Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Someone to Watch Over Me

‘Come in, I’ve got everything ready.’ The man who welcomed them was unshaven and hollow-eyed, and was wearing an old tracksuit. Thóra had expected a studio or workshop but should have realized that was unlikely; the address was in a large apartment block in the Breiðholt suburb. At one end of the room all the furniture had been pushed together to make space for a dining table that held three computer screens arranged in a row. There was also a small keyboard and some huge headphones. Next to the table was an office chair on wheels, listing slightly to one side, as if it were as tired as its owner. ‘I work from home, as you can see, so you’ll have to excuse the mess. I would have tidied up if I’d had a bit more warning.’

Thóra briskly reassured him that they weren’t put off by a bit of chaos, before the man could notice Matthew’s look of horror. He couldn’t bear dirt and untidiness, though his cleaning mania had had to relax slightly on moving into a household that included two teenagers and a toddler. Mind you, the mess in Thóra’s house was mainly clothes, shoes, schoolbooks, toys and that kind of thing, strewn haphazardly as if the occupants had had to abandon the house in a great hurry. Sveinn was a different sort of slob altogether. Dirty dishes sat on a low coffee table with knives and forks placed carefully on top, side by side, as if he expected a cleaner to appear, clear everything off the table and ask whether anyone might like a coffee. Beneath the table were KFC buckets. A bath towel lay in a crumpled heap on the back of the sofa, and it also appeared that Sveinn liked to take off his socks in front of the television at the end of the day. A selection of single socks lay in front of the sofa, as if his feet had taken turns pushing a sock off while his hands were otherwise occupied, perhaps working their way through the fried chicken.

Thóra only gave the briefest glance in the direction of the shelving unit holding the television, but couldn’t help noticing the Coke cans standing there as if on display. The rest of the junk on the shelves wasn’t familiar enough for Thóra to distinguish what it was without looking for longer. ‘Pull up some chairs; you’re better off watching it on the computer when the material is this raw, as I said on the phone. The resolution is quite good, so it should be pretty clear.’ Sveinn sat down on the office chair and started setting up the video. ‘What sucks is that I’ll probably never get to use this material.’

‘Was the project killed off by the budget cuts?’ Thóra had settled in next to the table but Matthew was still looking around for a passably clean chair.

‘I’m pretty pissed off about it, though I know money is in short supply these days, and other things are probably taking priority.’ The first frame appeared on screen and Sveinn adjusted the settings to sharpen the image. ‘The project was green-lit in 2003, and I started working on it a year later. So I was shooting this material for several years – not continuously, of course. But still.’

‘And what was the purpose of the film?’ Thóra watched the man’s tweaking and twiddling without any idea what he was doing.

‘2003 was the Year of the Disabled Person and this project was the initiative of the Ministry of Welfare; it was supposed to have been a documentary about the situation of the dis-abled today, for those who knew nothing about them as well as those who already had an interest. Obviously I was pretty ignorant about the subject when I started, but I’ve become an expert now. In a hundred years’ time they will be treated completely differently. There’s some incredible stuff in here, but it’s not like I came up with any magic solutions myself.’ When Sveinn was finally happy with the settings he opened the media player. ‘When it burned down, both television stations sought me out and I was offered a lot of money for clips of the place in action.’

‘And did you let them use them?’ Thóra didn’t remember seeing any video clips in the news reports of the fire.

‘No, I didn’t get permission. It’s all owned by the ministry and they prohibited its release. Of course the police were given a copy – without my being paid for it, naturally. It’s fucking bullshit, because I could have used the money. It’s not a very profitable business, let me tell you.’

Thóra muttered vague agreement. ‘You said you saw a lot of strange things while filming the documentary – was any of this at the home that burned down?’

Sveinn turned to her. ‘Well, I don’t remember exactly. I got my material from a variety of places, since the documentary was supposed to give an overview of the situation, and just one centre would never have been enough. It definitely wasn’t the weirdest place I saw, even though the residents’ circumstances were affecting. There are so many levels of disability, and the people at this place were among the most severely afflicted. Most of the people I met were just like you and me; completely capable of getting by in normal society, given the right tools.’ He had moved the cursor into place to start the video, but the mouse appeared to be sticky, since he was holding the button down for a long time. ‘Mental disability is so different from physical that I feel the two groups have little in common. It’s one of the things I think will change over time; the boundaries between them will become clearer.’

Thóra was beginning to think he’d never start the film, but she didn’t want to press him. ‘So you didn’t notice anything unusual there, compared to what you saw elsewhere?’

‘Well, it was new, of course, and meant to be a kind of flagship, despite the way things turned out. Nothing was spared in the design of the centre, but as I understood it the finances ran out and construction standards slipped. I felt as if the residents hadn’t quite come to terms with being moved there and the staff hadn’t settled in either. There was an almost amateurish feeling about the place, compared to the older units I visited.’

‘Could you elaborate?’

‘Oh, I just felt the staff were too young and sometimes kind of clumsy in the way they dealt with the residents.’ Sveinn saw from Thóra’s expression that she’d read more into his words than he’d intended and hurriedly added: ‘Not that they bullied them or anything. They simply hadn’t had time to learn how to deal with them. For example, I saw staff members standing right next to residents and discussing them as if they weren’t there, which is extremely unprofessional.’ He started the film, slightly embarrassed about it, or so it seemed. ‘That might be in one of the clips, actually.’

The quality of the image that appeared on the three screens could have been better, though the cables on the floor in the opening shot suggested that it had been properly lit and sound-recorded. ‘I’ll fast-forward over the parts that aren’t so important. Let me know if I should slow down or rewind.’ They watched closely and Thóra pointed out Glódís to Matthew when she appeared. The director stood with crossed arms and watched from a distance as one of her staff attended to a young woman who sat in a chair, seemingly ignoring the transparent ball in her lap. The care assistant pressed one of the young woman’s hands to her lips and placed the other one on the ball. ‘Ball.’ The woman squeezed the girl’s hand, forcing her to tighten her grip on the ball. She then loosened her grip and folded her own fingers, then got the girl to feel them before moving the girl’s fingers into the same position. ‘Sign language?’ asked Matthew.

Sveinn nodded. ‘The girl was blind and deaf and had some sort of developmental disability to boot. The woman sitting with her is an occupational therapist or developmental therapist or something, but I can’t remember her or the girl’s names.’