It was ice-cold in the house. After Garðar had satisfied himself that no one was hiding along the side of it they’d been so frantic to shut themselves in that all of his suggestions that they make one trip together to fetch firewood fell onto stony ground. With the snow falling it was pointless to talk about dashing there and back, even now that they’d calmed down a bit, because none of them was particularly good with directions and there was a risk of them getting lost and dying of exposure. Now they sat there in their jackets and sweaters with sleeping bags round their shoulders, patting themselves to keep warm. Katrín actually found this difficult, since her body was so sore it could barely stand the abuse. ‘I don’t want you to take any more of those cigarettes. How would you like it if someone broke into your place and stole your fags?’
‘I wouldn’t give a damn if I were coming home after being away as long as these people. Cigarettes get ruined when they’re left like this with the packet open. They’re barely smokeable now, let alone in the spring. I’m actually doing them a favour.’ Líf reached for the pack lying on the table between them, took a cigarette out and acted as if she were smoking it, without lighting up. ‘If there weren’t so few in the pack, I’d encourage you to take up smoking with me.’
Katrín didn’t feel like replying to this and Garðar seemed absorbed in a stack of books standing on a shelf on a nice-looking sideboard. They were mainly about the region: the history, geography, people and traditions of the Westfjords; Garðar had wondered aloud whether they should put together a similar collection for their guests in the future. Katrín had clamped her mouth shut but had longed to shout that it would never happen; they would never return here to complete these renovations – if they made it home at all. She watched him as he peered at the small print, trying to keep out of the little light they had to see by. He turned the page. ‘Anything useful there?’ she asked.
Garðar looked up from the book. ‘Yes and no. I was hoping to find something about the houses here, preferably something about our little place, but I haven’t come across anything. This is mainly about hiking trails and the like.’
‘Is there anything about a trail leading to town?’ Líf had started poking at the candle flame again, now more careful about the speed of her finger. ‘We could maybe walk from here.’
‘Are you nuts?’ Katrín didn’t need to see out of the window to recall the storm they’d been met with when they let themselves be persuaded to accompany Líf outside so she could smoke her stolen cigarette. ‘It’d probably take days. We’re much better off waiting here for the boat. After tomorrow we’ll only have two nights left, and then the skipper will come and fetch us.’ She didn’t mention that this was subject to the whims of the sea.
Líf shrugged. ‘I’m not talking about hiking non-stop all the way to Ísafjörður – if we had a map that pointed out some houses along the way we could stay in them. Hike from one to another, something like that. There are a lot of houses here in Hornstrandir. We would only need to know where they are, so we wouldn’t miss them.’ She picked up Putti’s ball from the floor and threw it to him. He looked at it and moved away, giving it a very wide berth. Líf had brought the ball with her from the other house, but the dog now seemed to avoid it like the plague, despite having played with it a lot in the first few days. Neither Katrín nor Garðar had told her how the ball had rolled out of its own accord from under the stove the night before, and they’d awkwardly watched her attempts to get the animal to take it. ‘I don’t understand why he doesn’t want to play with the ball any more. Until now he never let it out of his sight.’ Líf looked surprised and hurt. She obviously felt that the dog had completely turned its back on her.
‘Stop worrying about the dog.’ Garðar sounded angry, but Katrín knew that he probably found it just as uncomfortable as she did to watch the dog’s reaction to the ball. They had suggested to Líf that the toy must be giving off a weird smell that had got into the plastic somehow. ‘And Katrín’s right. There’s no way we’re walking from here. I bet it was precisely that idea that caused Haukur, the former owner, to disappear. He wandered off and died of exposure. There’s no chance of us finding our way – in the dead of winter, to the few human habitations still standing here – without a GPS tracker, which we don’t have; and if we were to get lost, no one would think of looking for us until it was too late. We don’t have working phones, remember?’
‘Of course I remember; if we had a phone we would call the captain and have him come and get us.’ Líf was starting to grow more despondent; her nicotine urge might have been irritating her, but she didn’t dare go out alone to satisfy it. ‘I’m just trying to come up with a solution. Unlike some people.’
Garðar’s expression was far from friendly as he glared into Líf’s defiant eyes. Katrín sighed to herself. Now they would start quarrelling again, just as they had when they were making their way over here, but now it felt angrier, more serious. She might have found it oddly comforting on the way, but there was nothing appealing about it now. ‘Come on, Líf.’ She pushed the chair back from the heavy wooden dining table and stood up. ‘I’ll go outside with you for your fag. We’ll just buy a pack in Ísafjörður and return it to the people, along with the candles that we have to replace anyway.’ Líf smiled gratefully at her. At first she seemed a bit surprised, as if she’d hardly been expecting a friendly gesture on her part. Katrín, however, had no interest in taking sides in these silly arguments and felt the only thing for it was to try to nip them in the bud from the outset. If Líf got to smoke and Garðar got to flip through the book in peace, the atmosphere might lighten and Líf would forget her idea about walking to town.
‘Thanks, you’re a star.’ Líf was still smiling as she lit up. They stood close together in the frame of the open back door. It opened onto a sun porch, like their own house, although this one was in far better shape. ‘I would never have had the guts to stand out here alone.’ The snow continued to fall, covering everything with a thick white blanket.
‘No problem.’ Katrín moved over a bit so that the smoke wouldn’t drift straight into her face. ‘But be prepared to move quick smart if we hear any noises out here. I’ll slam the door so fast you’ll risk being squashed.’
‘Don’t worry.’ Líf blew out smoke and looked in surprise at the cigarette. ‘Funny.’ She rolled it a bit in front of her face and stared as if in a trance at the glowing tip. ‘I haven’t smoked since Einar died.’
Katrín had often wondered how Líf had managed to stop smoking at the time. It couldn’t have been easy grieving for her dead spouse at the same time as battling her addiction. ‘Wasn’t it difficult to stop then?’
Líf took another drag and shook her head slowly. ‘No, it was no problem. I was in so much shock afterwards that I couldn’t eat for several days, let alone smoke. When I pulled myself together a bit it was as if the urge had been taken away from me. Very strange, but that’s how it was.’
Although Katrín generally got completely flustered whenever Einar’s death came up in conversation, there was something about the stillness and silence of the snowfall that loosened her tongue. Suddenly she wasn’t afraid she might say something that would come across as insincere or tacky. ‘Of course it must have been horrible. I’ve often tried to imagine how things have been for you, but I just can’t.’
‘It was what it was.’ The snow seemed to have the opposite effect on Líf. Generally she was open, but now she seemed distracted. ‘It was what it was.’