Grandma looks after me during the day when Mom is working. She sits in her room all day and knits and listens to the radio. She doesn’t pay me any mind. She only comes out to get herself coffee.
When Runa moved out, Grandma got her room. Runa has a boyfriend and lives with him. He’s called Grétar. He’s really tough; he listens to the Rolling Stones. All the boys in the street agree that he’s the toughest guy they’ve ever seen. He’s much cooler than Anton’s brother and even cooler than Gummi’s brother, even though Gummi’s brother owns a Jeep, a Lada Sport.
Grétar doesn’t need a Jeep. He’s got long hair. He’s fun and likes talking to me. And he’s puked up on Dad. It was after they’d been out dancing. Dad picked up Runa and Grétar because they were too drunk to drive.
When they got home, Grétar leaned towards him to thank him but instead puked all over his shoulder. Dad didn’t say anything but “Goodnight” and then strolled in with vomit on his shoulder.
Runa and Grétar rolled about laughing. I would laugh too if I saw that. I would never dare puke over Dad.
Runa’s trying to have a baby.
~ ~ ~
Grandma has glaucoma. There’s a cloud over her eyes. But she still can tell the difference between night and day. If it’s bright, she sees people as shadows. And she hears remarkably well. She always thinks there’s someone with me. But there never is. I’m always playing by myself. I speak for Action Man and for the tin soldiers.
Grandma can do most things other people can, by using her hands and fingertips instead of her eyes. She dresses herself. She knows her clothes by feeling them.
And on the phone there’s an extra dial on top of the standard one. The extra dial has big, raised numbers so she can make phone calls.
I like teasing Grandma. She never gets mad at me, not even when I tricked her into smelling baker’s ammonia, like Runa once did to me. Sometimes I hide inside her closet and attack her when she walks past. She has an incredibly strong grip given how old she is. I think she must be the strongest old crone in Iceland.
I reach for her neck. She grabs my hands and holds me tight.
— Think you can take me on? she says.
I start laughing and run away.
There’s some tape in one of the drawers that’s sticky on both sides. I once put it under her slippers. When she walked, the shoes kept sticking to the floor and she had to keep tugging her legs along. I don’t know what was funnier, the expression on Grandma or the sound she made when she tugged up the shoes. I rolled around laughing.
In the morning, my mom leaves coffee in a Thermos for Grandma. She puts her finger down into the cup as she pours. That’s how she can tell the cup is getting full. Then, when she pours milk, she keeps her finger inside the cup, and pours milk over it to work out how much milk she’s got.
Once, I put laundry detergent in her coffee. She sipped it and immediately spat it back in the cup.
— There’s something not right with this coffee, little Jón. I wonder, have you done something to it?
I started cackling. She wasn’t angry. We were just playing around. Grandma is fun. She gives me candy and sometimes money.
If I have money, I’ll go to a kiosk and buy Bazooka chewing gum or a can of fizzy drink. There’s a cartoon inside Bazooka chewing gum. It’s about a boy named Bazooka Joe. I don’t understand it. But it’s still fun to collect the episodes. I also collect soccer cards though I’m not bothered about soccer. The soccer cards have a good smell.
I don’t know which soccer players are the best. I know that Kevin Keegan is good. My favorite picture is still the one of the guy who is sitting on his haunches smiling happily, but his balls are hanging down one leg of his shorts. I crack up when I see it.
Sometimes my mom sends me to the convenience store to buy her cigarettes. I’m allowed to spend the change. Once, there were fifty cents left, so I rang home to ask my mom if I could spend it all. She said yes, but it didn’t matter because it cost me fifty cents to make the call. I can be a real idiot.
I enjoy being around Grandma. I’m usually at school or outside playing during the day. I spend the evenings with Grandma. Especially when Mom and Dad are playing bridge. She kisses me good night and says the Our Father with me before I go to sleep. She bows over my chest and makes the sign of the cross. It’s comforting. Grandma never goes outside. At most, she sits on the balcony in nice weather.
~ ~ ~
I can only remember one time that Grandma’s been outside. It was when we were building the garage. I was playing on it. I was going to take a running start and jump over the ditch. I took a step back and fell backwards, right off the garage roof. I landed on the asphalt drive and made a hole in my head. I’d managed to turn myself a bit in the air so I could put my hands out. If I’d landed on my back, I would definitely have fractured my skull.
At first, I didn’t dare move. I’d definitely broken some bones. And I was in shock.
All the kids came over, and so did some grown-ups who’d seen it happen. They all stood around me in a circle.
There wasn’t much the matter. I had a wound in my head, between my eyes, and I’d scraped the skin on my palms. Nothing else. But it was fun to lie there and be the center of attention and see everyone be really concerned about me. They were talking about calling an ambulance, and someone said that I wasn’t allowed to move.
Then Grandma came out. Someone had run to my house to let them know what had happened. Mom and Dad were both at work.
It was such a weird sight that everyone forgot me and just stared at her. There was a deathly silence. No one knew who she was. She was tiny, with her wild, white hair. She was in a traditional peysufot and slippers. It was like she’d arrived from the past by time machine and somehow landed in Fossvogur.
Her blindness made her all the stranger. She padded forward hesitantly, groping her way. If you didn’t know she was blind, you’d simply think that she was distracted, or simply old and confused. If she’d been able to see, she’d have seen me surrounded by all these people.
She came our way. When she was almost on top of us, she turned her back to us and it was like she was just looking into the garden. No one said a word.
— Jón, my dear, is everything okay? she said, quietly.
It was so funny I forgot I had a wound in my head and wasn’t meant to move. I forgot all about my shock. I got up and walked over to her.
— I’m right here, Grandma.
— Are you okay?
— Yes, I just have a wound in my head.
— That’s good, my dear.
She held on to my elbow and I went back inside with her. We called Dad and he came and took me to the emergency room.
When I don’t have any one to play with, and don’t want to play on my own, I sometimes go into Grandma’s room and talk to her. She tells me amusing stories about the old days. When Grandma was little, people lived in houses made of turf. There was no television or radio. There were no cars. There wasn’t even electricity. Everyone was very poor and had to work hard. People were always dying because there were no doctors to cure them. Children died a lot. Sometimes two children were baptized after the same person so that the name would survive if one of the children died. It would be like if my brother’s name wasn’t actually Ómar but Jón, the name I got from Grandpa.