Last Rituals

CHAPTER 27

Thora woke up with her head throbbing as if her brain was trying to escape her skull. She clutched her forehead and groaned. Cointreau, of all drinks. She ought to have learned by now that "liqueur" was Latin for "hangover." With a sigh she rolled over onto her side. As she did so her hand knocked something that felt so warm she opened her eyes wide in horror. There was a man in her bed. She looked at Matthew's back. Or was it Oli, the barman? She recalled the previous night and sighed softly at the realization that she had at least opted for the lesser of two evils. The fog in her head obscured her view of a clear exit strategyhow could she slip out unseen without waking Matthew? And an even bigger question: how could she maintain her dignity? Could she pretend nothing had happened? Maybe he couldn't remember anything either. That was the answersneak out, meet him afterward, and pray that he had drunk four times as much as she had.

Her plan evaporated when Matthew turned over and smiled at her. "Good morning," he said, his lips parched. "How are you doing?"

Thora pulled the duvet up to her chin. She was naked under it. If she could be granted one wish, it was to be fully clothed. Her throat produced a strange rattle before her vocal cords kicked in. "Just one thing. To make everything perfectly clear, you know." Matthew looked puzzled but allowed her to continue. "Last night, that wasn't meit was the alcohol. So you slept with a bottle of Cointreau, not with me."

"Oh, I see," said Matthew, propping himself up on one elbow. "Those bottles of booze never fail to surprise. I didn't know they were capable of that. You even praised my shoes. Wanted me to keep them on."

Thora blushed. She tried to think up a different defense for her virtue but her mind was empty. Gradually the night all flooded back to her and she had to admit to herself that she didn't particularly regret it. "I don't know what came over me," she said, and blushed again.

"You worry too much," Matthew said, putting his hand on her over the duvet.

"It's just not like me at all. I'm the mother of two children and you're a foreigner."

"Well, since you have children you ought to be familiar with the process." He smiled. "It's pretty much the same everywhere, I expect."

Thora's cheeks grew even redder. And her horror doubled when Amelia Guntlieb suddenly crossed her mind. "Are you going to tell the Guntliebs about this?"

Matthew threw his head back and roared. After laughing his fill he looked at her and said calmly: "Of course. There's a clause in my contract that says I have to submit a sex report to them at the end of each month."

When he realized that Thora was unsure whether or not he was joking, he relented: "Of course not; how could you think that?"

"I don't knowI just don't want people thinking that I make a habit of sleeping with my colleagues. I've never done anything like this before." Given that she worked with the aging Bragi, Bella from Hell, and the un-assuming Thor, that wasn't saying much.

"I didn't take it that way," Matthew said. "I took it as meaning that you wanted to sleep with me at that momentthat you simply found my sex appeal irresistible." He looked at her playfully.

Thora rolled her eyes. She did not want to answer, because to some extent he was rightat least, she was the one who made the first move, if her memory did not betray her. "My hangover's killing me. I can't think straight at the moment."

Matthew sat up. "I have some Alka-Seltzer. I'll fix you one, you'll feel better straightaway."

Before Thora could stop himshe realized that he was as naked as she wasMatthew had got to his feet and gone to the bathroom. What is it that makes men so much less embarrassed about their physique than women? Thora wondered. She mused on this a while to keep other thoughts that might have occurred to her at bay, such as how fit and strong he looked. Maybe it had not been so terribly stupid, when all was said and done. She heard the sound of running water from the tap in the bathroom and closed her eyes.

She opened them again only when she was sure Matthew was back under the quilt. He was holding a glass of fizzing water and Thora braced herself, sat up, and drank it in one draft. Then she threw herself back on the pillow and waited for the nausea to subside. She lay like that for a few minutes until a finger prodded her shoulder through the covers. She opened her eyes.

"Listen." Matthew turned to face her. "I have a suggestion."

"What?" Thora managed to keep her voice normal. She was almost feeling a little better.

"How would you like to review your opinion that this was a mistake?" He smiled at her. "I can put on my nice shoes, if you want."

Thora woke up again, this time to the sound of running water from the shower. She leaped out of bed and threw on some clothes, hopping around on the floor. She could not find one of her socks, but gathered up the rest of the clothes in her arms. She called into the bathroom that she would see him at breakfast. It was a huge relief to her when she closed the door to her own room.

A long, hot shower made her feel better in body and mind. Before leaving, she picked up her phone and called her friend Laufey.

"Do you know what time it is?" Laufey grumbled sleepily.

Thora ignored her, because it was almost ten. "Oh, my Godyou'll never guess what!" she cried.

