I Remember You

Chapter 17

The clouds all seemed to have given up at the same moment, probably from the weight of their burden; one minute everything was calm, and the next the night air was filled with heavy, gusting snow. It swallowed every sound, muting the babbling of the stream and the rush of waves at the seashore. This transformation didn’t make them feel any better, although initially it had been a definite relief to lose the surrounding sounds and the need to start in alarm every time they heard a creak in the rickety house. It didn’t help that the windows were all boarded up, meaning they were now entirely deprived of two of their five senses, making it difficult to know whether someone was outside.

‘I want another cigarette.’ Líf was restless, passing her index finger through the flame of a candle standing on the old dining room table where they sat. She’d found an open pack of Winstons in the kitchen and taken one, to the noisy protests of Katrín, who didn’t want to steal anything from strangers. It was bad enough that they were burning down one of the candles that stood in low copper holders here and there throughout the house, and there was an overwhelming likelihood that they would continue to do so until only the stumps were left. Their urgent need, however, might justify the thievery – unlike Líf’s smoking, a bad habit that she should long since have given up. ‘Do you want to go and have a look with me again?’

‘No.’ Katrín certainly wasn’t going to start doing Líf any favours after she’d run off and left her alone to face what was hidden around the corner of the house. In fact, nothing had happened; after making his threats the owner of the voice had disappeared, leaving Katrín sitting there trembling to her marrow in the silence of the evening, Putti next to her, until Garðar came running to her with Líf at his heels. Líf had stumbled into his arms as she fled up the path, meeting him on his way back to them with the keys. Panting and breathless, she’d told him what they’d encountered and he ran ahead immediately to find Katrín, unsure what he would encounter at the doctor’s house after hearing Líf’s description. When it became apparent that Katrín was unhurt he strode angrily and resolutely round the corner in the hope of finally catching the delinquent child and giving him a thrashing. But there was no one there, which was no surprise to Katrín; the boy had left some minutes before and since he knew the area a thousand times better than they did, it was useless to try to go after him. Nor did the darkness offer much opportunity for heroic deeds.

‘I don’t understand how we managed to forget to bring candles.’ Garðar had been muttering this same sentence at regular intervals ever since Líf had set eyes on them. ‘I swear I must have forgotten candles even existed when we were buying supplies.’

‘Please, come with me. I can’t go alone.’ Líf jerked back her hand after forgetting what she was doing and passing her finger too slowly through the flame. She shook her finger and stuck it in her mouth to cool it down. ‘It’s definitely warmer there than here.’

It was ice-cold in the house. After Garðar had satisfied himself that no one was hiding along the side of it they’d been so frantic to shut themselves in that all of his suggestions that they make one trip together to fetch firewood fell onto stony ground. With the snow falling it was pointless to talk about dashing there and back, even now that they’d calmed down a bit, because none of them was particularly good with directions and there was a risk of them getting lost and dying of exposure. Now they sat there in their jackets and sweaters with sleeping bags round their shoulders, patting themselves to keep warm. Katrín actually found this difficult, since her body was so sore it could barely stand the abuse. ‘I don’t want you to take any more of those cigarettes. How would you like it if someone broke into your place and stole your fags?’

‘I wouldn’t give a damn if I were coming home after being away as long as these people. Cigarettes get ruined when they’re left like this with the packet open. They’re barely smokeable now, let alone in the spring. I’m actually doing them a favour.’ Líf reached for the pack lying on the table between them, took a cigarette out and acted as if she were smoking it, without lighting up. ‘If there weren’t so few in the pack, I’d encourage you to take up smoking with me.’

Katrín didn’t feel like replying to this and Garðar seemed absorbed in a stack of books standing on a shelf on a nice-looking sideboard. They were mainly about the region: the history, geography, people and traditions of the Westfjords; Garðar had wondered aloud whether they should put together a similar collection for their guests in the future. Katrín had clamped her mouth shut but had longed to shout that it would never happen; they would never return here to complete these renovations – if they made it home at all. She watched him as he peered at the small print, trying to keep out of the little light they had to see by. He turned the page. ‘Anything useful there?’ she asked.

