Betrayal

by Sigurdardóttir, Lilja

  ‘I told you to use the iPad for the internet when you’re here. And I told you that I’m the only one who uses the laptop. In my line of work I can’t share a computer.’

  ‘Right! A chauffeur,’ she snapped and stalked to the door. ‘That’s a really special job!’

  She slammed the door and Gunnar wondered how long the door frame was going to last. If they were going to be together much longer he’d better start looking for a steel one.

  He popped open one of the aluminium cans and tasted the sparkling water. It was surprisingly good and certainly made a change from tap water, although he wouldn’t have bothered with anything so trivial. He picked up the laptop and sat on the floor with it.

  The email from fossi@gmail.com to Úrsúla that Eva had forwarded to him was remarkably similar to the one that Gunnar had received from him the previous evening. Now he bitterly regretted having written to him, to say the least. His email had fallen on stony ground and he wondered if it could even have been counter-productive. Maybe it had stirred up this lunatic’s hatred of the minister even more. No doubt it was best to leave that kind of thing unanswered, but there was something about this kind of spinelessness, people who threatened violence but didn’t dare do it under their own names, that Gunnar found deeply infuriating. He knew it was his weak point, his Achilles’ heel, and that was precisely why he should not have allowed himself to write to Fossi.

  Just to let you fucking Feminazi know that your hole isn’t any more special than any other whore’s hole. Sometime you’re not expecting it I’m going to grab hold of you in the dark and batter you with a knuckleduster and fuck you until you beg for mercy you cunt.

  Gunnar tried to force a smile, trying to find some kind of levity inside himself that would allow him to laugh it off, dismiss it, but it didn’t work. The smile turned to a scowl and before he managed to stop himself, he had tapped in a reply and sent it:

  So you know, you meatheaded idiot, your messages never reach the minister, so you can write whatever you like – everything goes from me straight to the police, so the only results you’ll see are the police knocking on your door when they’ve traced this. PS. Wash your mouth out. Soap helps.

  Gunnar leaned back and felt the buzz that his reply had given him. He closed his eyes and conjured up an image of Fossi that he felt fitted the philosophy that came through in his messages: a sweaty badly shaved man with an inferiority complex, sitting in a tattered armchair with a laptop on his knees, wanking over torture porn.

  He had hardly any time to enjoy his feeling of victory, as a reply appeared after only a few minutes.

  What makes you think I’m frightened of the police? I’m not scared of the cops. Your whore who thinks she can be a minister is the one who should fear me, and you should fear me too, you fuckwit.

  46

  For the first time since returning to Iceland, Úrsúla had a clear feeling of being alive. Her daze had given way to a hot rush that swept through her body like lava spreading under a glacier, thawing her out and bringing her to boiling point as she thought of Thorbjörn and their meeting that day. The relief that she could still feel emotion was so powerful, it almost brought her to tears. It was as if the guilt was somewhere far away, somewhere downtown at the work meeting Nonni was having – it wasn’t something that troubled her right now, although she was pretty sure it would accompany him home.

  But until then she was determined to enjoy feeling good for the first time in many months. As she sat in front of a cop show on the television, a stack of South Coast Highway paperwork on her knees, she knew it was a betrayal to be cultivating this relationship – it was completely wrong – but all the same, she couldn’t stop herself sending Thorbjörn a message:

  It was good to see you…

  Her heart fluttered as the message went on its way, and she wondered where he would be when it arrived. Maybe he was out at some bar with a beer in his hand – she knew he was a dedicated barfly – or maybe he was at work on an article. Or maybe he was sitting alone, as she was, on the sofa, trying to erase from his memory those kisses and their heaving sweaty delight in each other.

  Likewise, his reply read.

  She felt a stab of disappointment. One flat word wasn’t enough to satisfy her hungry mind. ‘Likewise’ was something so impersonal; a word that people would use after meeting at a birthday gathering or a party conference. Her phone buzzed again and her heart leaped as she read a second message:

  I don’t want to take a shower. Want to keep the smell of you on me tonight.

