Black Ice (3 page)

What  with the big twins and the tasty brain, it was all getting a  bit unreal  and  then,  when  I tried  to doze off, I imagined I heard  a coach-load of football supporters fly past singing,  'I'm Sitting On  Top  of the World'.

I opened  my eyes. And, would you believe it, the man next to

me was apparently trying  to steal  my shoelaces.

I didn't know what to do. So I just sat there and watched. His face was   almost   resting   on   my knee   and   his hand   was scrabbling around by my feet somewhere. When he glanced up and  saw me, he mimed,  'Sorry, won't  be a sec.' With  a wince across  his dark  impish  features, he made  a last dive and  then surfaced  with a plastic  carrier bag from  which,  tinnily,  came the music.

Dipping one hand inside, he pulled out a roll of pink lavatory paper  on a pink  plastic  wall mounting which  was artistically rendered in the shape  of a seated  man  with his trousers  round his ankles. He pushed the man's cartoon-red nose. The singing ceased.

'Clever, isn't it?'

I decided   he would   definitely   repay  a  little  study, so  I had  a good  look at  him.  Maybe forty or a bit less, thick black thatch of hair, thin  features which  had  been  handsome until someone had  rearranged the  nose  with  a  baseball   bat  - or similar. It curved   across his face banana-style. Yet despite that, all  his  features  added up to  an intelligent  merry innocence.

'Look, do you see, this chap on the bog is meant to be singing the song .. .'

'Yes,  I got that  far myself.'

'Splendid, isn't it? Make me a million, this little chap will. By the way, Christopher Bell. Christopher not Chris  if you don't mind - I'm  not a condensed-name sort of person.'

We   managed  a   hunched  handshake,  during  which   he insisted   that   I  drink   a  brennivin  with   him.   Somehow   he dismissed my reluctance- I can't stand the stuff- and whistled up  a  stewardess  and   ordered   in  Icelandic.  Before I  could express  my surprise, a head  of silver  bristle  popped  over  the seat  in front of us.

'An  Englishman who  speaks  another language - and  Ice landic  of all  things.  We are  seeing  miracles.' He  gave  a dry whisper  of a laugh  and said something to Christopher Bell in a language that  sounded to my ears  like sprained Spanish.

Christopher retaliated in the same, then added:  'I'm afraid my Esperanto is pretty  shaky.'

'You see,'  said  Silver  Bristle,  who  had  steel-rimmed  specs and looked a vital fifty-ish. 'Your friend does not understand.'

'True,' I said.

'Excuse, excuse,' he said,  with that dry laugh  again.  'I hear this man speaking Icelandic so I ask him if he also speaks Esperanto. And, another miracle, he does. A little, most certainly. Here.'

He  gave  me  his  card   which  made  him  a  German  called Bottger  who was something big in Esperanto. By this time the brennivin  had  arrived   and  Christopher had  got  a  third  for

Bottger.

'Do you know,' Christopher said, rotating between the two of us, 'that the recipe for this stuff is still kept secret?'

'Thank God,' I said,  as the first sip  turned   my face into  a prune.  'Don't let it out, that's all.'

'I say, don't you like it?' he asked, sounding very concerned.

'Well, if you were an alcoholic it wouldn't stop you drinking, but it would certainly take the pleasure out of it.'

That   brought  us  nicely  up  to  that   what-brings-you-here stuff. I told Christopher about my new employer (Grimm, not Batty,  of course)  and  the Sexy Eskies, and  he put  his hand  on my arm and said: 'Look at it this way- someone's got to do it.'

  That made   me feel like  a  hangman. Or an undertaker perhaps. Either way, it wasn't good..

Bottger,  a  solo  twin,  was  planning on  striding about  the scenery  in large  boots,  visiting  old  Esperanto friends,  so they could talk about  the rest of us behind  our  backs. That brought up another volley of the stuff, which Christopher translated.

'He  says that  if only  people would  take  the trouble to learn Esperanto, we could all speak what is in our  hearts.'

'That would mean war.'

'No,  no,'  Bottger  chipped in, in impatient English.  'That is the point.  No more wars, no misunderstandings, no troubles. We see into each other's minds.'

. 'If that stewardess gets to see into my mind,' I said,  'there'll be plenty of troubles, I can  tell you.  And how about you?'  I asked Christopher. 'You're an international lavatory-paper smuggler, I take it?'

