by Lars Mytting
“What do you study on the mainland?” I said.
“Finance. Numbers and figures.”
Her sentences were truncated when she talked about herself. When I had trouble understanding her, she did nothing to tone down her dialect. But I was able to grasp that she lived in Aberdeen.
“What are they like?” I said. “The Winterfinch family. Why did they lease the island to Einar, and why have they left the house untouched?”
“Please understand,” she said, “I can’t talk about my employer. It’s just not done.”
We drove off Geira, and halfway to Yell the air grew dank and sticky. Without asking she twisted the knob for the fan to full blast, slid the seat back and pulled off her tweed jacket.
More of her body was visible now, pale and a little formless, but there was a sensuality about her when she twisted in the seat and I caught myself staring at her for too long. Her narrow eyes suggested she didn’t give a damn what other people thought. She seemed sharp as a tack.
Where am I headed, I asked myself.
On board Bigga we bought chocolate from a vending machine. On the wall was a poster for a “Haltadans” on Fetlar, with Fullsceilidh Spelemannslag providing the music.
“We call it the same thing in Norway,” I said. “Not that it’s anything for me.”
“Dancing?”
“Never,” I said, and felt stupid again.
“You should have been here for ‘Up Helly Aa’,” she said and dug out a flat red pack of cigarettes. Craven As, with the face of a small black cat on the front.
She offered me one and I stood with chocolate in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Yes, she must be my age, twenty-five at the most. She kept her elbow close to her body when she smoked. With each drag her gaze looked beyond the horizon, and she moved her hand towards her shoulder so that the glowing tip pointed backwards, a posture which also necessitated a gentle twist of the hips.
She could even manage to smoke elegantly on a Shetland Islands ferry.
“What was that you said about ‘Helly Aa’?” I said.
“New Year’s celebration, the name comes from the Norse. Horned helmets and lots of beer. They build replica Viking longships, put them out to sea and set fire to them with flaming arrows.”
“You said they. Do you no longer consider yourself a Shetlander?” I said, glancing around for an ashtray. She took a gentle step backwards to let the wind take the ashes. I tried to do the same, but the embers blew onto my anorak.
“I don’t consider myself much of anything,” she said, taking another drag before dropping the cigarette in the sea.
Bigga slammed into the pier of the main island. Gwen had thawed out a little during the crossing, but she kept trying to direct the conversation towards me and not herself.
“Is there any sort of registry office in Lerwick?” I said when we were back on the road. “You know, for title deeds and that sort of thing?”
“What do you want there?”
“To ask if there’s any kind of agreement for Haaf Gruney. Since the buildings are empty, I’m wondering whether Einar actually owned the island.”
“You’d have to go to the sheriff. There’s no registry office on Shetland. No police either. The sheriff’s office handles everything.”
“Do you want to come with me?” I said. “It would be nice to have an interpreter.”
“You speak perfectly intelligibly. Everyone in Lerwick enjoys meeting a genuine Norwegian.”
“It is not actually the language I need an interpreter for. More to . . . to figure out how to ask.”
“Oh please, I’ve said this already. I can’t do that as I work for them. It is not done.”
*
Every building in Lerwick had been lashed by rain; cloudburst we passed on Yell had passed through here first. Has there ever been a house on Shetland that was dry, really dry, I wondered as I headed for the sheriff’s office on King Erik Street.
At the entrance I stood looking at the sign. Officialdom had always annoyed me back home, the staunch smugness. The Norway of skiers. The Norway of officer school candidates. But the Norway I found remnants of here was a warped and imprecise suggestion of everything I liked about my homeland. I had long since known that Shetlanders’ Norwegian roots ran deep; you just had to look at the blue-and-white-crossed flag flying everywhere. But I had not expected there to be an Old Norse motto under the sheriff’s coat of arms.
Með lögum skal land byggja.
I found myself at the counter of the archive. A map of Shetland covered the majority of the back wall. A man with a shiny bald head appeared, eating a currant bun.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “How may I be of assistance?”
I went to the map and pointed to Haaf Gruney.
“I wanted to ask about the ownership of this island,” I said. “A man named Einar Hirifjell—”
“I’m sorry?”
“H-i-r-i-f-j-e-l-l. He was a relative. Lived out on Haaf Gruney for nearly forty years. He may have got British citizenship after the war.”
The man took another bite of the bun. Stared at a plastic flower in a yellow vase on the countertop.
“And now you’re wondering who owns the island?”
“Yes.”
He pulled out a threadbare hardbacked book, then walked over to a filing cabinet and flicked through the folders. He used both hands, with the half-eaten bun lodged between his teeth. The metal drawer slammed shut and he opened another. He tucked a folder under his arm and pulled out one more.
“Hm,” he said, placing the folders on his side of the counter and chewing on the bun.
“Yes?”
“I have to ask for your name. Identification.”
I handed him my Norwegian driver’s licence. He studied it sceptically.
“You said your name was Edvard . . . Hirifjell – apologies if I’m not pronouncing it correctly.”
“Yes. That’s me.”
“Do you have a middle name?”
“No.”
