The Undesired

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

  ‘What was he doing?’

  ‘He had something wrapped in a white sheet. There was blood on it.’ Aldís felt relieved: Tobbi had drawn the wrong conclusion from the blood. ‘He had a spade too. He put the bundle down and began to dig a hole by the tree. The ground was hard and he swore a lot.’

  ‘The baby was born dead, Tobbi. The blood was Lilja’s. There’s a lot of blood when children are born.’ Aldís had often thought about what it was like to give birth. She had heard enough of her friends’ mothers’ grisly accounts of their own experiences to know that she was never going to go through that herself.

  ‘It was alive, Aldís. It cried.’

  ‘Cried?’ Now it was her turn to swallow.

  ‘Yes. Even after he put it in the hole. Right up until you couldn’t hear any more because of the earth.’

  This was even more horrible than she’d imagined. Why did she have to learn this now, at this moment? If only she’d waited. She didn’t want the image of the child’s face floating before her eyes, the sound of its crying in her ears, when she went down to the cellar tonight. But as she watched Tobbi run away, stumbling twice on the slippery stones, she knew it was inevitable: the dying child had already taken up residence in her mind.

  Chapter 24

  The old woman smiled gratefully and handed Ódinn a thousand-krona note. ‘Thanks for your help.’ She had asked him to fix the door of her kitchen cupboard, which was sagging on its hinges. Seeing that he wasn’t going to accept the money, she added: ‘Give it to your daughter if you won’t take it. She’s bound to be saving up for something.’

  Feeling awkward, Ódinn thanked her and stuck the banknote in his pocket. He closed his toolbox and tried opening and shutting the cupboard door one last time. ‘This should hold for a bit. A year, at least.’

  ‘That’ll do me.’ The woman leant against the kitchen units. She looked much frailer than usual, perhaps because Ódinn wasn’t used to seeing her without her thick overcoat. ‘I doubt I’ll be around that long.’

  Ódinn hoped his embarrassment wasn’t obvious. ‘That’s a bit pessimistic, isn’t it?’ He picked up his toolbox.

  ‘No, really. I’ve had enough.’ She didn’t appear particularly sad at the prospect. ‘It’ll be worse for you two. You’ll be alone in the building, but with any luck they’ll sell more flats soon. Your daughter could do with some playmates. Perhaps a family with children will move into my flat when I’m gone.’

  ‘I hope Rún won’t have to wait that long. I mean, I’m sure you’ve got more time left than you think.’ Ódinn dithered, keen to go back upstairs but unwilling to be rude.

  ‘No, I sense that my time has come.’ She pulled up her jumper at the neck with a surprisingly youthful hand. It was cold in the flat, as it was in the whole building. ‘I take after my mother and grandmother in that I’m being given plenty of warning.’ She let go of her collar, which fell back again. ‘I’m sorry I bothered you and your brother about the racket in the stairwell. I just didn’t realise what was happening.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’ve lost me.’ He sighed. His toolbox felt suddenly heavy, though there wasn’t much in it.

  ‘That’s only to be expected.’ She smiled. ‘You see, in my family, when your time is up, inexplicable things start happening. You hear and see things that aren’t really there. The commotion I heard the other day was part of it. I can’t explain it – which is probably just as well – but it’ll all become clear in time.’

  There was a cold feeling in the pit of Ódinn’s stomach. ‘I see.’ He shifted the toolbox to his other hand. ‘Do you hear things, then? Could it be hallucinations caused by some kind of chemical in the building?’ Ódinn would never have dreamt that one day he’d actually hope to discover he’d been breathing in toxic fumes.

  ‘Oh no, dear. It’s a family trait – a sort of ghost, if you like. It’s nothing to do with any chemicals. My grandmother told me it’s because you’ve already got one foot on the other side. As the hour of your death approaches, you connect with what’s waiting for you there. She experienced it shortly before she died; my mother too. I didn’t really believe them at the time, but now I know it’s true.’ Her smile was radiant. ‘It means you’re given a bit of warning to put your affairs in order.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s not something in the environment?’ Ódinn wanted to shake the shrunken figure into agreement. ‘I ask because I’ve experienced something similar; I keep hearing and seeing things that aren’t there.’

