1
1.1
The mountain road was finished in 1986, the year she was born. Smooth, black tarmac emerging from the tunnel, a miraculous human-made pinprick in the northern cordilleras that were once the unquestionable demarkations of an ancient, dead world. A pathway winding carefully downwards, through the neighbourhoods of government-built housing, where some of the buildings dig into the rock-face with metal stilts, descending from the misty heights into the huddled little city, with her amber-lit windows and wet streets, wide carriageways bursting into tangled capillaries against the reinforced shores of a sluggish, grey sea.
She rides the modern, near-silent bus from the high stop near her father’s house because she hates driving up here, steering carefully, harassed by the notion that a quick flick of the wrist could transport her off this delicate pathway, through the crash barrier and into the unknown. By now she knows enough about herself to be extremely wary of her own impulses, no matter how faint or abstract they might seem.
When the mechanical doors behind her open she feels the cold on the back of her head and is momentarily conscious of the warmth she carried out of her father’s house under her coat and scarf. Earlier this evening she had sat at the kitchen table with Sóley and through the slight language barrier managed to help her with her maths homework. At a certain point she had sat back in her chair, watching the child as she wrote carefully in her exercise book, brief shadow of consternation passing over her face which for a tiny moment made her look much older. She thought about how quickly a child’s features can change. Baby Sóley’s face warping as she approached her teens — wisps of dark facial hair at the corners of her mouth, Ingrid’s thin upper lip becoming more prominent, cheekbones widening to reveal more of their shared father’s disposition. If she’d had ten daughters, she wondered, could one have looked more or less like this? If she and Gary had produced a little girl, in what awkward ways would Gary’s face have made itself known?
Then she had turned and caught Ingrid standing in the doorway, looking at them, smiling benevolently. She hadn’t dared take that to heart, but then a short while later Ingrid, placing a cup of tea down on the table near her, speaking in patient English to her father about some technical detail regarding Sóley’s upcoming school trip, had absently touched her first on her shoulder and then, very briefly, very gently, in the centre of her back. A gesture of tenderness so unexpected that she had almost begun to cry then and there.
Before she left, having lost another chess game to Dad and politely eaten some watery vegan casserole, she had sat on the toilet in the upstairs bathroom thinking again about that gesture, had laughed softly to herself and dried her eyes carefully on the edge of a piece of toilet paper.
The bus passes into the town centre and she watches the coloured lights shifting through the beaded raindrops and patches of condensation on the windows, at the groups of people gathered outside the bars and cafes, the customers standing under striplights in the takeaways. She feels her phone.
A text from Dad: Did you get the bus ok?
Yes x
She opens the chess app and does some puzzles, then switches to tap through her Instagram stories. A friend from London who plays in the touring band for a well-known British musician has posted about a concert he’ll be playing next week, at the famous theatre the bus has just passed. She sits forward slightly and holds her thumb on the screen to re-check the details. Then she replies: Oh! This is where I sort of live at the moment?? I just drove past that venue!
Even as she presses send she is aware that this message, however innocent, is not the sort of thing she would normally send. Not if she were in any less of good mood.
Stepping down from the bus into a wet fog, into sparse pedestrian traffic, warm bulb-light from the windows of the first-floor apartments, Christmas decorations still phasing red and green above the road. Shuttered clothing boutiques, busy restaurants. She turns from the main road onto the side-street leading to her flat, unlocking her phone to see that he has added a heart icon to her message and replied: !! I had no idea you live there? Come to the show!
She stops walking to tap a reply: lol would you be offended if I told you that my dad would love it?
Looking back down the street, her eye is caught by the lights of the museum cafe spilling gold onto the wet road. She snaps a photo with her pocket camera and her phone vibrates again.
hahaha no I hear that a lot. can add you to the GL +1 if you like. then we can get a drink after? we’ve actually got some time off there for a couple of days, he’s doing this radio thing on the sunday. if you wanna get lunch or anything???
She walks for a few minutes before taking her phone out to send a reply.
a visitor! she types. yes please!