Black Ice (9 page)

If I didn't understand that feeling, no one would. Utlendingar, it didn't just  mean  that  you were foreign.  It was  geographically  specific  - something  like  coming   from another  place. An outsider. And that was a word that  had a lot of smoky chemistry  for me- outsider. In Barnardo's, that  was our  name  for  everyone  else  in  the  world. If they  weren't Barnardo boys, they were outsiders.

Contrary to what most people supposed, we were the lucky ones and we pitied the outsiders. We had everything, didn't we? Our own village, a cluster of two-storey cottages  (as we called them) set around a green, each one named after a famous battle and housing a dozen kids. We counted our gardens in acres, our friends in scores, our  toys in hundreds, and  our  parents were anyone  we cared  to imagine.

Some days I'd  look in the mirror  and  my hair seemed  to be blacker and curlier than ever. Your dad can beat mine? Want to bet? Mine could be Sugar  Ray.

17

The   next  morning   at  breakfast   Hulda   got  me  with  some liquidised  walrus.  By the  look of it,  I  could  have  used  it  to repoint  the chimney  but it didn't taste too bad, so I ate it.

'Hulda,' I  said, 'I  think  you've   been  leading   me  up  the garden path, you rascal.'

'Garden path?' she  repeated, as if she didn't know what  it meant.

'Yes. I asked  you if Solrun had got married  and you said she hadn't.'

Straight-backed, hands  folded in her lap, she put her head on one side and  asked sweetly: 'And  has she?'

'Yes,  she  has,  and  you  know  it very  well- like you  know everything that  happens in this town.'

'I know  nothing of this.'

'Hulda,' I began again,  in tones of strained patience,  'I have seen  the  certificate. She  married  a man  called  Pall Olafsson from  Breidholt.'

She almost bridled  at the name.  'I do not think so.'

'I've seen  the  certificate,' I  said.  'With   these.  Eyes,  you know,  the things  you see with.'

'Ah.  You want some more coffee. I go now for more coffee.' I tried to restrain her, but all I got was, 'It is my pleasure and my duty.'

When  she  came  back  with  the  coffee, she'd  worked  out  a policy line on the marriage. She poured  out  my cup, moved it nearer so  I wouldn't have  to exhaust  myself stretching, and then adopted her familiarly regal pose in the half-lit room. Her thin,  still-supple fingers  found  one  stray  hair  and  slipped  it back into  place.

'We  do not speak  of it,'  she said.

'Why not?'

She made a fussy gesture with her hand. 'This famous beauty contest ... is it true she cannot  enter  if she is married  or has a child?'

'I'm not sure.'

'I think  that  it is so.'

So that  was it. They'd all ganged  up to keep it quiet so they wouldn't spoil  her chances. Off-hand, I wasn't  sure about  the Miss World  restrictions, but I had a feeling she might be right.

'So who's  the lucky Palli?' It's one of those names where the affectionate diminutive comes out one syllable longer than  the formal  name,  like John and Johnny.

Her  mouth  pursed  in disapproval. 'He  is nothing. He 1s nobody.'

'Well,  he's her husband, Hulda, let's  face it.'

She  turned  towards  me, her  brows  creased  as she  tried  to make me see sense. 'You know Solrun,  you know that  she has men ...'

'Endless many  men .. .'

'Endless  many,' she repeated. 'She would not want this man.

It is not a proper  marriage. It is not a serious  marriage. You must understand that.'

'I did get the impression the vows were a bit elastic.'

'You  will not put it in your  newspaper? We must  not spoil things for her.'

'Don't worry,  we won't,' I  said.  And  that   reminded  me.

Sooner or later I had to face up to another conversation with my employer.  I had  to let him know I was still alive.

'Now  then,'  he said,  going straight into  it,  'I'm glad  you've rung.  We'll  want  pix of this Sexy Eskie lass. Topless. And  is there any chance  of getting  her next to an igloo?'

'An igloo?' His conception of life outside Britain seemed to be

based on the early editions of 'Children of Other Lands'. 'They don't have igloos here.'

'Oh, bloody hell,'  he said,  in some irritation. 'Not  even for show like?'

'No. They  never did  have igloos.'

'Oh, well, let's have her in the snow then. Topless, making a snowman. That sort of thing.'

Out  of the window I could see cool bright  sunshine lighting up   the  coloured   houses.   'The only  snow   here   is  up   the mountains.'

