‘Apparently it’s an extra-long Christmas this year,’ Hulda’s mother announced, apropos of nothing.
‘Extra long?’
‘Yes, someone was talking about it on the radio yesterday. When Christmas falls just before a Sunday, you get an extra-long holiday.’ Her smile seemed strained. She was habitually tired and always had been, as far back as Hulda could remember; always on the go, trying to make ends meet, trying to hold down several jobs simultaneously. Even now that she was approaching retirement, she still worked from morning to night, cleaning houses.
Hulda had promised herself many times that she wasn’t going to end up like that when she was her mother’s age. On the contrary, she was determined that by then she and Jón would be debt free and sufficiently well off to be able to give up work at a reasonable age and make the most of their retirement.
Jón was nowhere to be seen; he’d retreated into his study, claiming there was some urgent business he needed to tie up before Christmas. It got on Hulda’s nerves that he chose to work such long hours, despite being his own boss, but she couldn’t really complain when it meant they had such a comfortable lifestyle. There were times, though, like now, when she suspected it was nothing but an excuse to avoid having to spend too much time with his mother-in-law.
Hulda forced herself to keep her mother company in the sitting room, though they had little to say to each other and any conversation they did have wasn’t usually initiated by her.
‘Are we going to listen to the carol service later?’
‘Yes, Mum, during supper, as usual.’
‘I just wanted to make sure. It feels right somehow. Puts you in the Christmas spirit.’ After a brief silence, she added: ‘Are we having the usual gammon this evening?’
‘Yes, Mum, we’re not doing anything different from usual.’
‘Oh, good, that’s lovely. Not what I was brought up with, but lovely all the same … By the way, where’s Dimma?’
‘She’s resting, Mum. You know what teenagers are like …’
‘Oh. I’ve got two presents for my darling girl.’ She lowered her voice: ‘A jumper I knitted myself and a book. I do hope she’ll like them.’
Hulda nodded dutifully. ‘I’m sure she will, Mum. I’m sure she will.’
XVII
Erla hung back and let Einar go alone into the spare room to search Leó’s luggage. She waited, caught between hope and fear, still trying to block out the banging and shouting from upstairs.
Now that Einar was acting on her suspicions, she suddenly started having second thoughts. Supposing she had misread the situation and Leó hadn’t been lying to them after all? He could indeed have got lost and muddled up a few details because he was in a bad state after his ordeal.
Oh God, she thought, if that was true, what would happen? He was bound to report them to the police the moment he got back to the village. They might even find themselves facing criminal charges … She could feel herself breathing faster. No, stop being silly, she told herself: they could simply deny everything. It was the only way. It would be his word against theirs.
No, I have absolutely no idea what the man’s talking about. We took him in and offered him a room for the night, and this is how he repays us!
Mentally, she rehearsed the conversation with the police, trying to envisage which officer would come to see them. The inspector, perhaps? Yes, probably. A middle-aged man who she’d never much cared for.
‘Erla! Come here!’ Einar’s shout penetrated the mist that surrounded her. ‘Come and see what I’ve found!’
Apprehensively, she started towards the spare room, feeling her heart fluttering against her ribcage.
‘Hurry up.’
She peered round the door and saw Einar holding up a compass with a look of triumph.
‘He did have a compass, the lying bastard. So he can’t have been all that lost. Which means he lied to us about having no idea which way he was going. You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if he sabotaged the phone line as well. If you ask me, it’s a bit bloody suspicious that the line went down right about the time he turned up.’
‘Do you think … Are you serious?’ Actually, Einar’s theory wasn’t that far-fetched. The phone had been working fine the day before Leó arrived and the line usually held out whatever the weather, even when the electricity went.
‘We’d better take a look at it. I’m no telephone engineer, but I’m going to check it out anyway.’ Einar went on rooting around in the visitor’s rucksack.
Erla retreated a few steps. She stood there, slightly stunned, watching her husband behaving as if he’d been seized by a fit of madness, shaking the rucksack and roughly pulling the contents out of it.
Einar was normally a placid man, but she had seen this side of him before. Not often, but a handful of times; enough to know what he was capable of. Luckily, he’d never taken his temper out on her. No, he’d always treated her well, but when he felt he’d been pushed too far, he could fly into terrifying rages. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that he turned into a completely different person.
‘Hey, look at this, Erla!’ Einar held up a wad of five-thousand-krónur notes. ‘Cash, lots of it. You were right, his story doesn’t add up.’
Erla’s mind flew to Anna again. The man had lied to them, repeatedly. ‘All right, go on looking,’ she said. ‘But God help us if we’re wrong, Einar. God help us.’
The blows on the door upstairs were violent enough to shake the house. ‘Open the door this minute!’ Leó bellowed. ‘You can’t do this to me!’
XVIII
‘Erla, come back. You have to see this!’ Einar shouted urgently. She was poised in the doorway, unable to move, wishing with all her heart that she was somewhere else. Anywhere but here, caught up in this awful situation.
What if she gave up now, slipped out of the house and ran away, in no particular direction, just to escape? But she knew it was no good. She felt suffocated by the oppressive weight of the snow surrounding them and shutting them in.
