Michael Ridpath - 66 Degrees North

And of course there was the Berserkjahraun. Hallgrímur led his grandsons through the fantastic twisted lava sculptures, telling them tales of the berserkers who had lived at their farm and at Hraun, and of the kind of games he used to play there as a kid. Óli was scared, but Magnus was fascinated.

But Grandpa liked to drink. And when he drank he became angry. And he became a bully.

Hallgrímur liked Magnus, at least at first. But Óli was weak and Hallgrímur detested weakness. Óli scared easily and Hallgrímur liked to scare him. He told him stories about the Kerlingin troll who took the babies of Stykkishólmur away with her, and might take Óli as well if he didn’t shape up. Of the berserkers who still tramped around the lava field at night. Of a man named Thórólfur Lame Foot who had been murdered centuries before, but roamed the fells terrorizing shepherds and their sheep. And of the fjörulalli , a sea monster with shells hanging from its fur, that cruised around the fjord just offshore, waiting to eat up small children who got too close to the sea.

Magnus stood up for his little brother. His grandfather didn’t like that. Scaring Magnus didn’t work, so Hallgrímur beat him instead. Hence the occasional visits to St Francis’s Hospital in Stykkishólmur, with lies about complicated farmyard accidents.

Then Hallgrímur would sober up, the sun would shine, and he would try to play with his grandchildren again. But Óli was too scared and Magnus too proud.

Throughout all this, their grandmother kept an aloof detachment, as though she didn’t care what happened to her grandchildren. As he got older, Magnus realized that she was beaten too.

The farm was isolated, cut off from the rest of civilization by the lava field. It became a kind of hell. Magnus thought of escape. Sometimes their mother would come to visit and for a while everything would be better, although by this stage Magnus had realized she was drunk, not sleepy. When he tried to explain what was happening to them, his mother just told them that ‘Grandpa was a little stricter than Daddy.’

Sounds drifted across the snow towards Magnus from the farmhouse, his grandfather’s deep roar, the high pitched scream of his little brother. Poor Óli. Even though there was nothing much he could do, Magnus stood up and ran back towards the house, hoping that his presence might distract his grandfather.

When he reached the kitchen, his grandmother was scouring a large pan over the sink. The shouting seemed to have stopped.

‘Where’s Óli?’

‘In the cellar, I think,’ Grandma said, without turning around.

‘What’s he doing there?’

‘He is being punished.’

‘What’s he being punished for?’

‘Don’t be so impertinent,’ Grandma said. But she said it without force. She often said those words. It was her code for ‘I don’t know and I don’t want to know, so don’t ask me about it.’

Magnus ran down the stone steps to the cellar. It was cold with cement walls lit by a single bulb. It was used for storage, there were a couple of individual rooms, one filled with animal feed supplements and one with potatoes, most of which had rotted. The door to this last one was shut. Behind it he could hear Óli sobbing.

Magnus tried the door. It was locked. The key was upstairs on the door of the broom cupboard outside the kitchen, in plain view of their grandmother. ‘Óli! Óli, are you OK?’

‘No,’ said Óli between sobs. ‘It’s dark and its cold and the potatoes are slimy and I’m scared.’

‘Can’t you turn on the light?’

‘He’s taken away the bulb.’

Rage boiled up inside Magnus and he pulled at the door, hoping somehow to shake the lock loose. It didn’t work of course, so he began kicking at it.

‘Stop, Magnús, stop! He’ll hear you.’

‘I don’t care,’ shouted Magnus. He stood back and took a run at the door, throwing the entire weight of his nine-year-old body at it. He bounced off and fell on to the floor. He stood up, rubbing his shoulder.

‘Magnús.’

The growl was familiar. Magnus turned to see his grandfather. A fit sixty-year-old with a strong granite jaw, steel grey hair and hard blue eyes. A tough, angry man. Magnus’s nostrils caught the faint whiff of alcohol layered on top of the aroma of snuff which perpetually surrounded Hallgrímur.

‘Magnús, go back upstairs.’

‘Why have you done this, Grandpa? Is it because Óli wet himself? Óli can’t help that. It’s just because he is scared all the time. Let him out.’

‘I said, get back upstairs.’

‘And I said, let him out!’ Magnus’s voice was shrill.

His grandfather’s nostrils flared, a sure early sign of an explosion. Magnus braced himself but held his grandfather’s eyes.

‘Let him out.’

Hallgrímur looked around him for the nearest weapon. His eyes alighted on an old blunt axe. He picked it up and took a step towards Magnus.

Magnus wanted to run, but he stood firm outside the door to the potato storage room, feet apart, as if guarding his brother. His eyes were fixed on the blade of the axe.

Hallgrímur jabbed the blunt end of the axe handle into Magnus’s ribs. It wasn’t especially hard, but Magnus was only a small boy. Winded, he doubled up. Hallgrímur swung the axe and hit Magnus on the side of his thigh with the flat of the head.

Magnus fell. He looked up and saw his grandfather raising the axe above his head, his eyes burning with anger. Magnus started to cry. He couldn’t help it. As he lay there on the cold stone, he could hear Óli’s sobs through the door.

‘Up to bed! Now!’

Magnus limped up to bed. What else could he do?

He lay there for hours, his eyes wet with tears and anger, staring at his little brother’s empty bed. Although his thigh hurt, there was nothing broken, so no humiliating trips to the hospital this time.

How could his grandfather leave a seven-year-old boy in the cold and dark all night? If Óli had wet his bed occasionally before, he would definitely wet it every evening now.

Magnus waited until he heard the sounds of his grandfather going to bed. Then he waited some more. Finally, after what seemed to him to be hours, but was probably much less, he slipped out of bed, pulled on a jersey, and crept downstairs.

He knew where the key would be, hanging on the door to the broom cupboard. He could see it in the moonlight reflected off the snow which seeped into the kitchen. He had to stand on his tiptoes to reach it. He crept down the stairs into the dark cellar, felt his way to the door to the potato storage room, and unlocked it.

The room smelled of rotten potatoes and little boy’s urine.

‘Óli? Óli? It’s Magnús.’

‘Magnús?’ The voice was small, faint.

‘Come out.’

‘No.’

‘Come on, Óli.’

‘No. Don’t make me do that. He’ll find me and be angry.’

Magnus hesitated. He couldn’t actually see Óli. He moved towards the direction of his voice, hands outstretched, bending down, until he felt an arm. He felt small hands clasping his. He grabbed hold of his little brother and held him tight.

‘Why did he do this to you, Óli?’

‘I can’t tell you.’

‘Yes, you can. I won’t tell anyone else.’

Then Óli began to sob. ‘I can’t tell you, Magnús. I won’t tell you. Please don’t make me tell you.’

‘OK, Óli. OK. I won’t make you tell me anything. And I won’t make you leave this room. I’ll just sit with you.’

And Magnus sat with his brother, who soon fell asleep, until he guessed it was close to morning and he crept back to his own bed.

Tuesday 22 September 2009

Magnus fell silent, lying on his back in Ingileif’s bed.