The Ice Lands Read online

  Appearing once more, Vigdís asked: ‘Are you sure you’re all right? You look rather pale.’

  Hrafn nodded.

  ‘I’m positive. It was an accident, an unfortunate accident.’

  He lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and watched Anna tip more whisky into Egill’s mouth, before lifting the lid to her own lips.

  ‘But clearly it’s crazy and preposterous that we should be in this house, in this room.’

  He remembered his mobile phone, fished it out of his shirt pocket and checked the reception.

  ‘Do you have a signal?’ asked Vigdís.

  He shook his head and something told him that the thing they called a signal no longer meant anything, not after this – that it belonged to his former life, concerns of a previous existence. He could make no sense of his thoughts, which seemed to fuse with the buzz from the nicotine, and he decided to sit down and rest. He slumped onto the sofa, and heard Trigger the dog whining somewhere in the house.

  Vigdís brought him a glass of water, which he gulped down. His eyes followed her into the kitchen where she started to chat with the old woman. He glanced about the room, at the brown lino and the red blanket they had spread over Egill. There was a shelf lined with books, and a framed photograph hung on the wall. On a table next to the sofa was a vase of red, green and blue glass, with a pattern that seemed familiar.

  They weren’t guests there, he reflected as the ash from his cigarette dropped onto the blanket. Despite her insistence on locking them in, the old woman wanted to be rid of them as soon as possible. They weren’t welcome.

  He needed an ashtray, and, walking out of the room to find one, he noticed that the front door had been bolted.

  ‘They’ve said we can stay,’ said Vigdís when he came to a halt in the kitchen doorway. She and the old woman were sitting at a table. ‘We’ll spend the night here so that Egill can rest. And anyway, we can’t see about the jeep until it gets light.’

  ‘That’s kind of you,’ said Hrafn, beaming at the woman.

  He introduced himself and she mumbled something in turn which sounded like Ása. When he asked her if that was an abbreviation of a longer name, she didn’t reply. The old man seemed to have vanished.

  ‘I assure you we won’t hang around, Ása,’ he said. ‘I understand that we have to leave here as soon as possible.’

  ‘Make yourselves at home,’ said Ása. Her voice sounded elderly and shrill, and yet Hrafn had difficulty guessing her age. Her face was wrinkled and leathery, and her dark hair, which hung in a ponytail down her back, was streaked with grey. She could have been sixty, although her eyes possessed a sly watchfulness more appropriate to someone younger. ‘You’ll spend the night here,’ she went on, nodding as if to convince herself. ‘It’s best for all. There’s no other choice. I’ll show you to your rooms, and in the morning all will be well and you can move on.’

  ‘It must be awkward for you to have unexpected guests like this,’ Vigdís said. ‘You must have had a shock.’

  ‘Possibly,’ said Ása, rising from the table. ‘That was an almighty bang.’

  The old woman had what looked like eczema in the corners of her eyes, a raised patch of redness that ran down the sides of her nose to the corners of her mouth.

  The rooms they were allotted were on the top floor, facing each other at the end of a long corridor. As instructed by Ása, Hrafn and Vigdís fetched a mattress from the cupboard, and put it in their room, which was empty apart from a small table and an oil lamp. Anna and Egill’s room contained a chair, a table and a double bed for the patient to sleep in.

  While the girls helped Egill upstairs, Hrafn waited in the kitchen. Finally, his dizziness was beginning to wear off. Ása told him that if their jeep wouldn’t start the next day, there was one at the farm they could use to drive to the nearest village. Hrafn perked up even more when he heard this. Everything was going to be all right.

  Ása provided them with blankets and pillows, lit the lamp in Hrafn and Vigdís’s room, and told Anna she could keep Trigger in the room overnight, adding that she would be down in the kitchen if they needed anything.

  Hrafn lay on the mattress on the floor, lit a cigarette and stared up at the ceiling. The mattress had a musty smell, but the lamp cast a warm glow on the walls. Out in the corridor, Anna and Vigdís discussed how safe it was for Egill to sleep after being knocked out, and why the front door had so many locks and bolts.

