Girls Who Lie

by Eva Bjorg AEgisdóttir

  He doesn’t knock again, just turns round and leaves, and I never hear from him again. I picture him running away from the building, getting into his car and wiping the cold sweat from his brow. Thinking, that was a narrow escape. Of course, he must have heard the screams, the crying and all the rest. How long had he been standing out there? What must he think of me?

  I heave a sigh, rub my eyes and look towards the bedroom door. The girl is still crying but the sound is quieter now, more like a monotonous mumbling. At that moment I feel no desire to comfort her. No desire to see or hear her. At that moment I wish she was somebody else’s problem. I’m ashamed of my thoughts; I’d never voice them aloud, but that’s how I feel. I can’t go in to her. I have no love to give her. Instead, I lie down on the sofa, pull a blanket over myself and fall asleep.

  Tuesday

  Hekla gave up trying to drag the brush through the tangled clump of hair at the back of her neck. She tried to smooth it down with her hands, hoping no one would notice the bulge it created. Then she pulled on a hoodie and slung her school bag over her shoulder.

  ‘I’m off,’ she called as she passed the kitchen, where they were sitting eating breakfast. She could hardly believe this was her family now. Of course, Hekla had been part of it for as long as she could remember, but she no longer had to drag herself away on Sunday evenings.

  ‘Don’t you want anything to eat?’ Bergrún called after her.

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ Hekla replied, putting on the big, thick down jacket they’d given her for her birthday.

  ‘I can give you a lift,’ Fannar said, looking up from the paper. ‘And you know you don’t have to go in. Everyone will understand if you’d rather take it easy at home today after the news you’ve just had.’

  ‘No, I want to go in.’ She’d been at home all day yesterday and actually couldn’t wait to get out of the house for a bit. ‘I’ll walk. It’ll wake me up.’

  Fannar studied her for a moment or two, as if to reassure himself that she was OK, then dropped his eyes to the paper again and carried on reading.

  Over the last few months, Hekla had grown used to living full time in Akranes. She didn’t particularly miss her mother and enjoyed having a normal family at last. A family that went on trips and ate supper together. They even had a curfew and were angry if she broke it. This struck her as funny, but in an odd way she appreciated their scolding, as it showed that they cared.

  She glanced back over her shoulder at the house as she set off towards school. This was where she lived now, a large detached house with two cars outside and a Jacuzzi on the terrace. Oh, how she used to envy Bergur those times when she had to go back to Borgarnes. Back to Maríanna. The name alone was enough to stir up memories that she preferred to keep locked away in the deepest recesses of her mind.

  The first time Maríanna went missing, she had been alone for three days. She was so young at the time that all she could remember was her hunger and her terror during the nights. Perhaps they weren’t even real memories, just something she had invented in her own mind because she knew that’s what it had been like. But she couldn’t forget the fear that had filled her every time she was left alone after that. She did have a clear memory of the second time. Then she had been on her own for more than a week without anyone noticing. At ten years old she had at least been able to look after herself; take herself to school and eat what she found in the freezer or in tins in the cupboard. No one had found out until Bergrún and Fannar came to collect her for the weekend. Hekla had wished then that Maríanna would never come back and that she would be allowed to stay with Bergrún and Fannar forever.

  She paused for a moment to adjust the music on her phone. Then she put in her wireless headphones and carried on walking with Radiohead blasting in her ears. She had reached the footpath connecting two streets when someone grabbed her from behind.

  ‘You jumped,’ Dísa laughed. ‘God, how you jumped. Seriously, you should have seen your face.’

  ‘Oh, shut up.’ Hekla jabbed an elbow at Dísa and grinned at Tinna.

  The friends all walked the same way to school, along a gravel path that ran through a residential area. They usually went together, but this morning Hekla hadn’t opened any of the others’ messages as she’d wanted to be alone. Obviously there was no chance of that now.

