The Undesired

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

  ‘Yes. You’re right.’ He longed to confide in her about his worries, to let the floodgates open. But there was no way he could do that. Nanna would have to notify the authorities if it emerged that he thought he’d pushed Lára out of the window. ‘It might be all right to discuss it later, but not now.’

  ‘Then I’m afraid there’s not much I can do for her.’ Nanna seemed genuinely disappointed. She steepled her hands and Ódinn noticed how small and slender her fingers were. ‘The accident’s a great weight on your daughter’s mind. It’s not the only thing that’s troubling her, but it’s the most serious.’

  ‘Not the only thing?’ Ódinn sat up. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, for example, her relationship with her grandmother is more problematic than I realised at first. Rún’s terrified of her. She also has various unresolved issues in relation to her mother, which have nothing to do with her death. Rún’s life hasn’t been easy, you know. And you have some responsibility for that, as I’m sure you’re aware.’

  Ódinn wanted to put his hands over his ears. It didn’t bother him to hear that Lára and Aldís had failed Rún, but it hurt to have it flung in his face that he had too, though he knew he was guilty. ‘I am aware of the fact. I’m trying to make up for the past. Unfortunately, it can’t be undone.’

  ‘Just saying that isn’t enough. As a weekend father you could do the fun bits and ignore the rest. But now you have to deal with the difficult, boring, everyday grind. And you mustn’t fail her. Don’t forget that you’re all she’s got.’

  ‘I do realise that.’

  Nanna expelled air so loudly that it sounded like a sigh. ‘Though I’m unhappy with your decision, I won’t stop seeing Rún.’ She put her head on one side. ‘Do you realise what an unusual demand this is? Parents never normally interfere with their children’s therapy. I can’t actually remember a single example.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ Ódinn muttered. He didn’t care; he had to think of Rún. And himself.

  ‘No. Naturally you wouldn’t.’ Nanna licked her lips thoughtfully. ‘Leaving aside her mother’s death, I can talk to Rún about her life in general, her relationship with you and hopefully with her grandmother. Usually it does children good to spend time with their grandparents, but being a grandparent doesn’t automatically make one a better person, so it may be that she’s not the best company for Rún. If it’s considered undesirable that she should be alone with her, you’ll need to ensure that they only meet under supervision, and preferably not too often.’ She studied Ódinn to gauge his reaction. ‘How does that strike you? Is there any reason to be concerned about the woman’s effect on Rún? What kind of a person is she?’

  ‘I really don’t know. We’re not particularly close.’

  Rún kept her eyes down and mumbled as they said goodbye to Nanna. They drove home through the slush in silence. As Ódinn wove his way through the traffic, he noticed that all the occupants of the other cars were staring straight ahead except for Rún, whose face was turned aside. People must think she was sulking: a spoilt brat who hadn’t got her own way.

  There was unusual activity outside their block. Ódinn nudged Rún. ‘Look. Flashing lights. At our house.’

  Rún turned and craned her neck to see. ‘An ambulance.’

  In the circumstances it seemed inappropriate to roar into the car park, so Ódinn took his foot off the accelerator. He wondered if he ought to turn round and pretend he’d forgotten to go to the shop, or offer to buy Rún an ice-cream. Last time she’d seen an ambulance close up it had been taking her mother’s body away. But the damage was already done and Rún was bound to see through his ruse. So he pulled slowly into their parking space and got out, disconcertingly close to the flashing lights. The ambulance doors slammed and two uniformed men appeared on either side. ‘Good evening.’ Ódinn grabbed the driver’s arm. ‘What happened?’ Seeing that the driver was about to reel off some routine questions, he added: ‘There are only three people living in that building – us two and an older lady. Has something happened to her?’

  The man darted a glance at Rún, then nodded, his face grim. He climbed into the ambulance, turned off the flashing lights and drove away. Rún looked at her father. ‘Why did he turn off the lights?’

  ‘Maybe they were broken.’ He squeezed her small hand.

  They were the only ones left in the building. Rún and him. The old lady had been right; she had been doomed. And that didn’t bode well for him.

