The Journey Home: A Novel (20 page)

The couple murmured their thanks, the woman wiping a drip from her nose. I asked the manager if he knew when Kristjan Kristjansson would be driving back to Reykjavik.

“Kristjan? He’s planning to stay here over the holiday with his family.”

I was determined to take the first bus out of there. Especially if it was heading for Reykjavik. I should never have come on this journey, I told myself, never have let myself be talked into it. Father’s anxiety is probably unfounded. And here am I, snowed in at Akureyri where I don’t know a soul except Aunt Stina whom I would probably avoid even if she was the last person left on earth. Here I am, unable to leave, far away from my duties and my dear mirror, the stove which I love despite its many failings, and the mistress who was depending on me to do my job during the festivities. Here I am and the silence is strange, and forebodings of failure are unavoidable, the suspicion that soon the peace will be shattered.

My thoughts went round in circles and without warning I began to feel repelled by my fellow travelers, that harmless couple on the way to see their daughter. What if they were talking about me while I was outside? With the manager and his daughter. What if they were pretending they knew something they shouldn’t, as if they had heard something they thought I wanted to hide, a whisper in some dark corner? Their eyes seemed shifty and hesitant as if they knew they had done something wrong. I stopped in the doorway and stared at them in silence until they looked in my direction and the manager twisted round in his chair, saying: “Won’t you sit down with us and have a cup of coffee? You could do with one after your walk.”

And then I realized I was losing control of my thoughts and became afraid.

“In a moment,” I said. “I’m just going to get rid of my coat.”

By the time I came down, the coffee was cold.

When Jorunn rang to tell me that Mother was dead, it had stopped snowing. It was nearly six o’clock and people were on their way to church. I don’t know exactly when it cleared up—I must have been preoccupied—but I don’t think it was until after darkness had fallen. I had opened the window in my bedroom and sat down beside it to pass the time. I was feeling weak after the day’s anxieties and so sat longer by the window than I had intended, an hour, perhaps more. A little boy came skipping after his parents past the hotel; he was wearing a coat that was far too big for him, probably a hand-me-down. I heard him whining to his parents and amused myself by eavesdropping.

“Please, Mum, please. Just one. Let me open just one present before supper.”

I heard the phone ring downstairs before the hotel manager’s daughter came and fetched me. It was loud and peremptory. I guessed what the message would be, as Mother had been failing when Jorunn and I spoke at two o’clock. It was still snowing then but the power had come back on.

“Is everything all right?” asked the manager’s daughter when I had finished speaking to Jorunn.

“Yes, it’s all right.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“And there’s nothing I can do for you?”

“I have everything I need.”

“You’re sure . . .”

“I’m sure.”

“. . . that you don’t want to eat with us? Otherwise you’ll be all alone here this evening. On Christmas Eve,” she added, as if I had failed to notice.

I don’t think her concern was put on; she obviously felt bad about abandoning me. She had been home and changed into her best dress, returning only to close up the office and tell her father to go home, as they were waiting for him.

“Well, you know where we live if you change your mind. Merry Christmas.”

She shut the door quietly behind her, then opened it again a moment later to fetch two Christmas presents which she had forgotten behind the reception desk.

“For Mother and Father,” she explained. “Merry Christmas.”

Silence. The tolling of the church bells didn’t disturb me but merged into the silence in the house like a punctuation mark. Through the window came fragments of a hymn sung nearby, “Silent Night,” from what I can remember, apparently sung by a young woman. It didn’t disturb me any more than the creaking of the staircase leading to the upper floor; I paused on the bottom step.

“Wouldn’t you like to listen to the service on the wireless?” the girl had asked before leaving. “You know where to find it, don’t you?”

I thanked her.

“Hopefully the wind will drop tonight,” she added as she left. “So you’ll be able to continue your journey in the morning.”

I climbed two steps higher up the staircase and paused. Shifted the weight from my left foot to my right, listening to the creaking of the boards, then shifted back to the left foot. The clock struck six. I remembered that the stairs creaked more lower down and turned round to test them. Meanwhile I unintentionally recalled Jorunn’s words.

