Burial Rites(82)

‘So Fridrik would visit Illugastadir.’

Agnes nodded. ‘It’s not far from Katadalur. Fridrik had a little romance with Sigga.’

‘I have heard of Sigga.’ Margrét got up to set some more dung on the fire.

‘People are fond of her. She’s pretty.’

‘And simple, I have heard.’

Agnes looked at Margrét carefully. ‘Yes, well, Fridrik thought otherwise. When Natan was away Fridrik would come from Katadalur on some small errand, or carrying some false message from his parents or the priest, and then he’d feign thirst or hunger. Sigga would fetch a sup of milk or a bite to eat, and they’d laugh and chatter, and by autumn it was not unusual for me to find them sitting together on Sigga’s bed, cooing over each other like birds.’

‘It’s hard to be alone in winter,’ Margrét agreed.

Agnes nodded. ‘It was worse at Illugastadir. It wasn’t like it is here, in the valley. The days crept along as weary as they come, and I had no friends or neighbours. Only Sigga, and Daníel – the manservant Natan hired from Geitaskard – and sometimes Fridrik.’

‘The dark can make a body lonely,’ Margrét said thoughtfully. ‘It’s not good for people to be kept too much to themselves.’ She offered Agnes more milk.

‘Natan never liked winter. He went his whole life without getting used to the darkness.’

‘I wonder at him buying Illugastadir then, and not some other farm where folks might keep a body company.’

‘He went away a lot,’ Agnes conceded. ‘To Geitaskard, mainly. He said it was for work, but I think it was to be with friends. Or to avoid me,’ she added. ‘It would have been better if he was home. We needed him there. But each month he seemed to stay away for longer and longer at a time, and when he did come back he wasn’t pleased to see us. He didn’t even seem happy to see Thóranna, his daughter. He left her with us.’

‘I suppose it was hard-hearted of him to begrudge you a visitor, with you three so lonesome and penned up amongst yourselves.’

Agnes gave a thin smile. ‘His problem was perhaps not the fact of a visitor, but the fact of it being Fridrik.’

‘I see.’

‘Fridrik and Natan had a fraught friendship at the best of times. They were always suspicious of each other. And then they had a fight. It was when the whale was beached at Hindisvík, that autumn.’

‘I remember. We bought some whale oil from folk up north of the valley. They went to get what they could.’

‘It was a stroke of luck for us. It rained a lot that harvest and we were worried the hay would rot or burst into flames, and we’d find all our animals dead and ourselves no more than skeletons come spring. Natan was home when he heard of the whale, and went to go buy some meat from the family who owned that part of the shoreline.

‘Natan was gone all day and didn’t come home till evening. When I met him at the door he was covered in mud. It was in his hair, on his face; there wasn’t a clean patch on his clothes. When I asked him what had happened, Natan told me that he had been slicing his share from the whale, already bought and paid for, when Fridrik appeared and began to help himself. When Natan told Fridrik to get a knife and pay for his own, Fridrik shoved him to the ground and attacked him. Later, the family at Stapar, the farm next to Illugastadir, told me a different story. They said that Natan had shouted at Fridrik and pushed him in the back, and Fridrik had swung at him, knocking Natan to the ground. Fridrik then beat him, and dragged Natan in the mud. But at the time all I knew was that Natan had come back home in a mess, and a mood to match.’

‘How unpleasant for you,’ Margrét murmured.

Agnes shook her head. ‘It was worse for Sigga. When I was pickling the whale meat I could hear Natan washing in front of the fire, and Sigga trying to soothe him. Natan was shouting that Fridrik was crazy, that he’d kill someone before he turned twenty. Fridrik was Sigga’s sweetheart and she took it badly. Of course, she didn’t dare say anything to Natan, but when we had gone to bed later that night I heard her crying.’

Margrét didn’t say anything. She badly wanted to look at Agnes, but she thought that if she turned in her direction, she would stop talking and things would be as before. She chose her next words carefully.

‘It must have been hard for you at Illugastadir.’

‘It grew worse after the whale. Natan spent less and less time at home. When he did come back he spent hours telling Sigga and me that he was not paying us to be idle. He found fault with everything we did. The butter was too wet, the badstofa was dirty, someone had been in his workshop and upset his vials. No matter that neither of us dared go inside his workshop when he wasn’t there. The wind would stir some object of his, or the yard would be disturbed after one of us had hauled driftwood up to the house, and he’d think that we’d been digging holes, trying to find his money. Neither one of us even knew he buried it out there until he said that.

‘Then everything took another turn for the worse. Natan met Fridrik coming from Illugastadir on his return from the south. At first they seemed civil enough, but Sigga, Daníel and I soon heard them shouting at each other across the pass. Natan was threatening blows and the District Commissioner should Fridrik ever step foot on his farm. They went on for some time, before Fridrik left and went home.