  Ódinn didn’t want to go inside. He lowered his eyes to Rún, who had her face turned up to his. In the yellow light her resemblance to her grandfather Einar was unmistakable. Stooping, he kissed her lightly on the head. ‘Tell me something, Rún.’

  She frowned warily. ‘What?’

  ‘I know you don’t like talking about it but it’s terribly important to me that you do now. Then I promise never to mention it again. Ever.’ He kissed the top of her head again, smelling the faint fragrance of her shampoo that he wasn’t allowed to pinch. He understood: it smelt too good to be wasted on him. ‘Why don’t you want to talk to your grandmother? Is she mean to you? Does she hurt you or do something you don’t want her to?’

  Rún shook her head. ‘No. Promise never to talk about it again?’

  ‘Yes.’ Ódinn held up both hands. ‘Scout’s honour.’ Rún seemed to accept this. ‘She keeps asking me questions. She holds me tight and won’t let me go. I don’t want to answer.’

  ‘What does she ask about?’

  ‘The morning Mummy died.’

  Ódinn hesitated. ‘About whether you were awake?’

  Rún dropped her gaze to the ground. The hot-water pipes had melted the snow, revealing wet grey paving stones, and Ódinn hoped she wasn’t picturing the pavement her mother had fallen onto. Her voice was high and thin when she answered: ‘Yes.’

  Ódinn decided to go for it. He wouldn’t get another chance. ‘Does she want to know if you heard or saw me in the flat?’

  Rún jerked and looked up at him in surprise. ‘You? No. She asks about herself. If I was awake when she arrived.’

  Ódinn was speechless, astonished at himself for not having thought of it before. He hadn’t gone anywhere near the flat; it was Aldís who had been involved somehow. Now that his eyes had been opened, it was easy to visualise: she’d turned up with the laundry and dropped in to see her daughter on the way, perhaps for a coffee. But instead she must have quarrelled with Lára, lost her temper and pushed her to her death as she was sitting smoking on the windowsill. Either deliberately or accidentally.

  Ódinn felt drunk with relief. It was as if he’d been reborn, not as a new person but as himself, as he had been before all this started. He hadn’t committed any crime. He might not be proud of his past failings but, in comparison to Aldís, he had nothing to reproach himself for.

  He no longer felt cold. Suddenly he was filled with a sense of courage and optimism that he’d forgotten he was capable of. How could he have failed to work this out earlier? All the weird things he’d been seeing and hearing recently must have been his subconscious trying to wake him up, trying to alert him to the fact that all was not as it should be – and nothing to do with the dead trying to contact him. He wasn’t doomed! Now his life could begin again.

  There was no point hanging around; he was going to sort everything out. ‘You know what, Rún? Today is a new beginning for you and me. Tomorrow I’m going to talk to your grandmother and from now on she’ll leave you in peace. This time we’re going to handle things right.’ He looked to the east, as if anticipating a premature sunrise in their honour, but there was nothing to see but the dark evening sky, preparing for night. ‘A new life, Rún. Starting today.’

  She regarded his wide grin dubiously, but eventually returned it. Ódinn shoved his hand in his anorak pocket in search of the house keys but pulled out Róberta’s key instead. The key to her garage that he’d forgotten to return. An inexplicable chill ran down his spine and he put it back in his pocket
. He’d return it tomorrow. On the first day of their new life.

  Chapter 31

  March 1974

  Her tongue felt like an old flannel, but Aldís couldn’t drag herself to the bathroom to quench her thirst. She lay face down on top of the colourful bedspread. She had no tears left. Her life lay in ruins and she had no future. But she’d known that, even before she spoke to Einar and asked him the one question that really mattered. She had confided in him that she’d read his letters and believed she’d had an encounter with Eyjalín, who was completely insane. When he didn’t contradict this, her fears about what the girl might be capable of redoubled. But that hadn’t been the worst part of their conversation.