  ‘Four. As if she were expecting . . .’ Anna started to say, then lowered her voice.

  Hrafn closed his eyes and heard Vigdís enter the room. She walked across the creaky wooden floor and lay down beside him on the mattress, put her arms around him and nestled her head in the crook of his neck. He stubbed his cigarette out on a cork on the floor and turned towards her.

  ‘I don’t mind if you have a drink,’ he said.

  ‘I know, but I don’t feel like it – I’m too sleepy,’ she said, after a brief silence. ‘Of course I know you don’t mind. Do you want one?’

  Hrafn shook his head. With hindsight, it seemed odd that the old woman hadn’t asked them about events leading up to the accident, or offered them refreshments: coffee, biscuits, a sandwich, even. What had happened to the time-honoured hospitality of country folk? On the other hand she had agreed they could stay the night, and yet it was obvious she was up to something, he could see it in her eyes. The old woman was hiding something, obliged to shelter them against her will.

  He opened his mouth to discuss it with Vigdís, but thought better of it. She undressed, spread the blanket over them and snuggled up to him. They started kissing; he told her he loved her, but she didn’t reply. She gave a sigh, and before he knew it, he had unzipped his trousers and pressed himself into her. After a moment, she turned over onto her stomach, and he raised himself to his knees, holding onto the windowsill to steady himself.

  Glancing out of the window, he noticed that the fog had lifted. Every now and then, the moon broke through the clouds, casting its pale light onto the sands. Towards the horizon, the glacier rose up from the plain, heavy, motionless and white, like an unexposed photograph.

  Their bodies were moving faster, and somewhere far below him Vigdís let out a wail. As he came, Hrafn glimpsed someone streak across the sands outside: the misshapen, hunched figure of a man running from the house, stumbling and then disappearing into the night, on all fours.

  Hrafn lay on his back on the mattress; the room was spinning before his eyes and his heart was pounding. On all fours, he thought, and soon afterwards he fell asleep.

  3

  THE CARCASS

  Hrafn

  When Hrafn woke up he was alone in the room. He lay still for a while, trying to order the previous night’s events, which were jumbled in his head. It reminded him of the old days, back when he drank.

  Down in the kitchen Vigdís sat poring over a map. On the table was some sliced meat, cheese and bread, along with three used plates. Vigdís told him that the others were up and had eaten breakfast.

  ‘Egill and Anna went for a walk, to take a look around . . . The jeep’s a write-off.’

  ‘Says who? Egill?’

  ‘See for yourself.’

  Hrafn went outside, descended the steps, which were broader than he remembered, and rounded the corner of the house to where they had abandoned the jeep. The bonnet on the passenger side was buried in the wall, and both the front tyres had burst. They were probably lucky the wall hadn’t collapsed on top of them. Hrafn reached inside the car and turned the key in the ignition to try to start the engine, but nothing happened. The windscreen had shattered, as had the window on the passenger side; a deflated airbag hung over the steering wheel and another over the glove compartment. On Egill’s seat was a patch of congealed blood.

  The engine was flooded with oil, as was the sand underneath the car. The sleeping bags, tents and fishing tackle on the roof rack were undisturbed.

  Hrafn went back inside, sat down at the table and buttered a piece of bread which he ate with some cheese.

  ‘Ása is going to lend us a jeep,’ said Vigdís. ‘There should be a road going north from here to Askja.’

  ‘Do you know where we are?’ He gestured with his head at the map, and she nodded.

  ‘Sort of . . . The old couple were both here just now. I reckon he must have late-stage Alzheimer’s. What do you suppose they do?’

  ‘No idea. Farmers, I expect.’

  For some reason he remembered the eczema on the old woman’s face. Someone had told him that country folk age more quickly, their skin weathered by the sun, frost and rain.

  ‘I didn’t like to ask.’ Vigdís frowned. ‘But, farming out here on the sands doesn’t seem plausible, does it?’

  Hrafn poured himself some coffee from the pot on the table.

  ‘Did we check to see if they have a telephone?’

  ‘I did ask. She said the line was down.’

  ‘Down!’ He cursed. ‘How close are we exactly to a proper road?’