  The woman’s happy expression faded and she looked even older and frailer than before. ‘I don’t like the sound of that. No, I don’t like it at all.’

  * * *

  He was doomed, then. Only now, two hours after he’d come upstairs, could Ódinn smile at the idea. What a load of crap. The smile remained on his face during news footage of a tank crawling along a quiet street. Perhaps the people who lived there had been experiencing the same sensations as him recently. The gun turret swivelled and fired at a building that disappeared in a dark cloud of dust.

  ‘Who’s been writing you letters, Daddy?’ Rún was holding the plastic bag from Róberta’s garage. Ódinn had left the letters in the car when he and Diljá returned to the office, for fear that she’d draw attention to them. He didn’t want to have to explain their highly irregular visit to Heimir. When he got home, however, he had worried that the car might be broken into outside the block – he didn’t dare leave it in the underground garage – so he’d brought the bag and cardboard box up to the flat. ‘There are so many. Are they old?’

  Ódinn beckoned her over as he sat trying to focus on the television. It was the news summary now: unrest in the Middle East and conflict in the Icelandic parliament. The news could just as well have been months old. As he took the bag, her fingers brushed against his; soft and cold where his were rough and warm. ‘It’s to do with work, sweetheart. Nothing important. Not any more.’

  ‘What do old letters have to do with your work? I thought your job was new.’

  ‘They’re not letters to us at work. They’re connected to a project I’m dealing with. An old case. Nothing interesting.’ Reaching for the remote control, he switched off the TV. ‘Finished your homework?’

  Rún didn’t answer. ‘I thought you weren’t supposed to read other people’s letters? Granny told me that.’

  ‘She’s right. But sometimes you have to do things like that. I haven’t actually read them yet. I might not need to.’

  ‘I’ve never written a letter.’ She didn’t sound too concerned. She was wearing a clip to keep her fringe out of her eyes and it reminded him that he’d forgotten to take her to the hairdresser last week. She needed so much doing for her that he could hardly keep up. How did people cope with having more than one child? But the time would come when Rún wouldn’t be as dependent on him. ‘Well, I haven’t written many myself and I’m much older than you. I just send e-mails.’ He tied the plastic bag around the letters again and put it down. ‘We need to do something about your hair. Remember, we were going to get it cut?’

  ‘It’s all right.’ She fiddled with the brightly coloured clip. ‘Granny rang.’

  ‘Oh?’ Ódinn sat up. ‘When?’

  ‘At lunchtime. At school.’

  ‘On your mobile?’ Rún nodded. Ódinn had assumed he was the only person who called her. He’d asked why her friends from her old school never got in touch and she’d replied that she hadn’t had much to do with the kids there either. This had upset him, but he didn’t know what to do about it. Lára must have done her best, and if she had failed it was unlikely that his clumsy attempts to improve Rún’s popularity would have much success. ‘What did she want?’

  ‘To invite me round. But I don’t want to go.’

  ‘I’ll talk to her. I’ll tell her the truth.’ Rún’s look of terror was so exaggerated it was almost comical. ‘I’ll tell her you need peace and quiet.’ Seeing this hadn’t allayed her anxiety, he added: ‘I’ll just tell her we’re ke
eping ourselves to ourselves for a while and won’t be going out to visit anyone.’

  Her scared look faded but didn’t disappear completely. ‘What about Baldur? Can’t I go to his house? They were going to invite me for pizza and a video on Friday. Remember?’

  His brother had promised as much on her last visit, delighted to be the subject of his niece’s hero-worship. ‘Your grandmother doesn’t need to know exactly what we get up to. Anyway, we’d already decided ages ago that you were going to see them.’ He’d rather not teach his daughter that it was all right to stretch the truth on occasion, but her welfare had to take priority.

  Rún smiled. ‘OK. Can you tell her now? I don’t want her to call me again tomorrow.’