Garðar looked up from the book. ‘Yes and no. I was hoping to find something about the houses here, preferably something about our little place, but I haven’t come across anything. This is mainly about hiking trails and the like.’

‘Is there anything about a trail leading to town?’ Líf had started poking at the candle flame again, now more careful about the speed of her finger. ‘We could maybe walk from here.’

‘Are you nuts?’ Katrín didn’t need to see out of the window to recall the storm they’d been met with when they let themselves be persuaded to accompany Líf outside so she could smoke her stolen cigarette. ‘It’d probably take days. We’re much better off waiting here for the boat. After tomorrow we’ll only have two nights left, and then the skipper will come and fetch us.’ She didn’t mention that this was subject to the whims of the sea.

Líf shrugged. ‘I’m not talking about hiking non-stop all the way to Ísafjörður – if we had a map that pointed out some houses along the way we could stay in them. Hike from one to another, something like that. There are a lot of houses here in Hornstrandir. We would only need to know where they are, so we wouldn’t miss them.’ She picked up Putti’s ball from the floor and threw it to him. He looked at it and moved away, giving it a very wide berth. Líf had brought the ball with her from the other house, but the dog now seemed to avoid it like the plague, despite having played with it a lot in the first few days. Neither Katrín nor Garðar had told her how the ball had rolled out of its own accord from under the stove the night before, and they’d awkwardly watched her attempts to get the animal to take it. ‘I don’t understand why he doesn’t want to play with the ball any more. Until now he never let it out of his sight.’ Líf looked surprised and hurt. She obviously felt that the dog had completely turned its back on her.

‘Stop worrying about the dog.’ Garðar sounded angry, but Katrín knew that he probably found it just as uncomfortable as she did to watch the dog’s reaction to the ball. They had suggested to Líf that the toy must be giving off a weird smell that had got into the plastic somehow. ‘And Katrín’s right. There’s no way we’re walking from here. I bet it was precisely that idea that caused Haukur, the former owner, to disappear. He wandered off and died of exposure. There’s no chance of us finding our way – in the dead of winter, to the few human habitations still standing here – without a GPS tracker, which we don’t have; and if we were to get lost, no one would think of looking for us until it was too late. We don’t have working phones, remember?’

‘Of course I remember; if we had a phone we would call the captain and have him come and get us.’ Líf was starting to grow more despondent; her nicotine urge might have been irritating her, but she didn’t dare go out alone to satisfy it. ‘I’m just trying to come up with a solution. Unlike some people.’

Garðar’s expression was far from friendly as he glared into Líf’s defiant eyes. Katrín sighed to herself. Now they would start quarrelling again, just as they had when they were making their way over here, but now it felt angrier, more serious. She might have found it oddly comforting on the way, but there was nothing appealing about it now. ‘Come on, Líf.’ She pushed the chair back from the heavy wooden dining table and stood up. ‘I’ll go outside with you for your fag. We’ll just buy a pack in Ísafjörður and return it to the people, along with the candles that we have to replace anyway.’ Líf smiled gratefully at her. At first she seemed a bit surprised, as if she’d hardly been expecting a friendly gesture on her part. Katrín, however, had no interest in taking sides in these silly arguments and felt the only thing for it was to try to nip them in the bud from the outset. If Líf got to smoke and Garðar got to flip through the book in peace, the atmosphere might lighten and Líf would forget her idea about walking to town.

‘Thanks, you’re a star.’ Líf was still smiling as she lit up. They stood close together in the frame of the open back door. It opened onto a sun porch, like their own house, although this one was in far better shape. ‘I would never have had the guts to stand out here alone.’ The snow continued to fall, covering everything with a thick white blanket.

‘No problem.’ Katrín moved over a bit so that the smoke wouldn’t drift straight into her face. ‘But be prepared to move quick smart if we hear any noises out here. I’ll slam the door so fast you’ll risk being squashed.’