  ‘I’ve no idea . . . That depends how far we strayed yesterday. I can’t work it out. We left Mývatn just after two. Drove for a couple of hours, stopped for two hours to buy provisions, then drove south for another three or four hours, I think.’

  ‘More like four, I reckon,’ said Hrafn. ‘And we were driving round in circles for about an hour. We missed the shortcut east, which would have taken us to Askja. Wouldn’t that put us about an hour or two south of there? In which case we should be able to see the glacier.’

  ‘I showed Ása the map, and she seemed unsure of their or our location.’ Vigdís grinned. ‘Either that or she’s never seen a map before – which is quite possible, judging by her expression.’

  Hrafn pushed the plate away, took his coffee over to
the window and lit a cigarette. The advantages of country life: people still smoked indoors – they didn’t worry about the walls turning yellow after a couple of decades. He had started smoking again the day after they left town, and instantly regretted every single day he had given up.

  The sky outside was blue. He felt the numbness flow out of the cigarette and down his body. The kitchen was on the same side of the house as the bedroom, and yet he saw no sign of the glacier anywhere.

  Egill and Anna appeared in the yard, the dog sniffing at the ground around them. Hrafn went out onto the steps to greet them. They carried on laughing about something they had been discussing.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ said Hrafn. ‘Have I missed something?’

  ‘They’re waiting for us,’ said Anna. ‘In the barn.’

  ‘The jeep is ready,’ said Egill. ‘Also a six-hundred-litre barrel of moonshine, which the old woman rations out to the old boy.’

  Anna hurried into the house to use the toilet and pack her things, leaving the two men standing there. Egill’s head was still bandaged.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Hrafn asked as he sat down on the steps and lit another cigarette.

  ‘A slight headache . . . Forgive my behaviour yesterday. Anna told me I yelled at you. I don’t know what came over me, maybe the blow to the head mixed with something else, the beer . . . I should have put my seat belt on, like Anna asked me to do. I know you’re a good driver, it was the fog, of course, and the poor visibility . . .’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Let’s just forget it.’

  They shook hands, in what should have been a playful gesture, Hrafn realized, but it felt clumsy, awkward and foolish.

  They walked over to the jeep, and Hrafn packed his clothes and cigarettes in his rucksack. Then he knelt down beside the hole in the wall, but it was too dark for him to see inside the house. He climbed into the driver’s seat, turned on the satnav and tried to make it work, but, as before, couldn’t get anything but a map of downtown Reykjavík.

  Egill gathered his stuff together from the back of the car, then appeared at the broken passenger window and leaned inside, holding a bottle of beer.

  ‘What’s up, man, what are you doing?’

  ‘Checking out this crappy satnav. I’ve followed the instructions, done everything it tells me to do, but it keeps saying we’re in Austurvöllur.’

  ‘Exactly my sentiments,’ said Egill, raising the beer bottle and gesturing towards the house. ‘Outside Hotel Borg.’

  ‘Already on the juice?’

  Hrafn wanted to draw Egill’s attention to his own blood on the seat and the dashboard – which he seemed not to have noticed, or was ignoring – but he resisted the temptation and climbed back out of the jeep.

  ‘We all have to work together as a team now – we need to travel light,’ said Egill, and grinned at him.

  The girls were ready in the yard. They pulled on their rucksacks and set off towards an outhouse two hundred metres to their left – a peeling wooden structure with a battered corrugated-iron roof – and next to it another, taller building, probably the barn.

  The weather was calm, the visibility couldn’t be better, and Hrafn was amazed that they still couldn’t see the glacier. Being two floors up could scarcely have made that much difference.

  ‘Do you think they keep cows or sheep?’ he asked no one in particular.

  ‘I haven’t seen a single animal here,’ said Egill. ‘But they must do something with the hay. They can hardly eat it themselves.’

  ‘Aren’t cattle sheds empty during the summer? Don’t farmers put animals out to pasture to fatten them up?’

  ‘Assuming there is any grass up here. If you ask me, there isn’t a field within miles. But then, wouldn’t they have to buy hay from other farmers?’

