It was David who chose Iceland. I didn’t argue. I didn’t really care where we went. He was trembling, excited, as he kept repeating, “All that matters is that we’re together.” At least he started saying that after I had stopped.
David suggested renting a car and roaming by ourselves. It was the last two words I had a problem with. We ended up in a minibus containing a fair representation of the NATO-aligned nations. Every time it looked like David was attempting to chat, I felt my hands twitching, imagining blocking his words with my closed fist. So, I’d turn to whichever fellow tourist was nearest and feign interest in their travel itinerary and how much or little the surroundings resembled their home.
We had a driver/guide called Siggi who wore a headset microphone. He told us his full name, which was something unpronounceable for most English speaking mouths. For fun he tried to get us to say it, which proved the point. He then put on a mixed collection of Icelandic pop and rock starting with Gods and Monsters. I smiled. ‘This fits,’ I thought. It was the first time in a week the corners of my mouth stretched.
Endless sky and grotesquely beautiful nature passed by our windows. Deep fjords moved on to vast volcanic deserts. It reminded me of the countryside at home if it had been grabbed and wrung tightly in a rage, forcing the Earth’s crust up into green rocky hills and deep jagged valleys; all linked by flat planes. The sights were orchestrated by a soundtrack of gasps from tourists who were born in countries where nature and souls were more sedated.
Half an hour in, Siggi, indicated a rumpled collection of snow-dusted hills.
‘There is a hill over there, where the Viking poet Egil Skallagrimsson, is supposed to have buried a huge silver treasure. No one knows exactly which hill he chose. To ensure secrecy Egil rewarded the slave who had done the digging, with a battle axe through his skull. Once a year the mountain tomb is supposed to open and reveal its treasure. The problem is no one can say where or when that will happen.’ He gave a rough laugh, ‘ But just think of it, if you could be there at just the right moment, everything would change in an instant.’
We drove on, Siggi spoke; we stopped and walked around. We took photos and felt small. David jumped from one foot to another, while I held out my iPhone in front of me, trying to put a boarder around something beautiful so I could take it with me and look at it properly at home. I shook my head at people who stretched out hands, offering to put our image against the scenery. David’s bewildered expression was just another part of the backdrop. I didn’t want to leave any sort of footprint of our time there. I didn’t want to mark this beautiful place. We didn’t deserve it.
The spray from the Skogafoss waterfall touched us long before our group got near. I hardly moved while the others desperately tried to recreate the pictures on Trip Advisor, posing for selfies framed by the rainbow created through the mist.
Siggi didn’t rush us. The sights were interrupted with well-timed visits to public toilets that came complete with souvenir shops.
Twirling postcard racks at one place, I lost sight of David for a moment before spotting him in the back right corner, rearranging the carved statues of Saga heroes that were on the shelves. It was as though he was back in Carlisle Street, constantly rearranging the displays in the shop. In the long, empty days, sometimes that’s all he did. I let him continue, wondering vaguely if an Icelandic shop assistant would notice and stop him. I spun the racks again, I thought of the first Superman movie, when Christopher Reeve raced in circles around the world, to turn it back to a time before Lois Lane was killed. Unfortunately, the only heroes here were the statues. I wandered back to the bus early.
I saw his work before I ever saw him. It occupied a section in the Linden gallery that focused on local sculptors. David had designed a cresting wave out of a block of sandstone, salvaged from the remnants of an old wall in St. Kilda. The wave had been frozen at the moment just before it broke and crashed down on the hidden reef beneath that had been temporarily uncovered. A secret view of coral and rocks and delicate stranded fish, gasping for the sea. I caught my breath.
I returned three times. The last time, I managed to be there when David was removing his work from the gallery’s plinth and packing it in a large duffel bag. For a second I thought he was stealing it. David was flattered I thought someone would try.
We left together.
He lived in a block of flats off Norseman Avenue. When we got close, he pulled a torch out from his pocket and told me to follow directly behind him. Apparently in the last few months syringes had been found in the grass after a dealer had moved his business nearby. I told him later, not then, about my family’s own experience with syringes and the corresponding funeral, but I did tell him.
David was on the second floor. As we reached the stairs, he suddenly pulled out a paper bag with a grease stain bleeding through. He went and crouched under the stairwell, looking into the darkness underneath. I heard him say,
‘Vegetarian quiche… , No, no money. Have you been to the clinic? I’ll take you if you want?’
It was then that I noticed movement and a hand shoot out and take the bag.
In his kitchen, as he heated up some soup, David spoke softly.
‘They moved in about two weeks ago. They brought their own mattress. They won’t be here much longer.’ David waved his hand indicating the scene outside his kitchen window. ‘The others in the block have been complaining and the police have said they will move them on. None of the residents care where, just away.’
He turned the wheel of the can opener with more force than was necessary and let out a yelp, he’d cut his hand on the serrated edge of the lid. We spent the rest of the evening talking as I helped to clean and dab antiseptic on his hand. Not a fan of medication he didn’t even have an aspirin at his place for the pain. He needed taking care of.
