Despite what he said, Thorson sensed that the blacksmith wasn’t particularly sorry about the attack. Thorson made as if to continue towards his jeep but there was blood oozing from his arm where he had been mauled, and the man asked him to wait a minute; he couldn’t leave in that state.
‘Let me bind the wound,’ the blacksmith offered. ‘It shouldn’t get infected, but you never know. I’ve got some antiseptic in the house. And I can lend you another shirt, if you like.’
Thorson examined the bleeding tooth marks and realised that it would be sensible to accept the man’s assistance. His shirt was ruined: the dog had shredded the sleeve.
‘Is that his lamb?’ Thorson asked, gesturing at the carcass lying by the wall of the turf building.
‘I expect so,’ said the man, and Thorson noticed that most of the hostility had left his voice. ‘There are foxes prowling around here too, but it was probably the dog. I was about to bury the thing when you arrived. I usually try to keep the place a bit tidier,’ he added apologetically.
Thorson followed him inside the modern concrete house, and the blacksmith offered him a seat in the kitchen, then began searching in the cupboards and drawers for something to use as a dressing. He found iodine and the antiseptic cream, tore some rags into strips, then washed the wound with water.
‘I could put in a few stitches if you’d let me,’ he said, examining the two largest toothmarks. ‘But I’ve got nothing to use as an anaesthetic. Except brennivín, maybe.’
‘There’s no need. Just bind it up tight, and I’ll see how it looks when I get back to town.’
‘At least we can stop the bleeding. I’m sorry about the dog. He’s old, and I just haven’t been able to bring myself to shoot him. I’m too soft. He was a very good dog once.’
‘You hear stories about their loyalty,’ remarked Thorson, ‘but he seems to be taking it to extremes. It’s the first time a dog’s attacked me like that. And hopefully the last.’
‘Yes, he’s been faithful to me all right.’
‘More faithful than certain others?’ said Thorson.
The man cocked his good eye at him, tilting his head as if to see Thorson better. ‘I don’t want to hear about her,’ he said. ‘I hope you understand. I don’t care what she’s up to over there in Reykjavík. I don’t give a damn.’
‘It’s OK,’ said Thorson. ‘I’ll back off. I just wanted to know who she was. If she has a history of stirring up trouble, I’ll have to find that out from someone else. I understand if you don’t want to talk about her. It’s just a shame that she may get away with murder because you’re protecting her.’
The blacksmith paused. He had washed the wounds on Thorson’s arm and bound them with a clean rag, which he was fastening with two pins he’d fetched from his bedroom. He had also brought out a clean shirt for Thorson. The day had turned to evening, and the sun was glowing pink on the walls of the kitchen. There was a smell of stewed coffee, antiseptic and work-worn hands, and despite the dog attack and his injured arm, Thorson felt oddly contented. The man’s manner was quite different now. He seemed genuinely concerned about Thorson and ashamed of his dog, keen to make up for the hostile reception this Canadian visitor had been given on an Icelandic farm.
‘Protecting her?’ he echoed. ‘I’m not protecting her.’
‘I’d be able to put more pressure on her if you told me what happened between you. I have so little to go on. I don’t really know anything about her, and there aren’t many other people I can talk to. All I know is that she wasn’t well liked by her neighbours in Reykjavík.’
‘I can’t help you.’
‘What happened between you?’ asked Thorson.
‘Nothing, except that I lost an eye,’ said the man, and Thorson sensed that he was about to flare up again.
‘All right. I didn’t mean to...’
The man finished binding his arm. ‘Maybe... Sometimes I think it was a fitting punishment for having been so blind to her true nature. I closed my eyes to what she was really like.’
‘What she was really like?’
‘I thought I knew her. But it turned out I didn’t.’
‘Did you grow up with her?’
‘Partly. I’m not from round here originally. I was sent here after my mother died, and I was raised on this farm by some distant relatives, a fine couple who are both dead now. I’ve tried to get on with the locals, but perhaps I was... Yes, in answer to your question, I’ve known her a long time.’
‘What happened?’
‘She started dropping by...’
‘And?’
‘I’d rather not talk about it.’
‘It’s OK. I understand.’
The man watched as the setting sun painted the kitchen wall red. ‘It was an evening like this one,’ he said at last. ‘In August. After a good summer. I never suspected...’
‘What?’
‘What she was... really like. She made a fool of me. Everyone round here knows about it. She turned out to be... two-faced...’
38
He remembered the first time she visited him on her own. This was after he had heard about their engagement. Previously, she’d always come with her boyfriend, but this time he spotted her walking up the path alone. He’d been hard at it in the smithy all day, so he hurriedly washed his hands and tried to scrub the worst of the soot off his face before she reached the door. An interest in ironworking had prompted him to start the smithy not long before. He’d set up his forge in the old turf farmhouse, where he also did a bit of woodturning, a skill he had picked up at a workshop during a visit to Reykjavík.
He asked where her fiancé was, and she explained that he had gone into the next village and wouldn’t be back until late that night. The three of them knew each other quite well as they had all grown up in the area, though he himself hadn’t moved there until he was nine years old. Admittedly, he had sometimes cast an appreciative eye in her direction, but that was all. He was unusually timid around women and had never dreamt that he had any chance with Vera; she had never shown the slightest interest in him, after all. And now she was engaged and, as far as he knew, would be married soon. She had once had a reputation for being able to twist men round her little finger, but her engagement had put an end to all such talk. Her fiancé farmed the neighbouring property, and he regarded him as a friend.
‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’ she asked, standing at the door and smiling, though the smile didn’t reach her eyes.
‘Of course. Is everything all right?’
‘I just felt like a walk,’ she said. ‘I’m bored.’
She took a seat at his kitchen table, her skin attractively tanned by the summer sun. He set about making coffee and tried to keep up a flow of conversation but sensed that she was distracted and not really listening as he rambled on about the weather and the hay harvest and how he had run an electric cable from the diesel generator to his new smithy in the old turf farmhouse, so now he could listen to the radio in there and have a bit of light to work by.
‘He doesn’t want to move,’ she announced, when he finally ran out of things to say, running her tanned hand over the tabletop. She had beautiful hands, with slim, delicate fingers, one of which sported a ring.
‘Move?’
‘He promised me, but then he started making all kinds of excuses: he wouldn’t get enough for the farm, didn’t know how to make a living anywhere else. Now he says he’s changed his mind and can’t face leaving. He’s dreaming of extending the hayfields, draining the marshes, constructing new outbuildings. I doubt he’ll actually go through with any of it, though. He promised me we’d go away, move to Reykjavík. He promised.’