Strange Shores

23

A doctor entered Hrund’s room, examined the drip and enquired how she was feeling. After a curious glance at Erlendur, who did not say a word, he briskly took his leave. Hrund asked Erlendur to arrange her pillows more comfortably and refill her glass. He poured her some water from the jug and Hrund took a sip, then set the glass down again.

‘My mother got the story out of Ezra years later,’ she said. ‘After Jakob died. Ezra never meant to tell her and of course he never would have done if she hadn’t pestered him. But I can well believe she only learned a fraction of the truth. Ezra’s a very dark horse, though I’ve always had a soft spot for him.’

‘I’ve only met him the once,’ said Erlendur. ‘Naturally, he didn’t say a word about any of this.’

‘No, I don’t suppose he’d tell you,’ said Hrund.

Concerned that she might be tiring, Erlendur asked if he should come back later when she had had a rest.

‘A rest?’ exclaimed Hrund. ‘I don’t know how I’m supposed to rest any more than I’m doing right now, lying flat on my back in hospital.’

‘I don’t want to be a nuisance.’

‘You’re not. It isn’t often I get the chance to reminisce like this, and, anyway, there’s always the possibility you’ll turn up something new. You’ve certainly made the old pulse beat a bit faster.’

Erlendur couldn’t deny that Hrund was looking better and seemed livelier and more talkative than before. He wondered how much this was down to the antibiotics. Apart from an episode of arrhythmia a few years back, he had never been ill himself; never spent a day in bed in his life.

‘Well, I’m all ears,’ he said. ‘What happened next?’

‘Nothing for a few months, though Ezra and Matthildur grew closer all the time. He carried on fishing with Jakob, but increasingly took days off sick. It’s remarkable they managed to keep their affair secret in such a small community. They knew they’d have to tell Jakob at some point — better it came from them than from somebody else. But Matthildur was reluctant. She was worried he’d make life difficult for them.

‘Do you think Matthildur could have started an affair with Ezra to get even with Jakob?’

‘I’ve asked myself that. She gets the letter, reacts furiously and turns to another man for comfort.’

‘What did your mother think?’

‘She couldn’t really say,’ said Hrund. ‘But she knew Matthildur went into things wholeheartedly. However it may have started, she was genuinely in love with Ezra. He was in the best position to know, after all, and he told my mother.’

The hardest part was meeting in secret. There were limits to how many days Ezra could take off work. On the other hand, he didn’t want to put too much pressure on Matthildur to leave Jakob. She had already postponed the evil moment twice. Although she felt she had good grounds to divorce him, Jakob denied that her sister’s child was his, and she was frightened of how he would react to her leaving. Finally, finding it increasingly difficult to associate with Jakob and hating the furtiveness and deceit, Ezra invented an excuse to stop working on the boat with him. News of his meetings with Matthildur must not get out, but he knew it was inevitable sooner or later.

One night, as he lay awake thinking about their predicament, he heard a light tap on the door. When he opened it, Matthildur darted inside and he closed it hastily behind her.

‘I’ve missed you so much,’ she whispered, flinging her arms around him.

He crushed her to him, kissing her, then carried her into the kitchen where they kissed until she tore herself away.

‘Let’s leave,’ said Ezra. ‘Together. Tonight. Right now.’

‘We can’t just leave, Ezra,’ she protested. ‘I have to talk to him first. We have to talk to him. You’re his friend, after all. And I want him to admit he was a sod to my sister.’

Ezra stared at her as she stroked his forehead. Jakob had gone to Reydarfjördur and was planning to stay there overnight.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk to him, tell him the truth. If that’s the way you want it, I won’t object. It’d be for the best. But we’ll do it together. You mustn’t do anything on your own. We’ll face him together.’

‘You know how jealous he is.’

‘I can imagine — especially where you’re concerned.’

There was no sign of her the next day. He hadn’t stirred from the house since waking because of a howling gale that had blown up out of nowhere, but late that evening there was a rapping at his door. It was Jakob, in a frantic state. Ezra expected the worst, but not in the form it took.

‘Matthildur’s out in the storm,’ Jakob gasped. ‘I came to ask if you could help — help me find her.’

Ezra could hardly believe his ears. He had just been thinking how dangerous it would be to go outside in weather like this. Not in all the time he had lived out east had he experienced such ferocity. In the worst gusts he had feared the roof would be torn off.

‘She was going to see her mother,’ Jakob explained. ‘She’s on foot. I’m gathering a search party. Can you come and help?’

‘Of course,’ Ezra replied. ‘Are you saying she’s out in this weather?’

