Will and Testament. Vigdis Hjorth

was when his older daughter was confirmed. That had been ten years after the previous time I’d seen him, I’d worked out on my way here, and both times had been formal events in public venues, restaurants not unlike the Grand. We hadn’t, I’d realised, had a private conversation since we left school, and hardly ever even then. We had both distanced ourselves from our family, but not together, not in unison, we had distanced ourselves individually and separately. I heard news of Bård from Astrid on the two occasions every year that I spoke to her, but there was little to report was my impression, his children did well at school. I didn’t know that he no longer lived in a house in Nordstrand but had moved to a flat in Fagerborg. Astrid hadn’t said anything about that, I learned about the move at the Grand after I had taken our coats to the cloakroom while Bård found the table he had booked for us. He trusted me with his coat because we had once been squashed into the back of a car with our sisters. I hung up our coats in the cloakroom and found him seated at the table, he looked like Dad as he had once looked, Dad had aged a lot, Bård said. We ordered coffee, he had come here on the tram, he said, when I asked if he had driven here by car, and that was when he told me that he no longer lived in Nordstrand, but in Fagerborg, and he was surprised, such was my impression, that I didn’t know that, the move was eight years ago, that Astrid—with whom he knew I was in touch—hadn’t mentioned it. He served himself first, went up to the buffet with a gait I didn’t remember and came back with an open sandwich. I went to the buffet and came back with an open sandwich. So there we were together, at the Grand.

      It turned out that the cabin dispute had gone on for much longer than I had assumed. Mum and Dad had decided that Astrid and Åsa would inherit the cabins several years ago. Bård had learned this from his daughter. She had been visiting her grandparents who told her that Astrid and Åsa would inherit the cabins on Hvaler. Bård’s daughter had been taken aback, what should she say, a granddaughter who had been going to Hvaler since she was yea high, but who was too young and shy to voice her embarrassment and disappointment. Was that why they had told her, a young and polite grandchild who wouldn’t argue with them, so that they could later say that she hadn’t objected? Bård’s daughter went home and told her father what his parents had said, and Bård went to see Mum and Dad who confirmed that Astrid and Åsa would indeed inherit the cabins. Did they realise the magnitude of what they were saying? How shocking it was to say this to their only son, who had spent every summer on Hvaler since he was a child and later brought his own family there every summer until his relationship with Mum and Dad became too strained, who had imagined and hoped that when Mum and Dad were gone, he and his siblings might grow close again. He had asked them to reconsider; they had replied that they had made up their minds. Some weeks later he received a copy of their will in the post which made it clear that Astrid and Åsa would inherit the cabins, and if they—contrary to expectations—didn’t want to inherit the cabins, they would be sold to the highest bidder. Bård and I would not inherit them.

      They don’t want us there, he said.

      We had probably picked up on that and it explained why we hadn’t gone there.

      A year later he had written a letter to Mum and Dad, he placed a copy of it in front of me, he had brought all the paperwork, a friendly letter where he argued that all four children should share the two cabins. Because everyone had strong links to Hvaler, because we could then share the maintenance work and the costs, because more people would thus benefit from the cabins, the plots were large, new cabins could be built in the future.

      They replied that they had made up their minds.

      He had then written to Astrid and Åsa, making the same points, they had replied that it was for Mum and Dad to decide how they wanted to dispose of their property. In the last email Bård had sent on the matter, he wrote that Hvaler was the place that held the happiest memories for him. Why couldn’t the four siblings own half a cabin each? It needn’t be complicated, he wrote. Several of his friends had inherited cabins jointly with their siblings, and it usually worked out fine. I ask you to reconsider please. It would mean a lot to me and my children to own half of one of the cabins when one day you’re no longer here. He concluded by writing that he didn’t understand why Mum and Dad would rather see their sons-in-law on Hvaler than their own son and his children.

      He got no reply. And there was nothing he could do about it. They were perfectly entitled to do what they had done. But did they know what they were doing? The hurt they were inflicting, how they were twisting the knife in the wound? Did Astrid and Åsa understand the consequences of Mum and Dad doing what they were doing with their blessing, didn’t they realise that it would impact on their relationship with Bård? Did Mum and Dad think the relationship between the four siblings would remain unchanged? Did Mum and Dad want Bård and his children or me and my children not to own half a cabin each on Hvaler? Bård had asked politely and argued his case without knowing that it was already a done deal. Mum and Dad would rather holiday with their sons-in-law than their own son and his family. They didn’t want us on Hvaler. They were happy to see Bård and his children, me and my children at Christmas, Easter and big family birthdays, but they didn’t want us on Hvaler. They liked having Astrid and Åsa with their husbands and children with them on Hvaler and everywhere else because there was no history with Astrid and Åsa.

      Mum and Dad and Astrid and Åsa had decided that the cabins would go to Astrid and Åsa and carried out their plan. They were complicit. Bård had believed that the decision could be changed and had pleaded with them in vain. Some people knew what was really going on, others didn’t. It was clearly unfair, but Mum and Dad and Astrid and Åsa continued to act as if everything was just fine, which made it odd that Astrid had never mentioned the matter to me, didn’t it?

      A catastrophe was looming, didn’t they understand or did they understand and not give a damn and were hoping to ride out the storm?

      Bård wouldn’t be getting a cabin on Hvaler, he would have to learn to live with that, and he did, but the damage had been done.

      Bård had popped by in August to see Mum and Dad in Bråteveien to say hi after the summer, and Mum had said that Dad had grown too old to do the things he used to, maintenance work on the cabins, cutting the grass and weeding, and so they had transferred ownership of the old cabin to Astrid and the new cabin to Åsa. Bård, who had accepted that he wasn’t going to get a cabin, asked at what price. When Mum told him, he got up and walked out. It was the final straw. The ridiculously low price. The preferential treatment was deliberate. They wanted Bård and me to receive as little recompense as legally possible. It was intentional, and Astrid and Åsa had gone along with it. How would they have felt if it had been the other way round? And would they one day do the same to their children, they had two each. Give the cabins that they now owned to just one of them? No. Of course not. Because it would be awful for the one who didn’t get a cabin, they would feel like their parents loved them the least.

      As Bård left, Mum called out to him that he should count himself lucky to be getting anything at all.

      We should count ourselves lucky to be getting anything at all. The will we had been told about at Christmas three years ago, and which Bård had asked to be sent to him so he could read it, could be changed at any time, presumably it had already been changed, if indeed it still existed, perhaps there was no valid will, in which case the old cabin would be treated as a gift to Astrid and the new cabin as a gift to Åsa and we, Bård and Bergljot, which rolled off the tongue so easily, risked getting nothing at all.

      It had rattled him, I could tell, that Mum and Dad had shown such blatant favouritism, that Astrid and Åsa had accepted the injustice apparently without a moment’s hesitation, hadn’t tried to talk Mum and Dad out of it so that the relationship between the siblings wouldn’t be ruined, so that Bård wouldn’t feel overlooked and ignored, so that Bård wouldn’t be upset as he had been, as he was, because they so very clearly didn’t care about his feelings, didn’t care enough about him to treat him decently. Bård had had a few knocks along the way and had now been dealt the final blow, he was beaten, I realised. I, too, had received some knocks along the way and was dealt the final blow fifteen years ago when I decided to end all contact.

      It happened in the Narvesen kiosk in Bogstadveien on 13 March 1999.

      In