"Well, judging from how excited you sound and the ungodly hour at which you're calling, it must be headline news." A yawn followed.

"I slept with someone!" The reaction was immediate. Laufey had clearly sat bolt upright on hearing the news because no sooner had the words left Thora's mouth than a mighty creaking was heard.

"Ooh! Tell me, who, who is it?"

"Matthew, that German. I'll have to save the rest for later because I'm off to meet him for breakfast. We're at a hotel."

"A hotel? Well, well, you can't be left by yourself for a second, can you?"

"I'll talk to you laterI'm a bit worried. Somehow I have to get him to understand that it was just a onetime thing, I don't want a relationship."

Braying laughter came down the phone line. "Hello? Where have you beenwatching Teletubbies? There aren't many single men that age who are looking for a profound relationship. Don't worry about it, girl."

Thora hung up, slightly irritated at the reaction to news that was supposed to have pleased her friend. She headed off for the breakfast room after taking the time to mess up the sheets so that the hotel staff wouldn't think she was promiscuous. Matthew was sitting at a table for two by a window, drinking coffee. Thora could not help noticing how handsome he was, which she had always refused to admit to herself. His face had those rough features that appealed to her. Strong jaw, large teeth, well-defined cheekbones, and deep-set eyes. This was doubtless a genetic legacy from her prehistoric ancestors, an attraction to looks that suggested toughness and determinationthe perfect hunter. Thora sat down. "I really think something to eat will do me a heap of good," she said to break the ice.

Matthew poured coffee from the stainless steel pot into her cup. "You left a sock in my room. And it wasn't a woolen sockincredible but true."

Nothing in the way they acted implied that something had happened since dinner the night before, apart from when Matthew placed his hand over Thora's with a conspiratorial wink. She smiled back but said nothing. He soon removed his hand and continued his meal. After eating they went to their respective rooms and packed.

While Thora was waiting for Matthew at reception, her phone rang. It was Gylfi. Before answering, Thora reminded herself that he had no idea what his mother had been up to the previous night.

"Hello, darling," she said, trying to sound natural.

"Hi." Gylfi's voice was gloomy and a short time passed before he got to the point. "Er, that thing I was going to tell youwhere are you?"

"I'm at Hotel Ranga. I was working this weekend. Aren't you home?"

"Yeah." Another pause. "When are you getting back?"

Thora looked at her watch. It was a few minutes to eleven. "I'll be back around one, I expect."

"Okay. See you then."

"Why aren't you with your dad? Where's your sister?" Thora said quickly before he rang off.

"She's still with him. I left."

"Left? Why? Did you have an argument?"

"You could say that," he replied. "He started it."

"How?" Thora gaped in astonishment. Hannes normally had a knack for avoiding quarrels and until now had managed to get along quite nicely with his son, although the latter would hardly consider him a born entertainer.

He sighed. "He acted like he wanted to have a talk with me, and just when I thought he understood me and I told him something, he snapped. I swear he did backward somersaults. I wasn't about to listen to that. I thought he'd understand."

Thora's thoughts seethed and jostled. She knew that Gylfi's description of his father's behavior must be a huge exaggeration. So what had really happened? She regretted having persuaded Hannes to talk to the boyobviously it had not helped. "Gylfi, what was it that made your father so mad? Is that what you want to talk to me about afterward?"

"Yeah." No further explanation. She would have to wait until she saw him to find out.

"Listen, I'm on my way. I'm no acrobat so we can surely manage to discuss this calmly. Don't go anywhere."

"You'll have to be back before one. I have to go and see some people."

Some people? Some people? Had he joined a religious cult? Thora felt a pang in her chest. "Gylfidon't go anywhere until I'm back. Understand?"

"Be back before one," he said. "Dad'll be there too." He said good-bye and hung up.

Thora's heart pounded in her rib cage and it took a huge effort not to let out a howl. With trembling hands she dialed Hannes's phone but it was either out of reach or switched off. She stared at her phone. Hannes would never switch off his phonehe slept with it on his bedside table in case anyone needed to contact him in the middle of the night. His riding trips, too, were arranged somewhere his phone workedshe doubted if he had ever been out of signal range since he first bought a cell phone. She tried his home number but there was no reply. What had the boy done? Started smoking? Hardly. Was he a drug addict and on his way to rehab? No, out of the question. She would surely have noticed. Was he coming out of the closet? Off to a gay pride meeting? Hannes would hardly have flipped about thatto give him credit, he was relatively liberal. Besides, she had a feeling that Gylfi had a crush on that girl whose name she could never remember. No, that wasn't the issue. Countless ideas welled up, increasingly absurd. Que sera sera. She stood up and peeped around the corner to see if Matthew was on his way down the corridor. He was standing at the door to his room, dragging out his suitcase.