  What a terrible fool she’d been. But at least she’d done one thing right: she hadn’t told Einar she was pregnant. By the time he’d finished talking it had been unthinkable. She had stood up, grey in the face, and taken herself back to her room, stopping only to bury the bird’s corpse in the snow. Only then had she allowed the tears to flow, overwhelmed with grief for the poor creature, but far more for her own stupidity and shattered dreams of a future in which she and Einar brought the child up together, happy ever after.

  Einar had done his best to play down his part in what he and Eyjalín had done, hinting that she had been responsible. But his eyes were evasive and Aldís was suddenly old and wise enough to see through him. No one would let himself be tricked into going along with such an act.

  Aldís burst into painful sobs and rolled over onto her back. Her breasts felt sore from lying on her front. Her thoughts went out to Eyjalín, wondering if she’d suffered like this after Einar got her pregnant. She must have done, though for different reasons. Aldís was miserable because she didn’t know where her life was heading; all she knew was that the outlook was bleak. Eyjalín had suffered because she had a tyrannical father who’d been implacably opposed to her relationship with Einar and, even more, to her having his child. Aldís had grown up without a father, so she couldn’t really put herself in the other girl’s shoes. And even if she’d had a father, she was sure she would never have resorted to that method of ending her pregnancy.

  Einar had seemed detached as he told her the details, as if he’d merely been a bystander. Aldís closed her eyes and clutched her belly at the thought of the wire coat-hanger and his comment that the method was widely used around the world. She had involuntarily crossed her legs on the bench, as if afraid he would produce one there and then, and invite her to try it.

  Einar had noticed and fallen silent until she asked him to go on. Yet she couldn’t bear to listen to the end. She wiped her eyes. Why was she feeling sorry for herself? Compared to Eyjalín she had no reason to complain. The procedure had been both a success and a failure: a success in that they’d destroyed the foetus, but in their clumsiness they’d caused her to haemorrhage. Eyjalín had hidden her condition from her parents, concealing the fact that she was growing weaker and weaker. They hadn’t noticed anything until forty-eight hours later, when she collapsed unconscious from blood loss. She was lucky to survive. To make matters worse, she developed an infection and was informed, after a long stay in hospital, that she would never be able to have children.

  According to Einar, Eyjalín had incurred brain damage from the blood loss: she wasn’t the same person after her illness. Aldís had refrained from pointing out to him that it wasn’t an illness as such. It was futile trying to get him to see the facts.

  His story explained so much. Eyjalín’s father had arranged for Einar to be sent to Krókur rather than to prison, despite his age. That way the matter could be hushed up, he would receive his punishment, and Eyjalín’s reputation would be saved. There was no court case that might have leaked out. And men who owed her father a favour had disposed of the health records. Meanwhile, Einar’s mother had been persuaded to convince her son that this was the best solution: abortions were illegal unless the mother’s life was in danger or the foetus was damaged, so his prospects were not good if the case went to court. It didn’t help that they had performed the operation in a shark-fisherman’s shed and disposed of the foetus in the sea.

  If they hadn’t done that, Einar would never have come to Krókur, and by now Aldís would have rung her mother and would be considering where to go next, to Reykjavík to pursue her dream of becoming an air hostess, or back up north to her childhood home. But now all doors were closed to her, and all she wanted was to go to sleep and never wake up. Perhaps the bird would be waiting for her on the other side, plump and happy in the land of eternal summer. Yet there would be no justice if she took her own life because of what Einar and Eyjalín had done. Someone always gets punished when a crime is committed, but not always the guilty party.

  As Aldís lay and wept over her fate, she realised she had at least made one sensible decision. She hadn’t told Einar about his unborn child and now she never would. She wanted nothing more to do with him and would simply have to solve the problem of the baby’s patronymic at a later date. She wouldn’t bat an eyelid if they met in the street, even if he had a girl on his arm and she was alone. And of course she would be alone. Men didn’t want other men’s children; at least her mother had never married and the only man who had wanted her hadn’t loved her enough to leave her daughter alone. She’d probably end up working at a bakery like her mother, and the high point of her week would be when the French waffles didn’t sell out and she was allowed to take the leftovers home.

