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Hypothermia

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‘Tryggvi’s not dead,’ the man said. ‘I met him two or three days ago. If it’s the same Tryggvi. I don’t know any other. Was he at university?’

‘Where did you meet him?’

‘He said he was going to get a job, try to go on the wagon.’

‘Really?’ Erlendur said.

‘I’ve heard it all before,’ the man continued. ‘He was down at the central bus station. Shaving in the gents.’

‘He hangs out at the bus station, does he?’

‘Sometimes, yes. Watching the buses. Sits there all day, watching the buses come and go.’

16

Later that day Erlendur walked in out of the rain and stood in the entrance to Skúlakaffi, glancing round for the woman he had come to meet. He saw her sitting with her back to him, hunched over a cup of bad coffee and with a smoked-down cigarette between her fingers. He hesitated for a moment. Only the odd table was occupied, by lorry drivers reading the paper or labourers taking a late coffee break, men who had finished their pastries but still had a few minutes to themselves before they had to go back to work. The worn lino and shabby seats matched their weathered faces and the dried calluses on their hands. The place was more like a workers’ cafeteria than a restaurant and had not been painted in all the years Erlendur had been going there. Nowhere in town could you get better salted lamb with a sweet white sauce. Skúlakaffi had been his choice for their meeting and she had agreed without protest, according to Eva Lind.

‘Hello,’ Erlendur said when he reached the table.

Halldóra looked up from her coffee cup.

‘Hello,’ she said, her tone unreadable.

He held out his hand to her and she raised her own, but only to pick up her cup. She took a mouthful of coffee.

He stuck his hand in his coat pocket and sat down facing her.

‘You sure know how to choose a venue,’ she said, stubbing out her cigarette.

‘They do good salted lamb here,’ Erlendur replied.

‘Same old country boy,’ Halldóra said.

‘I suppose I am,’ he said. ‘How are you?’

‘You needn’t be polite for my sake,’ Halldóra said, raising her gaze from the table.

‘All right,’ Erlendur said.

‘Eva told me you were living with some woman.’

‘We don’t live together,’ Erlendur said.

‘Really? What, then?’

‘We’re good friends; her name’s Valgerdur.’

‘Oh.’

Neither of them spoke.

‘This is just bullshit,’ Halldóra said all of a sudden, grabbing the packet of cigarettes and a disposable lighter from the table and stuffing them in her coat pocket. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking of,’ she added, rising from her seat.

‘Don’t go,’ Erlendur said.

‘I must,’ Halldóra said. ‘I don’t know what Eva thought she would get out of this but… it’s just bullshit…’

Reaching over the table, Erlendur grabbed her arm.

‘Don’t go,’ he repeated.

Their eyes met. Halldóra jerked her arm away, then sank back into her seat.

‘I only came because Eva wanted me to,’ she said.

‘Me too,’ Erlendur said. ‘Shouldn’t we try to do this for her?’

Halldóra took out another cigarette and lit it. Erlendur thought it said ‘Mallorca’ on the lighter. He wasn’t aware that she had ever been on a holiday to the Med. Perhaps she had bought it to conjure up memories of sunshine. Or to keep alive the dream of hot sand on a beach somewhere. Once he had refused to take her on a package holiday to the sun, saying he couldn’t see the point of going to places like that. ‘The point!’ she had retorted. ‘The point is that people go there to do nothing!’

‘Eva’s doing well,’ Halldóra said.

‘We should try to emulate her,’ Erlendur said. ‘I think it would help her if we could find some way of offering her our mutual support.’

‘There’s just one problem with that,’ Halldóra said. ‘I don’t want anything to do with you. I told her and she knows it. I’ve told her over and over again.’

‘I can well understand that,’ Erlendur said.

‘Understand?’ Halldóra spat out. ‘Do you think I care what you do or don’t understand? You destroyed our family. You have that on your conscience. You just walked out as if your children had nothing to do with you. What do you understand?’

‘I didn’t just walk out – you’re wrong about that and it was not nice of you to tell the children that.’

‘Not nice of me!’

‘Can we skip the row?’ Erlendur asked.

‘You dare to judge me!’

‘I’m not judging you.’

‘No, that’s right,’ Halldóra snorted. ‘You never want to argue about anything. You’ve got your own way, so everyone else can shut up. Isn’t that how you want it?’

