Far North - Michael Ridpath [2]
‘My name is Björn,’ the fisherman said and held out his hand. Sindri shook it.
‘And you?’ Sindri asked Harpa. She could smell alcohol on his breath and she recognized the look of interest in his eyes as he examined her. She might be an unemployed single mother in her late thirties, but men still liked what they saw, especially older men.
‘Harpa,’ she said, glancing quickly at the man named Björn as she did so. He smiled. God, he was attractive. There was something about him, or maybe it was just something about her, the afterglow of letting out all that anger.
He was certainly more attractive than Gabríel Örn. Pity he was a fisherman. Rule one ever since she had been a teenager was don’t date fishermen.
‘Ólafur out!’ Sindri roared suddenly, punching a fist in the air.
The big man was a magnificent sight, bellowing his lungs out, his ponytail bobbing.
Harpa glanced at Björn. ‘Ólafur out!’ she shouted.
Night fell. The protest intensified. The older protesters left: the proportion of demonstrators with their hoods up and faces covered increased. The Christmas tree in the middle of the square toppled: in a moment it was on fire. Drums beat, people danced. Harpa and Björn stuck to Sindri, who moved through the throng chatting to all and sundry between bellows. Following him, Harpa felt part of the crowd, and her anger flared again.
Finally, the police had had enough. ‘Gas! Gas!’ the crowd shouted.
A moment later something stung Harpa’s eyes. She bent over and Björn pulled her away. Something tickled her throat. They ran back out of the square, surrounded by hundreds of people, escaping before all but a particle or two of the gas reached their lungs. They lost Sindri for a moment, and then found him talking to a young man with his shirt off plunging his face into a bucket of water. The boy had spiky red hair and his torso glowed pink in the cold and the light of the flares. Sindri seemed to be congratulating him and slapping him on his back. The boy was shivering, but he was angry and the anger was keeping him warm.
They were standing a couple of hundred metres away from the square, right next to the impressive statue of Ingólfur Arnarson, who was that first Viking settler to step ashore in Reykjavík’s smoky bay.
‘At least the gas doesn’t bother him,’ said Sindri. ‘If the country was still run by people like him they’d know exactly what to do with the bankers and the politicians.’
Harpa admired the statue’s strong muscles. ‘I wonder if he really looked like that,’ she said.
‘He always seemed a bit camp to me,’ said Sindri. ‘The way he’s leaning on his shield, sticking his hip out.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Harpa. ‘He’s all man.’
‘He was probably short and fat with a double chin,’ said Björn.
The three of them laughed.
‘Come back to my place for a drink,’ Sindri said to Harpa and Björn. ‘It’s just around the corner.’ They exchanged glances: if you will, so will I.
‘OK,’ said Harpa. So they followed Sindri, together with the boy who was still bare chested, waving his shirt in the air in disgust.
‘Another one, Harpa?’
Harpa nodded as Sindri refilled her glass from the brandy bottle. Her head was pleasantly fuzzy, the alcohol adding to the chemicals released by her own body during the glorious turmoil of the demonstration. It was weeks since she had had a proper drink. She had always been suspicious of people who drank in the middle of the week, but this was no ordinary Tuesday.
They were in Sindri’s small flat, the five of them: Sindri, Harpa, Björn, the red-haired boy and a short, neatly dressed man, young enough to be a student, who had latched on to them somewhere along the way. The boy’s name was Frikki, and the student’s Ísak.
Sindri was enjoying himself, playing to the small crowd, and in particular playing to her. He had seated her next to him on a tatty sofa, Björn and Ísak the student sat on old armchairs facing them, and Frikki was slumped on the floor. The flat was a dump: small, cracked ceiling, scratched wooden floor, books, newspapers, magazines and ashtrays filled