  She replied with a heart emoji and closed her eyes as she thought back to their meeting, which seemed to have been so long ago, even though only a few hours had passed. She had asked Gunnar to drive her to Thorbjörn’s home for what she described as a ‘short meeting’ without any further explanation. Forty minutes later she had come rushing back out to the car and sat in the back. Gunnar’s expression had remained completely impassive, with no indication that he had noticed anything as she repaired her makeup and brushed her hair on the way home.

  Úrsúla was startled by a knock. She couldn’t be sure if she had been deep in a daydream, or somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, but now she was wide awake and her heart hammered in her chest. She got to her feet and went into the hall, then stopped and stood still, listening. Maybe it had been her imagination, a warning from her conscience, which had been sleeping deep inside her and was now stirring. Nonni wouldn’t knock – he had a key – and the children were in their beds. She tiptoed to the door of Ari’s room and looked inside. He was fast asleep, face down as usual, the duvet kicked off and the floor scattered with toys. Maybe he had kicked one of his toys out of the bed and it had landed on the floor, waking her up. It wouldn’t be the first time he had fallen asleep over his Lego. Úrsúla slipped into his room, picked up the duvet, laid it over him and gently stroked his hair. He was a beautiful boy and would grow into a handsome man like his father.

  The knock was repeated. Úrsúla stiffened. It came from the front door. Unmistakeable. Someone was at the door.

  47

  Stella was pleased with how her evening had gone. She had resisted the temptation of a pub crawl, mainly because she had chugged a couple of beers in the half-hour she had spent with Gréta, and taken a couple more with her for later. She had also made herself a sandwich and heated it up under the grill while a stressed-out Gréta had made her check out one top after another, until Stella finally nodded her approval at a pleated blouse, which she told Gréta to wear under her jacket. Gréta rolled up the top and the jacket and stuffed them in her bag. She would change into them before meeting the woman for a drink. Stella told her to arrange to meet at the Slipway Bar, and to take care to leave after two drinks, saying that she had another appointment. It was always best to be the one to call time.

  ‘If you fancy her,’ Stella went on, ‘go somewhere by yourself, to the bar or the toilet, and draw this symbol in spit on your palm, then shake her hand with it as you say goodbye; hold on for as long as you can.’

  Stella drew the magic symbol on a piece of paper and handed it to Gréta.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s an old Icelandic spell to hook a girl.’

  Gréta sniffed, but took the scrap of paper all the same.

  ‘You really know your stuff, considering you’re pretty much a foreigner,’ she said, rushing to the bathroom to brush her teeth.

  Stella finished her sandwich, took a chunk of chocolate from the kitchen cupboard, and dropped a can of beer into each coat pocket, then accompanied Gréta, dressed in a mint-green jacket and with her hair tousled and in a short ponytail at the back of her neck, to the lift. As the lift reached the ground floor, she offered Stella her hand then leaned in and kissed her cheek.

  ‘Thank you for all your help,’ she said tenderly, and looked into her eyes, smiling with an expression that reminded Stella more than anything of Stefán, her social worker. He would sometimes gaze into her eyes with a mixture
of sincerity and inquiry that she could never completely work out.

  Stella was startled. She retrieved her hand and wrinkled her nose.

  ‘Can’t you get the hairdresser who sorts you out before the broadcast to do something a bit more sexy with your hair?’

  ‘Such as what?’ Gréta asked sharply, and Stella immediately regretted having said anything. She’d only added to the woman’s nervousness. But the words had tumbled out of her somehow; she’d needed some way to break the uncomfortable eye contact that seemed to demand of her something she couldn’t understand.

  ‘I don’t know. Something a bit more rock ‘n’ roll. Something younger.’

  ‘Fuck. This is going to be a proper mess. She’s not going to fancy me,’ Gréta grumbled as she marched towards her car.

