The woman hesitated.
‘I know it will be painful for you, and for me too. But you are the only person who can help me. I don’t talk to my mother’s family any more, or rather they won’t talk to me.’
Unnur nodded. ‘That doesn’t surprise me.’ She took a deep breath. ‘All right. But my husband is due back soon. He works at the hospital. When he returns, we change the subject, OK?’
‘OK,’ said Magnus.
Unnur led him into the living room, and disappeared to get some coffee. Despite her initial hostility, she couldn’t skip on this basic prerequisite of Icelandic hospitality. Magnus scanned the room. It was comfortable and, like every Icelandic living room, it had the full complement of family photographs. One wall was lined with books in Icelandic, Danish and English. Through a big picture window there was a magnificent view over the grey waters of Breidafjördur, dotted with flat islands, and the silhouettes of the mountains of the West Fjords on the far side.
Unnur moved a pile of exercise books off the sofa to make room for Magnus. ‘Sorry. Marking.’
He sat down.
‘I think I could just about recognize you,’ Unnur said. ‘Your hair’s a bit darker, it used to be really red. You must have been seven or eight then.’
‘I don’t really remember you,’ said Magnus. ‘I wish I recalled more of that time in Reykjavík.’
‘Before everything went wrong?’ Unnur said.
Magnus nodded.
‘So, what can I tell you?’ she asked as she poured Magnus some coffee. Her face was hard and firm, almost defiant.
‘Can you tell me something about my mother?’ Magnus said. ‘What she was really like? I have two different memories of her. I remember warmth and laughter and happiness in our house in Reykjavík. Then distance – we didn’t see her very much, my brother and I stayed up here with my grandfather and she was in Reykjavík a lot of the time. At the time I thought she was always tired; now I am pretty sure she was drunk.’
Unnur smiled. ‘She was good fun. Really good fun. We were at school together, here in Stykkishólmur.’
‘I went to school here as well,’ Magnus said.
‘It was a good school,’ Unnur said. ‘It still is. I teach there now – English and Danish. Anyway we became best friends when we were about thirteen, I suppose. Margrét was smart. She loved to read, as did I. And the boys liked her. We both spent a summer together in Denmark at a language school, which was fun. And we decided we wanted to go to Reykjavík and become teachers.’
Unnur was warming up. ‘We had a blast. We shared a flat together in 101; we had a great time. We both qualified and started teaching in schools in Reykjavík, different schools. Margrét met your father, they fell in love, got married, and I moved out to make room for him. We got along very well, the three of us. We were all good friends.’
Unnur paused. ‘Are you sure to want to hear this?’ she asked Magnus.
‘Yes. And please tell me the truth, however unpleasant it is. Now I am here I want to know.’
‘All right. That was when your mother started to drink. I mean we all drank, although in those days it was mostly spirits, it still wasn’t legal to sell beer in Iceland and wine was almost unheard of. But Margrét began to drink more than us. At the time, I didn’t know why. She wasn’t unhappy with her life, and up till then she didn’t seem to be unhappy with Ragnar.’
‘At the time?’
‘Yes. I’ve thought about it a lot since then, and perhaps I do know the reason.’ Unnur took a deep breath. ‘Her father was a brute. I was scared of him at school, I’ve always been scared of him. And he had a weird relationship with Margrét. He was fond of her, doted on her, yet he was very strict. He had a strong psychological hold over her: that was why she wanted to move away to Reykjavík, I am sure. He messed with her head.’
That didn’t surprise Magnus.
Unnur took a sip of coffee. ‘Anyway, then you and Óli showed up. Your mother was fine most of the time, but then she would get depressed about something, drink a lot and give Ragnar a hard time. A very hard time.’
She bit her lip. ‘And now we come to the difficult bit. Ragnar used to confide in me about her. One time, they had been having a massive fight about him going to America. He had done a fellowship at MIT for a couple of years, before he met your mother, and they wanted him back to teach. It was some strange branch of mathematics, topology or something?’
‘Riemann surfaces.’
‘She changed her mind and didn’t want to go. They had a major row about it. He and I had a drink together, and then, well…’ She hesitated. ‘Well. I had always fancied him ever since I had first seen him. I always wished he had chosen me. I was wrong, very wrong. So was he. We have no excuses.’ She looked straight at Magnus. ‘I’m not going to make excuses to you, of all people.’
‘Thanks for telling me about it,’ said Magnus. His mind was a turmoil of confused judgements, against his father, against his mother, against the woman sitting opposite him. But he wanted to find out the truth, so he suppressed them, at least for now.
‘Then Margrét began to suspect something. Your father thought the best thing to do was to be honest, admit everything. I thought that was a really bad idea, but he didn’t listen to me.’ Unnur shook her head. ‘So he told her. It tipped her over the edge as far as drinking was concerned. She kicked Ragnar out. Ragnar dumped me. He went to America by himself. The whole thing was horrible.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘Margrét wouldn’t speak to me, unsurprisingly. I never saw her after that. Of course I heard about her, the drinking, her parents looking after you and Óli, and then her death.’
Magnus swallowed. He knew his mother had drunk half a bottle of vodka and driven into a rock. ‘Was that suicide, do you think?’ It was a question he had asked himself countless times.
‘I think so,’ said Unnur. ‘But I really don’t know. That’s no more than an opinion. Your grandparents swore that she didn’t crash on purpose. The rumours around Stykkishólmur were that she did. But no one really knows. When someone is that drunk they don’t know what they are doing anyway, do they?’
‘No,’ said Magnus. ‘They don’t.’
They sat in silence for a moment. ‘What about my father?’ he asked. ‘What was he like?’
‘He was a fine man,’ said Unnur. ‘Kind. Considerate. Very smart. Very good-looking.’
That was too much for Magnus. ‘He can’t have been that fine a man,’ he said. ‘Screwing his wife’s best friend.’
Unnur tensed. ‘No,’ she said coldly. ‘He can’t have been.’ She looked directly at Magnus. ‘Perhaps you had better go now. You are right, this is painful for both of us.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Magnus, fighting to control himself. ‘The thing is, I thought he was a wonderful man too, and then I find out he did this to Mom. But I do appreciate you telling me.’
Unnur hesitated. ‘It must be tough for you,’ she said. ‘And I suppose that wasn’t such a wonderful thing that we did, was it?’
‘What happened to you?’
‘I met a doctor in Reykjavík. We got married, had children. I moved back here to teach, and he works in the hospital. I’m OK. No, better than OK, happy.’
‘Unlike my parents.’
‘Unlike your parents,’ Unnur said. ‘It’s not really fair, is it? I mean, it was me who caused all this. I remember them both very fondly, before everything got messed up, before I messed everything up.’
Magnus remained silent. Despite his instincts, who was he to apportion blame? But Unnur’s sense of guilt seemed justified. He wasn’t going to absolve her either.
‘I heard about Ragnar, of course,’ Unnur said. ‘Did they ever find out who did it?’
‘No,’ said Magnus. ‘They think that a random stranger drove into town, stabbed my father, and then left leaving no trace.’