Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Someone to Watch Over Me

‘Huh?’ Her mother looked at her in surprise and for a moment Lena had the feeling she didn’t recognize her.

‘On the phone. Who was calling?’ Lena bit into the apple she’d chosen from the fruit drawer in the fridge and let the large steel door fall shut.

‘Oh…’ The pout her mother’s mouth made to form this pointless word lasted longer than necessary. Her lips, painted a pale red, formed a circle around the cavity of her mouth as Lena waited for more words to tumble out. ‘Yes, you mean that… It was a woman your father wants me to meet.’ Her fingers reached for her scalp and started fussing with her perfect hair. ‘You should wash apples before you eat them, Lena. They’re sprayed with pesticides and you don’t want to swallow that stuff.’

Lena ignored the advice and swallowed a bite of apple. ‘A woman that Dad wants you to meet? Who is she? And why?’

‘She’s a lawyer. And it’s nothing that you need to worry about.’ Her mother twisted her mouth into a smile that was anything but convincing. ‘Aren’t you going to spend the day studying? You don’t have many days left until your exams.’

Lena shrugged. ‘Later. There’s no hurry.’ She went over to the kitchen island and sat on a high stool opposite her mother. ‘Are you two talking about getting divorced?’ She tried to say this nonchalantly, as if she didn’t care. Her father was always at work these days, which was kind of unusual and suggested that something wasn’t right, though Lena hadn’t actually suspected there might be anything to worry about until she’d heard her parents arguing about a woman at the ministry who her mother wanted him to send on leave. Her mother had never involved herself in matters concerning her father’s employees, and it suggested something was up. What did it matter to her mother if one woman was at the ministry or not? The part of the argument she’d heard before they became aware of her presence also suggested that this wasn’t just about work: her mother had said that the woman had made a fool of her, was laughing at her; that her father was a complete idiot to believe her story. No, there was no question that the woman was some slut her father had fallen for, maybe precisely because of how different she must have been from Lena’s perfect mother. Lena couldn’t actually blame her father for seeking out a less frosty embrace.

‘Of course not. Come on.’ Her mother let her hand fall away from her bright red ear and put both her palms on the granite worktop between them. Lena could sympathize; the surface was cold to the touch and she’d often done the same thing to steady herself – sometimes with her palms, although several times she’d laid her cheek to the surface. ‘It’s to do with Tryggvi. Something that your father thinks is important but that I don’t completely understand.’

‘What about Tryggvi?’ Lena’s mouth went dry. Did she have to open old wounds? ‘I thought that was finished. You promised.’

Her mother pressed her hands so firmly against the stone that they turned white, and the bones stood out even more than usual. ‘Well, it’s not directly about Tryggvi, it’s about Jakob.’

‘Jakob?’ Lena put down the apple. It was no longer delicious, but heavy and awkward in her hand. ‘Are you joking? Jakob who started the fire?’ What was wrong with her father? He could behave oddly sometimes, but this was weird even for him. He knew exactly what her mother had gone through when Tryggvi had died, and now he was going to risk setting that all off again.

‘Your father says that this lawyer is investigating whether Jakob is truly guilty. She’s quite certain that there is some doubt.’

‘She said some doubt? Not serious doubt?’

Her mother shut her eyes and it looked to Lena as if she were counting to ten. Then she opened her eyes and stared past her daughter. ‘I don’t know, Lena. Maybe there really is serious doubt over his guilt.’

‘Who started the fire if it wasn’t that sicko Jakob?’ Her voice sounded screechier than usual. A new trial and rehashing of Tryggvi’s death would send her mother over the edge and cause her father to retreat behind a protective wall of silence. This time the idea of divorce wouldn’t eventually drift away like it had before. Last time, their marriage had hung by a thread and it wasn’t until recently that they’d begun to resemble their former selves again – except that now family life no longer revolved around Tryggvi’s difficulties. Lena felt a bit guilty. She’d been terribly fond of her brother, maybe not quite as much as her mother, but probably just as much as her father. The problem was only that he’d displayed no affection in return, which had adversely affected the relationship between father and son but appeared to have had no effect on her mother. Maybe what had kept her going all that time was her steadfast belief that it would one day be possible to draw Tryggvi out of his shell. Lena felt sad at the thought that this might actually have happened if her brother had lived longer. ‘Who else could have done such a thing?’

‘She didn’t say.’ Her mother was growing annoyed and clearly didn’t want to discuss the subject any further. ‘She’s coming here soon and maybe then things will become clearer. It’s probably just some nonsense that your father took seriously.’

‘Why does this lawyer want to talk to you? Can’t they just leave you in peace?’

‘You’d have thought so, but apparently not. I have no idea why she wants to meet us. Maybe she’s speaking to all the parents.’

‘Maybe she thinks Tryggvi started the fire.’ Lena regretted her words as soon as she’d spoken them, but now there was no turning back. ‘Maybe she knows he liked fire.’

Her mother opened and shut her mouth twice before saying: ‘Finish your apple. You don’t have to waste the whole thing for one mouthful.’

Lena wondered whether she should let her mother get away with this, or whether she should repeat the question. ‘I’m not hungry.’ Nonetheless, she picked up the apple, brought it to her lips and sucked juice from it. ‘When is this woman coming?’

Her mother glanced at her watch, which hung loosely from her wrist. She’d always been slim, but Tryggvi’s death had deprived her of her appetite for several months and she still hadn’t regained her former weight. ‘In half an hour. You should get dressed.’

Lena looked down at her checked pyjamas. ‘Me? I’m not going to meet any lawyer,’ she retorted, then immediately regretted it, because of course she was dying to know what the woman had to say. It was unlikely that she’d be able to persuade her mother to tell her anything about what they discussed, and if their home life was about to turn to shit again, she wanted to know why. The sooner the better.

‘Don’t be silly. Of course you’re not, but she doesn’t need to come to the house and see a teenager hanging around here in her pyjamas in the middle of the day.’

‘I’m almost twenty-one, Mum. I finished puberty several years ago, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

‘Of course I noticed. Everyone noticed.’ Her mother grew angrier with every word. Lena was well aware that it had nothing to do with her; she was simply a conversational punchbag her mother used to calm herself down. When Fanndís spoke again she was calmer; her ear was even almost a normal colour again. ‘Seriously, Lena. Change your clothes.’

‘Jesus.’ Lena stood up and took the apple with her. She’d been planning to jump in the shower and get dressed anyway, but had been stubbornly putting it off just because of her mother’s pushiness. Lena had long since grown used to the fact that everything had to look good, no matter how much grief or anger might be simmering underneath. When she was seven she’d dropped a full tin of biscuits on her foot on the Feast of St Þorlákur and crushed the nail of her big toe, but she’d still had to wear patent leather shoes on Christmas Eve even though the pain made her eyes water with every step. Tryggvi had always been well dressed and groomed even though it hadn’t mattered to him. Once Lena had suggested that she and her mother go to the Kringlan Shopping Centre and buy Tryggvi a tracksuit, which he’d find so much more comfortable than stiff blue jeans. Her mother had got extremely annoyed with her – tracksuits were for gymnastics, she’d said, not for everyday wear. Maybe her mother had been completely different before Tryggvi had come into the world; Lena didn’t know, because she was younger than him.