He wasn't. But only just.  He'd tried a few things.  Farming,  publishing,  salesman. He hadn't hit quite the right thing so far.  He'd heard a tourist boom  was coming  in  Iceland and  he'd  come north,  fallen in love with the country and learned  the language. So  he  was  setting  up  an  import-export  business, with   the musical  paper-holder as his first move.

'People absolutely love them. They go like hot cakes at all the seaside  places,  I'm  told.'

'And  what are you sending back the other way?' Whatever it was, I thought it had to be better than those. Not necessarily, as it turned  out. He planned  to ship back shoals of stuffed puffins to an  unsuspecting Britain.

I'd    seen   them   in   the   shops   there.   Depressed-looking creatures,  poised awkwardly on a chunk of lava. I didn't say so, but frankly I wouldn't have wanted  to put all my money into stuffed  puffins.

'But this,'  he said,  tapping the  plastic  bag, 'is  my second million. Any chance of a free plug in that paper of yours?'

'Not unless you can  persuade  a female puffin to take all her feathers off.'

6

That's the time to arrive  in Iceland  - bang in the middle of a summer night.

Then the sun doesn't sett. It just slips off-stage for an hour or two. I gave the other two a lift into town in a Daihatsu jeep I'd hired,  and  we sat in silence as the narrow  strip  of tarmac  led over  the  cold  grey  lava  fields, set  like forgotten  porridge  or boiled-over  toffee.  The first  American   astronauts  practised there:  they say they found  the moon quite  homely after that.

Soon  we saw  the  red  and  green  roofs of Reykjavik  and  I dropped them  in the  town and  set off for Thingvellir. If she wanted  to see me, that's where she'd  be.

Out  over the lava field I went. A cold blade of a wind fleeced a sheep  foraging  gamely among  the green  knobbly  rocks and pinned a lone gull to the sky. A herd of ponies truffing for salt in the dust  of the road  parked  reluctantly to let me pass.

Thingvellir was just as I remembered it. Which wasn't  all that  surprising when  you  think  it's  been  like that  since  the world  was premiered.

It's a vast plain of lava stretching for miles from the foot of an eighty-foot escarpment of rock. It's  the prototype for the  House of Commons. The world's first politicians, around the year nine hundred, used to stand with their backs to the cliff to use it as a sound-box while  they  lied about  the  budget.  Even then they liked the sound  of their own voices.

If a country can  have a soul,  Iceland's is there.  And it was there that Solrun and I had together whatever it was we had together. That's why she should be there.

But I wasn't sure. As I drove I remembered what Batty had said about her dangerous friends. The more I thought about it, the more I realised  that  he wouldn't go to all this trouble  to get me out there unless there was something going on. What was she up to? And was she okay? Tension tightened me like a banjo as I parked and climbed  the steep slope up the back of the cliff-top. Either the slope had got steeper  or I'd  got older  in the past two years  because  I had  to stoop  to climb it, and  I found  my face only a couple of feet away from the lava, the bare bones of the earth. At the top, I stopped and straightened. The sky was the colour of old jeans. Ten miles away, a line of mountains was a snow-stained smudge on  the  horizon.  Below me, fingers of lava  ran out into  the wide bright  lake.

I'm  not a scenery  man myself, but if you are given to having your  breath took, that's the place for it.

I might've known where she'd  be sitting. Right on the edge of the cliff, her legs dangling over the long drop, facing out into the void between  earth  and sky.

'In that river down there,' she said, pointing,  'they used to tie rocks to unfaithful women  and  throw  them in to drown.'

'That explains it,'  I answered.

'What?'

'Why  your  hair's always  wet. How are you, little kiddo?'

What  does the name Solrun  mean  to me, Mr Batty? Well, I'll tell you. It means a girl who can't  see a cliff without  wanting  to hang her legs over it. It means a girl who's wild and wonderful  and wayward.

You  know  those  Scandinavian film stars  like Britt  Ekland?

They left home because they were sick of being the plainest girls in  town,  and  went  to Hollywood  where  the competition was thinner. And in northern Europe, the Icelandic girls make all the  others   look  sort   of  dowdy.   Even   in   that   aristocratic company, Solrun  was something special.

In a race where  hair  varies from daffodil  to snowdrop, hers was about  narcissus, cropped  short  and  half-curly  in a style that might have looked boyish on anyone else. On her it looked sexy. On her,  bald would  have looked sexy.