“I will take that as a yes, because your identity number matches. You’re to receive a copy of this deed. The right to Haaf Gruney was transferred from Mr Einar Hirifjell to Edvard Daireaux Hirifjell on November 5, 1971.”
I felt blood coursing through every single vein in my body.
“In 1971?” I mumbled.
“Yes, indeed. But the transfer was not to come into effect until after his death.”
“So I own an island?” I said, and looked at the wall map.
“Yes and no. Only on certain conditions. Here you have the original contract,” he said, giving me a small piece of paper headed WINTERFINCH LTD.
It explained, in black and white on yellowed paper, that Einar Hirifjell and his descendants had permission to live on Haaf Gruney, and had exclusive right to the land and the buildings until the end of time. No rent was to be paid. The one factor that could overturn this perpetual contract was an act of God.
Beneath the line As witness the hands of the parties I saw Einar’s steady, right-leaning signature. Next to it, much larger, the letters awkwardly scratched on the page with such a firm hand that the paper had torn: Duncan Winterfinch.
The agreement was dated August 3, 1943.
I looked at the man behind the counter questioningly. He glanced at the document. Ate the last piece of his currant bun.
“A rather generous agreement for its time,” he said. “Nobody knew what the war would bring, and many feared that all of Europe would become German territory. A home in Great Britain, however meagre, was a ticket to freedom. But now it appears rather – how should I put it – characterised by the solitude of its location.”
“What is an act of God?”
“Anything beyond human control. An earthquake. A volcanic eruption. The island sinking into the sea.” He scratched his eyebrow. “But this is what complicates everything.” He pulled out another document, with the same letterhead – WINTERFINCH LTD – but in a more modern style.
“Whose lawyer?”
“The Winterfinch family’s, in Edinburgh. They believe the document to be invalid because Mr Hirifjell had no children.”
“He’s my great-uncle,” I said. “I’m his closest heir.”
“Descendants, according to this contract, means a child or grandchild, I’m sorry to say.”
He went off to make copies and authenticated them with the sheriff’s official stamp. A gentle thump on the stamp pad, a rough thump against the counter. A yellow plastic pocket to protect them from Shetland’s perpetual rain. He offered a “Good luck” before waving me out.
I already had my hand on the door handle when he shouted to me from the other side of the room, holding up a piece of paper for me to see.
“This doesn’t actually belong in our archives,” he said. “Perhaps you would like it?”
I crossed the floor. “In 1971,” he said, “when Mr Hirifjell wanted to transfer the rights to you, someone at the office must have helped him sort out the paperwork. Look at this.”
There was a small sheet of graph paper with a pencil drawing of a round table. Below was a list of materials and measurements.
“Not that,” he said. “On the back.”
I turned over the sheet. A checklist. The writing was unsteady and haphazard, but it was Einar’s. A list written by a ragged man on Haaf Gruney before an important visit to Lerwick.
Sheriff
Remember passport
Title deed
Letter to Edvard – that he must spend at least one cold week on the island
Bank transfer to flower shop
I found her in the very back of Clive’s Record Shop on the main street, flipping through the albums in the soul section. A record must have been set aside for her, because on the counter there was a sealed plastic bag with GWEN written on it in red ink.
I flipped absentmindedly through the albums, felt the weight of the vinyl building up in my hands before I tipped the pile back and moved to work on the next row. I couldn’t arrange my thoughts. I found two maxi singles by The Pogues, but put them back.
Bank transfer. Had he meant the flower shop in Saksum? For Mamma and Pappa’s grave? Spend at least one cold week? It made no sense. Presumably it was meant to be included in a letter to me, one that had been intercepted by Bestefar.
Gwen moved to a new row. Scratchy speakers were playing “Half a World Away” by R.E.M. She reached for an album, flipped over another instead and read the back cover. Quick and precise, she knew what she wanted. She ran a finger over her temple, sweeping a lock of her slightly curly hair back into place. She had an attractive back.
“Aren’t you going to buy something?” she said, and pulled out an L.P. by Maria McKee.
I shrugged. “Don’t have a—” I searched for the word as I spun my finger in a circle.
“Record player?”
I nodded.
“Hm,” she said, as though opening and closing something simultaneously.
I bought a twelve-inch single of “Fairytale of New York”, in the hope that it was also customary here for the nearest person with a record player to invite you home to copy the album onto a cassette. Later, as we were walking along the harbour, each with a shopping bag, she asked if I had had any luck at the sheriff’s. I told her that Einar had transferred the island to me when I was three years old, but that the claim had been contested by the Winterfinch family.
“I expected as much,” she said, offering nothing more.
I wanted us to drive out to Unst together, have her invite me in for a hot drink while her new record played on the turntable. I needed to be bolder.
“That’s why I’m taking the first ferry to Edinburgh,” I said. “I’m going to look up the Winterfinch family. Don’t worry, I won’t say that I met you.”
She was about to say something, but stopped herself and walked on ahead of me. The car was parked behind Viking Bus Station, and as we approached it, an extractor fan sent an exotic aroma in our direction. An oily, delicate fragrance.
Raba Indian Restaurant.