  Aldís leapt to her feet and was rewarded with a headache and dizziness. It was time to snap out of her self-pity. The thought of cold water from the tap galvanised her, and although her head was still splitting, the dizziness receded. She picked up her anorak from the floor where she had flung it and regarded the tight garment anxiously. She’d never be able to zip it up over a baby bump. Would she have to spend all her savings on maternity clothes that she’d never need again? No, she’d rather put up with having a cold stomach.

  Oddly enough, she no longer had the slightest doubt that she was pregnant. This morning she had allowed herself to hope that there was some other explanation, but now that seemed laughably childish. She should have cottoned on some time in the last two weeks, but she’d pushed the thought away, and if it hadn’t been for Hákon’s remark in the kitchen, she would have carried on ignoring the obvious.

  There was a tap on the door. It made a hollow sound and Aldís’s heart beat faster as she called out, ‘Who’s there?’ What would she do if it was Einar? She felt sick remembering what he’d said at the end of his story: he was planning to dig up Lilja and Veigar’s dead baby and threaten to expose them if they didn’t let him leave. This had been the final straw. There was something wrong with him, some inner coldness that she’d failed to notice before. For an instant she considered climbing out of the window and letting herself fall to the ground.

  ‘It’s Hákon,’ came the reply.

  Curious to know what he wanted, Aldís opened the door a crack without giving a thought to her appearance. None of the workmen had ever knocked on her door before. And she hadn’t minded; it was good to be left in peace in her room without having to worry about visits at all hours. ‘Hello.’ Her voice was husky.

  Hákon surveyed her dishevelled appearance in surprise. ‘Sorry to disturb you.’ The man was barefoot and his pyjama trousers bulged over the waistband of his jeans. ‘I don’t know what’s going on, Aldís, but Lilja was here just now. She wanted to talk to you but she was in such a state I wouldn’t let her in.’

  ‘Oh?’ Aldís felt her knees buckling and clung to the door. She couldn’t face a scene with Lilja on top of everything else. Besides, she was perfectly capable of berating herself; she didn’t need Lilja to do it. ‘What did she want?’

  ‘I don’t know how to say this but she wants you out of here.’ Hákon ran a hand through his untidy hair. His stubble was grey, his cheeks covered in a network of broken veins. ‘This evening.’

  ‘This evening?’ Aldís gasped. She tried to remem
ber if she had any clothes on the washing line and mentally reviewed her wardrobe. When she came here one battered old suitcase had been enough, though it was falling apart. She’d added next to nothing to her possessions since then. ‘Where am I meant to go?’ Of course he wouldn’t know, but who else could she ask?

  ‘Don’t you have any friends or family in town?’

  Aldís shook her head. She felt like a child.

  ‘Do you want me to talk to Lilja? They’d have to allow you time to make arrangements.’

  ‘No.’ Aldís bit her lip and it split in the same place as it had that night in the cellar. The taste of blood did nothing to distract her from her predicament. ‘I’ll go anyway. I’m not staying here a minute longer.’ Petulantly, she thought to herself that Lilja would regret this: Aldís would die of exposure, alone on foot with her suitcase on a winter’s night, and everyone would blame the couple.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere unless you have somewhere to stay. You can’t seriously be planning to spend the night outside?’

  ‘I’ll work something out.’ Her knees were about to give way.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Hákon put his hands in his pockets and only then realised that his pyjamas were sticking out. Embarrassed, he tried clumsily to tuck them under his waistband. ‘Lilja was in such a state I thought she was going to explode. She was calling you such ugly names I had to tell her to shut up – I was shocked.’

  ‘She’s a stupid old bitch. I want to leave. If she comes back you can tell her that. I’m packing and then I’m going.’ There was a lump in her throat but she didn’t let the tears spill over.

  ‘You’re not leaving on foot. Are you mad? Lilja said Veigar would drive you to town. You’re to go and sit in the car when you’re done. She said Veigar’d be ready in about twenty minutes. Can you pack that fast?’