‘Don’t worry.’ Líf blew out smoke and looked in surprise at the cigarette. ‘Funny.’ She rolled it a bit in front of her face and stared as if in a trance at the glowing tip. ‘I haven’t smoked since Einar died.’

Katrín had often wondered how Líf had managed to stop smoking at the time. It couldn’t have been easy grieving for her dead spouse at the same time as battling her addiction. ‘Wasn’t it difficult to stop then?’

Líf took another drag and shook her head slowly. ‘No, it was no problem. I was in so much shock afterwards that I couldn’t eat for several days, let alone smoke. When I pulled myself together a bit it was as if the urge had been taken away from me. Very strange, but that’s how it was.’

Although Katrín generally got completely flustered whenever Einar’s death came up in conversation, there was something about the stillness and silence of the snowfall that loosened her tongue. Suddenly she wasn’t afraid she might say something that would come across as insincere or tacky. ‘Of course it must have been horrible. I’ve often tried to imagine how things have been for you, but I just can’t.’

‘It was what it was.’ The snow seemed to have the opposite effect on Líf. Generally she was open, but now she seemed distracted. ‘It was what it was.’

Katrín wasn’t sure what she should say next. She hugged herself tighter to ward off the cold.

‘Of course it’s too late to say it now, but I’ve never told you just how terribly sorry I am. I would have liked to console you, but I never dared offer, I just hoped that you knew you could always turn to me. It was so, so terrible for you that I felt as if anything I said or did would just be trivial in comparison with what you were going through. I was such a late addition to your group of friends that I still feel a bit like a gatecrasher. Not that you’ve made me feel like that, it’s just a kind of innate insecurity I have.’ Katrín breathed deeply. The air that filled her lungs was fresh and satisfying, although it was tinged with a slight smell of smoke. Maybe it was just contentment at having finally said what was on her mind that was making her feel so relaxed. ‘Well, I hope that one day you’ll find another man you can love as much as you loved Einar.’

Líf had been amusing herself by puckering her lips and blowing out big clouds of smoke. She seemed to be flustered when Katrín finished talking, and it was as if the smoke was going back into her lungs. She coughed slightly, but then laughed a desolate laugh. ‘Hopefully I’ll find someone I can love more than I loved him.’

‘What?’ Katrín didn’t know whether Líf was joking. Líf smiled at her, her expression sincere. ‘Things weren’t going very well for me and Einar; you and Garðar must have noticed it. We would probably have divorced if he’d lived. The last four years of our marriage were a complete disaster, and I’d had enough.’

Katrín did her best to hide her astonishment. ‘We knew you’d gone through some rough patches, but I just thought you’d got over them by the time Einar died. You were absolutely devastated, and I know that was no act.’

‘I was mourning for what had been. The Einar that I first met and the Einar that I married. Not the man I lived with in the last few years. We couldn’t stand being in each other’s presence any more. That’s why I had no idea he’d been undergoing medical tests for his heart; I’d noticed a bottle of pills in the medicine cabinet but we spoke so little to each other that I never asked about them. When we went to sleep on the night he died, we didn’t even say goodnight to each other. Of course we couldn’t have known that we would never see each other again, at least not in this life. I would have liked to have said goodnight, at least. But that’s how it was. We both got what we wanted, though in different ways. We parted company.’

Katrín was still too shocked to be able to respond to this. No doubt she would have learned about this if she’d opened herself up to Líf earlier. ‘Shit,’ was all she could think of to say.

‘Yes. Exactly. Shit.’ Líf knocked ash off her cigarette and a large grey fleck drifted slowly down among the snowflakes. ‘It was almost worse than losing someone you loved. Of course I mourned him, but I also felt a little bit like the world’s biggest hypocrite, having previously wished he’d go to hell.’ She took her last drag on the cigarette and the tip burned into the filter. ‘Remember that girl at the funeral who cried and cried – really pretty, dark-haired, wearing a grey outfit?’

