Ashes to Dust (37 page)

‘No,’ said Paddi.
‘I’m pretty sure he doesn’t. In some ways Leifur is a simple
fellow, like me, and doesn’t care much about what others are thinking. He
just does his own thing and is probably pretty happy with how
everything’s going, and no one argues with him when he suggests
something. I predict that if things go on this way, he’ll get a big
head.’ Paddi steered the ship closer to Heimaey and pointed out the land
formed of new lava, which was impressive when you thought how short a time had
passed since it had poured out. ‘The problem is that different people
have different views on what’s best for Leifur and Markus, and on what can
and can’t be said as far as this case goes. Almost all the Islanders will
only say what they think will be best for the brothers. Whether that’s
the right thing to do, that’s another question. Some people may actually
be keeping quiet about the good things and discussing stuff that could make the
brothers look bad, without realizing it.’

‘And what about
you?’
Thóra asked.
‘Don’t you fit into that group? You love this place, so you must
want to do whatever’s best for it?’

Paddi clicked his tongue. ‘That’s
not the way I’m made -

I don’t try to avoid the inevitable.
All that does is make things worse. Maggi’s company will be sold.
Maybe not today or tomorrow, perhaps not until Leifur wants to
retire.
However, on the evening of the day his children take over, the
company will be sold. That much is certain. They’ve found their calling
elsewhere and there’s no point ignoring the fact
.‘

‘But why didn’t anyone mention
the blood, since so many people have put two and two together? I don’t
understand how people could decide that the story makes Markus look
bad,
or Leifur for that matter?’ Thóra wanted
to hear what Paddi had to say about Magnus, though she suspected he wanted to
leave the story untold and make her read between the lines.

‘Let’s make one thing clear. People
couldn’t care less about Markus. In this case he and Leifur are in the
same boat and he’s the one who’s copped it. But if Markus is locked
up, Leifur will go to visit him, which might mean Leifur spending more time on
the mainland. One thing will lead to another, and in the end Leifur will move
away.’ Paddi glanced at Thóra. ‘You know what I mean?’
She nodded.
‘Neither Markus nor Leifur was seen there;
just their father.’
Paddi raised a hand to shield his eyes from
the sun. ‘And there’s not much left to say, since ever-increasing
numbers of those who can remember these events have lost their voices. None of
us are spring chickens
any more
.’

‘But even if Magnus was seen there, it
doesn’t mean he had anything to do with the blood,’ said Thóra,
a little lost.

Paddi snorted. ‘That may be, but
it’s what people thought at the time, and that hasn’t
changed.’ He shrugged. ‘The one who started the rumour was the same
one who told the police about Dadi. He was a grumpy old man,’ he grinned,
displaying his decayed teeth.
‘Kind of like I am today.
He was there for some reason in the middle of the night and stumbled
across those two — Dadi and Magnus - in a heated argument, both looking
wrung out. When they saw him they were startled, and went off in separate
directions. The old
guy
was surprised they
didn’t even say hello, but it wasn’t until later in the morning
that he made the connection. He hadn’t noticed the blood, so the first he
heard about it was when everyone started gathering down at the harbour to see
what the police were looking at.’

‘How could this old man tell the police
he’d seen Dadi without mentioning Magnus?’ asked Thóra.

‘That’s simple,’ said
Paddi, steering the boat in a wide arc. ‘Everyone likes Magnus, and this
old man was no exception. No one liked Dadi, so the man probably had no qualms
about implicating him. It meant he could make things difficult for Dadi, who
wasn’t a full Islander, and win himself a bit of the Islanders’
attention at the same time.’

‘In other words, he told the police one
thing and the rest of the town another?’ asked Thóra.
‘It’s not a big town. The real story must have made its way to the
ears of the authorities.’