  Stella went the other way, downhill towards Sæbraut to catch a bus, perfectly satisfied with a free meal and some free beer.

  When she got home she took a shower and lay on her mattress, intending to take a quick nap. Instead she fell into a deep sleep, not waking until late in the evening when her phone pinged as a message was delivered.

  She wants another date! Gréta’s message read, triumphant, judging by the string of smiling faces and love hearts. Stella sent her a thumbs-up in reply, got to her feet and went to the shared kitchen, which also served as a living room for the Polish construction workers who lived there. She switched on the television to see if Gréta had taken her advice and done something new with her hair. She found the replay, punched the play button and it went to the middle of the news bulletin that ended with Gréta saying good night and reading out the headlines.

  This was a different person from the one she had seen in the car park earlier in the evening; the woman who read the news and conducted the programme was confident and relaxed, with a smile on her face. Her hair was different, a little wilder – a spikier look instead of the helmet-like hair she usually had, and it made her appear livelier somehow. She asked the weather guy what they could expect and she asked the sports reporter what that evening’s sport roundup would be covering, before looking straight into the camera and thanking people for watching.

  Stella paused the replay and rewound to watch that part again. She had never taken a good look at Gréta before, never watched her carefully. She paused the replay right at the end of the broadcast, with Gréta looking directly into the camera, just as she had looked into her eyes in the lift, and Stella had to admit to herself that, although on the screen Gréta appeared even tubbier and you couldn’t say that she was exactly pretty, she exuded a sexy energy. Maybe there was nothing so surprising about the pretty woman on Tinder wanting to see her again.

  48

  Úrsúla tiptoed to the front door and put her ear to it, listening for any sound outside. She held her breath and took care not to make the slightest sound with her every movement. She had no desire to have visitors, and whoever it was could hardly be paying a friendly call; these days people had the manners to call ahead, as everyone knew how busy her family was now. It could hardly be anyone selling stuff from door-to-door as it was getting on for eleven o’clock, and knocking after ten was seen as the height of bad manners.

  She was startled by another knock; she felt its force pass through the wood and into her cheek. All that was between her and whoever stood outside were these hardwood planks. She wondered who was so determined they continued knocking when there had been no response after the first two attempts.

  Of course, it might be something completely innocent: a neighbour needing to borrow some milk or some such everyday errand. But Úrsúla was feeling the effects of the comments below the articles in the online newspapers, which she had been unable to resist reading, so she was terrified that whoever was standing outside meant her harm. At the same time she was furious with herself for being so frightened. This was the woman who hadn’t turned a hair when faced with an Ebola outbreak or a burst of machine-gun fire. She was the woman who could drive into a famine zone, step out of the car and start organising emergency relief without letting the sight of the children’s swollen bellies or the wailing of the mothers with dying children in the arms get to her. She could see how ridiculous this situation was and couldn’t help an ironic smile at the thought of their direction the online debate would take if people could see the new minister of the interior, the heroine of overseas aid, shaking with fear, too scared to open her own front door.

  She heard a deep cough beyond the door, followed by a throat being cleared. Now Úrsúla’s fear crystallised into the image of the bearded man she had once trusted and then deeply hated with a child’s single-mindedness, and who had now made a new appearance in her life, dogging her steps at every opportunity. Only an old man would cough like that, so it was obviously Pétur. She wanted to fetch her phone and call the police, but her feet seemed to have no energy in them and refused to obey her. She sank to the floor with her back against the door. Right now the emergency button she had been promised would have been worth having. She could have pressed it and had Pétur arrested. She longed to have him locked away so there would be no more horrible notes on her car, or anyone hiding in the boot, or anyone knocking at the door when she was alone at home with the children asleep.

  As if from a far distance, she heard a key being inserted into the lock and the door began to open. She instinctively leaned back against it. She pressed her feet into the floor and pushed her back against the door with every ounce of her strength, but she wasn’t strong enough. The door forced her back and before she realised it, Nonni was crouching at her side, her face in his hands as she wept through gritted teeth.

