The Darkness(3)

The words echoed in the mother’s head. She’d heard it all before: that it was in the child’s best interests not to form too close a bond with her mother; it would only make the wait between visits more difficult. She must understand that this arrangement was for her daughter’s sake.

It made no sense at all to her, but she pretended to understand, terrified of being banned from visiting.

Outside in the rain again, she made up her mind that once they were reunited she would never tell her daughter about this time, about the glass and the enforced separation. She only hoped the little girl wouldn’t remember.





III


It was getting on for six when Hulda finished questioning the woman, so she headed straight home. She needed time to think before taking the next step.

Summer was coming and the days were growing longer, but there was no sign of the sun, just rain and more rain.

In her memories, the summers had been warmer and brighter, bathed in sunshine. So many memories: too many, really. It was incredible to think she was about to turn sixty-five. She didn’t feel as if her sixties were half over, as if seventy was looming on the horizon.

Accepting your age was one thing; accepting retirement quite another. But there was no getting away from it: all too soon, she would be drawing her pension. Not that she knew how someone her age was supposed to feel. Her mother had been an old woman at sixty, if not before, but now that it was Hulda’s turn, she couldn’t feel any real difference between being forty-four and sixty-four. Maybe she had a little less stamina these days, but not that you’d notice. Her eyesight was still pretty good, though her hearing wasn’t quite what it used to be.

She kept herself fit, too: her love of the outdoors saw to that. Why, she even had a certificate to prove she wasn’t an old woman. ‘In excellent shape,’ the young doctor had said – far too young to be a doctor, of course – at her last medical. Actually, what he’d said was: ‘In excellent shape for your age.’

She’d kept her figure, and her short hair was still naturally dark, with only a few grey hairs here and there. It was only when she looked in the mirror that she noticed the ravages of time. Sometimes she couldn’t believe her eyes, feeling as if the person reflected there was a stranger, someone she’d rather not recognize, though her face was familiar. The wrinkles here and there, the bags under her eyes, the sagging skin. Who was this woman, and what was she doing in Hulda’s mirror?

She was sitting in the good armchair, her mother’s chair, staring out of the living-room window. It wasn’t much of a view; pretty much what you’d expect from the fourth floor of a city tower block.

It hadn’t always been this way. Occasionally, she allowed herself a fleeting moment of nostalgia for the old days, for family life in their house by the sea on álftanes. Allowed herself to remember. The birdsong had been so much louder and more persistent there; you only had to step out into the garden to be close to nature. Of course, the proximity to the sea had made it windy, but the fresh ocean air, cold though it was, had been a lifeline for Hulda. She used to stand on the shore below their house, close her eyes, fill her mind with the sounds of nature – the boom of the waves, the mewing of the gulls – and simply breathe.

The years had flown by so quickly. It hardly seemed any time since she had become a mother, since she had got married. But when she started counting the years, she realized it was a lifetime ago. Time was like a concertina: one minute compressed, the next stretching out interminably.

She knew she was going to miss her job, in spite of all the times she had felt aggrieved that her talents weren’t appreciated. In spite of the glass ceiling she had so often found herself banging her head against.

The truth was that she dreaded being lonely, though there was a potential bright spot on the horizon. She still didn’t know where her friendship with the man from the walking club was going, but the possibilities it opened up were both tantalizing and unsettling. She had been single, more or less, ever since becoming a widow and had done nothing to encourage the man’s advances at first. She had kept dwelling on the disadvantages of the relationship and worrying about her age, which wasn’t like her. Usually, she did her best to forget it; thought of herself as young at heart. But this time the number – sixty-four! – had got in the way. She kept asking herself if it was really a good idea to begin a new relationship at that age but soon realized this was nothing but an empty excuse for avoiding taking a risk. She was afraid, that was all.

Whatever happened, Hulda was determined to take it slowly. There was no need to rush into anything. She liked him and could easily imagine spending her twilight years with him. It wasn’t love – she’d forgotten what that felt like – but love wasn’t a requirement for her. They shared a passion for the great outdoors, which wasn’t to be taken for granted, and she enjoyed his company. But she knew there was another reason she had agreed to see him again after that first date. If she were honest, her impending retirement had been the deciding factor: she couldn’t face the prospect of growing old alone.





IV


The email troubled Hulda, though the request seemed simple enough. Her boss wanted to meet her at nine that morning to talk things over. The email had been sent late the previous evening, which was unusual in itself, and it was most unlike him to want to start the day by ‘talking things over’ with her. Hulda was used to seeing him holding informal morning meetings, but she had never been invited to one herself. These weren’t work meetings so much as bonding sessions for the boys, and she definitely wasn’t part of that gang. Despite all her years in a position of responsibility, she still had the feeling that she didn’t enjoy the full trust of her superiors – or of her juniors, for that matter. Management hadn’t been able to overlook her entirely when it came to promotion but, eventually, she had hit a brick wall. The positions she applied for kept going to her younger, male colleagues, and in the end she had accepted the inevitable. Instead of applying for further laurels, she had settled for doing her job as a detective inspector as well as she could.