The following afternoon I went to Dad's. I had put on a white shirt, black cotton trousers, and white basketball shoes. In order not to feel so utterly naked, as I did when I wore only a shirt, I took a jacket with me, slung it over my shoulder and held it by the hook since it was too hot outside to wear it.

I jumped off the bus after Lundsbroa Bridge and ambled along the drowsy, deserted summer street to the house he was renting, where I had stayed that winter.

He was in the back garden pouring lighter fluid over the charcoal in the grill when I arrived. Bare chest, blue swimming shorts, feet thrust into a pair of sloppy sneakers without laces. Again this getup was unlike him.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi," I said.

"Have a seat."

He nodded to the bench by the wall.

The kitchen window was open, from inside came the clattering of glasses and crockery.

"Unni's busy inside," he said. "She'll be here soon." His eyes were glassy.

He stepped toward me, grabbed the lighter from the table, and lit the charcoal. A low almost transparent flame, blue at the bottom, rose in the grill. It didn't appear to have any contact with the charcoal at all, it seemed to be floating above it.

"Heard anything from Yngve?" he asked, of my older brother.

"Yes," I said. "He dropped by briefly before leaving for Bergen."

"He didn't come by," Dad said.

"He said he was going to, see how you were doing, but he didn't have time."

Dad stared into the flames, which were lower already. Turned and came toward me, sat down on a camping chair. Produced a glass and bottle of red wine from nowhere. They must have been on the ground beside him.

"I've been relaxing with a drop of wine today," he said. "It's summer after all, you know."

"Yes," I said.

"Your mother didn't like that," he said.

"Oh?" I said.

"No, no, no," he said. "That wasn't good."

"No," I said.

"Yeah," he said, emptying the glass in one swig.

"Gunnar's been round, snooping," he said, of my uncle. "Afterward he goes straight to Grandma and Grandad and tells them what he's seen."

"I'm sure he just came to visit you," I said.

Dad didn't answer. He refilled his glass.

"Are you coming, Unni?" he shouted. "We've got my son here!"

"OK, coming," we heard from inside.

"No, he was snooping," he repeated. "Then he ingratiates himself with your grandparents."

He stared into the middle distance with the glass resting in his hand. Turned his head to me.

"Would you like something to drink? A Coke? I think we've got some in the fridge. Go and ask Unni."

I stood up, glad to get away.

Gunnar was a sensible, fair man, decent and proper in all ways, he always had been, of that there was no doubt. So where had Dad's sudden backbiting come from?

After all the light in the garden, at first I couldn't see my hand in front of my face in the kitchen. Unni put down the scrub brush when I went in, came over and gave me a hug.

"Good to see you, Karl Ove." She smiled.

I smiled back. She was a warm person. The times I had met her she had been happy, almost flushed with happiness. And she had treated me like an adult. She seemed to want to be close to me. Which I both liked and disliked.

"Same here," I said. "Dad said there was some Coke in the fridge."

I opened the fridge door and took out a bottle. Unni wiped a glass dry and passed it to me.

"Your father's a fine man," she said. "But you know that, don't you?"

I didn't answer, just smiled, and when I was sure that my silence hadn't been perceived as a denial, I went back out.

Dad was still sitting there.

"What did Mom say?" he asked into the middle distance once again.

"About what?" I said, sat down, unscrewed the top, and filled the glass so full that I had to hold it away from my body and let it froth over the flagstones.

He didn't even notice!

"Well, about the divorce," he said.

"Nothing in particular," I said.

"I suppose I'm the monster," he said. "Do you sit around talking about it?"

"No, not at all. Cross my heart."

There was a silence.

Over the white timber fence you could see sections of the river, greenish in the bright sunlight, and the roofs of the houses on the other side. There were trees everywhere, these beautiful green creations that you never really paid much attention to, just walked past; you registered them but they made no great impression on you in the way that dogs or cats did, but they were actually, if you lent the matter some thought, present in a far more breathtaking and sweeping way.

The flames in the grill had disappeared entirely. Some of the charcoal briquettes glowed orange, some had been transformed into grayish-white puffballs, some were as black as before. I wondered if I could light up. I had a packet of cigarettes inside my jacket. It had been all right at their party. But that was not the same as it being permitted now.

Dad drank. Patted the thick hair at the side of his head. Poured wine into his glass, not enough to fill it, the bottle was empty. He held it in the air and studied the label. Then he stood up and went indoors.

I would be as good to him as I could possibly be, I decided. Regardless of what he did, I would be a good son.

This decision came at the same time as a gust of wind blew in from the sea, and in some strange way the two phenomena became connected inside me, there was something fresh about it, a relief after a long day of passivity.

He returned, knocked back the dregs in his glass and recharged it.

"I'm doing fine now, Karl Ove," he said as he sat down. "We're having such a good time together."

"I can see you are," I said.

"Yes," he said, oblivious to me.