  There were few phone calls Ódinn dreaded more, but best to get it over with. ‘Yes. I’ll do that.’ He studied Rún: her thin arms protruded from the faded, crumpled Mickey Mouse T-shirt that she’d almost grown out of; bare flesh showed at her midriff, and he had a sudden memory of how squeamish he had felt when he saw Lára disinfecting the black stub of her umbilical cord with a cotton bud when she was a baby. She wouldn’t have received such care from him if he’d been a single parent from the beginning. ‘Do you miss your mum?’

  ‘Yes. But I try not to think about her much. I feel bad if I do. Nanna told me to try and think about all the fun times I had with her. I’m supposed to hold onto those memories till I’m grown up. Then I’ll be pleased I didn’t try to forget her. But it’s hard. If I think about her too much I get nightmares – even worse than usual.’

  ‘There’s no need to be afraid of dreams, Rún. They’re only nonsense that the brain invents because it’s asleep and muddled. Nanna must have told you that. Don’t you dream you’re falling sometimes?’ Rún nodded uncertainly. ‘And that you can fly?’ She nodded again and the clip slid down her hair. She unfastened it and pushed it back up. ‘There you are then. You’re not falling when you dream you are, and you definitely can’t fly. It’s nonsense, that’s all.’ Like the idea that people who are about to die can see and hear the dead.

  ‘I know.’ But it was one thing to know, quite another to believe. ‘Mum’s angry in my dreams.’

  ‘She’s not angry, Rún. Dead people can’t be angry; you know that. After death, all the bad, nasty stuff is forgotten and only the nice things are left.’ Ódinn chose each word with care but the result wasn’t what he had hoped. Clearly the therapy was beginning to work; until now Rún had retreated into her shell every time he’d tried to discuss her mother or the accident. ‘Though you dream she’s angry, I can assure you that in heaven no one worries about whether someone’s tidied up their bedroom or said something cheeky. All that matters are the things that made you happy.’

  ‘I wish Mum had lived for a bit longer after she fell. She was angry with me when I went to bed.’

  Ódinn couldn’t concur: he doubted it would have helped Rún to sit by Lára’s deathbed. ‘I know what you should do. While I’m talking to your grandmother, you should write your mother a letter.’

  ‘How’s she going to read it?’ Rún folded her arms, but didn’t dismiss the idea out of hand, as Ódinn had feared she would.

  ‘I don’t quite know but we’ll find a way. Perhaps we can put it on her grave, or burn it so the message rises up to heaven with the smoke, or you can keep it in your room and next time you have a nightmare you can tell your mother to read it. What do you reckon? Give it a try, anyhow.’

  Reluctantly, Rún agreed. Ódinn dug out a block of A4 and a pen and sent her to her room, where she could pour out her feelings in private and say goodbye to her mother while he talked to her grandmother. But before she left the sitting room, he asked the question that had been gnawing at him recently. ‘Can I ask you something, Rún? You don’t have to answer if it makes you uncomfortable.’

  ‘What?’ She frowned.

  ‘Is it possible that you woke up the morning your mum died, and heard someone with her? Someone you knew?’ She stared at him uncomprehendingly, while the real question he wanted to ask and the answer he wanted to hear echoed in his mind. Was I there? No, Daddy, of course you weren’t.

  ‘Why are you asking?’ Her eyes were full of sadness. Don’t tell me someone hurt Mum. Please, don’t. She just fell.

  ‘No special reason. I just wondered.’ What a fool he had been to raise the subject.

  ‘I didn’t see anyone. I was asleep and didn’t wake up. But there was no one there, I’m sure of it.’ She turned on her heel and went into her room, carrying the notepad in front of her like a shield. Ódinn sat there, stunned. He buried his head in his hands and closed his eyes. Rún had lied. He knew her well enough to tell. She had seen or heard something. Of course, that was terrible and might explain why she was finding it so hard to cope with the loss. But why hadn’t she said anything? There couldn’t be many people she’d want to protect. But he was one of them.

  Without giving himself time to think, he rang his former mother-in-law. ‘Hello,’ he said, leaning back and raising his eyes to the ceiling.

  ‘Who’s that?’ As if she received many phone calls from men.

  ‘It’s me, Ódinn.’

  ‘Oh.’ There was no disguising her disappointment. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘No, no. Not really.’ Ódinn sat up so fast he felt dizzy. ‘I hear you rang Rún at school.’

