It’s strange to be six years old and feel as if you’re a black stain on a white sheet. As if the world is in headlong flight and all you can do is grab hold and try not to fall off. My wickedness was something I tried to hide but I knew it was there – a little black creature with horns and a tail, perching on my shoulder, whispering orders and jabbing me with its sharp prongs. Although I couldn’t understand exactly why, it gave me pleasure. More pleasure than anything else. This isn’t something I came to realise as a teenager or an adult; no, I’ve known it ever since I was a child at nursery school and used to amuse myself by pinching Villa. Villa was an ugly, boring little girl who always smelt of wee. She was a year younger than me and used to talk in a whiny voice, regardless of what she was saying – even when she was happy. Whenever I think of her I picture her runny nose, her little tongue darting up to lick her top lip as if her snot was a sweetie. Every time the teacher left the room I would sneak over and pinch her on the back of the arm, making her flinch and cry. It was one of the few things that made me happy in those days. I think I must have been five years old.
Of course, that was before my actions started having consequences. You see, children aren’t responsible for what they do, but adolescents are. Even though they don’t really know what they’re doing either and are still just children, however much their bodies are changing and their world is expanding. I discovered this when I was thirteen and took a photo in the changing rooms of this grotesquely fat girl, whose name I’ve forgotten. We just called her Lardy, which I have a feeling rhymed with her name. I showed the picture to the boys in my class during break. They laughed and made gagging noises, while the girl watched us from a distance, her plump cheeks as red as the jumper she wore every day of the week, every day of the year. When the whole thing came out, I was forced to apologise to her and attend a meeting with my parents and her parents, who looked at me as if I was something you’d find blocking a drain, while the school principal droned on about bullying and its consequences.
After that I was clever enough not to get caught. Mostly, anyway. Of course, I grew up and realised the importance of making a good impression if you want to get on in the world. Don’t let anyone see what you’re really thinking, even when you know everyone else is thinking the same ugly thoughts that no one dares say aloud. I learnt pretty fast to keep quiet and smile. Be nice. Say yes.
To most people, I appear perfectly ordinary. Perhaps a little hot-tempered, as my grandmother would have said. But recently I’ve had the feeling that I can’t control myself anymore. I’ve been imagining my soul changing colour; sometimes it’s yellow, at other times blue and occasionally a bright, screaming red.
‘Just try to be nice to your sister, Elma. It doesn’t cost anything to be polite.’
‘What do you mean? I’m always nice.’ Elma gaped at her mother, who was engaged in trying to untangle the Christmas lights, prior to draping them over the hedge in front of the house, although it was already past nine in the evening. Elma had missed supper because of being kept late at work. When she got to her parents’ house, she found a plate of roast lamb and potato gratin waiting to be heated up in the microwave for her. She wolfed the food down in record time while her mother interrogated her about the discovery of the body. Aðalheiður’s curiosity knew no bounds; she kept bombarding her with questions, no matter how often Elma assured her that there wasn’t much to tell.
‘Right.’ Her mother gave the impression of taking her claim with a pinch of salt.
Elma wrapped her arms around herself. She couldn’t get warm after all the hours spent hanging around outside and kept fantasising about her nice, cosy bed. Then she noticed that her mother was struggling with the lights. ‘Let me help,’ she said, taking hold of one end. Once they had strung the wire and bulbs from the branches, she looked back at her mother and repeated: ‘I’m always nice to her; it’s her who…’
She was brought up short by her mother’s sigh. ‘Oh, Elma, why do you two have to be like this? Ever since you were small, always this endless bickering.’
‘But Mum…’ Elma was almost speechless. ‘You know what it was like for me. She was the one who didn’t want anything to do with me. If she’d only, even once, shown any interest in me…’ Realising she’d raised her voice, Elma bit her lip before she could come out with something she would regret. ‘You’ve just forgotten what it was like.’
‘Is that so?’ her mother exclaimed, then smiled. ‘The way I remember it, you cut a hole in her favourite dress.’