On the weekends we would often go on trips to gather materials. We picked up offcuts of wood at the bases of hills, we travelled to seashores where he quarried stones, and demolition sites where we sorted through the remnants of past lives, all to turn into a more beautiful second life. He would hold up a piece of tile and start describing the story of its origins. ‘This trimmed the mantelpiece; you can see a remnant of the left over carving. As they sat at the table for the Sunday roast lunch, they could see photos in frames of their children, as they grew, next to a clock that would chime on the hour, and a vase, wedding gift perhaps, that would be filled with fresh flowers from the garden every Sunday.’
He knew how to touch nerves, and dreams neither of us knew anything about.
He gifted me a new way to view what was around, the concrete and asphalt of the neighborhood were no longer just a backdrop. I followed the line of a crack in the footpath ending in a roseate of scratches. I spotted where nature was attempting to blend with brick work of a 1950s block of flats and reflections in a gutter full of rainwater.
I watched him work sometimes, careful not to be a distraction. It was amazing to observe his concentration, his absorption in creation. He could spend hours perfecting the curve of face or the sharp angle of a structure. He said he wanted the sculptures, ‘to breathe.’ He’d created work that looked like it would jump of its stand.
The shop opened in September. At the recommendation of David’s decorator mother, the walls were lined with silk curtains and brocade wallpaper, giving a nineteenth century brothel feel. The shelves and walls were full of his, and his associates, work. The only requirement to exhibit was that it should be good. Intricate mobiles of paper and glass hung from the celling reflecting shards of light on the free-standing structures of stone and wood that were placed at intervals on the floor. We threw the stands in for free with every purchase. The shop gleamed. I saw the eyes of those who entered light up.
David refused point blank to whip up bong- shaped ‘contemporary sculpture’ that you could get in the Tobacco shop nearby, even though it might have helped sales. There were also no bowls of cheap items near the cash register for impulse purchases. Neither of us had thought enough about what people were willing to spend to have art in their lives. It isn’t so common for people to invest in something that hadn’t been sanctioned as legitimate art. Monet posters can always be framed and hung in the kitchen, while pocket-sized replicas of ancient fertility statues fit nicely next to the phone pad. The shop’s pieces were worth the prices that hung from them, but the cost, and unknown names on the cards, dampened acquisition urges. People strolled and admired, but their hands rarely strayed to their wallets.
The bus tour took us to the black sand beach at Reynisfjara. The wind and crashing waves reminded me of old movies with scenes of shipwrecks and model boats. I saw a woman in a padded parker, over what appeared to be a long bridal gown, the end of which blew around her feet and trailed in the sand tripping her up. I suppose she was looking to take photos. The white dress became filthy and waterlogged, especially once when a sudden swell swamped the usual shoreline. Near the entrance of the beach was an article in English, attached to board, with the headline “Iceland’s Black sand beach takes another.” A few years ago, a tourist attempting to take a selfie had come too close and turned her back to the surf. It was just at that moment that a freak wave engulfed her. It wasn’t so dramatic on our visit, but the bride did stumble back to higher ground, soaked from head to foot. I suddenly remembered the bridal magazines in the bottom drawer at home. It was something we were going to do when we returned home, flush with cash. I laughed out loud at how ridiculous the whole thing was now.
. At home, were we poor, but happy? Well, no, that’s crap. When we got by, we were happy. It was easy enough to say you don’t care about money when it just means you don’t qualify for extras. Abstaining from restaurants and holidays and sticking to what is on special in Aldi, is not the same as a steadily emptying apartment, where goods were replaced with notices, and pawn slips stuck on the wall after the fridge was gone. Poor but happy is different from marshal’s notices on the shop doors and eviction ones on our home. I wondered if this somehow excused him? But we hadn’t got to the point of living under a stairwell.
David followed leads and tried numerous types of promotions. Two-for-one-deals, special commissions, standing on the corner in a costume with a sign, some people thought he was indicating available parking and were annoyed when they realised their mistake. He even ended up handing out flyers in front of Luna Park. I would wake up finding only an indent in the sheets. He was in his office, hunched over the computer, altering the websites, sending emails, researching possible grants. His face worn, bags and circles creeping further and deeper.
I had helped in the shop for a while, but when things got bad, I was out most of the time, taking a job at a party supplies warehouse, volunteering for extra shifts as often as I could, so we had some sort of income. My efforts sorting rolls of streamers and boxes of fart cushions enabled me to keep the store open and the lights on for a while. Maybe I shouldn’t have.
One night around 2am I found he’d left the flat altogether. I went to the shop. He was rearranging the entire layout of store. Maybe he was channelling some personal Feng Shui, trying to ensure we were not blocking any wealth or success corner. He barely saw me as he pushed a table three metres to the right. I came up from behind and wrapped my arms around him holding tightly, trying to clamp everything I had thought was wonderful, together, in him. It was something that he couldn’t face, couldn’t accept. That you could be talented, work hard, give everything you had, climb every mountain and follow every rainbow, but still not achieve you dream. That wasn’t how it was supposed to work.
