Yrsa Sigurðardóttir - The Silence of the Sea

His words seemed to galvanise Thráinn, though it was possible he had been intending to call it a day anyway. They unclipped the lifelines and stowed the equipment and poles in the box without speaking, too exhausted to yell above the noise of the wind. When they entered the storeroom where the waterproofs were kept, Halli was the first to break the silence. It was as quiet as a church inside after the roaring of the storm. ‘I reckon my waterproofs are even wetter on the inside.’ He wrestled with the trousers, which clung obstinately to the legs of his jeans. ‘Don’t know why I bothered putting them on.’

‘This stuff’s crap. Useless in these conditions.’ Thráinn beat most of the water from his jacket and hung it up. ‘We’d have been better off wearing this thing.’ He yanked at the leg of a wetsuit hanging from one of the pegs. An oxygen cylinder, mask and buoyancy compensator were stowed underneath. ‘Then you wouldn’t have needed the lifeline either.’

‘No, thanks.’ Halli grimaced. ‘No one’ll ever talk me into diving. It’s unnatural to breathe underwater.’

‘Me either.’ Thráinn’s voice sounded as worn and hoarse as it had at the breakfast table. ‘I’ve never understood the attraction.’

Ægir stopped rubbing at the wet patches on his sleeves. At last here was a chance to prove himself braver than these men. ‘I can dive. I even have a certificate.’ He omitted to point out that it was a certificate for beginners, which had involved little more than learning how to expel water from one’s mask.

‘You can dive?’ Thráinn eyed him with an expression he didn’t much like, as if the captain was investing his words with a deeper meaning than he would wish. Halli also stood and gawped at him for a moment, then caught the captain’s eye.

‘Er, yes.’ Ægir hesitated. Didn’t they believe him? Was he so pathetic in their estimation that they believed he was capable of making up a lie like that to impress them? ‘I went on a course a few years ago while on holiday abroad.’

‘Then isn’t it time you gave it another go?’ Thráinn poked the oxygen cylinder with his toe; it didn’t budge. ‘There’s no point trying to see what’s happening from up on deck but it would be child’s play for a diver. How about it? It should only take a few minutes.’

Once again Ægir was conscious of the pill burning his dry throat. What kind of moron was he? He had absolutely no desire to plunge into that angry, grey sea, which had nothing in common with the warm turquoise waters where he had learnt to dive. Here he would be enfolded in an icy grip about as comforting as the embrace of the body in the freezer. He gulped and the pill shifted infinitesimally further down his throat. He was transported back to the time he had lied to some boys he used to look up to as a kid, by claiming that he could jump between two garage roofs. They had taken him at his word. He had climbed up onto the neighbour’s garage and tried to leap over to the next one, about ten metres away, as he claimed to have done often, aware all the time that he would never make it. He had spent the rest of the summer stuck at home with a broken leg. Had he learnt nothing since then?

Ægir’s thoughts returned to that summer as Halli and Thráinn lowered him into the sea. If the worst happened, broken bones would be the least of his problems. His only comfort was the knowledge that he was attached to the rail, so he could be hauled up in case of emergency; a fact he kept repeating to himself in the hope that it would help him master his terror. There had been no lifeline when he leapt off that garage years before. But this consoling thought evaporated the instant his feet dipped into the pitiless sea and the cold began to tighten its iron grip on him. It was no better when his whole body was submerged. His teeth chattered uncontrollably, preventing him from yelling with all the breath in his lungs that he wanted out. He was here now and would simply have to complete his task: even as he told himself it should only take about five minutes, he knew he was lying. Checking the pressure gauge, he saw that there was still enough air in the tank, which was hardly surprising as he had barely had time to use any. Why couldn’t the cylinder have been empty? Then no one could have expected him to do this.

He deflated his buoyancy compensator, the BCD, a little and began to sink. Such was the shock of the cold when the surface closed over his skull that he felt as if he’d been hit over the head with a plank. Everything went silent and he realised he was holding his breath, so he concentrated on his respiration for a while. In. Out. In. Out. After a minute or two he was breathing instinctively, which was a relief. Yet it was as much as he could do right now, with the murky grey waves heaving just above his head, to focus on not panicking. He tried to calm himself, this time by closing his eyes and listening to his own breathing magnified by the mask. Feeling slightly better, he resolved to get on with the job, but even as he moved, warning bells began to go off in the most primitive part of his brain.

This would end badly.

This would end badly.

This was bound to end badly.

He opened his eyes.

‘I want eight eyeses .’ Orri did not explain his choice of number. Perhaps it was the highest he knew.

‘What do you want with eight eyes, darling?’ Thóra parked in the only free space in front of the nursery school. ‘Isn’t two enough?’

‘I want to see lots and lots.’ Orri gazed out of the window, his face thoughtful. The view outside offered little to engage the interest of a four-year-old, even if he had quadruple the number of eyes; only some spindly poplars, not yet in bud.

‘I’m not sure you’d see any more with eight eyes than you do with two.’ Thóra got out and opened the door for the little boy. ‘And I bet it would be much harder to get to sleep at night if you had to close all those eyes.’

‘I want eight eyeses anyway.’

Thóra unfastened his seatbelt and moved aside so that he could climb out. ‘There isn’t any room for them, darling. Your face isn’t big enough.’

‘Spiders are small but they’ve got eight eyeses .’

That explained it. ‘Spiders have eight legs, not eight eyes.’ The wind shook the poplars, rattling a few dry leaves left over from summer. As she led Orri to the entrance they were met by a crescendo of noise created by dozens of parents tugging anoraks off whimpering children, mingled with the shrieks of those who were already playing inside. When Thóra opened the door, she felt like following Orri’s example and putting her hands over her ears. Stooping down to him, she freed one hand and whispered: ‘It’s a good thing you haven’t got eight ears, sweetheart, or you’d need eight hands.’

As she got back behind the wheel and slammed the car door, she experienced a familiar pang of guilt. Was the child really all right in the care of non-family members? It wasn’t that she suspected the staff were anything but kind – quite the contrary. It was the sheer number of children that worried her; at home there were five of them to see to Orri’s needs but at nursery school the ratio was almost reversed. Still, it couldn’t be helped. She should be grateful for all the time she got to spend with her grandson, unlike many grandmothers. For the moment, at least. Gylfi was still obsessed with the terrible oil rig idea and it was becoming infectious. Only this morning she had heard Sóley asking her brother whether summer jobs were better paid in Norway. And considering how keen Matthew was on the idea, it wouldn’t surprise her if he sent in an application next.

‘Any more news about the body?’ Thóra hung up her jacket, trying to mask her surprise that Bella should not only have arrived punctually but already be seated at her computer in reception.