'Thanks for  the  geography lesson.  If our  readers   wanted educating they wouldn't buy this bloody rubbish  would  they? So hire  a studio,  drag  the snow  down  the  mountain and  let Little Miss Bloody Icicle build an igloo like her granddad  used to do. Right? Ciao.'

Compared with that briefing, espionage seemed relatively straightforward - and certainly  a lot more honest.

I only had one more job. I stopped off in the town and picked up a postcard of a glacier standing still for the camera. I sat for a while, wondering how best to explain  that in Iceland  boys take their   father's  Christian  name   plus  the  word   'son'   for  the surname, and  girls do  the same  with  the word 'dottir'. In  the end,  I simply  wrote: 'Do you realise, if you lived here you’d be called  Sally  Samsdottir? Ask your  teacher  to explain.'

That was one way of getting my value out of school fees. Then I called  at the Saga and  picked up Christopher to do a bit of interpreting. Musical  too gadgets, he'd confided to me on the phone,  were proving  surprisingly difficult to sell.

18

Alongside the slums of the civilised western  world, Breidholt  is gracious living.

They don't have the dead dogs and the heaps of wrecked cars and  acres  of smashed glass  that  you find in a well-appointed British  slum,  or the beggars  and  the pickpockets  that you find in southern cities.

You don't find any of these things because in Iceland  poverty is practically illegal.  There is almost  no unemployment, and what  little  deprivation there  is gets  mopped   up  by a  social service system  that  makes Santa Claus  look tight-fisted.

So the worst  they can show you is Breidholt. It's stuck up on a boulder-strewn hill overlooking  the town, high up where the rain  and  the snow  and  the wind don't miss a thing,  big bare blocks of flats in the glass-and-plastic period of architecture. As I say, in some parts  of Naples they'd  call it Snob Hill; even so, with shabby washing flapping on the balconies and hardboard up at  the  broken  windows,  you could see why the  Icelanders weren't too proud  of it.

A   boy   in   an   outsize   tartan  jacket   stopped   chasing   a cardboard box, which was being driven  by a hard wind, to have a  look  at  us. He  tugged  the  sleeve  of  his jacket  across  his trickling  nose as Christopher repeated the name  and  address, then  he pointed  into a corner  of the car  park,  at an old  Ford Escort that had been given a lime-green spray job. By someone, if the paint on the windows and ground was any indication, in the advanced stages of Parkinson's Disease.

As we walked over I heard  the international sound  of male cursing  and  spanners clinking.  It sounded quite  friendly.  It didn't look friendly.  Behind  the Ford,  lying alongside an  old Triumph motor-bike, was one of the most frightening men I've ever seen. He was on his back,  muttering through a cigarette which bobbed on his lip. When  he saw me, both  the cigarette and  the ring spanner in his hand stopped  moving.

His head was towards me so that it had that chimpanzee look of all upside-down  faces.

When  I moved round  he looked a lot worse.

He was short in the same way a cement-mixer is short and he looked just as solid. All he was wearing  was a soiled  red  tee shirt  and  ragged  canvas  shorts. His  exposed  limbs  were  so bulked up with muscle that  they looked foreshortened. Golden hair, sawn off to a ginger  bristle on his head, covered  his pale hard  limbs  in  a  fleece and   burst  in  springy tufts  from  his exposed  belly and  over the neck of his shirt.  His  biceps  were blue with tattoos.

Pale blue eyes stared  up at  us. He didn't move. He didn't speak.  He even ignored  his cigarette as it flared  briefly in the wind.

'I'm looking for Palli Olafsson,' I said,  bending  down.  He gave no reaction.

Christopher said something- presumably the same  thing in Icelandic  - and  although  his  eyes  shifted  over  to  the  new speaker,  he still didn't reply.

Again Christopher asked,  mentioning his name,  and  then  I heard  him say the address. The  man on the floor grunted and pointed with his spanner at a double-door entrance forty yards away.

As we went he sat up and  took a swig from an open bottle of Polar  beer.  He didn't look like a  man  with  contacts but  he must've  had some good ones: Polar  beer is export  only.

'Not  the most welcoming of chaps,' Christopher whispered.

'Or places,' I said.

Inside the entrance, the wind, which whirled scraps of litter in a sad dance on the bare concrete,  couldn't shift the smell of stale  urine  and  despair. On  the metal door of the lift someone had scrawled 'No  Nukes'.

