‘And a half.’
Ingileif smiled at Magnus. ‘What are you doing with that football? Are you taking it for a walk? Aren’t you supposed to kick it?’
Magnus dropped the ball to his feet and dribbled it lackadaisically on the sand in front of him, small waves swishing against the shoreline a few metres away.
Ási watched closely, still clutching his mother’s hand. When the ball drifted near Ási’s toes, Ási gave it a poke and sent it skimming across the beach. Magnus scampered after it and passed the ball back to Ási, who let go of his mother’s hand and ran after it.
An hour later, exhausted by all the running, kicking, falling down and laughing, Magnus hauled Ási up on to his shoulders and carried him back to Ingileif’s car. On the other side of Álftanes the large white farmhouse, Bessastadir, that served as the President’s residence stood alone with its church and its flagpole from which Iceland’s flag proudly fluttered. Magnus had come to appreciate being in a country where the President lived on a farm.
‘That was fun,’ he said to her. ‘Thank you for bringing him.’
‘He enjoyed it. And it was good to see you playing, Magnús.’
Magnus lowered the boy off his shoulders and Ingileif strapped him into his car seat. Ási’s eyelids were drooping.
‘Can we do it again?’
Ingileif nodded. ‘Sure. He’d like that. I’ll text you.’
Four
Dísa didn’t get a chance to speak to her mother until the following evening, when Mum got back from her shift at the hospital. And she had to endure a tense supper where everyone seemed unhappy with everyone else. Even Anna Rós, who could usually be relied upon for some bubbly chatter.
Grandpa tossed some comments about politics on to the empty table. There had recently been an election and although Grandpa’s party, the Independence Party, had the most seats, it looked as if the leader of the Left/Greens would become Prime Minister. A couple of days before, the conversation would have turned into a good-humoured skirmish of the generations, with Dísa taking on her grandfather, but that evening she didn’t have the heart for it. She was bursting to tell them all about the bitcoin, but she knew she had to start with Mum.
‘Can I show you something upstairs on the computer?’ she said to her mother after they had put the dinner things in the dishwasher.
Helga sighed. ‘What is it?’
‘You’ll see.’
She sat her mother down on the bed next to her, opened her laptop and showed her the graph of the bitcoin price.
‘What on earth is this?’
‘It’s bitcoin. It’s a cryptocurrency. Have you heard of it?’
‘I think so. It sounds dodgy to me.’
‘Dad gave me some. In January.’
‘What! When?’ Anger flared in Mum’s eyes.
Dísa had expected this. ‘I saw him in Akureyri. He made a trip up just to see me. To give me the bitcoin.’
‘And you didn’t tell me?’
‘No.’
‘Dísa! Why on earth not?’
Dísa tried to fight the impatience rising within her. ‘Because you’d have gone apeshit.’
‘Damn right I would have gone apeshit. In fact, I can feel myself going apeshit now.’
‘OK. OK,’ said Dísa, realizing she had gone about this wrong. ‘Just hear me out first. And then you can get as angry as you want.’
Dísa watched her mother struggle to control her temper. She didn’t usually lose it, but Dísa could feel the pressure of the money worries, see it in the tightness around her mother’s eyes and lips.
‘All right,’ Helga said. ‘So how many bitcoin did he give you?’
‘Five.’
‘Five! What’s that worth? Five dollars? Fifty? That’s not going to make much difference.’ Then a thought struck her. ‘Don’t tell me, they’re worth nothing. Your father really is useless.’
‘They were worth five thousand when he gave them to me.’
‘Really?’ Helga raised her eyebrows. ‘And now?’
‘And now, thanks to a bit of trading I did in another cryptocurrency, the five bitcoin have become thirty-two.’
‘That sounds good.’ Mum was nodding her head.
‘Take another look at this graph.’ Dísa pushed her laptop in front of her mother.
Mum took another look. ‘Is that nine thousand dollars?’
‘It is.’
Helga was an anaesthetist; she could do arithmetic perfectly well. Her mouth dropped open.
‘But that’s about three hundred thousand dollars?’
Dísa grinned. ‘Three hundred and thirteen.’
Anger was replaced by a flash of hope in her mother’s eyes. Almost greed.
‘But that’s ridiculous, Dísa. That can’t be right. And it’s all yours?’
‘It is,’ said Dísa. ‘Thanks to Dad.’ The point had to be made.
‘He was just lucky,’ said Helga. ‘Where did he hear about this bitcoin?’
‘He’s got a friend called Sharp from his banking days who lives in London. Sharp told him about it and fixed it up for him.’
‘I remember Sharp,’ said Mum. ‘He was always smarter than Ómar. Managed to keep himself out of jail, for a start. Why didn’t you tell me about this?’
‘I wanted to, but Dad made me promise not to.’
‘He made you promise?’ The anger was back. ‘You know you don’t have to keep your promises to your father! He never kept any of his promises.’
‘Mum! I’ve got three hundred thousand dollars! Thirty million krónur. Enough to keep the farm. If I can only get it out of bitcoin and into real money. I’m not sure how you do that.’
‘Dísa, that’s your money. You don’t have to give it to us.’
Dísa smiled. ‘“Us”. You said “us”. Who do you mean by “us”?’
Helga looked confused. ‘Well... Me. Grandpa.’
‘You mean our family. Me, you, Anna Rós, Grandpa, Grandma?’
‘Yes, I suppose I do.’
‘Well, as far as I am concerned, it is ours. Dad gave it to me because he felt guilty about how he had let us all down, and he thought I could look after a good investment. But this is a way for him to help us when we really need it.’
‘But it’s your money.’
‘It’s our money.’
‘Does Ómar know you are planning to give it to us?’
Dísa shook her head. ‘He doesn’t know about the problems with the farm. Or at least I haven’t told him.’
Helga was about to lay into her ex-husband again when she stopped herself. Dísa could see the confusion in her mother’s eyes. She knew her well enough to understand what she was feeling: anger with her ex-husband, excitement at the unbelievable amount of money that Dísa had somehow accumulated, relief that her money worries might be over, and doubt. Doubt that it was all too good to be true — too unreal.
Mum’s eyes welled up with tears, and she gave Dísa a confused smile of desperation and happiness.
‘I can’t believe this! You are such a clever girl.’
She opened her arms and pulled Dísa to her, as they both sobbed with relief and joy.
Five
Blábrekka cheered up. Grandpa and Grandma were told that Dísa had conjured up a fortune from the internet, and Grandpa had insisted on a long explanation of what exactly bitcoin was. Anna Rós was just very happy that Clyde wasn’t going anywhere. Mum, too, suddenly became fascinated by how bitcoin worked, and how Dísa had managed to make so much money from the Ethereum coin.
Dísa was happy to see those lines around her mouth and eyes soften, and the warm smile that she loved so much return.