“It’s such a pity you couldn’t get here,” she said between sobs. “It’s so awful that you two didn’t have a chance to say good-bye.”

The lower steps creaked louder but suddenly I began to shake and felt as if I were losing my footing. I had to sit down and grip the bars of the banisters to keep from falling.

“After everything that’s happened,” were her exact words. “Everything that’s happened.”

And suddenly I realized that now it was too late. Nothing could be taken back, nothing changed. Words I had uttered in anger and resentment now returned to me, attacking me out of the silence like ill omens. I put my hands tight over my ears, but nothing helped, they wouldn’t leave me alone, thronging at me one after another, ever louder, ever more merciless.

Nothing could be taken back, nothing changed. Memories that seemed engraved in stone, thoughts which shamed me.

My body continued to shake until long after I’d stopped weeping. I heard people walk past singing, but remained sitting motionless on the stairs, gradually relaxing my grip on the banisters.

Why did everything have to turn out like this? We would never make our peace. I would never be able to tell her how much I loved her.

Never.

When I picture in my mind’s eye a white rock bathed in sunshine with a dry twig growing out of a cleft, I almost invariably become depressed and miserable. Yet I perk up in heavy drizzle, calm weather or a gentle breeze, and when the dew settles on the grass and the blades droop after a quiet afternoon shower. The conservatory is dear to me after a rainy night, as are the corridors of the house in my wanderings at the end of a rainy day, especially if I have slept well and not been awakened by restless thoughts in the darkness before dawn.

Brilliant light sometimes throws me off balance but, then again, when the long winter nights are at their blackest, I tend to be lethargic and hopeless. Dusk, on the contrary, soothes my mind and warms my soul. Perhaps it’s my imagination but I’ve always thought the buntings in the poplar seem at their merriest in the twilight rain.

The day Mother was buried was cold. It finally began to grow light around midday. The coffin-bearers cast grotesque, elongated shadows on the white earth. At times they seemed to lag behind their owners. The sunlight blinded me and I raised a hand over my eyes to shade them. Jorunn held the other. She stood at my side, between me and Aunt Stina. Father stood at a distance. The day was too bright, the earth too white and I waited impatiently for the ceremony to end.

Father seemed to have shrunk since I last saw him, diminished and dwindled. He spent long hours sitting in his dispensary and spoke little. Jorunn tried more often than once to talk to me about my quarrel with Mother but I cut short the conversation. I didn’t do it roughly, even though I was desperate to change the subject, but I’m still afraid I must have hurt her. She seemed to be on pins and needles and I was worried about her health for a while, but then turned my mind to something else. I was relieved that she hadn’t opposed burying Mother before the New Year. I couldn’t wait to get back to my duties in Reykjavik.

I thought about those days yesterday when Helga, Jorunn’s daughter, drank afternoon coffee with me here at the hotel. I had been of two minds about whether I should get in touch with her, but finally decided to go ahead. I don’t regret it— quite the reverse—because we had a really enjoyable time; the girl is both happy and good-natured. I was nervous in case she started to ask me about things I preferred not to rake up in company, but fortunately she turned out to be more interested in England and cookery than the past. No doubt her father had told her all sorts of stories about her mother’s family but from what she said I gathered he had taken care not to burden her with details which she didn’t need to know. I could tell this from her expression as well.

I felt it was all right to ask after her father’s circumstances. She spoke well of him and his second wife, a Danish teacher at the high school. I was startled when she mentioned her stepmother’s workplace.

It took me by surprise when she said that my brother Kari had visited Iceland with his family the previous summer. She said she’d gone to Thingvellir with them and made gentle fun of their clothes, especially Kari’s green-checked trousers and white shoes. I told her about the Christmas cards and the reports which accompanied them of the family’s doings during the past year but realized that I didn’t recall having read anything in them about a trip to Iceland.