She was slim, the handy,  tuck-under-your-arm size, and she was composed  entirely of lovely round  pieces which were joined up with  lovely slim  pieces. What  she  meant  to me personally was friendship and  sex.  It's  a  much-neglected combination. Without absurd hopes and false promises, like love for instance, you can keep a clear head to enjoy what's going on. It can lead to all sorts of unfashionable abstractions, like trust and respect, and they don't weather  too well when love's  around.

It happened like this.  I was on an official  public-relations tour of the country for a magazine.  Solrun, who was modelling then but also did some front jobs for things like this, was shepherding us around.

Now anyone  who works for a newspaper is by definition a person in whom  hope outruns intelligence and  this lot - thirty odd  of them  - were  offering  her  everything from  money  to marriage by coffee-break on the first morning. She stood up to it pretty well. But by mid-afternoon, standing here on the cliff-top at  Thingvellir, she  was almost  getting  a  heat  rash  from  the non-stop  battery of leers.

'Make your decision  now,'  said  one smoothie, 'and  put  the rest of us out of our  misery.'

To their surprise, she thought about  it for a minute, then she agreed.  'I choose Sam.'

She hit me with a smile that almost  knocked  me off the cliff, and continued: 'Now, gentlemen, perhaps I can ask you to look at Almannagja, which means All Men's Chasm, which is where the. common people  used  to gather in the days  of the ancient assemblies  .. .'

I didn't believe her, of course. Not then. I didn't even believe her that  night  when she came along  to my room.

I took a bit of convincing, believe me.

Solrun. Does it ring a bell? One or two, Mr Batty, one or two.

Solrun was Iceland. The  wild strangeness of the place burned in her. Fire and ice. Ice and fire. That's what made her what she was - ice-hot.

7

Next time you're young, rich and  fashionable and  in Iceland, get a flat in Vesturbrun. That's where all the rest of them live. So, naturally enough, that's  where  Solrun  had  her  flat:  six floors  up in a tower  block which  hummed with  discreet  heat and  silent  lifts.

In Britain we think light is simply something you switch on.

There they play around with it. In her flat, blinds and screens and clever shades sliced up the light and kept it under control. With  all  that  natural wood,  bamboo  and  cane  you could've staged  The Mikado without changing a thing. It was low-level, which is to say that  most of the social life was conducted on the floor: the cushions  didn't have chairs  beneath them,  and  the two sofas were no higher  than  a London  pavement.

'And   have   you   been  faithful   to  me?'  I  demanded,  not altogether seriously.

When   she   answered  we   both   burst   out   laughing. I'd forgotten  the way  Icelanders say  the word  for Yes on the in breath - and  the way Solrun  liked to string  them  together.

'Yow yow yow yow yow yow,' she went, like a clockwork cat that needs winding  up. It took us over the two-year gap without embarrassment.

We hadn't stayed  long up at Thingvellir. Just long enough for me to suck in some of the magic of the place, and to see again how the pearly light swirled around  the plain, as real to the eye as the water in the lake. Back home, Solrun  had vanished  to the sound  of splashing taps  and  re-emerged  about  five seconds later,  damp, pink, fresh and snug inside her silk robe liberally decorated with scarlet lips.  From somewhere she'd  also produced two small,  strong and  bitter  coffees.

We were both past the pleasure-shock of seeing each  other again- and the discovery  that all the old feelings were warming up again. It's always nice to know you weren't mistaken. We talked  the old nonsense  we always did,  but I couldn't help but notice the black scimitars of strain beneath her eyes. Her usual playfulness kept failing as a strange unease broke in. Inevitably it reminded me of why Batty  had sent  me.

'They say at the office that you wish to interview me for one of your wicked London  scandal papers?'

'That's right.'

'That is terrible.' She  giggled  and  clasped  the front  of the robe together  to fake respectability. 'Do you think  I am scandalous?'

'I was hoping  you might  remind  me.'

She  laughed   again,  a  brittle  tinkle  of sound   that  died  too soon. She slipped  down on to one of her squashy cushions and curled  up in a way that exposed  her legs to potential frostbite.

Or,  with any luck, guest bite.

'They tell me you're going to be a star.' I was perched  on the edge of the sofa, by her right shoulder.

'Oh, that  will not happen,' she said,  shaking her head.