Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Someone to Watch Over Me

‘Funny that you should ask about this poster in particular.’ Grímheiður smiled. ‘It’s been a favourite of Jakob’s for almost ten years. He got it at the summer camp he went to run by the State Church. It was an experimental project, but I don’t know if they carried it on because Jakob was too old by the following year to be eligible to go. Perhaps the course wasn’t run again.’

Thóra went over and stood next to Matthew to look at the poster. Perhaps the picture could explain Jakob’s reference to the angel when he was trying not very successfully to describe the fire. The mind sometimes sought out the familiar when it was under great strain. As the caption indicated, the angel’s existence had once been brighter; its golden halo had fallen from its head and the little harp in its arms had a broken string. It was missing one sandal and a feather drifted to the ground from one of its small wings. Thóra sensed that their interest in the poster surprised Grímheiður, and she asked the first thing that crossed her mind. ‘What made you say the course might not have happened again?’

‘Oh, it was a bit of a disaster. Although Jakob loved it and the organizers did what they could to make the experience memorable, some of the participants had far too many problems to fit in there.’

‘Oh?’ Thóra turned away from the wall.

‘Yes, all sorts of things happened that I can’t imagine the staff would have wanted to encounter again.’ Grímheiður shook her head, her expression sad. ‘No one had properly considered how the participants might cope – just like at that damn residence.’ She took two steps over to Jakob’s desk, lifted a blue stapler and blew invisible dust off it. ‘One girl nearly drowned when she fell into a river near the camp that she was constantly visiting, another ate poisonous mushrooms, and then there was one who tried to set his sleeping bag on fire. That was a close call; things could have turned out far worse.’ Grímheiður put the stapler back down on the table, positioning it in precisely the same spot. ‘That boy didn’t enjoy being at the summer camp at all, and I can’t understand who could have thought that he would. He was very autistic and couldn’t tolerate new circumstances. The poor thing.’ Lowering her voice, she added: ‘He died when the centre burned down. Tryggvi.’

‘Tryggvi? Einvarðsson?’ Thóra was careful not to appear too interested, but this could be pretty significant, even though burning one’s sleeping bag wasn’t quite the same as using petrol to set a house on fire.

‘Yes, him.’ A light suddenly came on for Grímheiður. ‘Do you think he started the fire?’ Then she shook her head violently. ‘It’s impossible; he wasn’t any more capable of it than Jakob. Tryggvi never left his apartment voluntarily. He would never have gone swanning around the residence on his own initiative.’

‘No, no. Of course not.’ Thóra acted as if she were dismissing this idea. Clearly not everyone was aware of Tryggvi’s progress with the therapist. ‘Did you say it was a summer camp organized by the Church?’ It couldn’t hurt to get some more information about the incident with the sleeping bag.

From the small radio on the table came the tinny, irritated voice of the DJ complaining that the person who was supposed to take over from him hadn’t turned up.

Lena was lying on a nice soft sofa, but she couldn’t get into a good position, due to the weight of the book she was holding. She put it down on the glass table; she wasn’t reading it anyway, and there was no point making herself uncomfortable. She had been finding it difficult to focus and the simple act of her mother walking into the room in the middle of a phone conversation, indifferent to her daughter, had made her lose the thread. Instead of peering at the small print, Lena watched her mother. She crossed the room, making sweeping hand gestures. The person she was speaking to was probably making the same gestures, because Lena’s mother’s friends all acted more or less the same. If Lena squinted in their vicinity she had trouble telling them apart. It was mainly her mother who stood out; more often than not she was the centrepiece, but in a completely different way to how Lena was with her friends. Her mother was always the most miserable; she could complain the most and wallow in the others’ sympathy and empty words of encouragement. ‘ My dear Fanndís, I don’t understand how you cope, can’t you take a break and try to forget all of this for a while? God knows you deserve it .’ Lena wished she could peek into the past and see what things had been like before Tryggvi was born and her mother became an embodiment of sacrifices for her child. Perhaps the women had been more like Lena and her friends, giggling and chatting together easily.

After Tryggvi’s death, Lena hadn’t expected significant changes, and she’d been proved right. Her mother, of course, no longer played the role of the steadfast and dedicated parent who gave her all for her disabled son; now she smiled bravely through her tears, unable to come to terms with her loss. Both roles were characterized by how her mother said one thing but implied the opposite. Once it had been: Isn’t this terribly difficult for you, my poor Fanndís? No, no. You’ve just got to tough it out, even when everything seems hopeless. Now it was: But what do I really have to complain about? In the Third World there are people who have lost their children and can’t even feed the ones who are still alive.

Lena was suddenly overwhelmed by irritation. As if her mother had some sort of exclusive right to feel bad about Tryggvi. When all was said and done, Lena and her father had loved him just as much, even if they weren’t constantly seeking attention after his death. Lena had never discussed the subject with her friends; her grief, like all the other feelings churning inside her, was private. Other people couldn’t possibly understand. She doubted her father did, even though he’d had a very difficult time with it all too and hadn’t been able to hide it either from her or from others who knew him well. It was as if he’d shut off part of himself; he was never properly happy, even though he tried to pretend to be for his wife and daughter’s sake. Although it had often been difficult at home, Lena couldn’t remember having seen him as miserable as he was now. If she were forced to choose which of the three of them had been most affected by Tryggvi’s death, she would pick him.

‘Oh, thank you, my dear. I’m thinking of you too.’ Her mother hung up. She stared for a moment out of the living room window before turning to Lena on the sofa. ‘Don’t you have any classes today?’

‘It’s Sunday.’ Lena looked at her mother, having long since become accustomed to this kind of thing.

‘What’s wrong with me? Of course!’ Her mother was embarrassed. ‘Where did your father go?’

Lena shrugged. ‘He went out somewhere. He didn’t say where.’

‘Oh?’ Her mother seemed almost insulted. ‘Not to work, surely?’

‘He didn’t want to interrupt you while you were on the phone; he can’t have gone far. Maybe he’s just washing the car, now that the weather’s good enough.’ If she had to name one hobby of her father’s, it would be washing the car. He would probably be happier if he’d gone to work at a carwash instead of going into law and taking a job at the ministry. ‘Have you heard anything more from the lawyers who came to see you? About that Jakob, and the fire?’

A flash of anger crossed her mother’s face but she managed to suppress it and return to her usual persona: the noble, elegant woman enduring great hardship. ‘No. Nor do I expect to. It’s utter nonsense and I don’t understand why they’re opening old wounds for all the victims’ relatives.’