The apartment we wanted  was on the fourth floor. The door was open.  From  inside,  a gust of wet heat and  raw pop music surged  out.

That's  another old   Icelandic  trick:  when  you  get  your heating cheap- by plugging  into all that  bubbling  just  below the earth's crust- all you do is open  the door  or the window when it gets too hot.

I rapped on the door,  rapped  again,  and  then moved slowly down  the half-dark corridor. Christopher was a couple of steps behind  me. The air was damp and  smelt of dead goats.  I saw why when the corridor opened out into a large cramped untidy room. The sunset on the carpet  had been extinguished by a few hundred  spilled   dinners and   the  walls  had   been  used  for finger-printing  chimney   sweeps.  Chunks  of  cheap   plastic covered  furniture filled the place. Over  the backs and arms of chairs, and from a thin wire stand, hung wet baby clothes. That was what gave the room its own highly individual atmosphere. In  a  blue,  white-lined cot  balanced  on a wooden  stand, a baby  lay with its fat arms  above its head like Marciano at the end of a fight.

The  mother was asleep too. Not restful angelic sleep but smashed-out exhaustion, sprawled  in the sunken  seat of a sagging black armchair.

Perhaps a year  ago  her  hair  had  been  in  that  squared-off blonde shape, only now most of the blonde had gone and it was dull with dirt. The  American eagle on the front of her shirt had lost most of its glitter  and she wore baggy trousers. She was yesterday's youth  suddenly grown  old, and  on the left side of her face she had the blue-brown bruise that you always find on women  like that  in flats like that.

'Excuse me,' I said. I had to repeat it twice before she stirred.

She opened  her eyes and  lay there.

A   burst    of   Icelandic  behind    me   reminded   me   that Christopher was there. It struck  me then that if Batty  had sent him to keep an eye on me he was keeping  well out of the firing line.

'English?' the  girl  said,  yawning.   'Why  come  here?'  She rooted down the side of the chair and came up with a packet of Camels. She coughed  as she lit one.

'Why  do you want  Palli Olafsson?'

Christopher spoke again, and in bad English she said: 'If it is private  you can tell me. I am his girl.'

She rose, smoothing down  her clothes and  pushing  the limp

hair back from her bruised face. A soft wail came from the cot. She was there in one movement, changing the cigarette to her left hand so she could stroke  the child.

'This  is his home?'  I asked.

'Oh, yes. His home.' She glanced  at a bottle of vodka on top of the television set. 'You like a drink?'

'No,  thanks.  Is he around?'

Picking  her way among  the debris  of baby  clothes  and  toy ducks  and  green  and   red  wooden   bricks,  she  went   to  the window. She made a fuss of opening  it, pretending to wipe the sweat off her brow. 'Better,' she said, as the cold wind punched through  the rotten  warmth of her home.

Again Christopher started talking and she replied  to him in rapid  Icelandic.

'Sorry, Sam, she's not terribly helpful. Says he's gone out and she  doesn't know  when  he'll  be coming  back.  She  wants  to know who you are- naturally enough,  I'd  say.'

As I'd suggested,  he told her I was a London  journalist who was writing  an article  about  Iceland. That made  her laugh.

'Palli  can tell you all about  Iceland. No problem  he can.' Her sharp laugh  halted  suddenly. I heard  another noise, a cough, a man's cough, coming from the next room. Then it was followed by a deep sleepy groan.

I swopped  nervous  glances  with  my friend.  Neither of us knew what to do. She resolved it for us then by skipping over to the window and shouting to someone  below.

'Damn!' said Christopher. 'That was Palli. With  the motor bike. She just  told him to run for it.'

We could hear her laughing behind us as we raced for the lift.

When we got down he'd gone. As we went back to the Daihatsu, the little boy in the tartan jacket made his fingers into a gun and shot  me. In  his other  hand  he was holding  the Polar beer.

19

'What gets  me,'  I  said  again,  'is  why  she'd  want  to marry someone like that.'

'Oh, I don't know,'  Ivan  replied,  as  he shook  the dice. 'I think  there's quite  a  lot  to be said  for a dumb  brute.  What surprises me is that  you haven't tried  to claim  he's a refugee from the Russian weight-lifting team. Your turn, I think, Christopher.'

Early  evening,  and  the eighth-floor  bar of the Saga was still empty. Reykjavik   night-life  doesn't get  into  first  gear  until eleven. By twelve it's a tin-hat job and after that it's every man for himself: or, with a bit of luck, herself.