  Dísa talked nonstop. She was outgoing and cheeky, the polar opposite of Hekla, who was terribly shy and reserved. Dísa had curly hair that she described as chestnut but was really just ginger. Tinna made merciless fun of the fact, though she herself dyed her hair blonde, so it wasn’t as if she was happy with her original colour either. Tinna’s mother read the news on TV, and her father sometimes invited them for a drive in his convertible. Tinna thought it was horribly cringy. What kind of loser would think of buying a convertible in Iceland?

  Tinna and Dísa helped Hekla forget that they were surrounded by a hundred other kids who she used to find so intimidating. These were friends she could laugh with, and the anxiety that used to dog her steps the whole time at school was a thing of the past. For as long as they were together, at least.

  Before this, no one had ever taken any notice of Hekla, whether it was the other kids at her school in Borgarnes or Maríanna. She might as well have been invisible. Maríanna used to want Hekla to stay in her room and not get underfoot, saying she had enough trouble coping with her own problems. She used to have visitors round and go out on the town, while Hekla had felt unwanted. She’d been made to feel as if her birth had destroyed something important in Maríanna’s life, though she didn’t know exactly what. But she could see it in her eyes; there was never a moment when she wasn’t aware of it. Recently, though, it had dawned on Hekla that Maríanna hadn’t been much older than she was now when she got pregnant, and this had helped her to understand a number of things. Then again, Hekla had never asked to be born, so why should she have been made to suffer for not fitting into Maríanna’s vision of her future?

  It was quite different with Bergrún. She actively wanted Hekla near her. She wanted to do all kinds of stuff with her, wanted to talk to her and would ask her several times a day how she was feeling. Not in a superficial way that invited the standard ‘I’m fine’ – no, her interest was genuine, and she even used to ask if Hekla was quite sure – was she quite sure she was OK?

  Before, Hekla had always envied her friends, but now she no longer needed to. She had a mum and a dad, a younger brother, a new coat and a smart phone – how could she fail to be happy? There was only a very small part of her that missed Maríanna, that remembered the hugs and the odd kind word. A tiny part, like an insect gnawing at her insides, that refused to go away.

  Dagný’s messages ran into the dozens. Links to pages offering catering; suggestions for decorations and alcohol, and who should make the speeches and which music they should play. Elma knew her sister loved organising parties, but it had never occurred to her that she herself would be expected to pore over every tiny detail. Who cared whether the napkins were white or royal blue? But Elma should have known better after going to the birthday parties Dagný had given for her sons, Alexander and Jökull. Going by the fancy cakes, the giant bunches of balloons, and all the cake pops, anyone would have been forgiven for thinking they were to mark landmark occasions, like the boys’ confirmation. Whatever happened to just baking a sponge cake and letting the kids decorate it themselves with smarties? Elma suspected it would have made her nephews just as happy, or even happier, judging by the way they unceremoniously picked the icing off their beautifully decorated birthday cakes. And she was quite sure that her father wouldn’t notice, still less care, whether the napkins were blue or white.

  Elma started to write a reply, asking if it really mattered, but had second thoughts and deleted the message. Recalling what their mother had said at the weekend, she wondered if she was perhaps too sharp with Dagný. Not polite enough? Taking a deep breath, she opened the websites again and tried to form an opinion. Dark-blue napkins rath
er than white, lamb rather than beef, and meringue rather than French chocolate cake.

  She was just pressing ‘send’ when Sævar knocked on the door. ‘Ready?’

  As they set off for Borgarnes it started to rain. Leaden-grey clouds piled up overhead, the sky turned dark, and Elma felt as if she had been enveloped in a blue-grey cocoon. Large raindrops exploded on the windscreen, forcing the wipers to work overtime.

  ‘They’re quite soporific,’ Elma remarked. ‘Those raindrops.’

  ‘You know you mustn’t fall asleep, Elma,’ Sævar said. ‘Not while you’re in charge of a valuable cargo.’

  ‘Which is what? You?’

  ‘Of course. A priceless cargo.’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ she promised.

  Sævar was used to her nodding off when he was driving and she was in the passenger seat. There was something about the noise of the engine that meant she slept better in the car than anywhere else.

  ‘She was very young when she had Hekla,’ he remarked, after a short silence. ‘Only sixteen.’

