Stefania turned back to the window and watched the Christmas snow gliding to earth. Erlendur said nothing, wondering what she thought about when she disappeared within herself like now, but he could not imagine it. He thought he gained some kind of answer when she broke the silence.
“I never mattered,” she said. “Everything I did was a secondary consideration. I’m not saying that from self-pity, I think I stopped that ages ago. More to try to understand and explain why I never had any contact with him after that awful day. Sometimes I think I gloated over the way everything turned out. Can you imagine that?”
Erlendur shook his head.
“When he left, I was the one who mattered. Not him. Never again him. And in some strange way I was pleased, pleased that he never became the great child star he was supposed to become. I expect I envied him the whole time, much more than I realised, for all the attention he got and the voice he had. It was divine. It was as if he’d been blessed with all those talents but I had none; I thumped away at the piano like a horse. That was what Dad called it when he tried to teach me. Said I was totally devoid of talent. Yet I worshipped him because I thought he was always right. Usually he was kind to me and when he became unable to look after himself my talent became looking after him. I was indispensable to him then. And the years went by without anything changing. Gulli left home, Dad was in a wheelchair and I took care of him. Never thought about myself at all, what it was that I wanted. The years can pass like that without you doing anything except living in the rut you create for yourself. Year after year after year.”
She paused and watched the snow.
“When you begin to perceive that that is all you have, you start to hate it and try to find the culprit, and I felt my brother was to blame for everything. Over time I began to despise him and the perversion that ruined our lives”
Erlendur was about to add something, but she went on.
“I don’t know if I can describe this better. How you lock yourself up inside your own monotonous life because of something that, decades later, turns out to be so unimportant. Actually turns out to be unimportant and harmless.”
“We understand that he thought he had been robbed of his childhood,” Erlendur said. “That he wasn’t allowed to be what he wanted to be, but was forced to be something completely different, a singer, a child star, and he paid the price when he was bullied at school. Then it all came to nothing and those “unnatural urges”, as you call them, compound the picture. I don’t think he can have been very happy. Maybe he didn’t want all that attention you clearly longed for.”
“Robbed of his childhood,” Stefania said. “Could well be.”
“Did your brother ever try to discuss his homosexuality with your father or you?” Erlendur asked.
“No, but we might have seen it coming. I don’t know if he even realised what was happening to him. I have no idea about it. I don’t think he knew why he wore Mum’s dresses. I don’t know how or when those people discover they’re different.”
“But he was fond of the nickname in some perverse way,” Erlendur said. “He’s got this poster and we know that…” Erlendur stopped mid-sentence. He didn’t know whether to tell her that Gudlaugur had asked his lover to call him Little Princess.
“I don’t know anything about that,” Stefania said. “He could have been tormenting himself with the memory of what happened. Maybe there was something inside him that we’ll never understand.”
“How did you get to know Henry Wapshott?”
“He came to our house one day and wanted to talk about Gudlaugur’s records. He wanted to know whether we had any copies. It was last Christmas. He had obtained information about Gudlaugur and his family through some collector and told me that his records were incredibly valuable abroad. He had talked to my brother, who refused to sell him any, but that changed somehow and he was prepared to let Wapshott have what he wanted.”
“And you wanted your share of the profits.”
“We didn’t think that was unreasonable. It didn’t belong to him any more or less than to my father. At least, that was how we saw it. Our father paid for the recordings out of his own pocket.”
“Was a substantial sum involved? That Wapshott offered for the records?”
Stefania nodded. “Millions.”
“That corresponds with what we know.”
“He has plenty of money, that Wapshott man. I believe he wanted to avoid the records going into the collectors” market. If I understood him correctly, he wanted to acquire all the existing copies of the records and prevent them from flooding the market. He was very straightforward about it and was prepared to pay an incredible sum. I think he finally talked Gudlaugur round just before this Christmas. Something must have changed for him to attack him like that.”
“Attack him like that? What do you mean?”
“Well, haven’t you got him in custody?”
“Yes,” Erlendur said, “but we have no proof that he attacked your brother. What do you mean by “something must have changed”?”
“Wapshott visited us in Hafnarfjordur and said he had persuaded Gudlaugur to sell him all the copies, and I expect he was making sure that there were no others around. We told him there weren’t, Gudlaugur had taken them all when he left home.”
“That’s why you went to the hotel to meet him,” Erlendur said. “To get your cut of the sale.”
“He was wearing his doorman’s uniform,” Stefania said. “He was in the lobby carrying suitcases out to a car for some tourists. I watched him for a while and then he saw me. I said I had to talk to him about the records. He asked about Dad…”
“Did your father send you to see Gudlaugur?”
“No, he would never have done that. After the accident he never wanted to hear his name mentioned.”
“But he was the first thing Gudlaugur asked about when he saw you at the hotel.”
“Yes. We went down to his room and I asked where the records were.”
“They’re in a safe place,” Gudlaugur said, smiling at his sister. “Henry told me he’d talked to you.”
“He told us you were planning to sell him the records. Dad said half of them are his and we want half of the proceeds.”
“I’ve changed my mind,” Gudlaugur said. “I’m not going to sell them.”
“What did Wapshott say to that?”
“He wasn’t pleased.”
“He’s offering a very good price for them.”
“I can get more for them if I sell them myself, one at a time. Collectors are very interested in them. I think Wapshott’s going to do the same even if he told me he wants to buy them to keep them out of circulation. I expect he’s lying. He’s planning to sell them and make money out of me. Everyone was going to make money out of me in the old days, especially Dad, and that hasn’t changed. Not in the least.”
They stared at each other.
“Come home and talk to Dad,” she said. “He doesn’t have much time left.”
“Did Wapshott talk to him?”
“No, he wasn’t there when Wapshott came. I told Dad about him.”
“And what did he say?”
“Nothing. Only that he wanted his share.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Why have you never left him? Why haven’t you got married and had a family of your own? It’s not your life that you’re living, it’s his life. Where’s your life?”
“I suppose it’s in the wheelchair you put him in,” Stefania snorted, “and don’t you dare ask about my life.”