She cast a glance around, scanning the large, open-plan premises from her small round table in the centre. Found no one of interest. Then turned her attention back to the screen of her laptop. She had found a site with equestrian equipment. There appeared to be no limit to the amount of products available for horses and riders, or the prices demanded for them. After all, most people involved with horses were well-to-do, and riding was an opportunity to flaunt that. The drawback for most people was of course that the bar to impress in this milieu was set so high that most people had already lost before they even got started. But was importing equestrian equipment really what she wanted to do? Or would she be better off trying her hand at arranging riding tours in Valdres, Vassfaret, Vågå or other scenic shitholes beginning with V? She slammed the laptop shut, sighed deeply and looked around again.
Yes, there they were, sitting perched along the bar that ran the length of the establishment. The young men in whatever suit they were flogging to estate agents at the moment. The young women wearing skirts and jackets or something else to make them look ‘professional’. Some of the women actually had jobs, but Helene could point out the others, the ones who were a bit too pretty, wearing skirts which were a bit too short who were more interested in what made a job superfluous, in short a man with money. She didn’t know why she continued to come here. Ten years ago, the Monday lunches at Danielle’s had been legendary. There had been something so deliciously decadent and couldn’t-give-a-fuck about getting drunk and dancing on the tables in the middle of the first day of the working week. But, of course, it had also been a statement about status; an excess only the rich and privileged could allow themselves. These days it was quieter. Now the former fire station was a combination of bar and Michelin-starred gourmet restaurant, a place where the elite of Oslo’s west side ate, drank, talked business, discussed family matters, built relationships and entered alliances that drew the distinction between those allowed within and those who would remain outside.
It was here, during a wild Monday lunch, that Helene had met Markus. She had been twenty-three years old, he was over fifty and filthy rich. So rich that people moved aside when he walked to the bar, everyone seemed to know what the Røed family were good for. And bad for. She had not been as innocent as she made out, of course, something Markus could probably tell after the first couple of times she stayed the night at his villa in Skillebekk. Could tell by her soundtrack to lovemaking, which was akin to something lifted straight from Pornhub, could tell by the pings from incoming messages on her phone all night and could tell by the way she arranged the cocaine in such even lines that he never knew which he should take. But he didn’t seem to mind. Innocence wasn’t something that turned him on, he claimed. She didn’t know if that was true, but it wasn’t so important. What was important, or one of the things that was important, was that he could facilitate the lifestyle she had always dreamt about. That dream was not about being a stay-at-home trophy wife investing all her time on the upkeep and improvement of the house, holiday home, social network and her own body and face. Helene left that sort of thing to the other parasitic bimbos on the hunt for a suitable host at Danielle’s. Helene had a brain and was interested in things. In art and culture, especially theatre and the visual arts. In architecture — she had long considered studying that. But her big dream was to run the best riding school in the country. It wasn’t a pipe dream indulged in by a stupid, fanciful girl, but a realistic plan drawn up at a young age by an academically capable and hard-working girl who had mucked out at more than one stable, progressed through the ranks, and eventually become a riding school instructor, a girl who despised the term ‘horse mad’ and knew what was required in terms of effort, money and expertise.
And still it had all gone to shit.
It hadn’t been Markus’s fault. Well, yes, it had, he had cut off the money just as some horses at the riding school fell ill, which combined with unexpected competition and unforeseen expenses made the hurdle too high. She’d had to close down the school, and it was time to find something new.
In more ways than one. She and Markus were not going to last much longer either.
Some say that when a couple start having sex less than once a week, it’s only a question of time before it’s over. Nonsense of course, it had been years since she and Markus had had sex more than once every six months.
