered. Not because we wanted to give up but so we could attempt the whole thing once again, from the bottom up.
At times — perhaps because Monique felt he needed it more than me — it seemed as though she were a touch more enthusiastic in her praise when it was Trevor who managed something new rather than me. But that was fine. The fact that she was like that was one of the reasons I loved her so much.
It was in our third year that I realised Trevor had begun to take his climbing seriously. I had mounted a so-called fingerboard above the door to strengthen my fingers. Trevor never touched it. But now, quite often, I would see him dangling there. Sometimes it almost felt as though I caught him doing it red-handed, as though he didn’t want me to know that he was practising as much as he was. But his body betrayed him. When the sun shone and it became so hot on those Peak District rock faces that Trevor and I pulled off our T-shirts, I could see that his formerly chubby upper body was still a dazzling milk-white, but now all the fat was gone. Well-defined muscles rippled like steel cables under his skin when he, in his almost robotic way, forced a way up the overhangs on routes where even Monique herself had to admit defeat. I still had the advantage on him on the vertical routes because I had been careful to study Monique’s technique, but there was no doubt about it, the competition between Trevor and me had grown much more even. Because that’s what it had become: a competition.
It was also around this time that I began partying a little too much. Meaning, of course, I did too much social drinking. My father was a recovering alcoholic. It was something I had known about since childhood, and he had tried to warn me off it. But his warning had been to avoid drink when I was feeling bad, not happy, like I was now. Whatever it was, the combination of a lot of climbing, a lot of Monique and a lot of ‘partying’ began to affect my studies. Monique was the first to point it out, and this became the occasion of our first quarrel. Which I won. Or at least, she was crying when she left because I’d got the last word.
Next day I apologised to her, laid the blame on Greek social norms for my use of exaggeratedly harsh words, and promised to party less and study more.
For a while I kept that promise. I even dropped a weekend in the Peak District to catch up on my studies. It was tough, but it had to be done, the exam was just round the corner and I knew my father was expecting results at the very least the equal of my older brother’s, who he had got into Yale and who was now sat on the board of the family business. All the same, this enforced swotting made me almost hate the things I actually loved, literature in particular. I envied Monique and Trevor their days off and was almost relieved when they came back early on the Saturday evening because of the rain and said that they’d hardly climbed a metre.
I continued to give priority to my studies, so much so that at one point Monique complained. It pleased me, but it was a strange pleasure, and had an even stranger side effect. From the start I felt Monique had more power over me than I had over her. It was something I accepted and attributed to the fact that she was a greater catch for me than I was for her. So I came out on top there too. What was interesting now was that the less time I spent with her, the more that seemed to even out the balance of power between us. So I buried myself again, redoubled my studies, and when the day of the big exam came along and I left the exam room after five hours, I knew that what I had handed in was something that would make not just my tutor and father proud, but Monique too. I bought a bottle of cheap champagne and ran to her room on the first floor of her hall of residence. Led Zeppelin’s ‘Whole Lotta Love’ was playing so loudly when I knocked that she didn’t hear me. Overjoyed — because it was I who had given her that record, and if there was anything I felt at that moment it was a whole lotta love! — I ran round to the back. Even with the bottle of champagne in one hand I easily climbed the tree that was outside her window. Once I was high enough to see inside I waved the bottle and was on the point of calling her name and telling her I loved her, but the words stuck in my throat.
Monique was always thrillingly vocal when we made love, and the walls between the rooms so thin we used to play music to cover the sounds.
I saw Monique, but she didn’t see me, her eyes were closed.
Trevor didn’t see me either because he had his back to me. That milky-white, now muscular back. His hips were moving, pumping up and down almost in time to ‘Whole Lotta Love’.
I remained in a trance until I heard a crash and, looking down, saw the champagne bottle had smashed against the cobblestones below. Shards of glass protruded from a white, bubbling puddle. I don’t know why the thought that someone might see me caused me to panic, but I slid rather than climbed down, and the moment my feet hit the ground I ran, I fled.
I ran all the way back to the shop where I had bought the champagne, bought two bottles of Johnnie Walker with the last of the money my mother had sent me and ran to my hall of residence. Locked myself in my room and began to drink.
It was dark outside when Monique knocked on my door. I didn’t open, called out that I was in bed, could it wait until tomorrow? She said there was something she had to talk to me about, but I said I didn’t want to take the chance of her catching what I had. Terrified of infection as she was she left, after asking me, through the door, how the exam had gone.
Trevor knocked on my door too. When I called out that I was ill, and he asked if there was anything I needed, I whispered ‘a friend’, turned over in bed and called out ‘No thanks’.
‘Hope you’ll be better for our climbing trip on Friday,’ said Trevor.