At this time of year, in this weather, there was no way out.
However loudly she screamed, however fast she ran, all she could look forward to was a slow death from hypothermia. It was no wonder she often thought of their home as a prison.
‘Erla, are you listening? Come here.’
‘I heard you,’ she said, controlling her voice. ‘But I don’t want to come in, Einar. I don’t want any part in this. It … it feels wrong. We’re committing a crime against this man. We can’t keep him locked up like this. We have to let him out.’
‘But you were the one who was scared of him, Erla! Not me. You know, sometimes I don’t understand you. You’ve got to stop this nonsense. This is real, Erla, this is what reality is like. This man is real, and I reckon he’s got something to hide. In fact, I’m sure of it. And this is proof!’ He was brandishing a battered wallet.
‘I’m not coming in!’ Erla shrieked, feeling herself starting to shake.
‘Well, then, take a look at this.’ He opened the wallet and held it up towards her. She took a wary step into the room, as if trespassing in a stranger’s house. Obediently, she examined the man’s ID.
‘Look at his driving licence,’ Einar said. ‘The picture’s of him but Leó’s only a middle name. It’s like he didn’t want to tell us his real name.’
‘Maybe he goes by his middle name,’ Erla countered. She wasn’t sure what to think. She’d been racked by doubts ever since Leó arrived. ‘What’s going on, Einar?’ she asked, her voice trembling.
‘I don’t know, love, but I’m going to find out.’ He sounded tough, determined. In a way, Erla was relieved that Einar had taken the matter in hand, but at the same time she couldn’t help feeling apprehensive. When he lost his temper like this, there was a danger he’d do something rash.
Grabbing the rucksack, he upended it, tipping the rest of the contents out in a heap on the floor – clothes, toiletries: nothing immediately suspicious. Einar shook the bag, the
n peered inside it. ‘Empty. We’ll have to go through his stuff; see if we can find any clues about who he is and what he’s up to. For all we know, he could be a criminal on the run.’
‘You don’t think he’ll break the door down, do you?’ she asked.
‘I hope not, but if he does, I’ll deal with him. I’m not scared of a wimpy city boy. I reckon I could take him.’ Erla had no doubt he could. Einar was powerfully built, as if he had inherited the accumulated energy of all his forefathers, who had fought such a bitter battle against the elements to keep this remote patch of land inhabited. They had been successful right up to the present day, but now the omens were gathering, suggesting that the farm’s days were numbered, as was obvious to everyone except Einar himself. If only they could move away … set up home somewhere else. But Erla knew it wasn’t that simple. All their worldly goods were more or less tied up in the property: the farming business, the equipment, the livestock … It would be no easy matter to sell them. An old house far from the nearest village was worthless if no one wanted to live there. All the derelict properties scattered around the Icelandic countryside bore silent witness to this fact, and Erla could picture the same fate befalling their own house once they’d moved away: broken windows, flaking paint, rusty corrugated-iron roof; an empty husk, no longer a home, fit for no one but the ghosts that roamed the wastes.
Admittedly, they owned the land too, a sizeable property, but the same applied to that as to the house; an estate in this area wasn’t worth a bean except to the farmer who was prepared to live out here. It would never be popular as a summer-house colony, not with its savage winters and chilly summers.
While her thoughts slipped into this well-worn groove, Einar had been rummaging around in the contents of the backpack. ‘Nothing of interest here.’
‘What about that pocket?’ she asked.
‘What? Where?’ he asked eagerly.
‘On the side, there.’ Erla pointed to a deep pocket on the side of the rucksack.
‘Oh, yes, well spotted. Maybe he’s got something hidden in there.’ Einar undid the zip and reached inside. ‘What the –?’
XIX
Einar pulled a hunting knife out of the pocket.
Drawing it from its sheath, he tested the blade with his thumb. ‘It’s bloody sharp too.’
Erla stiffened with fear. She realized it was vital to calm him down. She knew her husband in this mood; that expression, the ominous note in his voice.
‘There could be a perfectly natural explanation for it, dear. The man was on a shooting trip, after all.’
‘Shooting ptarmigan with a knife?’
‘There’s nothing odd about taking a knife along on a shooting trip – as a safety precaution.’ But her husband wasn’t listening.
‘I reckon it’s time to have a word with him,’ he said grimly, making for the door.
Erla blocked his path. ‘Einar … Einar.’
‘Let me go and talk to him, Erla.’ He was still holding the knife.
‘Put the knife down, Einar.’
‘I’m taking it with me just in case. As a precaution, like you said. After all, we don’t know who we’re dealing with.’
‘At least put it back in its sheath …’ But her words fell on deaf ears.
She stayed put, determined not to let Einar past. In the background she could hear Leó hammering on the door with his fists, kicking it and shouting himself hoarse.
Then her thoughts returned to Anna.
‘Einar, you don’t think he could have stopped off at Anna’s place and hurt her in some way?’ she asked, but it was too late: Einar could no longer hear her. He had pushed past and was making for the stairs.