As soon as Matthew had paid the bill, Thora took him by the arm and almost dragged him away.

"What's up?" he asked in bewilderment as Thora pushed him through the door.

"There's a domestic crisis and I have to get home as soon as humanly possible."

He took her at her word, and with no further questions he threw the bags inside the Jeep and climbed behind the wheel. They drove straight to Reykjavik through Hella, Selfoss, and Hveragerdi. Matthew said little on the way. It was not until they reached the Kambar slopes that he asked whether there was anything he could do, but Thora told him she did not even know what the problem was, let alone how to resolve it. She did tell him that it concerned her son and some news he was going to tell her. They were making good time as they passed the ski lodge, and they were still plugging along when they reached the transport cafe. But right as they were passing Lake Raudavatn, on the outskirts of the city, they blew a tire.

"What the hell!" shouted Matthew, tightening his grip on the wheel to stop the car from swerving out of control. They slowed down and stopped by the roadside.

"Oh no, oh no," Thora moaned. She looked at her watch. Twenty-five past twelve. They could still make it to Seltjarnarnes by one if they had no problems changing the tire.

"Stupid cheap tires," muttered Matthew as he struggled to remove the spare from the tailgate. At last it came free and they concentrated together on jacking the car up and changing the tire. Matthew took the burst tire and tossed it through the tailgate where it landed on top of Thora's flight bag. She couldn't have cared less. It was rapidly approaching one.

They jumped into the car and Matthew roared off. "Wait here," Thora said as they pulled up outside her house. She ran toward it, taking out her keys on the way so that the doorbell would not delay her. She rang with her left hand to let Gylfi know she was back while putting the key in the lock and opening the door with her right. "Gylfi!" she panted.

"Hi, Mom." Soley ran out to greet her, all sunny smiles. If something had happened, it had escaped her notice entirely.

"Hello, sweetie. Where's your brother?" Thora pushed her way past Soley to look for her son.

"He left. I've got a note for you," she said, pulling a folded scrap of paper out of her pocket.

Thora snatched the note from her. While she unfolded it she asked: "When did he go? And where?"

"He just left. An hour ago." Soley had still not figured out the mystery of telling time. Gylfi could have gone a few seconds ago, or two weeks ago for that matter. "He went where it says here." A little finger pointed to the note as if to clear up any confusion with other pieces of paper.

"Come with me." Thora saw that the address was in Seltjarnarnes, too, so thankfully it was quite close. "Let's go for a drive with the nice man." She threw one of Gylfi's coats over Soley's shoulders, crammed her into some boots, and pushed her outside. Thora swung open the rear door of the Jeep and swiftly helped her daughter inside. Then she jumped into the passenger seat and told Matthew to drive away. "Matthew, this is my daughter, Soley. She speaks only Icelandic. Soley, this is Matthew. He doesn't speak Icelandic but I'm sure you'll be good friends."

Matthew stole a glance into the back to greet the little girl with a smile. "Pretty, like her mother," he said, turning where Thora indicated he should. "Same taste in clothes too."

"Herethen first right. I'm looking for number forty-five," Thora said, still agitated. The house soon came into sight. It was easy to recognize because walking up the drive was Gylfi. "There, there," Thora gasped, pointing to her son. Matthew sped up a little and pulled up alongside the sidewalk outside the housethe driveway was already full. Thora recognized Hannes's car. She flung open the door the moment the car stopped. "Soley, you wait here with nice Mr. Matthew."

Gylfi did not look round until his mother had repeatedly called his name as she ran toward the house. He had reached the front door where he stood slouching after ringing the bell. "Hi," he said morosely.

"I was delayed." Thora was panting. She put her hand on her son's shoulder. "What's going on, darling? Who lives here?"

Gylfi looked at her with an expression of absolute desperation. "Sigga's pregnant. She's only fifteen. I'm the father. Her parents live here."

The front door opened as he finished speaking. Thora stood frozen to the spot, her mouth gaping. For some reason her eyes were glued to the iPod her son was wearing round his neck, perhaps because she had been looking at it when the world collapsed around her. If the enraged middle-aged man who opened the door had not been blue in the face, he would surely have laughed at her moronic expression. "Hello," he said to her, then looked at Gylfi, narrowed his eyes contemptuously, and said: "You too." But those two words were obviously not to be mistaken as a welcome. Their implication was more along the lines of: Get lost, you deflowerer of the young and innocent daughters of worthy citizens.