  ‘So what if I did?’ It was a childish response: if the woman wanted to talk to her grandchild it would have been more natural to ring her after school.

  ‘Well, she’s not supposed to use her phone at school.’ Ódinn felt their conversation was taking an unfortunate turn – like all their conversations. As if they couldn’t speak without falling out. It was the same old story. The woman couldn’t forgive him for failing her daughter at the worst possible time and he couldn’t stand being reminded of the fact. Would it always be like this? ‘I need to say something that I should have said a long time ago.’

  ‘Oh?’ The word dripped with suspicion.

  ‘I just want you to know how much I regret what happened with Lára. I’m not saying it was the wrong decision for us to separate but I could have gone about it more graciously, and I could also have treated her and Rún better after I walked out. It’s too late to change that now but I wanted you to know that I regret it. More than words can say.’

  ‘I see.’ There was a hint of disappointment, as if she’d been hoping for a fight. Perhaps hating him was one of the few things that gave her life meaning. ‘I hope you mean it.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Did you ring to tell me that?’

  ‘No. I didn’t intend to bring it up, though it was long overdue.’

  ‘What did you want, then?’

  ‘I just wanted to let you know that Rún’s seeing a counsellor to help her deal with her grief.’ He couldn’t bring himself to say ‘Lára’s death’ to the woman. ‘She’s been having a tough time, sleeping badly and feeling a bit low, so I’m hoping this will help.’ There was deathly silence at the other end. Ódinn added hastily: ‘It’s important that she should have as much space as possible, so I hope you understand that she won’t be able to visit you for a while.’ Again he was met by a stony silence. Ódinn wondered if they’d been cut off. ‘Are you still there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You do realise this has nothing to do with you and that she’ll get over it?’

  ‘Rún doesn’t need a counsellor. She needs you and me. If you were a proper father you’d understand that. Once a person gets involved with that whole racket they never get free of it. You’re condemning her to be in therapy for the rest of her life.’

  ‘It’s not a racket. This is an independent child psychologist, a woman. She’d never hang on to Rún for longer than necessary. I’ve met her, so I’m in a better position to judge than you are.’

  ‘You’re a bloody fool.’ His mother-in-law slammed down the phone.

  No one had hung up on Ódinn for a long time, not since Lára had begun to w
ise up to her ex-husband’s imperfections. As a result, he was too surprised to be angry or offended. He had known all along that their conversation would end badly, but he’d expected her to quarrel with him about Rún visiting, not because he’d sought help for his daughter. Was it possible that the woman suspected, as he did, that Rún had seen or heard more than she let on? Even that he had been involved? She lived in the same street, two doors down, so she could have seen him from her window, weaving his drunken way to Lára’s house that fateful morning. Or she might have been loading the washing machine and spotted his arrival, then lied afterwards that she’d brought the laundry round the night before, to avoid having to admit it. If so, it was all too understandable why Rún’s grandmother wouldn’t want anyone messing with the child’s head, since there was no knowing what might emerge. It would be a devastating blow for Rún if it turned out that her father had murdered her mother. The woman’s love for Rún was almost certainly stronger than her hatred for him. But perhaps he was letting his imagination run away with him; after all, it wasn’t particularly surprising that she should hang up on him.

  If only he could remember that morning. Perhaps the memories could be recovered under hypnosis, even though he had been drunk at the time. Scraps of recollection must linger somewhere in his head; the trick was to get hold of them. But the more he thought about it, the more risky the idea seemed – he couldn’t be sure that the hypnotherapist would keep quiet if some incriminating fact emerged.

  Ódinn stood up. There was no solution. It was clear to him that if he’d played some part in Lára’s death, he would rather not know. Indeed, his unconscious may have worked out that it would be best to lock the memories up and throw away the key. Perhaps it was his brain’s attempts to drag them into the light that was causing all these strange delusions, rather than the fact that he was doomed. He’d just have to tell himself once and for all that he’d never been anywhere near the incident, then stop brooding over it, and ask the therapist to stop questioning Rún about the morning Lára died. Unless her recovery depended on it.