Hypothermia by Hypothermia

Author:Hypothermia [Hypothermia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2009-09-03T05:00:00+00:00

20

Eva Lind came round that evening. She had seen her mother and heard about the encounter with Erlendur. He said it had been a mistake to try to bring them together. Eva shook her head.

‘You’re not going to meet again?’ she asked.

‘You’ve done everything possible,’ Erlendur said. ‘We simply don’t get on. There’s too much awkwardness between your mother and me that we just can’t overcome.’

‘Awkwardness?’

‘It was a very acrimonious meeting.’

‘She said she stormed out.’

‘Yes.’

‘But you still met up.’

Erlendur was sitting in his chair with a book in his hand. Eva Lind had taken a seat on the sofa facing him. They had often sat there opposite one another. Sometimes they quarrelled bitterly and Eva Lind rushed out, hurling abuse at her father. At other times they managed to talk and show each other affection. Eva Lind would sometimes fall asleep on the sofa while he read her the story of an ordeal in the wilderness or else some Icelandic folklore. She used to visit him in a variety of states, either so high that Erlendur couldn’t make any sense of what she was saying or so low that he was afraid she would do something stupid.

He hesitated to ask if Halldóra had relayed their conversation to her in detail but Eva spared him the trouble.

‘Mum told me you never loved her,’ she began warily.

Erlendur turned the pages of his book.

‘But she was crazy about you.’

Erlendur didn’t say anything.

‘Maybe it goes some way to explaining your weird relationship,’ Eva Lind said.

Still Erlendur did not speak, he merely gazed down at the book he was holding.

‘She said there was no point talking to you,’ Eva Lind continued.

‘I don’t know what we can do for you, Eva. We can’t agree on anything. I’ve already told you that.’

‘Mum said the same.’

‘I know what you’re trying to do but . . . We’re difficult parents, Eva.’

‘She says that you two should never have met.’

‘It would probably have been better,’ Erlendur said.

‘So it’s completely hopeless?’

‘I think so.’

‘It was worth trying.’

‘Of course.’

Eva stared at her father.

‘Is that all you’re going to say?’ she demanded.

‘Can’t we just try and forget it?’ he said, looking up from the book. ‘I tried. So did she. It didn’t work. Not this time.’

‘But maybe another time, you mean?’

‘I don’t know, Eva.’

Eva Lind sighed heavily. She took out a cigarette and lit it.

‘Bloody ridiculous. I thought maybe . . . I thought it was possible to make things a bit better between you. It’s probably pointless. You’re both completely hopeless cases.’

‘Yes, I suppose we are.’

Neither of them spoke.

‘I’ve always tried to see us four as a family,’ Eva Lind said. ‘I still do. Pretend we’re a family, which of course we’re not and never have been. I thought we could establish some kind of harmonious atmosphere around us. Felt it might help all of us, me and Sindri and you and Mum. Christ!’

‘We tried, Eva. We won’t get anywhere. Not now. I think we would have made our peace by now if the will was there.

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