The knife, that lethal blade … The world went momentarily black when she thought about what could have happened. Why had Leó lied about seeing no other house on the way to their farm? God, how she wished she could hear the sound of the door opening and Anna’s voice calling out to let them know she’d arrived. What if he’d attacked her? The knife had looked clean, but he could have wiped it, of course. A vivid image came into her mind of Anna lying on the ground, helpless, bleeding to death. She was overwhelmed by an overpowering urge to rush out of the front door and down the road to her daughter’s house, in defiance of the storm.
‘I’m going to find Anna,’ she told herself. But hearing the screaming of the wind outside, she knew it would be difficult, if not impossible, to make it there alive.
She went into the sitting room.
‘I’m coming in,’ she heard Einar saying upstairs in a threatening voice. ‘Can you move back from the door?’
The banging stopped and from inside the attic room Erla heard Leó calling: ‘Come in, then!’
She was filled with a sick dread about what might happen. The sensible thing would be to race upstairs and force them apart, then order Einar to let the man go. Show Leó the door … Or perhaps the door to the cellar under the house. The entrance was outside – let him stay down there. Then they could lock themselves in the house and enjoy their Christmas in peace, putting off the problem until later. They would have to lie to the police. Yes, unfortunately, there was no getting round that. She could do it, though – she was sure she could. She could lie for Einar. Claim indignantly that he’d never locked anyone in. How ridiculous – my husband would never do anything like that. Yes, she could probably be pretty convincing if she tried. Because, in spite of everything, she couldn’t bear the prospect of life without Einar. Although she would have given almost anything to move away from here, she had long ago resolved to grow old with her husband. The thought of losing him was devastating.
A strange hush had fallen. No doubt Einar was opening the door; yes, she could hear the squeak as the key turned in the lock. Then there was a creaking from the hinges, followed by a barrage of loud, angry questions from her husband: ‘What the hell do you want from us? And what’s this? Eh, what’s this? Why did you come here carrying a weapon?’
Erla couldn’t bear to hear any more. Clamping her hands over her ears, she ran for the front door, but had to lower her hands in order to open it, and then she could hear the clash of raised voices from the attic. Whimpering in her desperation, she charged outside, heedless of the fact that she was wearing her indoor clothes, only to discover that it had started snowing again with a vengeance.
She floundered away from the house through the knee-high drifts. The storm had blown up into a blizzard, reducing visibility to no more than a few paces, but she didn’t care; she couldn’t listen to what was happening inside. Couldn’t bear to hear the moment when Einar finally lost control of his temper.
Fervently, pointlessly, she wished that the stranger had never entered their house; that she could turn the clock back twenty-four hours. If she were given another chance, she would slam the door in his face this time.
Another chance …
Here she was on Christmas Eve, miles from anywhere. It was a white Christmas – a white Christmas all right, she thought, feeling the urge to laugh hysterically, but there was nothing magical about it. It was shockingly, brutally, cold but she kept going as fast as she could, away from the house, down the slope on what she knew to be the road, although the landmarks were blurred by drifts.
She had the feeling she was running to Anna, although she knew her house was too far off and that she’d never make it there alive, not in this weather, not dressed like this. Yet she felt compelled to flounder on, as if in a nightmare, her body sluggish, pitted against the blizzard, the chill piercing her to the bone, her breath coming in gasps. She wasn’t fit enough to keep going at this pace and yet she couldn’t stop.
She wasn’t going to give in until her body refused to go any further.
The thought flashed through her mind that she could actually die out here, but next moment it was gone and she had returned to obsessing about Einar and his terrible temper; about Anna, her beloved daughter, their only child. And about that stranger who had come to wreck everything; to rui
n the life they had spent years, decades, building up for themselves. Maybe she wasn’t always happy, not every day, but it was still her life and he had no right – no right – to do this. To upset everything.
She slowed to a halt, exhausted, and peering round, her eyes screwed up against the stinging flakes, was shocked to realize how little ground she had covered. All her senses were muffled by the snow. Even though their house wasn’t far off, she could make out its shape only in the brief gaps between the curtains of white sweeping across the landscape. It looked drearily dark and inhospitable in the power cut, with no welcoming glow from the windows. Locked in winter’s icy grip.
Einar and the visitor were probably still yelling at each other in the attic, and she was glad to be away from the naked show of aggression. Blindly, she blundered forwards again, trying to catch her breath before the wind snatched it away, as if fleeing someone or something palpable.
She could feel the suffocating snowflakes filling her nose and mouth, and the cold spreading through her thinly clothed body, but she didn’t have time to think about that. Didn’t have time to brush the ice from her eyelashes; just kept stumbling on. She knew instinctively that she was following the road. As long as she did that, she couldn’t get lost. That absolutely mustn’t happen. She was going to turn back, of course, but only after Einar had solved the problem, as he always did. She knew she could count on him.
He could be determined. Stubborn, even angry, but, she kept reminding herself, he had never taken it out on her, let alone on Anna.
Erla was conscious that every step was bringing her closer to Anna’s house, although it was still impossibly far away.
The Mist Page 9