Politeness won out from force of habit and Thora gritted her teeth into a smile. "Hello, I'm Thora. Gylfi's mother."

The man grunted but invited them in. They took off their shoes under his watchful gaze as he leaned menacingly in the doorway. Thora had the impression that the man expected Gylfi not to stop at the daughter of the household but to burst in and ravish the mother for good measure.

"Thank you," she said to no one in particular as she walked in past him. She had both arms on her son's shoulders, guiding him along in front of herin case the man tried to go for his jugular. They walked straight into a large open-plan living room where three people were seated: Hannes, whom Thora recognized from the nape of his neck; a woman of roughly her own age, who stood up when they approached; and a young girl who was sitting in an armchair with her head bowed in total resignation.

"So, you made it at last," the woman half shrieked. Oh, Lord, may the unborn child inherit my deep alto, Thora prayed silently. She tried for a second time to squeeze out a smile. Her hands did not leave her son's shoulders.

"Hannes," Thora said, looking at her ex-husband. She tried to signal that he should do his duty now and allow her to join him where he was seated. But instead of signaling back "message received," he glared back furiously. "Hello, Sigga," she said in the friendliest voice she could manage to the young girl, who then looked up. Her eyes were puffy, with heavy tears glittering in each corner.

Gylfi finally shook off Thora's grip and ran over to her. "Sigga!" he moaned, clearly moved at the sorry state of his beloved.

"Oh, great!" snarled the mother. "Romeo and Juliet. I'm going to throw up."

Thora swung round to face her. She was seething with rage. Two youngsters had made a terrible mistake and this woman had the nerve to mock their fate, even though one of them was her own daughter. Thora rarely lost her temper, but it happened now. "Excuse me, but this is difficult enough as it isdon't go spicing it up with sarcasm." Hannes leaped to his feet and Thora felt him push her down onto the sofa before she could even begin to resist. Sigga's mother gaspedanger blazed from her eyes.

"I see where your son gets his manners from," she said, and sat down, too, her back straighter than a ballerina's. Her husband chose to remain standing, towering over them from the middle of the floor.

"Mom!" Sigga wept. "Shut up!" Thora took an immediate liking to the girlher prospective daughter-in-law.

"What's all this bitching about?" said Sigga's father. "If we can't discuss this like civilized human beings, we might as well forget it. We're here to face up to this terrible news and let's do just that." The word "terrible" was stressed with great drama.

Hannes sat up. "Agreed, let's try to keep calmthis isn't easy for any of us."

The woman snorted again.

"Well, anyway," Hannes continued solemnly. "Maybe I should begin by saying how saddened I am and on behalf of my family I want to apologize for our son's behavior and the pain he's caused you."

Thora took a deep breath, wanting to digest Hannes's words before killing him. She turned to him, perfectly calm. "For a start, just to set the record straight, we're not a family. My son and daughter and I are a family. You're a cheap excuse for a weekend father, but unlike most of them you can't even take your own son's side when you need to." When she looked away from Hannes she noticed the others were staring at her. Her son was watching her proudly. She repeated for emphasis: "Just to set the record straight."

Hannes took a sharp breath, but Sigga's mother beat him to a reply. "How appropriate. I want to take this opportunity to point out that your darling princethat son of yours"this family's talent for drama knew no bounds. She gave a grandiose emphasis to her words with an exaggerated sweep of the hand"will soon be the same 'cheap excuse for a weekend father' as your ex-husband."

"No!" The shout came from Gylfi. Proudly he went on: "II mean we. We. We're going to stay together. We'll rent an apartment and look after the baby."

Thora suddenly wanted to laugh out loud. Gylfi renting an apartment! He didn't even realize that everything he took for grantedheating, electricity, television, water, garbage collectionall cost money. But she kept her thoughts to herself for fear of discouraging her son. If he believed he was going to rent an apartment, so be it.

"Yes!" cried Sigga. "We can do itI'm almost sixteen."

"Rape!" shouted her mother. "Of course. She's not even sixteen! It's rape!" She glared at Gylfi and shrieked: "Rapist!"

Thora did not quite understand how this was supposed to improve the situation. She turned to Sigga. "How many months, dear?"

"I don't know. Maybe three. I haven't had a period for three months anyway." Her father blushed to the roots of his hair.

