Harbor by John Lindqvist (classic novels for teens txt) 📕

it, and through his dad, who had been on a business trip to London, he had the single ‘Two Tribes’ before anyone else had even heard it on Tracks. Henrik and Björn didn’t know who Frankie Goes to Hollywood were, but since Joel kept on referring to them as ‘Frankie’, they drew the wrong conclusion.

One evening at Elin’s, Joel was going on and on about how incredibly cool the video to ‘Two Tribes’ was, with Reagan and that Russian guy, whatever his name was, punching each other until the blood flowed. Joel had spent a couple of days back home in the city; he’d been watching Music Box, and had all the latest info.

‘Two Tribes’ was thundering on the stereo in the background, and Björn was sitting there following the beat with his head. When there was a break in Joel’s monologue, Björn said, ‘He’s pretty good, isn’t he?’

Just as a tern catches a flash of silver in the water and dives, Joel snapped up Björn’s comment. ‘Who is?’ he asked.

Björn nodded towards the stereo. ‘Him.’

‘Who do you mean, Holly Johnson?’

Björn realised he was on thin ice and glanced at Henrik, who was unable to provide any help. Then he said uncertainly, ‘Frankie, of course.’

This reply would be quoted frequently in the future. Whenever anyone in the gang asked who someone was the reply would be, ‘Frankie, of course.’

The episode was typical. A number of similar situations made it perfectly clear that even if Henrik and Björn were more or less OK, they were basically peasants and not worth bothering with.

When Martin climbed up into the alarm bell tower, it was a feat. When Henrik did the same thing a week or so later, nobody was interested, despite the fact that he climbed higher than Martin, so high that he could rap on the bell itself with his knuckles, andthe tower ought really to have given way. What fools do has no importance.

Not that Anders got involved in the status of Henrik and Björn. That was the summer he and Cecilia went up to the rock one evening, and there were other things to think about. He also had Music Box at home in the city and read the music magazine OK from time to time, so he was able to keep up and avoid the worst of the hidden reefs; he was even able to venture an opinion sometimes, ‘I just don’t know what George Michael is doing with Andrew Ridgeley. They must be at it or something.’ But he was mainly into Depêche Mode, and he was on his own there.

One evening before it was time to head home at the end of the summer, he and Cecilia had been alone in Anders’ house, and he had actually done it: he played ‘Somebody’ to her. To his boundless relief she really liked it, and wanted to hear it again. Then they’d snogged. A bit.

When Anders came out for Christmas, Henrik and Björn had changed. There was six months between them, but even in their physical and psychological changes they seemed to stick together like Siamese twins. Both had grown, both had a fine crop of pimples, and they had left behind the innocent naivety that had characterised them up to now: they were quieter, more introverted.

But they still hung out together from time to time during the week; they rode the moped over to Kattholmen and played the odd fantasy game in the forest. There was no need to spell out that this was not to be mentioned to anyone else, it was self-evident. Through the same silent agreement they also stopped calling each other dickhead. Those days were gone.

Anders told them about his new discovery: The Smiths. He had been given a Walkman for Christmas, and it played Hatful of Hollow more or less continuously. Henrik had been given the guest cottage in the garden as his own room, and they sat there listening to ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’ and ‘Still Ill’. When Anders was due to go back to the city, Henrik asked if Anders could make him a tape.Anders gave him the one he’d brought with him, because he could easily make a new one when he got home.

When the summer came it was clear that Henrik and Björn had found their thing. Meat Is Murder had come out a few months earlier; Anders thought it was OK, but nowhere near as good as Hatful of Hollow. Henrik and Björn had a different view. They knew every single line of every single song, and both had become vegetarians, possibly the first ever on Domarö.

It isn’t necessary to go into any more detail about the music that was cool that summer, suffice to say that The Smiths were definitely not cool. If Henrik and Björn had enjoyed a higher status, then perhaps the whole gang might have joined in and embraced the notion of meat-eating as murder, but that was not the case. With hindsight, of course, it was Henrik and Björn who were the most hip and the most London, but what good did it do them at the time? None. They were farmers, head cases.

They tried to get Anders to become a member of their private sect, but Anders wasn’t having any of it. For one thing it wasn’t in his nature to get so obsessed about something to do with music, and for another there was now a kind of sickness surrounding Hubba and Bubba. If you spent time with them you risked being seen as infected. They were still tolerated when the whole group was together, but nobody wanted to be regarded as their friend.

If the gang had gathered on the shore to barbecue sausages and drink weak beer, Henrik and Björn wouldn’t eat any sausages, because meat is murder. If ‘Forever Young’ by Alphaville was playing on Joel’s ghetto blaster, they would sit grinning scornfully at the infantile lyrics in poor English, making comparisons with the greatest living poet of