‘But that—’
‘And I also seem to remember you putting soap in her fish tank so all her fish died.’
‘That was just—’
‘And I could go on, Elma. You were no angel yourself. You always talk as if you were the victim, but it takes two to start a fight.’
Elma felt her cheeks growing hot. ‘You said yourself that she never wanted me to be born. She hated me from day one.’
‘Oh, Elma!’
‘What?’ It came out louder than she’d intended.
Aðalheiður straightened up. ‘You can’t hold that against a toddler. She was only three when you were born and it was tough for her, no longer being the baby of the family. For the first few months after you arrived she behaved as if she was a year younger. She started using a dummy again and sleeping with her teddy bear and even her voice changed.’ Aðalheiður laughed as she reminisced. ‘It turned into … well, a baby voice. All of a sudden she couldn’t say her r’s anymore. But your sister was always good to you, Elma. She would lie with you for hours, stroking your chubby cheeks. Always with one finger, as if she was afraid of hurting you.’ Aðalheiður smiled. ‘All I ask is that you be nice to each other. That’s all. You know, love, you can be a bit sharp at times.’
Elma was silenced. How could she make her mother understand what her life had been like with Dagný as a big sister? Living in the shadow of someone who everyone thought was so perfect. Never being anything but Dagný’s baby sister?
‘Hello!’ Dagný’s voice suddenly rang out from inside the house, and Elma groaned under her breath. ‘Is anybody home?’
Aðalheiður’s expression was stern when she looked at Elma. ‘Right, shall we have a cup of tea?’
‘There you are,’ Dagný said, opening the door to the patio. She looked like a ballet dancer with her hair pulled back in a perfect bun, not a single strand out of place. Elma would have loved to be more like her, but people tended to react with astonishment on hearing they were sisters, and Elma knew why: Dagný was beautiful while Elma was … well, what she was. Not ugly, but not particularly pretty either. Perfectly ordinary. With light-brown hair, pale skin and freckles. Nothing special or memorable about her. When Elma was a teenager she had tried to attract attention with her clothes and haircut but all she had earned were sideways glances for being odd – a bit weird. And since she didn’t agree with the idea that any attention was better than none, she had chosen instead to be self-effacing and eventually became reconciled to merging effortlessly into the background, where few people even noticed her.
‘I baked kleinur today,’ Dagný announced, beaming, and held up two plastic bags full of the cardamom doughnut twists.
‘Now you’re talking,’ Elma said, discovering that she did actually have a small hole left for an after-supper treat. She picked up the box containing the rest of the fairy lights, which wouldn’t be used this year, and they went into the kitchen.
‘What did you get up to today?’ Aðalheiður asked as she switched on the kettle.
‘Well, I baked kleinur, as you can see.’ Dagný put the bags on the table. ‘And Viðar took the boys swimming.’
‘That’s nice. The pool’s looking so smart after all the improvements.’ Aðalheiður put plates and cups on the table along with a box containing a selection of teabags. ‘Right, what do you two say to this? Your father’s got a landmark birthday coming up, and I want to throw him a surprise party. Just for family and a few friends, but I
think it could be fun. I’ve always wanted to give a surprise party, but I don’t know how to deal with … oh, you know, all the preparations for that sort of thing, so I was wondering if you two could take care of organising it?’
‘Me and Elma will do it,’ Dagný volunteered instantly. ‘Won’t we, Elma?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Elma replied. ‘We could find you a venue too.’
The kettle came to the boil, and Aðalheiður filled three cups with hot water, then joined her daughters at the table. Elma selected a teabag and dipped it into the steaming cup.
‘Good idea,’ Dagný said. ‘What do you say we go into town on Saturday? We could buy the decorations and find him a present as well, and he probably needs a new shirt while we’re at it, and…’ She broke off and burst out laughing. ‘All right, I admit it: I love throwing parties.’
