‘And where can we find this man?’asked Thora, eagerly.
‘He has a tourist boat. Mainly deep-sea fishing. I’d advise you to book one of his trips, otherwise you might not get him to talk to you. He’s always out on excursions and I don’t think he’d want to miss out on work.’ She smiled at them. ‘Do you want me to call and book one for you?’
Thora thanked the woman and accepted her offer. It didn’t matter to her whether they booked a trip for sightseeing or fishing. She sipped her drink and allowed herself to enjoy the sweet coconutty taste for a moment. ‘Well,’ she said to Bella, ‘we’d better put on our wellies.’
Leifur sat at his father’s bedside in the room that the family had adapted on the ground floor after Klara had decided her husband should no longer sleep in the master bedroom. For some time Magnus had been waking his wife in the night to ask who she was, what time it was or even who he was. When his nocturnal behaviour had begun to get more angry and violent, she’d had enough. There were two options: they could move him to a healthcare facility, or make home-care arrangements so Klara didn’t need to look after him twenty-four hours a day. Leifur gazed at the bookshelves, which were all that remained of the original furniture in the erstwhile study. The rest had gone down into the basement, and would be given away after his parents died. Or thrown away. He and Maria didn’t have room for it, and his children had no interest in used furniture, even family heirlooms. It didn’t seem to matter to them that it was of far better quality than modern, fashionable furniture, or that it was worth a lot of money. Leifur’s son must have replaced his sofas more often in the eight years since leaving home than the old couple had done in all their married life. Maria was always whining about renovating the house and replacing all the furniture, or else selling it and building a new one. He had managed to avoid making that decision, but he knew he didn’t have much time before he either had to give in or run the risk of losing her. Something in her demeanour had changed: she still asked for the same things, but with less conviction. It made him anxious because he knew resignation often preceded some kind of drastic measure. What if this was her first step in the direction of the freedom that she desired so much, and that her mind associated with Reykjavik: the freedom to shop and wander from one cafe to another, the freedom to let her girlfriends envy all her material possessions? If she divorced Leifur she would be able to buy whatever her heart desired. Pre-nuptial agreements hadn’t been common when they got married, but even if they had been, Leifur would not have asked her to sign one.
He looked away from the old-fashioned set of shelves, which appeared to him to be starting to lean a little. They weren’t the only thing in the room that mirrored the family’s declining fortunes. Leifur gazed at his sleeping father, but everything that had once characterized the old man’s face was now gone. His complexion was pale and his strong jaw hollow, making his lips and teeth seem unnaturally large. There were liver-spots on his cheeks and lips. Saliva glistened at the corner of his mouth, and Leifur averted his eyes. This was the reason for everything they had done; his father must live at home as long as he was able. Leifur couldn’t picture the old man living alongside people who had known him back when he was one of the pillars of local society, people who would now have to care for him as though he were a small child. He would have none of the child’s irresistible charm that makes people happily change their nappies and wipe up their drool and vomit. His wife Maria had tried to convince him that if they moved to Reykjavik they could put his father in a home where no one knew him. Leifur had pointed out that they couldn’t get him into a nursing home in Reykjavik, where the waiting lists were long. They’d be at the bottom of the list, no matter how much they were willing to pay. So it was better this way; they wouldn’t gain anything by moving to Reykjavik. Of course, one thing would change: Maria would have more to occupy her time there, and less time for her father-in-law.
There was a lot of pressure on Maria. She was the one who spent the most time looking after her father-in-law, and although it might have seemed hard to believe, she did it without complaining or demanding any appreciation or credit from Klara and Leifur. She did deserve new furniture, and he would agree immediately next time Maria raised the subject. It would catch her completely unawares. Maybe he’d suggest they buy an apartment in one of the new apartment blocks on Skulagata Street, so she could make quick trips to Reykjavik to visit their son and get a brief respite from everything here. In any case, it was time to hire some help; it would be best if he could find a nurse or care assistant, perhaps a foreign one. It wasn’t as if anyone needed to spend time chatting to his father -Leifur’s mother could take care of that. The nurse could sleep in his room, so they’d no longer need to lock the old man in there at night. Leifur had started worrying that something might happen while they were all asleep, although he wasn’t sure exactly what. In his father’s room there wasn’t much he could easily injure himself on, but his outbursts had become completely unpredictable; just recently he had pushed the family television off its stand, breaking it. When Leifur asked him why he’d done it his father had simply stared at him and shaken his head, like a small child denying he’d made a mess. It had only been a few years since he’d brought home the television and invited Leifur and Maria round in order to show it off, since Leifur’s parents didn’t often spend money on luxury items. Leifur still remembered how proud his father had been, how beautiful he’d thought the colours looked on the huge screen.
His father muttered something and Leifur turned back to him. The old man opened his eyes and smiled faintly. His bottom lip was so dry that the smile made it crack, and drops of blood appeared. The blood welled up slowly and did not spill beyond the edges of his blue-tinged lips.
It was as though the blood in his veins was as exhausted as his brain. The smile disappeared as quickly as it had come, and Leifur thought it must be the pain of his cracked lip. But that wasn’t the case. He looked straight into Leifur’s eyes with rare lucidity, his stare unwavering. ‘That was a nasty trick we played on her,’ he said, gripping his son’s upper arm tightly. Feeling his bony fingers, Leifur thought that if he closed his eyes it would have been easy to imagine a skeleton had taken hold of him.
‘On who, Dad?’ asked Leifur calmly. ‘Were you having a bad dream?’
‘Alda,’ replied the old man.‘You forgive me, don’t you?’
‘Me?’ asked Leifur, surprised.‘Of course I forgive you, Dad.’
‘Good,’ replied the old man.‘I know how much you like her, Markus.’ He shut his eyes.‘Don’t be late for school, my boy,’ he said, letting go of Leifur. ‘Don’t be late.’
Leifur had long ago given up taking it personally when his father didn’t recognize him, though he remembered how much it had hurt the first time it happened. His father had been telling his secretary that he was going to take a week off and that Leifur would fill in for him, but when he came to his son’s name he had stood gaping at Leifur, just as surprised as his son at his inability to recall it.
‘I won’t be late,’ said Leifur, and went to stand up. His father was already asleep, and it would only upset him to sit with him any longer.
‘Do you think the falcon will be all right?’ said a weak voice as Leifur was trying to open the door without the hinges creaking.
‘Yes, Dad,’ whispered Leifur.‘The falcon will be fine. Don’t worry.’ He shut the door behind him, confused. He’d never known his father to have much interest in birds, with the exception of puffin, which had been his favourite food. Now that they had to force-feed him everything he never got puffin, only whatever was easiest to get into his mouth and least likely to get caught in his throat. Leifur had never heard his father talk about falcons before. It could be random nonsense, jumbled memories, even fragments of some television programme that were still floating around in his dusty mind. Whatever this bird meant to him, it was a shame his father seemed unable to forget the bad things in his life and remember only the positive. It certainly wasn’t fair that he should have to remember Alda.
Not fair at all.
Chapter Twenty-five
As the boat left the jetty, Thora waved at two boys who were swimming around the harbour in wetsuits. One winked back but the other, who appeared to be several years older, acted as though he didn’t see her and kept swimming after a little boat that had left the harbour at the same time as Thora, Bella and their guide.
‘Haven’t they banned puffin-hunting now?’ Thora asked the weather-beaten man