Before we said good-bye, I invited her to stay with us at Ditton Hall if she happened to be passing. I’m aware the chances are slim that I’ll be there to welcome her, but there’s no point in saying any more about that. I hope Anthony won’t give up when it happens, I said to myself when she had gone, and I was still pursuing the thought. I hope he’ll keep things going. It would make me sad if silence returned to our house. I can’t bear to think of it after all I had to go through in order to drive it out in the first place.

We parted with kisses in the lobby, saying good-bye to each other. It was then that she asked me out of the blue, but as if she had given it some thought: “Where is grandmother buried?”

I told her that her grandparents’ grave was in the church-yard at Kopasker and advised her to make the trip one day.

“It can be incomparably beautiful there,” I told her. “The sky,” I added, but lost the thread after a few seconds. “The sky is not the same everywhere.”

When she had gone I remembered how relieved I had been when I said good-bye to Jorunn and Father the day after the funeral. Jorunn was carrying Helga and waved to the boat. I waved back. I didn’t for a moment dream that I would return to Kopasker two weeks later.

Anthony and I talked on the phone this morning. He was a bit depressed at first but gradually cheered up. I heard hammering somewhere in the distance; he said the carpenters were putting up the last doorframes in the east wing and mending the shutters in the dining room. After a reciprocal weather report, I mentioned to him that I had passed Atli Bollason’s house the previous evening when I took a trip by taxi around the town. It’s a pretty house, near the Catholic church on the hill, with flowerpots by the entrance full of pansies turning their faces to the light. I told him it had been a coincidence that we drove past; a couple of streets had been closed for resurfacing and I wanted to see whether there were any boys playing football on the church green as in the old days. A pretty house, I said, but the owners were nowhere to be seen. On the other hand, I added, I was surprised when I came across a picture of Atli on page 2 in the paper this morning. He’s changed, I said with a laugh, balding and flabby. I couldn’t help laughing when I told Anthony about this picture and was forced to put down the receiver when the laughter turned into a coughing fit and I had to reach for a handkerchief while I recovered.

“Is everything all right, Disa?” he asked when I could speak again.

“Everything’s fine,” I replied.

At two o’clock tomorrow the graduation will take place at the University Cinema. Atli Bollason knows nothing about it, has never known anything. I’m going to wear a blue dress I bought for this trip, as most of my old dresses are now too big for me. This is a well-cut dress which suits me, not least because Anthony came along to advise me when I tried it on.

“What are you going to say to him?” asked Anthony.

I said I didn’t know, but hoped I’d think of something over the next few hours.

“Or while I’m sleeping,” I said. “Perhaps I’ll dream of something sensible for a change.”

I miss Anthony but don’t let him sense any weakness. I miss him and Old Marshall, the poplar outside my bedroom window and dear Tina whom I was convinced I heard barking while I was still half asleep this morning. I suddenly feel as if she’s rubbing herself up against my legs.

“I’m fine,” I tell Anthony. “I’m not afraid.”

Or so I told Anthony. Yet I’m restless and counting the hours, so I sit down by the window and watch the rays of sunshine falling lazily on to the square, only to stand up again immediately and decide to go down to the restaurant.

I take a seat at a table in the corner, drink tea with lemon and nibble a slice of sponge cake. It’s tasteless but it doesn’t matter as I have no appetite anyway. Tick, tock, tick, tock. The cathedral clock across the street looks down at me with the arrogance of one who has the upper hand. Tick, tock. Time passes.

His parents have no doubt come to town to attend his graduation. I notice that I write his “parents” without hesitation. This pleases me. I remember how relieved I was when I met them. Remember how kind I found her eyes and the likable diffidence of her husband, that big man. He had just come ashore, putting on his best clothes and running a wet comb through his hair, before they came to fetch him. He stood at a little distance, alternately twining and loosening his fingers. His clothes were tight.

Tick, tock. What can I say to him? After all these years. Do I have anything to say?

I have managed to finish the slice of cake without noticing.