Will and Testament. Vigdis Hjorth

       Will andTestament

       A NOVEL

       Vigdis Hjorth

      Dad died five months ago, which was either great timing or terrible, depending on your point of view. Personally, I don’t think he would have minded going unexpectedly; I was even tempted when I first heard to think that he might have fallen on purpose, before I knew the full story. It was too much like a plot twist in a novel for it to be just an accident.

      In the weeks leading up to his death, my siblings had become embroiled in a heated argument about how to share the family estate, the holiday cabins on Hvaler. And just two days before Dad’s fall, I had joined in, siding with my older brother against my two younger sisters.

      I learned about the row in a roundabout way. One Saturday morning, which I had been looking forward to, when all I had to do was prepare a contribution to a contemporary drama seminar in Fredrikstad that same day, my sister Astrid called. It was a bright and beautiful late November morning, the sun was shining, I might have mistaken it for spring if it wasn’t for the leafless trees reaching for the sky and the leaves covering the ground. I was in a good mood, I had made coffee and I was excited about going to Fredrikstad, pottering around the old city centre when the seminar was over, walking on the ramparts with my dog and gazing at the river. After my shower, I saw that Astrid had called several times. I assumed it was about a collection of articles that I had been helping her edit.

      She answered her mobile in a hushed voice. Hang on, she said, I could hear beeping in the background as if she were in a room with electrical equipment. Hang on, she said again, still whispering. I waited. I’m at Diakonhjemmet Hospital, she said, her voice louder now, the beeping had gone. It’s Mum, she said. But it’s all right. She’ll be fine.

      An overdose, she then said, Mum took an overdose last night, but she’ll be fine, she’s just very tired.

      It wasn’t Mum’s first attempt, but in the past there had been such a build-up each time that I hadn’t been surprised. Astrid reiterated that everything was fine, that Mum would recover, but that it had been dramatic. Mum had called her at four thirty in the morning to tell her that she had taken an overdose: I’ve taken an overdose. Astrid and her husband had been to a party that night, they had only just got home and weren’t in a fit state to drive; Astrid rang Dad who found Mum on the kitchen floor and called their neighbour, a doctor, and he had come over; he wasn’t sure that an ambulance was necessary, but had called one anyway, just to be on the safe side, and the ambulance had come and taken Mum to the hospital where she was now on the mend, but very, very tired.

      Why, I asked, and Astrid became vague and incoherent, but at length I gathered that ownership of our parents’ much-loved cabins on Hvaler had been transferred to my two sisters, Astrid and Åsa, without our brother, Bård, being told, and when he did find out he thought the notional value was way too low. As Astrid put it, he had kicked off and raised hell. She had been in touch with Bård recently because Mum would be turning eighty soon and Dad eighty-five, which was cause for celebration; she had written to invite him and his family to the party and he had replied that he didn’t want to see her, that she had wheedled a cabin on Hvaler, that this was the final straw in a long line of financial favouritism going back years, and that she was only ever looking out for herself—as usual.

      Astrid had been shocked at his words and accusations, and would appear to have told everything to Mum who in turn became so distraught that she took an overdose and had now been admitted to hospital, so ultimately it was really all Bård’s fault.

      However, when Astrid had called Bård to tell him about the overdose, he had replied that she only had herself to blame. He’s so heartless, she said to me. He uses the most devastating of all weapons, his children. Bård’s children had unfriended Astrid and Åsa on Facebook and written to Mum and Dad how upset they were at the loss of the cabins. Mum had always been terrified of losing contact with Bård’s children.

      I asked her to wish Mum a speedy recovery, what else could I do? She’ll be pleased to hear that, Astrid said.

      Funny how random it seems, our meeting people who later prove pivotal to our lives, who will affect or directly influence decisions that will cause our lives to change direction. Or perhaps it’s not random at all. Can we sense that certain people might nudge us onto a path we consciously or subconsciously would have taken anyway? And so we stay in touch with them. Or do we have a hunch that some people might challenge us or force us off a path we want to take, and so we decide not to see them again? It’s remarkable how important just one person can become in determining how we act in critical situations, just because we happened to consult that individual in the past.

      I didn’t drink my coffee, I was troubled so I got dressed and went outside to feel the wind on my face, to clear my head. I wasn’t handling this well, I thought, and called Søren, who of all my children knew our family best. He was surprised about the overdose, of course, but he knew about past overdoses, and it was always fine in the end, his grandmother invariably called for help in time. When I got to the transfer of the cabins and the low valuation, he grew pensive and said that he could understand why Bård was upset. Bård hadn’t cut contact like I had done; he had always kept in touch, true, he wasn’t as close to my parents as Astrid and Åsa were, but that shouldn’t cause him to be financially penalised, surely?

      I rang Klara who was outraged. Playing at suicide