‘Sounds good,’ said Elma, dunking a doughnut in her tea. Dagný didn’t seem to have any issue with spending time with her. She wondered if it was only she herself who still bore the scars of their past relationship. Surely Dagný must be aware that she had barely said a word of condolence to Elma after Davíð died? And Elma could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times her sister had visited her and Davíð in Reykjavík. Sometimes Elma got the feeling that Dagný had forgotten she even had a sister.
Their father came into the kitchen, bringing Elma back to the present. When she bit into her doughnut, she discovered that a large chunk of it had broken off in her tea as she had completely forgotten to take it out of the cup.
The window in Hekla’s bedroom was a brilliant design. It could be closed so tightly that you couldn’t hear a thing, even when there was a storm raging outside. In the flat where she had lived with Maríanna, the screaming of the wind through the gaps round the window frame used to keep her awake at night. Another, even better, advantage here was that the window could be opened wide, almost like a door, allowing her to climb out whenever she wanted to, without anyone noticing. The only problem was closing it again in such a way that she could open it from outside. It was tricky, but she’d worked out a solution some time ago. By looping an elastic hair tie round the catch and then the outside frame, she could hold the window shut. Later, when she wanted to crawl back inside, all she had to do was free the tie.
That evening, however, she was afraid it might blow open, snapping the elastic. The wind was so strong that the band stretched alarmingly. Hekla added two more hair ties to be on the safe side, then, hoping for the best, she tiptoed along the wall of the one-storey house, ducking down as she passed Bergrún and Fannar’s bedroom window. The car was waiting for her at the end of the street.
She got into the passenger seat and smiled at Agnar. He smiled back awkwardly, then stamped on the accelerator so hard that the engine emitted a roar loud enough to piss off the neighbours. Hekla felt her body being pressed back against her seat as the car leapt forwards.
‘It was Maríanna,’ she said after a while. ‘Who they found. You know, the body.’
Agnar took his eyes off the road to look at her. Reaching out, he laid a hand on her thigh. ‘Are you all right, or…?’
Hekla nodded. She didn’t want to talk about Maríanna but felt she had to tell him. Agnar seemed to be having difficulty finding the right words too. Almost stammering, he said: ‘Should I, er … Is there something you’d like me to do?’
She stared at him, wondering what he meant. There was nothing he could do now. He’d already done more than enough. ‘Have you got any money?’ she asked, determined not to think about Maríanna anymore for now. ‘I’m dying for an ice-cream.’
Agnar smiled. He headed for the drive-through kiosk and stopped by the window, making it just as it was closing. The girl looked sulky as she served them. Shortly afterwards Hekla had the ice-cream in her lap and was shovelling it down, gorging on the Daim chocolate and liquorice topping until she felt sick.
They cruised around town for a while, then stopped by the harbour, where Agnar stuck a wad of tobacco under his lip. Hekla hated the way it made him look like a hamster. She lingered over her ice-cream, aware that the moment she finished it, Agnar would want to start kissing her.
‘Shall I get rid of it for you?’ he asked.
‘Yeah.’ Hekla gave up stirring the dregs in the bottom and handed him the carton.
He put it in the plastic bag he kept on the floor behind his seat. Then he took her hand, running his long, thin fingers over the back. Strange how childishly short and stubby her own fingers looked against his. She felt like a little girl who shouldn’t be sitting in a car with a boy who was nearly twenty. He leant over and started kissing her. She tried to think about something else.
When Hekla got into bed later that evening, her conscience was troubling her. She’d done all sorts of things with Agnar and promised him a load of stuff that she wasn’t sure she could deliver. It wasn’t like he’d done anything wrong. It was just that Hekla could feel her interest waning with every message he sent her and every look he gave her. The more clingy he became, the less she wanted to see him.
Hekla didn’t even think he was hot anymore. To be honest, she’d never actually found Agnar hot, except right at the beginning. Maybe that had been because he was the first boy who had shown any interest in her, and at the time she’d needed that interest.
