to her when she closed the door to her own room.
A long, hot shower made her feel better in body and mind. Before leaving, she picked up her phone and called her friend Laufey.
'Do you know what time it is?' Laufey grumbled sleepily.
Thora ignored her, because it was almost ten. 'Oh, my Godyou'll never guess what!' she cried.
'Well, judging from how excited you sound and the ungodly hour at which you're calling, it must be headline news.' A yawn followed.
'I slept with someone!' The reaction was immediate. Laufey had clearly sat bolt upright on hearing the news because no sooner had the words left Thora's mouth than a mighty creaking was heard.
'Ooh! Tell me, who, who is it?'
'Matthew, that German. I'll have to save the rest for later because I'm off to meet him for breakfast. We're at a hotel.'
'A hotel? Well, well, you can't be left by yourself for a second, can you?'
'I'll talk to you laterI'm a bit worried. Somehow I have to get him to understand that it was just a onetime thing, I don't want a relationship.'
Braying laughter came down the phone line. 'Hello? Where have you beenwatching
Thora hung up, slightly irritated at the reaction to news that was supposed to have pleased her friend. She headed off for the breakfast room after taking the time to mess up the sheets so that the hotel staff wouldn't think she was promiscuous. Matthew was sitting at a table for two by a window, drinking coffee. Thora could not help noticing how handsome he was, which she had always refused to admit to herself. His face had those rough features that appealed to her. Strong jaw, large teeth, well-defined cheekbones, and deep-set eyes. This was doubtless a genetic legacy from her prehistoric ancestors, an attraction to looks that suggested toughness and determinationthe perfect hunter. Thora sat down. 'I really think something to eat will do me a heap of good,' she said to break the ice.
Matthew poured coffee from the stainless steel pot into her cup. 'You left a sock in my room. And it wasn't a woolen sockincredible but true.'
Nothing in the way they acted implied that something had happened since dinner the night before, apart from when Matthew placed his hand over Thora's with a conspiratorial wink. She smiled back but said nothing. He soon removed his hand and continued his meal. After eating they went to their respective rooms and packed.
While Thora was waiting for Matthew at reception, her phone rang. It was Gylfi. Before answering, Thora reminded herself that he had no idea what his mother had been up to the previous night.
'Hello, darling,' she said, trying to sound natural.
'Hi.' Gylfi's voice was gloomy and a short time passed before he got to the point. 'Er, that thing I was going to tell youwhere are you?'
'I'm at Hotel Ranga. I was working this weekend. Aren't you home?'
'Yeah.' Another pause. 'When are you getting back?'
Thora looked at her watch. It was a few minutes to eleven. 'I'll be back around one, I expect.'
'Okay. See you then.'
'Why aren't you with your dad? Where's your sister?' Thora said quickly before he rang off.
'She's still with him. I left.'
'Left? Why? Did you have an argument?'
'You could say that,' he replied. 'He started it.'
'How?' Thora gaped in astonishment. Hannes normally had a knack for avoiding quarrels and until now had managed to get along quite nicely with his son, although the latter would hardly consider him a born entertainer.
He sighed. 'He acted like he wanted to have a talk with me, and just when I thought he understood me and I told him something, he snapped. I swear he did backward somersaults. I wasn't about to listen to that. I thought he'd understand.'
Thora's thoughts seethed and jostled. She knew that Gylfi's description of his father's behavior must be a huge exaggeration. So what had really happened? She regretted having persuaded Hannes to talk to the boyobviously it had not helped. 'Gylfi, what was it that made your father so mad? Is that what you want to talk to me about afterward?'
'Yeah.' No further explanation. She would have to wait until she saw him to find out.
'Listen, I'm on my way. I'm no acrobat so we can surely manage to discuss this calmly. Don't go anywhere.'
'You'll have to be back before one. I have to go and see some people.'
Some people? Some people? Had he joined a religious cult? Thora felt a pang in her chest. 'Gylfidon't go anywhere until I'm back. Understand?'
'Be back before one,' he said. 'Dad'll be there too.' He said good-bye and hung up.
Thora's heart pounded in her rib cage and it took a huge effort not to let out a howl. With trembling hands she dialed Hannes's phone but it was either out of reach or switched off. She stared at her phone. Hannes would never switch off his phonehe slept with it on his bedside table in case anyone needed to contact him in the middle of the night. His riding trips, too, were arranged somewhere his phone workedshe doubted if he had ever been out of signal range since he first bought a cell phone. She tried his home number but there was no reply. What had the boy done? Started smoking? Hardly. Was he a drug addict and on his way to rehab? No, out of the question. She would surely have noticed. Was he coming out of the closet? Off to a gay pride meeting? Hannes would hardly have flipped about thatto give him credit, he was relatively liberal. Besides, she had a feeling that Gylfi had a crush on that girl whose name she could never remember. No, that wasn't the issue. Countless ideas welled up, increasingly absurd.
As soon as Matthew had paid the bill, Thora took him by the arm and almost dragged him away.
'What's up?' he asked in bewilderment as Thora pushed him through the door.
'There's a domestic crisis and I have to get home as soon as humanly possible.'
He took her at her word, and with no further questions he threw the bags inside the Jeep and climbed behind the wheel. They drove straight to Reykjavik through Hella, Selfoss, and Hveragerdi. Matthew said little on the way. It was not until they reached the Kambar slopes that he asked whether there was anything he could do, but Thora told him she did not even know what the problem was, let alone how to resolve it. She did tell him that it concerned her son and some news he was going to tell her. They were making good time as they passed the ski lodge, and they were still plugging along when they reached the transport cafe. But right as they were passing Lake Raudavatn, on the outskirts of the city, they blew a tire.
'What the hell!' shouted Matthew, tightening his grip on the wheel to stop the car from swerving out of control. They slowed down and stopped by the roadside.
'Oh no, oh no,' Thora moaned. She looked at her watch. Twenty-five past twelve. They could still make it to Seltjarnarnes by one if they had no problems changing the tire.
'Stupid cheap tires,' muttered Matthew as he struggled to remove the spare from the tailgate. At last it came free and they concentrated together on jacking the car up and changing the tire. Matthew took the burst tire and tossed it through the tailgate where it landed on top of Thora's flight bag. She couldn't have cared less. It was rapidly approaching one.
They jumped into the car and Matthew roared off. 'Wait here,' Thora said as they pulled up outside her house. She ran toward it, taking out her keys on the way so that the doorbell would not delay her. She rang with her left hand to let Gylfi know she was back while putting the key in the lock and opening the door with her right. 'Gylfi!' she panted.
'Hi, Mom.' Soley ran out to greet her, all sunny smiles. If something had happened, it had escaped her notice entirely.
'Hello, sweetie. Where's your brother?' Thora pushed her way past Soley to look for her son.
'He left. I've got a note for you,' she said, pulling a folded scrap of paper out of her pocket.