‘You haven’t seen or spoken to her at all?’ Jakob asked.

‘No.’

‘She said she might look in on you.’

‘Really?’ said Ezra, and nearly blurted out that she hadn’t mentioned any Reydarfjördur trip to him. He caught himself in the nick of time.

‘She said she wanted a quick word with you,’ said Jakob.

‘I can’t imagine what about,’ Ezra replied. He gaped at Jakob in feigned surprise, trying to pretend it was out of the ordinary for Matthildur to want a word with him, as if she were not constantly in and out of his house. As if there were nothing between them; she had never talked of leaving Jakob; they were not planning to run away together. As if they had not made love here in the kitchen, right where Jakob was standing.

He forced his features into an expression of puzzlement to conceal all these lies.

‘No, well, perhaps we’ll find out,’ said Jakob.

In desperate haste, Ezra pulled on his waterproofs and left with Jakob. He could detect no sign that Jakob had learned of their relationship. If he knew or suspected, he hid the fact. As far as Ezra could tell, Jakob was genuinely anxious about Matthildur. They were going from door to door, recruiting searchers, when they discovered that a rescue party was already assembling to look for a group of British soldiers from Reydarfjördur who had failed to return from a hike. The farmer at Veturhús had raised the alarm and already rescued a number of the men.

Ezra and Jakob joined the search party, and news soon spread that Jakob believed his wife had been intending to cross the moors by the shortest route to visit her mother in Reydarfjördur. He believed she had been making for the Hraevarskörd Pass and might even have reached it before the storm peaked. The wind was still gusting with hurricane force, and conditions were hazardous for the rescue party, but neither Ezra nor Jakob were deterred.

‘Why didn’t you get in touch sooner?’ Ezra yelled to Jakob once they were staggering up the path to Hraevarskörd. They could hardly make any headway against the wind.

‘I fell asleep. I’ve been dead to the world all day and by the time I woke up this evening the storm was already raging. I’d never have let her go if I’d known the weather was going to turn like this.’

‘Are you sure she hasn’t made it over to the other side?’

‘Yes. I phoned. They’re getting another search party together in Reydarfjördur.’

‘Oh God, we have to find her,’ exclaimed Ezra.

‘I’m sure she’ll make it,’ Jakob shouted back.

They ploughed on through the downpour, their calls lost in the screaming gale. But before long they were driven back by the savagery of the weather, as were the searchers on the other side of the pass. They had managed to struggle only a few hundred metres before realising they would have to wait out the storm if they were not to put their own lives at risk.

The wind had lost much of its force by the time the search parties met on the pass the following day, having seen no sign of Matthildur. They continued combing the highlands for the next few days but to no avail.

Hrund asked Erlendur to help her sit up a little.

‘That’s the story, more or less, as Ezra told it to my mother and she passed it on to me. So it should be pretty accurate. She described how shattered Ezra was by Matthildur’s disappearance and how he suffered from not being able to confide in anyone about what they meant to each other.’

‘Ezra knew Matthildur was planning to leave Jakob at the time she vanished,’ said Erlendur thoughtfully, ‘but no one else was aware that she and Ezra were lovers?’

‘Not a soul. They kept it absolutely secret.’

‘And he never let on?’

‘No, never, according to my mother. He didn’t want to drag Matthildur’s name through the mud by admitting that she’d been having an affair with him before she went missing, and take the risk that people would speak ill of her. Given how things had turned out, he didn’t feel their relationship was anyone else’s business. But it’s possible someone had noticed their visits and heard gossip about the child Ingunn claimed was Jakob’s. Because as time went by Jakob’s reputation took a hammering — not that it had been all that good to start with.’

‘Hence the rumours that she haunted him and caused his shipwreck?’

‘Yes.’

‘What about Ezra? What did he think?’

‘He was convinced she’d died in the storm. In his opinion, there was no other explanation.’

‘And your mother believed him?’

‘Yes. She had no reason to doubt him.’

‘But Matthildur had told him Jakob was jealous. Ezra must have had his suspicions that she’d revealed all to Jakob and that trouble had come of it.’

‘It’s possible. But if so, he didn’t tell my mother,’ said Hrund. ‘For some reason he was positive that Jakob would never have done her any harm. He accepted what had happened and mourned Matthildur. Still mourns her to this day.’

‘How could he be so positive?’

‘I really don’t know. Jakob was the only living soul who could have shed light on Matthildur’s fate. Once he was gone, all hope of solving the mystery was almost certainly lost.’

‘But you’ve never been satisfied with Jakob’s explanation.’

‘Not for a minute.’