‘Well, to be honest, I can’t really imagine what that’s like,’ Pétur said slowly. ‘My father was a doctor like me, so we were always well off. Luckily. The worst thing about poverty is the effect it has on the children.’
‘Actually …’ Hulda broke off, feeling a bit fuddled by the wine and wondering about the wisdom of what she had been about to say. How much ought she to tell this man? Could she trust him? Then again, maybe it would be good, healthy even, to open up about the past once in a while. She’d been bottling things up for far too long: maybe this was the chance she’d been waiting for. She had never been able to discuss personal matters at the office. None of her younger colleagues was remotely interested in hearing about the ups and downs in the life of a sixty-four-year-old woman. What’s more, she could count her friends, her real friends, on the fingers of one hand, on a good day. She decided to risk it: ‘Actually, things could have turned out very differently.’
‘Oh?’ said Pétur. His answer came so promptly, with no sign of slurring, that Hulda wondered hazily if she had knocked back more of the wine than him.
‘My mother put me in an institution when I was a baby – a home for infants, almost like an orphanage. I heard the story from Granddad; my mother never breathed a word about it to me. It was considered the right and proper thing for unmarried mothers to do in those days. From hints Granddad dropped, I think he and Grandma must have pressurized her into it and that, later, he came to regret it. He said I was taken away from my mother shortly after I was born. Do you remember those homes?’
‘Not personally, though of course I’ve heard about them.’
‘Apparently, my mother visited regularly, which is only natural, I suppose. Granddad said he was proud of her. As soon as she’d managed to save up enough money, she went and claimed me. She had every right to, though I think the babies in those institutions were usually fostered or adopted.’
‘Were you there long?’ asked Pétur.
‘Nearly two years. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, in all that time my mother was never once allowed to touch me or hold me. I gather parents were only allowed to see their babies through a glass partition. The staff thought that if the parents got to cuddle them, it would be too hard on the children when they left.’
‘I don’t suppose you remember …?’ Pétur left the question hanging.
‘No, I don’t have any memory of that time,’ said Hulda. ‘I was far too young. But I did once visit the building where the home used to be. This was donkey’s years ago. Walking through the door was such a weird feeling. I had this overwhelming sensation of déjà vu. The glass partition had gone, but I’ve seen pictures of it. And as I was walking along the corridor I instinctively stopped dead by one closed door and asked the woman showing me round whether the children used to sleep in there. She nodded and said I was quite right, and the moment she opened the door it hit me. I knew, I just knew, that I’d slept in that room. You don’t have to believe me, but it was a peculiar experience.’
‘I believe you,’ said Pétur. As ever, he answered without hesitation and said exactly the right thing.
‘I do have one genuine memory from early childhood,’ Hulda continued. ‘There were plans to have me fostered – this was after my mother had taken me back and we were living with my grandparents. A couple were interested in adopting me. Again, I heard this from Granddad, not from my mother, though I have no reason to doubt what he said, and this time I actually remember something about it. I remember the flight – it must have been to the east. That would fit in with the location because the couple lived between the glacial sands in the Skaftafell district and it used to be quite a palaver to get there in those days. I’ve never forgotten that journey, though I was only a toddler at the time. We never used to leave Reykjavík, so I suppose I’ve retained memories from the trip because it was so unusual.’
‘Tell me …’ Pétur hesitated, as if unsure whether to continue. ‘Perhaps it’s an inappropriate question …’
‘Fire away,’ said Hulda, and immediately regretted it.
‘Well … If you could choose now, in retrospect, would you have wanted to grow up with your mother?’
The question threw Hulda, perhaps precisely because she had often, almost unconsciously, wondered the same thing, without coming to any definite conclusion. Had her childhood been happy? Not really; perhaps not at all. But there was no way of knowing if the grass would have been greener if she had been brought up by strangers. Did money matter? Had the poverty of her upbringing, the endless striving to make ends meet, had a lasting effect on her?
She cast her mind back to her early years, trying to recall some happy memories. There was the one where she was sitting in her bedroom listening to a story; she couldn’t remember what the story was about, but the memory was vivid and warm. The person sitting next to her then had been her granddad, not her mother. She also recalled a trip, when she was maybe eight or nine, to the corner shop, which had been closed for many years now. She had gone there to spend her own money, a small fortune which she had saved up by working for her granddad in the summer, helping him with bits of DIY around the small flat. Everything was linked