  ‘And we never did find out who the father was.’

  There wasn’t much background information on Maríanna in the files, only a list of places where she had lived and worked, and the names of close members of her family.

  ‘I suppose it isn’t that strange that his name wasn’t registered,’ Sævar said, ‘considering that Maríanna was only fifteen when she got pregnant. Perhaps the father was a kid of the same age.’ He turned up the heater as he gazed out over Borgarfjörður, or what he could see of it through the dense, grey rain. He added, after a pause: ‘Why would someone move to Borgarnes, of all places?’

  ‘Why did you move to Akranes, of all places?’ Elma shot back.

  Sævar was from Akureyri, the capital of north Iceland, but had moved south to Akranes as a teenager with his parents and younger brother. Several years later, his parents had been killed in a car accident, leaving the two brothers alone in the world. Sævar never spoke about the accident but he did talk a lot about his brother, who was called Magnús, nicknamed Maggi, and lived in a community home. Elma had never seen him without a smile on his face, and whenever they met he gave her a long, affectionate hug. The thought made her smile too.

  ‘Dad got a job in Reykjavík, but Mum wouldn’t hear of living there, so I think Akranes was a compromise. I’d happily have carried on living in Akureyri.’

  ‘Why didn’t you move back?’ Elma guessed the answer as soon as the question was out of her mouth.

  ‘Because of Maggi,’ Sævar said. ‘He was happy in the home here, and I was too young to look after him on my own.’

  ‘I hope you don’t have any regrets.’

  ‘Never.’ Sævar grinned.

  Elma slowed down as they drove over the bridge into Borgarnes. The town was small and pretty, sitting on its isthmus, almost surrounded by the waters of the fjord. On a good day, it had a spectacular view of the mountains that rose in ranks along the west coast, right out to the Snæfellsnes Peninsula. Elma had always loved the white church with the pointed spire, black roof and long, narrow, arched windows that dominated the town from the top of its little mound. It was all the rocky hillocks and fir trees that made Borgarnes so different from the bleak, flat landscape around Akranes.

  The two towns enjoyed a certain rivalry. Elma remembered that a group of children from Borgarnes used to be bussed in to her school in Akranes when she was young, but they had been regarded as outsiders, and fights had frequently broken out between them and the local kids. Since Akranes was closer to Reykjavík, it was easier for the inhabitants to go shopping in the city or even to commute there. They tended to look down on Borgarnes as a country town, which was ironic since its popularity with tourists these days meant that it could boast far more shops and restaurants than Akranes.

  When Elma was younger, her family used to go on outings to the swimming pool in Borgarnes, especially when the three water slides were put in. Afterwards, they would go to Skallagrímsgarður and eat the big iced buns called snúðar, or to the Hyrnan service station for hot dogs. In her memory the town was always bathed in sunshine, but that seemed improbable, given how rarely the sun broke through the clouds in Iceland. But then the world seemed a much brighter place through a child’s eyes.

  Maríanna’s former co-worker couldn’t tell them anything of interest, and their conversation didn’t last long. The son of the owner, he was a young man in his early twenties, with long hair and a ring in one ear. He said Maríanna had gone home at midday as she always did on Fridays. He hadn’t noticed anything unusual in her behaviour, but then they hadn’t talked much or been particularly good friends. It was the same as he had said back in the spring.

  After that, Elma and Sævar had dropped into the Borgarnes police station and talked to the officer who had been the first to visit Maríanna’s home after the phone call from Bergrún. It was the same story there: the officer couldn’t add anything to what had been written in the report. He had looked around Maríanna’s flat without noticing anything of interest. As Hekla was a minor, he had got in touch with the Child Protection Agency, after which it had been decided that she should stay with Bergrún and Fannar until Maríanna turned up.

  Neither visit produced any new information or brought them any closer to finding out what had happened. Elma was hoping that their next visit might prove more profitable, however, as they were going round to see Maríanna’s closest friend, a woman called Ingunn. Elma drummed impatiently on the steering wheel, leaning forwards as she tried to spot the house numbers.