They’d met one evening when Hekla was out in Akranes with her friends, Tinna and Dísa. The girls, excited at the thought of driving around town with the older boys, had gone down to the end of the street so their parents wouldn’t see. When a small blue car had screeched to a halt by the kerb, they’d jumped in, all three of them squashing into the back seat.
She’d found herself sitting next to Agnar; tall and skinny, with too much gel in his hair. Their arms had touched every time the driver made a sharp turn and when he put his foot down once they’d left town. Someone had lit a cigarette and the car had filled with smoke, then with icy air as they rolled down the windows. Afterwards, when the boys drove them home, Agnar had asked what she was called on Snapchat, ignoring his friends’ banter and laughter. The following day she’d found a message waiting for her, and over the next couple of weeks their conversations had become increasingly intense. She’d told him a lot of stuff she’d never said out loud before, about her mum and school and the bullying and her anger. Agnar had said all the right things in reply. He’d understood her and been willing to listen. At last, here was someone who had understood who she really was and wanted more.
It wasn’t a feeling she was used to. Tinna and Dísa were the first friends she’d ever had, and she still didn’t really understand how that had happened. At school back in Borgarnes no one took any notice of her and even Maríanna didn’t seem that interested. She’d occasionally ask how Hekla was doing, but Hekla could see her eyes flickering away as soon as she started to answer. When Hekla wanted to change schools, Maríanna hadn’t taken it seriously, and when she’d asked if she could move in with Fannar and Bergrún, Maríanna had gone ballistic. Like Hekla owed her something.
Once, in a fit of rage, Maríanna had hit her over the head with a wooden spoon, snarling: Have you any idea how much I’ve sacrificed for you? Hekla remembered it vividly because that’s when she’d started to hate her. Since then she had never thought of her as Mum – only as Maríanna.
Hekla had met Agnar again the next time she had gone to stay the weekend with Bergrún and Fannar in Akranes. He’d come round with a friend to pick her up because that was before he’d passed his driving test. The first time they’d met it had been dark and she hadn’t been able to get a good look at him. By daylight Agnar turned out to have acne and a pasty face; she had a bit of a shock when she realised. He’d looked quite different in her imagination. The pictures he’d sent her on Snapchat hadn’t shown his skin or those long spindly arms that reminded her of an octopus. He moved strangely too; his arms and legs sort of flapping back and forth, his shoulders a knot of tension. This wasn’t the boy she’d been obses
sing over for the last couple of weeks.
It was odd how quickly she’d forgotten her reservations. All he’d had to do was say something nice and treat her like she was this amazing person. She’d never felt like that before. So she’d overlooked the rest; just concentrated on the nice things he said and not on his physical appearance. Only now did it dawn on her that she’d never fancied him, just liked the way he made her feel. Well, she didn’t need that sort of validation anymore. The only question now was how to get rid of him.
Seven Months
Reykjavík’s just like I remember, a small town pretending to be a city. For most of the year the skies are grey and the cars compete to be the dirtiest. Those who venture out of doors walk briskly, dressed in identical thick anoraks, their hoods pulled down over their eyes. After all, there’s nothing to see but greyness, wind and drizzle.
I wish I’d never had to come here.
I got the keys to the flat today. For the last few months I’ve been living in a rented place on the outskirts of Reykjavík. It’s a strange feeling to be a property owner all of a sudden. I feel like I’m too young to own something this big. Not that it is that big; it’s only a small, cheap flat in an ugly square block that could do with a lick of paint. Behind the building there’s a large communal garden enclosed by a broken fence, with a grassy sandpit in the middle.
The flat is on the second floor. When I finally make it up the stairs my heart is pounding from having to cart the baby, who’s no lightweight; a ten-kilo lump, perched on my hip.
I put her down on the floor while I find the keys. She doesn’t move, just sits there quite still in her red snowsuit, staring into space. Her arms hang lifeless at her sides and her face wears that perpetually solemn expression; her mouth turned down, almost in a scowl.
Girls Who Lie Page 4