Erlendur didn’t answer. He had been dreading this meeting because he’d known that Halldóra would launch into him like this. For her, what had happened in the past was neither buried nor forgotten. He looked at her and saw how she had aged, how the muscles of her face had slackened, her lower lip jutted slightly, the skin on her nose and under her eyes had reddened. She used to wear make-up in the old days but it seemed that she could no longer be bothered. He supposed he presented the same depressing sight himself.

‘We made a mistake,’ he said. ‘I made a mistake. I have to live with that. I should have behaved differently, I should have insisted on getting access to the children. I should have explained things better to you. I tried but probably not hard enough. I’m sorry about what happened but I can’t change anything. It’s no longer about us but about Sindri and Eva; perhaps it was always about them. I could have done better but I let you take charge. You kept the children.’

Halldóra finished her cigarette and ground it into the ashtray. She immediately took out another and lit it with the Mallorca lighter, then inhaled the blue smoke, expelling it slowly through her nostrils.

‘So, you want to blame me for everything?’

‘I don’t want to blame anyone for anything,’ Erlendur said.

‘Naturally you get off scot-free. I kept the children! Isn’t that just how you wanted it?’

‘I didn’t mean that. And I’m not getting off-’

‘Do you think my life has been a bed of roses? A divorced single mother with two children. You think there was nothing to it?’

‘No. If you’re looking for a scapegoat, then it’s me. No one else. I know that. I’ve always known that.’

‘Good.’

‘But you’re not exactly innocent either,’ Erlendur said. ‘You wouldn’t give me access to the kids. You told lies about me. That was your revenge. I could have pushed harder to get access to them. That was my mistake.’

Halldóra glared at him without speaking. Erlendur met her gaze.

‘Your mistake, my revenge,’ she said at last.

He did not reply.

‘You haven’t changed,’ she said.

‘I don’t want to quarrel with you.’

‘No, but you are anyway.’

‘Couldn’t you see what was happening? Couldn’t you have intervened? Couldn’t you have looked up from your own self-pity for one minute and seen what was happening? I know my own responsibility and I know it’s my fault for not having made sure that they were all right. Ever since Eva sought me out and I saw what had happened, I’ve blamed myself, because I know I failed them. But what about you, Halldóra? Couldn’t you have done something?’

Halldóra did not answer him straight away. She looked out at the rain, twiddling the lighter between her fingers. Erlendur waited for a hail of angry recriminations, but Halldóra simply gazed calmly at the rain and smoked. Her voice sounded weary when she finally answered.

‘Dad was a labourer, as you know,’ she said. ‘He was born poor and died even poorer. Mum, too. We never had anything. Not a damned thing. I imagined another life. I wanted to escape the poverty. Get a nice flat. Nice things. A good man. I thought you were him. I thought we were embarking on a life that would bring us a bit of happiness. It didn’t work out like that. You… walked out. I started drinking. I don’t know what Eva and Sindri have told you. I don’t know how much you know about my life – our life – but it hasn’t exactly been fun. I’ve been unlucky with men. Some of them were real bastards. I’ve worked my fingers to the bone. I’ve lived in a series of rented flats, some of them total dumps. Sometimes the children and I were thrown out. Sometimes I went on long benders. I probably didn’t look after them like I should have done. They’ve probably had an even worse life than I have, especially Eva – she was always more sensitive than Sindri when it came to strangers and bad conditions.’

Halldóra sucked in the smoke.

‘That’s what happened. I’ve tried not to give way to self-pity. I… I can’t help it if I have a tendency to blame you for some of it.’

‘May I?’ he asked, reaching for her cigarettes.

She shoved the packet towards him, together with the Mallorca lighter. They sat and smoked, each absorbed in their own thoughts.

‘She was always asking about you,’ Halldóra said, ‘and I usually told her you were like one of those bums I used to go out with. I know it wasn’t nice of me but what was I to say? What would you have liked me to say?’

‘I don’t know,’ Erlendur said. ‘It can’t have been an easy life.’

‘You brought it on us.’

Erlendur did not reply. The rain fell silently from the dark winter sky. Three men in checked shirts stood up and walked out, calling their thanks to the cook in the kitchen on the way.

‘The odds were against me from the beginning,’ Halldóra said.