Paddi looked at Thóra as if she
were a retarded child. ‘Under normal circumstances it would have,’
he said, straightening the rudder. ‘But the volcano erupted a few
days later and the Islanders were scattered all over the place. The ones that
stayed behind had more pressing business than a puddle of blood on the harbour.
And then another man started saying he’d seen Dadi sail into the harbour
in a dinghy that night, but most people agreed he made the story up for
attention, wanting to play a part in the police investigation.’ He looked
at Thóra. ‘But do you know what I’ve never
understood?’ he asked, rhetorically. ‘Why that shithead Dadi
didn’t mention Magnus when the police spoke to him. If the blood had
nothing to do with him he could have simply said the two of them were there
together, and explained what they were doing. And if Dadi was involved somehow,
it still makes no sense. If they had been in on it together, surely Dadi would
have told the police about Magnus? Then Magnus would either have confirmed
Dadi’s alibi or gone down with him. And since Dadi was such a mean old
bastard, he wouldn’t have thought that was so bad.’ Paddi held
Thóra’s gaze. ‘Either way, the question is: why didn’t
Dadi tell the police he’d been down at the harbour with Magnus?’

Saturday 21 July
2007

Tinna’s English wasn’t good
enough to speak to the nurse. Maybe she would have trusted herself to say a few
words if the drugs hadn’t made her too tired to speak Icelandic, let
alone a foreign language. She watched as the woman in white took away the bag
that had emptied into her through a needle in the back of her left hand. Tinna
couldn’t see the needle, which was covered with a dressing. The nurse
that inserted it had been Icelandic and had talked constantly throughout the
process, afraid that Tinna might find it uncomfortable and start crying or screaming.
She had tried to tell the woman that she couldn’t care
less,
that
needles didn’t hurt, they just felt strange. The nurse
hadn’t believed her, and when she stuck the needle in for the third time
in search of a vein she had raised her voice and talked even faster. Tinna had
trouble following what she was saying and understood only every other word,
even though the relentless chatter was all in Icelandic. It went in through her
ears and didn’t seem to go up into her brain, but to somewhere entirely different.
Maybe down into her stomach? Hopefully there weren’t any calories in
words. Tinna’s heart skipped a beat. Didn’t they say words were
food for the mind? Could they change into food for the stomach?

‘Okay, now,’ said the foreign
nurse, patting the blanket she had spread carefully over Tinna. ‘Try to
get some sleep.’

Tinna stared at her, not replying. She
couldn’t tell whether the woman had said ‘sleep’ or
‘sheep’. She spoke enough English to know what both words meant,
she just wasn’t sure. Maybe the woman wanted her to count sheep, like
cartoon characters did. Tinna closed her eyes and tried it. In her mind’s
eye, one, two, three sheep hopped over a green-painted fence. The door to the
room opened and closed with a faint thud. The woman had probably gone, but
Tinna didn’t want to ruin the sheep-race by opening her eyes and looking.
She focused again on the fence and the sheep. It wasn’t going well. The
sheep were disgustingly fat, and the fourth one couldn’t jump at all. It
stood by the fence, breathless and panting. Then it started to expand, and soon
its snout disappeared into its white belly, which stretched wider until finally
there was a loud bang as it burst. Blood and guts flew everywhere. Tinna opened
her eyes quickly to rid herself of this vision. She was alone in the room. Her
breasts heaved up and down. This was what awaited her if she didn’t get
out of here. She would get fatter and fatter until she blew up. Tinna turned
and looked at the clear bag hanging from a steel frame next to the bed. She watched
the drops fall into the regulator, which controlled how much liquid ran into
her veins.

She gasped when the first clear thought
she’d had all day jumped into her head. The drops were full of calories.
Maybe even pure calories, but Tinna had no idea what those looked like. They
might be like
water,
and splash around in her body
after they’d gone in. Tinna’s hand throbbed beneath the needle, and
she felt as if she were burning up. She tried to think more clearly.
Heat, calories.
The needle was hot because calories were
streaming through it now.
Hot, evil calories.
She felt
a tear forming in the corner of her eye. Was it good to cry? Could she empty
the evil liquid from her body? Her head started aching from all these thoughts
and she pressed her right hand against the spot on her forehead where it hurt.
The pain eased a little, but returned as soon as she removed her hand. Should
she ring the bell for assistance?