Things limped on. I was scribbling sums on a piece of butcher’s paper, while striking the keys of a Casio calculator (the laptop had been pawned), harder than I needed to, when David rushed in. One of his efforts had struck gold. He seemed happy but in a messy, frantic way. Shaking with excitement he rushed around giving me drive-by pats and kisses as he babbled about a prize, international investment and travel, his words overflowing. He danced around with me in my arms. He saw my scratches and grabbed the piece of paper, screwing it up in a tight ball. None of this was necessary anymore. We would give his work to more deserving foreigners. It was all arranged. I was happy of course, but David was sketchy on details. We would be in it together, a joint effort to attack the world. I left my job. He didn’t have to ask.
First was Asia. We delivered samples to small shops in Beijing and Singapore. David was inspired by The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, to create figures of heroes and villains in stone and wood. These new idols proved far more popular than scenes of St.Kilda foreshore. Then Japan followed, with displays in department stores, lined up next to traditional ikebana vases and tea ceremony porcelain.
By Thailand I was tiring, while he seemed to be thriving. I put it down to my getting weary of carrying boxes. He left me at the gates of the Grand Palace in Bangkok to sightsee. I travelled through the gleaming golden and diamond buildings before reaching the temple of the Emerald Budda. The figure was much smaller and more simply carved than I’d expected, especially compared to the many statues that lined the other buildings and sparkled with bling. It wasn’t made of emerald like I hoped but some semi-precious green stone. Yet it was the focal point of the complex. I went to my knees like everyone else. It was much cooler inside. Beside me I noticed a stocking-footed flight attendant in the uniform of the airline we’d arrived with. She crawled closer to the statue, hands together, wrapped in a string of beads, in prayer, her head lowered, but occasionally raised to look in complete adoration at the Buddha, her body relaxing, comforted and reassured.
We left for India the next day. Then followed the collection of materials; mica, bauxite and limestone; Rosewood, Mulberry and teak, all sorted and packed to be sent both home and other addresses. Lying down sweating and exhausted after queuing at non-air-conditioned post offices in 34 degree heat. It was then David suggested a real break. “Just somewhere a little cooler,” was my only criteria.
It was arranging our tickets to Reykjavik that caused it all to happen, caused the world to go off its axis. The day before we were due to leave, I’d left my passport in our room. I needed it to pick up our documents. I’d just put it down for a second while I balanced bags and boxes. A simple, everyday thing, that could happen to anyone, but it happened to me, at that moment no other. I’ve never forgotten my passport again. It travels with me now not only when I go to foreign countries but when I leave the house. It is in the bottom of my bag when I do the shopping, go to work, or catch a bus, just in case, although I don’t exactly know in case of what.
I returned to the hotel. David was standing at the end of the room, back to me, completely absorbed in what he was doing. He lifted up a bag of white powder and placed it on the counter. He then picked up a sample, a minute, stylised representation of Liu Bei, the honest and upright, hero of the Chinese classic. For a moment it seemed David was going to tear it apart by twisting the top and bottom in opposing directions, but suddenly it separated, both ends intact. There was a hollow centre that I had no idea existed. David placed the bag in the gap, closed the top half and reconsecrated the idol, by painting over the dividing line with a small brush and something from a medicine bottle. All evidence of its internal passenger was wiped. He was completely absorbed as usual. It was over in a few moments. I turned quietly and went out the door.
I threw up on the corner, in front of a shop that displayed multi-coloured saris in the window. The shop assistant was very nice.
Our last stop of the day was the Strokkur geyser in South-western Iceland. We were all a bit tired from the constant moving and hot lunch we’d just eaten. David stayed on the bus to snooze. I didn’t know if he fell asleep or not. I’d started to avoid looking at him. I hurried to the site, hoping he didn’t change his mind and follow. The words were on a loop in my head, just wait until we’re home, then, then…. what? Forgiveness, separation, judgment? Heroes removed for good, without the stands thrown in. I suppose I should be grateful we weren’t going home via a country that might deal with us with a bullet or a rope. I wondered if he had thought about that. I didn’t have a clue of course.
I reached the end of the track and was greeted by a crowd of various different languages, standing around in a pile of mud, parts roped off, so the bubbling puddles and spits of steam didn’t cook any of the spectators. Traces stuck to our shoes. All the warning signs were only in English. I assumed locals wouldn’t be so stupid as to take the wrong step. It was on all the lists of “must-sees,” of Iceland. A hundred or so souls on a chilly Friday all stood in silent anticipation. Most were looking through their phone’s glass eye, fingers ready. They waited to witness something extraordinary. I felt a desire to escape it. I began to walk back to the road. Just then there was a hiss, and a choir of awed voices. I’d almost missed it. I turned and caught the end of a cascade of water and gas shooting up magnificently to the sky.