  ‘You two don’t really know much about anything, do you?’ remarked Anna, showing that mischievous streak which, as the trip wore on, Hrafn had quickly realized could become increasingly unbearable or delightful. He had never understood what made Anna tick, or who she was, even. She seemed full of contradictions: when you first met her she gave the impression of being perfectly charming, almost childlike; someone who functioned on a purely emotional level. And yet when she felt that her light-heartedness was preventing her being taken seriously, or that she wasn’t being shown the respect she was due, she was liable to turn prickly, aggressive and coldly analytical to the point where Hrafn scarcely recognized her as the same person.

  ‘What’s that?’ said Vigdís, pointing in the distance. They veered off the path, and a few minutes later came to a streetlamp, which rose up out of the sand.

  ‘A streetlamp! There’s no working phone on this farm but plenty of streetlamps,’ said Anna, chuckling.

  The pole was somehow rooted in the sand, and stood straight up, before arching over the ground, with no apparent purpose. Gathering round the streetlamp, they gazed up at it. The light was switched off.

  ‘Do you suppose it works?’ asked Vigdís. ‘Could this be the light we saw yesterday, before we drove into the house?’

  ‘It’s too far away,’ said Hrafn. ‘Besides, why would they keep it on in the middle of the night?’

  ‘Perhaps it’s here so that dogs have something to piss on,’ said Anna, as Trigger trotted over, lifted his back leg and sprayed the lamppost with urine. They burst out laughing and the dog started to bark, looking about dumbly, until Egill scolded him.

  ‘No, we could have strayed further from the path than we thought,’ said Hrafn, after a brief silence. ‘This reminds me of another streetlamp, in another faraway place – called Narnia. When they stepped out of the wardrobe, they gathered round a streetlamp in the snow . . .’

  ‘There were four of them, too,’ said Vigdís. ‘Two girls and two boys.’

  Anna had strolled on ahead and was calling to them to join her. She was standing over a dead animal on the sand; bloody shreds of flesh hung from the creature’s thick, powerful bones. Bluish-green entrails spilled from its belly, and tufts of light-brown fur lay scattered about the carcass. From its head protruded a small pair of antlers.

  ‘How disgusting,’ said Anna, but remained rooted to the spot.

  ‘A reindeer,’ said Hrafn, and he had the impression that the carcass was relatively fresh, possibly from the night before. The animal’s eyes were still intact, and it hadn’t started to smell yet. Crouching over the carcass, he saw that there was plenty of meat left on it. Some of the bones bore traces of what looked like teeth marks. He touched the body, which was cold, then examined the chest and shoulders for any signs that the animal had been shot, but found none. When he was younger and lived in Suðurnes, he had shot hundreds of seagulls, a few geese and the odd swan. He had never come across a reindeer.

  ‘It’s been ripped to shreds,’ said Vigdís. ‘The animal must have died and foxes picked up the scent. Foxes didn’t kill it, did they?’

  ‘There’s no evidence of it having been shot,’ said Hrafn, rising to his feet and glancing about. ‘Did you see anyone running away?’ he asked Anna, who shook her head.

  ‘“Anyone”, you make it sound like a person . . .’

  ‘I meant anything.’ He smiled. ‘Perhaps we startled something in the middle of eating . . . Even so, it’s strange that the deer would come this close to the farm to die, assuming it wasn’t killed.’

  They set off again.

  4

  THE BABY RAM

  Vigdís

  Through the open door of the barn they glimpsed bales of hay wrapped in green and white plastic. In the yard in front of the barn stood a sand-blown Willys jeep. The old woman was crouching beside one of the wheels in a pair of grubby overalls, poking a tool under the body of the vehicle. Clearly she was in charge of more than just the housework on the farm.

  Clouds of blue smoke billowed from the exhaust pipe, and Vigdís had the impression the jeep was quaking under the strain of keeping its engine running. It had doubtless once been roadworthy, but was now covered in rust and even a few holes, moss grew on the rims of the windows, one of the headlights was smashed and the tyres were so worn that the cord showed through in places.

  Next to the barn door stood a big, grey iron barrel that reeked of brennivín – the moonshine Anna and Egill had mentioned. A padlock had been fitted to the spigot.