She moved her right hand nearer the bell,
which - of course - lay closer to her left hand, the one she didn’t dare
move for fear that then the calories would start pouring in faster. Also, the
stinging she now felt in her hand worsened with movement. Her thumb rested on
the chilly button. Tinna was just about to press it when she hesitated. What was
she supposed to say to the foreign nurse? She could barely mumble ‘good
day’ in English, so she couldn’t possibly explain that if the
liquid wasn’t taken out of her, and immediately, then she would swell up
and burst and her guts would be splashed all over the room. Tinna took her
thumb off the button. This would get her nowhere. She sat up straighter and
tried to focus. The nurse couldn’t help her. No one could help her. What
should she do?

She looked down at the plaster covering the
needle. One of its corners had come slightly loose, probably because she was
sweating from the hot needle and all the calories flowing into her. She tugged
carefully at the loose corner and listened in fascination as the plaster pulled
away from her skin. She pulled it off slowly and watched the skin lifting away
from her bones. She looked contentedly at the reddened square where the plaster
had been. There was a piece of pink plastic shaped like a butterfly in the
centre of the square; into one end of it went the tube, and out of the other
came the needle that was burrowing under Tinna’s skin. She tore off the
clear tape that held the butterfly to her skin and grimaced. How could she get
the needle out without the liquid
going
everywhere?
She thought and thought but couldn’t come up with a solution, so she just
pulled the needle out slowly. There was a faint pop and a sucking sound as the
needle came free from her skin, and for an instant she could see a tiny black
hole in her hand, before droplets of blood welled up and leaked down her wrist.
She pushed the needle and the butterfly away, but instead of whipping around
the room like a hose, as she had imagined they would, they dropped straight
down onto the bed from the weight of the tube. Tinna felt strangely
disappointed.

She swept her feet out from under the covers
and sat on the edge of the bed for a second to let the familiar dizziness pass.
Her stomach rumbled, and she could feel how terribly hungry she was. That was
nothing new, but because her head was fuzzy from the drugs, she wanted to eat.
Usually she found it easy to handle hunger, and actually enjoyed not satisfying
it. That way she was in control, not her greed. The greed that made people
fatter and fatter until they burst, like the sheep. She couldn’t remember
whether a sheep had actually burst or if she’d just imagined it.
Tinna stood up, trying to shake off the thoughts of food that pursued her so
insistently. She drifted around the room, peered out through the window
— nothing worth looking at — then looked into a wall cupboard and
saw her parka hanging on a hook next to the clothes she’d been wearing
when she arrived. There was nowhere else to look but under the bed or up the
tap on the sink, but both of them would require Tinna to bend over, which she
didn’t like to do. It would scrunch up her stomach and increase her
hunger.

A children’s rhyme about a cawing crow
suddenly flashed into her mind. Outside sits the carrion croiv / Can you hear
its croak
?/
Beside the old ram’s skull and bones
/ I saw its woolly cloak. She mustn’t eat. She would burst, like the
sheep. Why didn’t anyone understand that? Tinna suddenly felt as if she
were weightless. Indifference overcame her, a feeling that she had things under
control and had nothing to worry about. Calories she’d already ingested
didn’t count. She smiled,
then
giggled. Where
could she find a knife?

Dís sat deep in thought, waiting for
Agúst. The last patient was in his office, a young woman who was
thinking of getting breast implants. Dís had watched her walk in and bet
herself that the slender girl would end up with breasts too large to be called
beautiful. It was always the same. Dís thought it was tragic - women got
breast implants to look better for men, no matter what they said. More often
than not they justified it by telling themselves that if their breasts were
larger they would be happier and more self-confident. Of course that was true,
but that self-confidence was based on the woman feeling more attractive to the
opposite sex. That’s why it saddened Dís that almost without
exception these women chose implants that were too large, which made them more
flawed, not more elegant. If the woman was married she often brought her
husband to the first consultations; she would be thinking of getting much
larger breasts, though the husband often expressed a preference for something
subtler. Dís always tried to point this out to the women, usually to no
effect: Why don’t you have a think about maybe getting slightly smaller
implants? Your breasts will be larger than they are now, but the change
won’t be as drastic. You’ll be happier in the long term. Neither
doctor nor husband could