  ‘Hey, Úrsúla! It’s all right, calm down,’ Nonni said in his soothing voice, but somehow she couldn’t pull her mind out of the panic mode it had switched into to prevent Pétur from reaching her sleeping children.

  ‘Someone was knocking,’ she gasped. ‘There was someone at the door before you who knocked and I could hear him cough. It was Pétur, trying to get to us.’

  ‘No, Úrsúla. It was the old dried-fish guy, the one from Grindavík who comes once a month. He said he’d knocked but hadn’t wanted to ring the bell because it’s late and the children might be asleep. I ran into him just down the street.’

  Úrsúla stared in confusion into Nonni’s eyes. She felt her heart sink, and the tears flowed down her cheeks. It had to have been the tryst with Thorbjörn earlier in the day that had broken down her defences, the gateway to her heart that she had these last few months kept locked and bolted.

  ‘Hey. There, there, sweetheart,’ Nonni said, his voice soothing, holding up a sizeable bag of dried fish.

  49

  Marita was relieved that Kiddi seemed to have spent most of the day asleep, only appearing to wolf down a couple of slices of bread smeared with peanut butter and jam, then disappearing back into his room without saying a word to her. She had tried to stroke his shoulder while he sat hunched over the kitchen table, but he shrank from her touch so she immediately held back. She didn’t know how she could approach him, unsure if she had enough energy to give him even a little of herself. She was simply glad of every hour that she didn’t have to deal with his reactions to the interview with Katrín Eva’s mother. It had left her shaking with fear and anger when she had read it that morning, and the comments that appeared below the online version hadn’t helped. Most of them seemed to support the standpoint of the woman and her daughter. The public’s sympathy lay with those who whined the loudest, it seemed. She felt as if anyone could say whatever they liked about her family. Many of them pointed out that Jónatan had a son the same age as the girl in question, as if that had any bearing on the matter. Others wondered why they had needed a child minder when the family had a teenage son, as if there was something suspicious about that. Reading between the lines, Marita thought she saw a suggestion that she had asked Katrín Eva to babysit for some underhanded reason, when the truth of it was that she had given in to Kiddi’s laziness, as every time he was asked
to look after Klemmi, he moaned as if his life were on the line.

  The comment that irritated her most of all was the one from a woman who asked what the man’s wife thought about all this, as if she was supposed to be somehow standing against her own husband on behalf of all women.

  Rósa, Katrín Eva’s mother, had said in the interview that that evening ruined her daughter’s life as well as her own, that nothing would be the same again. Marita agreed – this applied to her own family as well. Neither she, Jónatan or Kiddi would ever get over this, and she wondered what had prompted Katrín Eva to level this false accusation at Jónatan. What on earth had changed, after the two families had got on so well for more than a year, that had put something like that in her head?

  The television was on and Marita realised that the cop show she had been sure had just started was over. Her knitting lay untouched in her lap, so she must have been sitting staring into space for ages. She was startled by her needles clicking against each other as they tumbled out of her hands to the floor, and at the same moment Kiddi stormed out of his room.

  ‘It’s a fucking lie that she’s a virgin!’ he yelled. ‘She’s definitely been fucked, and I know at least two guys whose dicks she’s sucked!’

  He spat his words out over her where she sat, unable to move, and he punched the air like a boxer, then spun on his heel to march back to his room and slam the door behind him.

  Marita wanted to get to her feet, to follow him and ask him more, to find some words to comfort him, anything that could soothe the boiling fury that seemed to rage increasingly fiercely inside him. But she couldn’t find the strength. His anger was one thing, but the crudeness of his words, describing sexual acts in such a casual way, left her paralysed.

  In spite of his deepening voice and his frame, which seemed to be growing in every direction by the week, her little boy speaking of fucking and sucking, as if these were something everyday in his youthful existence, had taken her completely off guard.