  ‘Are you sure it’s the right address?’ She had driven back and forth along the same street several times without seeing the number they were looking for. ‘I just don’t understand it. This part of the street ends at twenty and the next part begins at thirty-eight. Where the hell are the numbers in between?’

  ‘Do not despair,’ Sævar said with mock formality. ‘I’ll activate the satnav on my phone.’

  A few minutes later they had found the address, which turned out to be numbered completely out of order with all the other houses in the street.

  ‘This just doesn’t make sense,’ Elma growled, as they pulled up to the kerb, exasperated by the illogical arrangement. ‘Who on earth would think up—?’

  Sævar put a hand on her arm. ‘Shhh, breathe in … and out,’ he said, in the soothing tones of a yoga teacher.

  ‘Hey, I am calm!’ Elma protested, grinning in spite of herself. His hand was warm and surprisingly soft. Sævar winked at her, let go of her arm and undid his seat belt.

  It was still raining. Elma put up her hood as she got out of the car and scurried over to the house, which had a covered porch.

  Ingunn turned out to be a heavily built woman whose loose blonde hair reached right down to her waist. She came to the door with her baby son in her arms and another boy, a toddler of about two, clinging to her thigh.

  ‘Come in.’ She moved, causing the little boy to fall over and start howling. ‘Sorry, Davíð, love,’ she said, trying to bend down, which was easier said than done.

  Elma’s heart gave a slight lurch when she heard the boy’s name. This little Davíð could easily have been her Davíð as a child. There was something about his features and those brown eyes. She bent down and stroked the boy’s head. He was so surprised, he instantly stopped crying.

  ‘What have you got there?’ she asked, pointing at the teddy bear he was clutching.

  The boy eyed her doubtfully.

  ‘Is it a grizzly bear?’ she ventured.

  ‘Polar bear,’ the little boy said, loud and clear, after a moment’s hesitation.

  ‘A polar bear, of course. Silly me.’ Elma smiled and straightened up.

  Ingunn took the toddler by the hand and led him inside. ‘We can sit in the kitchen.’

  Elma and Sævar sat down at a large table. Elma trod on something that crumbled under her foot. She lifted it to see a Cheerio ring. Looking around, she noticed that the floor
was covered in them. Ingunn put the younger boy in a high-chair, then poured Cheerios onto the table in front of him. He immediately swept most of them onto the floor, before carefully placing one ring in his mouth. From elsewhere in the house they could hear more children’s voices.

  ‘You’ve got enough to keep you busy,’ Elma remarked to Ingunn, who was fetching mugs and a carton of milk.

  ‘Five boys,’ Ingunn said.

  ‘Wow, that’s almost a football team,’ Sævar exclaimed.

  ‘Getting on for it,’ Ingunn said, looking unenthusiastic at the idea. Davíð followed his mother around the room, clinging to her trouser leg, with no apparent intention of letting go.

  ‘There,’ Ingunn said, putting a pot of coffee and some mugs on the table. ‘Do you take milk? I’ve got sugar too, somewhere. And I swear there were biscuits as well.’ She started opening cupboards and drawers.

  ‘This is absolutely fine, we don’t need any biscuits,’ Elma hastened to assure her.

  ‘Here they are,’ Ingunn announced, triumphantly holding up a packet. She took out a small tray and arranged them on it. ‘I have to hide them, or they’re gone before you can blink. The trouble is, I’m always forgetting where I’ve put them, so I keep finding ancient packets at the back of the cupboard.’

  Elma smiled as she studied her. Ingunn was wearing a baggy T-shirt with Relax written on the front, which seemed ironic in the circumstances. She probably hadn’t noticed that the baby had puked up on her, leaving a crusty white streak on her shoulder. Elma’s eyes were drawn to Ingunn’s incongruously long fake nails, painted with dark-pink polish, which seemed totally out of keeping with the rest of her appearance. They could hardly be practical when she had to take care of all these children. Not that Elma had any experience of long nails. Or babies, for that matter. Dagný hadn’t trusted her to babysit Alexander until he was out of nappies and could talk. She still hadn’t been allowed to look after Jökull, who was only two.