Gylfi had turned sixteen a month and a half before. Not that it made any difference. "Let me point out that the age of consent in such a case is fourteen, not sixteen. Besides, my son wasn't sixteen himself when the child was conceived and the law makes no exemption for either gender in cases of sexual harassment, as it's called."

"Nonsense." The father snorted. "As if a woman could rape a man? To say nothing of a child, as in my daughter's case."

"And my son's," replied Thora with a victorious smirk.

"May I point out that your son's at secondary grammar school while my daughter's still in basic school. That must carry some weight with the law," the man said arrogantly.

"None whatsoever," Thora replied. "There's no mention of educational level, I can assure you."

He frowned. "Those fucking queers in parliament."

"You're crazy!" yelled Sigga. "It's my child. I'm the one who has to carry it around and get a huge belly and ugly breasts and can't ever go to the prom." A fresh bout of tears prevented her from continuing.

Gylfi tried to offer what he must have felt was romantic consolation. In an emotional voice he declared to all present: "I don't careyou can get a really fat belly and horrible breasts. I won't leave you and I won't invite anyone else to the prom. I'll just go by myself. You're the girl I love."

Sigga cried even harder while the adults all stared at Gylfi, openmouthed. Somehow this ridiculous confession of love drove home the truth that Mother Nature had made an appalling error of judgmentthese were children having a child, and identifying the culprit was not necessarily the point.

Only Hannes spoke after this collective realization. He turned to Thora, his features distorted by rage. "It's all your fault. You live a wild life and sleep with anyone who shows you the slightest interest. The boy did nothing like that while I lived therehe's imitating the only role model he knows."

Thora was too taken aback to answer. Wild life? One session of sexadmittedly two, if you counted the replayin two years. That was hardly a wild life. Even her eighty-eight-year-old grandfather had urged her to go out and have more funto say nothing of her girlfriend Laufey, although she could hardly be called a preacher of morals.

"I knew it, you're a slut!" the mother screeched, piercing all their eardrums. "A sex addictand it runs in the family." She stared at Thora triumphantly.

Thora found an unexpected ally when Sigga's father joined the fray. "Well, honey, rejoice in the fact that at least your daughter's not frigid like her mother!"

Suddenly Thora could take it no longer. She had heard more about her son's prospective in-laws than she cared to know. Ahead of them lay a baptism, a string of birthdays, confirmation, and God knows what else. Thora had no desire to recall these people's most intimate secrets on such occasions. She stood up. "You know whatI don't know whose bright idea it was to meet here in the first place." She pointed at Hannes. "Feel free to talk to Gylfi's father, all night if need be. But I've had enough." She spun around to leave but was forced to return to the gathering when she realized she wanted to take her son with her. "Gylfi, come on." Her departing words were for poor Sigga, who was still weeping with bowed head. "Sigga, the baby will always be welcome in my houseas will both of you if you want to live there together. Good-bye to you all."

She walked out with Gylfi at her heels. She was completely drained. They slammed the front door behind them and went over to Matthew's Jeep, which fortunately was still in its place. Without saying a word, Thora sat in the passenger seat and Gylfi in the rear beside his sister. "Hannes-ar-dottir," Soley said emphatically, teaching Matthew to pronounce her last name.

"Let's go," said Thora, clutching her head in her hands. She looked at Matthewrelieved that her son had only a fleeting grasp of German and her daughter none at all. "Guess what? I've been devalued. You've just slept with a granny."

To her surprise, Matthew roared with laughter. "I must say that Icelandic grannies are rather different from German ones." He darted a glance toward the backseat, where Gylfi sat immersed in doubts about his future. The only straw he could clutch at now was his mother, who had flown into a rage, largely because she was still half hungover. "Hello, son of Thora. I'm Matthew." He winked at Thora. She looked back at him, too, ready to repay his honesty. Now she would tell her son that Matthew was more than a friend and colleague. Noticing the iPod still dangling from the lad's neck, she decided not to.

"Gylfi. This is Matthew, who's working with me. I invited him round for dinner. We'll talk things over quietly together when he's gone." She swallowed a lump that suddenly appeared in her throat. She was going to be a grandmother, thirty-six years old. Jesus, Mary, the Holy Ghost, and the other one from the Trinity whose name escaped hermay the child be healthy and its parents' lives a bed of roses in spite of this mistake. She fought back the tears that pressed forth uninvited. She was swamped with old signals she should have figured out. It's no fun being alone with Gylfihe's always jumping on the bed and howling

"Thora." Matthew pulled her out of her thoughts. "I had a phone call from the museum of sorcery just now. It seems there's an explanation for the state Harald's body was in."