We stopped instinctively. I caught our reflection in the restaurant window and thought, Dear God. It was only when I saw the two of us together that I realised how elegantly she was dressed. And that I would cut a hopeless figure at the door of a wealthy family in Edinburgh. I was wearing filthy black Levis, an anorak with bulging pockets and my hair looked like I had spent three days in the fields.
“Edward,” she said. “Has it been as long since you last ate as since you last changed your clothes?”
I nodded. “I can’t go in,” I said. “Not looking like this.”
She crouched by a drainpipe, filled her hands with water and ran her fingers through my fringe.
A girl looking after me. A girl who called me Edward. In a brief moment of afternoon sun. On a street in Lerwick.
“Take off your anorak and hold it under your arm. You look a little scruffy, but it’ll be fine. This isn’t Bibendum, after all.”
“Bibendum?”
But she was already on her way in.
*
Five minutes later we each sat with a wine-coloured leather-look binder. Every time the door to the kitchen opened, and a waiter in a white shirt hurried between the tables, intense aromas drifted towards us.
She brushed something unseen from her cheek and got the waiter’s attention. How did she do that? I had hardly dared to go inside, but she had two of the waiting staff attending to us as soon as we stepped through the door. Without a smile she had dismissed the suggestion of a table in the middle of the room, and instead pointed to a corner table that had just been vacated, with a request for “New linen, please.”
When the table was ready and we had sat down, she said, “What would you like, Edward?”
“I don’t know,” I said, laughing quietly. I had to look at her to remind myself that we were the same age, that in fact she looked quite ordinary.
“What’s so funny?”
“I’ve never been to a restaurant before. At least, not like this. Just the fish and chip shop in Brae. Great Britain’s most northerly fish and chips.”
“That’s not a restaurant,” she said. “More like a café.”
The waiter arrived, a slim Indian with slicked-back hair. I stared at the menu in confusion. Gwen closed hers with a smack.
“Just a prawn korma for me, thank you. But the gentleman here would like mulligatawny soup for starters, rajasthani chicken for his first main course, lamb pasanda for his second main. And two peshwari naan, please, saag bhaji and tarka dal for the sides. Two pakora to share. Yes, poppadoms, of course, with some nice chutneys. Alcohol-free beer for him, he’s driving. Give him a refill whenever his glass is empty, he’s thirsty. A glass of red wine for me. Do you have a nice Barolo? And we’ll need an ashtray, as you can see. O.K.? Lovely.”
*
There must be a story behind a young girl wearing an old, scratched-up men’s watch. Especially if she pulls down her sleeve whenever someone looks at it. I was certain it wasn’t the only thing she wanted to hide.
“Why are you here?” she said. “Is it this fortune? The fortune that he, according to rumour, killed someone for?”
I shook my head. “No. I don’t even know what it is.”
“What are you looking for then?”
It stuck to me like a wart on skin. I had never really spoken to anyone about it, not even Hanne, whose eyes always looked elsewhere when the year 1971 came up.
Maybe it was because Gwen was a stranger, and the fact that I had the entire North Sea between me and the idle gossip of Saksum. Here was someone who was curious about my past, yet at the same time Gwen was like a rock lodged deep in the ground. I was tempted to coax the crowbar underneath, to see what would break loose.
“When I was little,” I said, “I went on holiday with my parents. I g
ot separated from them and was found four days later.”
“I imagine they were happy to find you again.”
“They both died. I grew up with my grandfather.”
She had been rearranging the napkin on her lap, and now the stiff white fabric crumpled in her hands.
“Oh Jesus . . .” she said, then sat there for a long time before putting the napkin down. “You’re alone!”
“Someone probably found me and didn’t know what to do.”
Thirty seconds ticked by on the unseen men’s watch. I did not mention that Einar could have been connected to the incident, nor the newspaper clippings. When Gwen spoke again, she did not link my story to the rumours about Einar, as I had expected her to. Instead, it was as if she was processing everything in her head.
“There’s no way it could have happened like that,” she said. “That wouldn’t have taken four days. Whoever found you would either have contacted the police at once, or had some reason for keeping you so long.”
I looked at her. Here, for the first time, was someone who was interested in finding some logic in my disappearance, instead of burying it in some hazy oblivion and pretending it had not actually happened.
“Did you go missing first, meaning they died looking for you?” she said. “Or were you together, and you were the only one who got out alive?”
“The first seems more likely,” I said. “Why else would they walk through a forest that was filled with unexploded shells?”
“Hm,” she said, evidently still thinking.
“The strange thing is, we were there early in the morning,” I said.
“Children wake up early,” she said, and then added: “Or so I’ve heard.”
I looked at her. “Maybe it was someone who wanted a child. I sometimes wonder what it would have been like, to grow up with another family and be none the wiser.”
“You would have known,” she said. “Sooner or later you would have felt it.”
Like Mamma did with her adoptive mother, I thought.
“You don’t remember anything?” Gwen said.
“Just someone arguing or screaming. I was sitting in a car. Something about a toy dog. It wagged its tail if I pressed a certain place. But I don’t know if the memory is real or if I made it up. I was only three, well, almost four. I was born early in the year.”