Katrín wasn’t sure what she should say next. She hugged herself tighter to ward off the cold.
‘Of course it’s too late to say it now, but I’ve never told you just how terribly sorry I am. I would have liked to console you, but I never dared offer, I just hoped that you knew you could always turn to me. It was so, so terrible for you that I felt as if anything I said or did would just be trivial in comparison with what you were going through. I was such a late addition to your group of friends that I still feel a bit like a gatecrasher. Not that you’ve made me feel like that, it’s just a kind of innate insecurity I have.’ Katrín breathed deeply. The air that filled her lungs was fresh and satisfying, although it was tinged with a slight smell of smoke. Maybe it was just contentment at having finally said what was on her mind that was making her feel so relaxed. ‘Well, I hope that one day you’ll find another man you can love as much as you loved Einar.’
Líf had been amusing herself by puckering her lips and blowing out big clouds of smoke. She seemed to be flustered when Katrín finished talking, and it was as if the smoke was going back into her lungs. She coughed slightly, but then laughed a desolate laugh. ‘Hopefully I’ll find someone I can love more than I loved him.’
‘What?’ Katrín didn’t know whether Líf was joking. Líf smiled at her, her expression sincere. ‘Things weren’t going very well for me and Einar; you and Garðar must have noticed it. We would probably have divorced if he’d lived. The last four years of our marriage were a complete disaster, and I’d had enough.’
Katrín did her best to hide her astonishment. ‘We knew you’d gone through some rough patches, but I just thought you’d got over them by the time Einar died. You were absolutely devastated, and I know that was no act.’
‘I was mourning for what had been. The Einar that I first met and the Einar that I married. Not the man I lived with in the last few years. We couldn’t stand being in each other’s presence any more. That’s why I had no idea he’d been undergoing medical tests for his heart; I’d noticed a bottle of pills in the medicine cabinet but we spoke so little to each other that I never asked about them. When we went to sleep on the night he died, we didn’t even say goodnight to each other. Of course we couldn’t have known that we would never see each other again, at least not in this life. I would have liked to have said goodnight, at least. But that’s how it was. We both got what we wanted, though in different ways. We parted company.’
Katrín was still too shocked to be able to respond to this. No doubt she would have learned about this if she’d opened herself up to Líf earlier. ‘Shit,’ was all she could think of to say.
‘Yes. Exactly. Shit.’ Líf knocked ash off her cigarette and a large grey fleck drifted slowly down among the snowflakes. ‘It was almost worse than losing someone you loved. Of course I mourned him, but I also felt a little bit like the world’s biggest hypocrite, having previously wished he’d go to hell.’ She took her last drag on the cigarette and the tip burned into the filter. ‘Remember that girl at the funeral who cried and cried – really pretty, dark-haired, wearing a grey outfit?’
‘No, I can’t say I do.’ Katrín hadn’t paid much attention to anyone but Garðar, who’d had a very difficult time saying farewell to his best friend.
‘Doesn’t matter.’ Líf tossed the butt out into the night. ‘She was his assistant. He had an affair with her for years, I think.’ She turned to Katrín. ‘Actually, I don’t think, I know.’
Katrín’s eyes were so wide that her eyelids ached. ‘Did Garðar know about this?’
Líf shrugged. ‘I suppose not. I think Einar was more interested in keeping it from him than from me. They were still friends. Not like us.’ Líf moved away from the door and Katrín followed her example.
‘Didn’t you try to patch things up at all? Our marriage hasn’t been a bed of roses but it’s always been fixable.’ Katrín decided to let it all out, just like Líf. ‘Actually, the onus always ends up being on me. I’m the one who compromises when it becomes clear that he’s not going to try.’
Líf nodded. ‘Yes, I know. Einar was the same. Of course I tried everything I could at first. I made appointments for marriage counselling, but he never turned up. The sessions just changed into my own personal therapy, which actually helped me a lot. I became angry instead of being sad and it’s a much, much better feeling.’ She smiled conspiratorially, stretched towards Katrín’s ear and whispered: ‘I even cheated on him in revenge. To even the score. One all.’ She leaned away from Katrín again and her expression returned to normal. ‘But then I broke it off, since it was pointless and my motives were all fucked-up. Einar never realized; he was too busy with his own infidelity to notice what I was doing behind his back. In fact, I’m really happy things happened the way they did, but sometimes I wish I’d told him before he died. I almost did once, just to get back at him.’
‘Who was it, anyone I know?’ Katrín was fairly familiar with the close-knit group of Einar, Líf and Garðar’s friends, to which she’d been graciously admitted after she and Garðar had started seeing each other. Although Líf and Einar had made her feel quite welcome, the others were a different story, deigning to talk to her only out of loyalty to Garðar. Katrín felt she could always read in their eyes, especially the women, that he was far too good for the likes of her – a non-entity, a teacher who wasn’t particularly stylish or beautiful. She had no trouble imagining that some of the people in that happy little group would have had few qualms about stealing each other’s boyfriends or girlfriends.
‘You don’t know him. He’s older than we are and we weren’t at all well-suited. It was a mistake on my part.’ Líf smiled sadly at Katrín. ‘I think I’m better off with someone closer to my own age.’
‘Okay.’ Katrín had no idea what else to say. She felt slightly ashamed of her own curiosity, though it didn’t seem to bother Líf at all. In any case, she felt relieved when Líf said nothing further. Her news had caught Katrín completely off guard. They walked silently back inside to Garðar, and Katrín prayed he wouldn’t start quarrelling with Líf again. She needed peace and quiet to take in what Líf had said. Her worries proved unfounded.
‘Guess what?’ Garðar had got further into the book, which he’d moved closer to the candle’s flickering flame. ‘I’ve found a short section about our house.’ He placed his finger on the middle of the page. ‘Here’s a little bit about the woman and the boy whose names are on the crosses.’ He didn’t seem to notice their silence in his own excitement. ‘They drowned just out there.’ He turned and pointed at the living room window, through which nothing could be seen. It didn’t make any difference; they knew perfectly well in what direction the sea lay, and it was hard to drown on dry land.
‘Did their boat sink?’ Katrín tried to appear interested, though Líf and Einar’s toxic relationship was occupying her mind entirely.
‘No, no. The ice broke beneath them.’ Garðar shuddered with a sudden chill as he said this. ‘It was winter and the fjord was iced over. It says here that the boy had gone out onto the ice, which wasn’t strong enough to hold him though he was just a short distance from land. His brother saw and went to get their mother, who tried desperately to save her child, but the ice broke beneath her as well. The two of them were already dead by the time rescuers managed to scramble out onto the ice on some boards. They were buried in the cemetery. It was the last funeral in Hesteyri while people still lived here.’