I had just taken the lift from the garage and got out on the ninth floor in the new high-rise in Oslo close to the harbour front. I was still thinking about Jim. The bag. The reefer jacket. The dark woollen cap. Once upon a time his clothes had been so stylish, he was the first to have long hair out where we lived, the first to wear flared hipster pants, a reefer jacket and a neckerchief. A long-haired sailor on dry land. He looked fantastic. It was Upper Romerike police district calling. I said: ‘Hello, this is Tommy.’ I was a bit out of breath, I hadn’t run a metre. I drank too much, that was why. ‘Could you come up here and collect your father.’ ‘I don’t think my father’s alive,’ I said, and the policeman said: ‘He’s not so sprightly at the moment, I’ll give you that, but he’s not dead.’ ‘Are you certain it’s my father,’ I said. ‘How can you know,’ and the policeman said: ‘Who else could it be.’ I had been so sure he was dead. I tried to work out how old he might be now.