‘No, I can’t say I do.’ Katrín hadn’t paid much attention to anyone but Garðar, who’d had a very difficult time saying farewell to his best friend.

‘Doesn’t matter.’ Líf tossed the butt out into the night. ‘She was his assistant. He had an affair with her for years, I think.’ She turned to Katrín. ‘Actually, I don’t think, I know.’

Katrín’s eyes were so wide that her eyelids ached. ‘Did Garðar know about this?’

Líf shrugged. ‘I suppose not. I think Einar was more interested in keeping it from him than from me. They were still friends. Not like us.’ Líf moved away from the door and Katrín followed her example.

‘Didn’t you try to patch things up at all? Our marriage hasn’t been a bed of roses but it’s always been fixable.’ Katrín decided to let it all out, just like Líf. ‘Actually, the onus always ends up being on me. I’m the one who compromises when it becomes clear that he’s not going to try.’

Líf nodded. ‘Yes, I know. Einar was the same. Of course I tried everything I could at first. I made appointments for marriage counselling, but he never turned up. The sessions just changed into my own personal therapy, which actually helped me a lot. I became angry instead of being sad and it’s a much, much better feeling.’ She smiled conspiratorially, stretched towards Katrín’s ear and whispered: ‘I even cheated on him in revenge. To even the score. One all.’ She leaned away from Katrín again and her expression returned to normal. ‘But then I broke it off, since it was pointless and my motives were all fucked-up. Einar never realized; he was too busy with his own infidelity to notice what I was doing behind his back. In fact, I’m really happy things happened the way they did, but sometimes I wish I’d told him before he died. I almost did once, just to get back at him.’

‘Who was it, anyone I know?’ Katrín was fairly familiar with the close-knit group of Einar, Líf and Garðar’s friends, to which she’d been graciously admitted after she and Garðar had started seeing each other. Although Líf and Einar had made her feel quite welcome, the others were a different story, deigning to talk to her only out of loyalty to Garðar. Katrín felt she could always read in their eyes, especially the women, that he was far too good for the likes of her – a non-entity, a teacher who wasn’t particularly stylish or beautiful. She had no trouble imagining that some of the people in that happy little group would have had few qualms about stealing each other’s boyfriends or girlfriends.

‘You don’t know him. He’s older than we are and we weren’t at all well-suited. It was a mistake on my part.’ Líf smiled sadly at Katrín. ‘I think I’m better off with someone closer to my own age.’

‘Okay.’ Katrín had no idea what else to say. She felt slightly ashamed of her own curiosity, though it didn’t seem to bother Líf at all. In any case, she felt relieved when Líf said nothing further. Her news had caught Katrín completely off guard. They walked silently back inside to Garðar, and Katrín prayed he wouldn’t start quarrelling with Líf again. She needed peace and quiet to take in what Líf had said. Her worries proved unfounded.

‘Guess what?’ Garðar had got further into the book, which he’d moved closer to the candle’s flickering flame. ‘I’ve found a short section about our house.’ He placed his finger on the middle of the page. ‘Here’s a little bit about the woman and the boy whose names are on the crosses.’ He didn’t seem to notice their silence in his own excitement. ‘They drowned just out there.’ He turned and pointed at the living room window, through which nothing could be seen. It didn’t make any difference; they knew perfectly well in what direction the sea lay, and it was hard to drown on dry land.

‘Did their boat sink?’ Katrín tried to appear interested, though Líf and Einar’s toxic relationship was occupying her mind entirely.

‘No, no. The ice broke beneath them.’ Garðar shuddered with a sudden chill as he said this. ‘It was winter and the fjord was iced over. It says here that the boy had gone out onto the ice, which wasn’t strong enough to hold him though he was just a short distance from land. His brother saw and went to get their mother, who tried desperately to save her child, but the ice broke beneath her as well. The two of them were already dead by the time rescuers managed to scramble out onto the ice on some boards. They were buried in the cemetery. It was the last funeral in Hesteyri while people still lived here.’

Just as he said the last word, the house was struck by a huge blow that even the storm couldn’t deaden.