Stella was desolate, struggling to pull together what she wanted to say. 245

‘You mean Óðinn Jónsson, the permanent secretary?’ Gréta asked.

Stella nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think all this sounds like some sort of conspiracy?’

Gréta and the news editor went out into the corridor and stood there for a while, whispering. Then Stella heard him say ‘OK’ in a loud voice before walking away.

While the sound technician fitted her with a microphone for the interview, Gréta brought her a cup of coffee.

‘You know this is going to cost you your job, don’t you?’ she said, and Stella nodded. She knew, but hoped that her confession would do something to help Úrsúla avoid having to resign.

Stella had no great understanding of politics, but a journalist buying the contents of the minister’s waste paper bin had to have some significance, especially when the website he worked for began publishing reports about the homeless guy, which seemed to be a sensitive subject. Plus there had to be a reason the permanent secretary had been talking to the very same journalist.

She would have preferred to be elsewhere. But if her story could do anything to make up for the damage she had done to Úrsúla by selling her waste paper, then it was worth the shame and the loss of her job.

She drank her coffee while the makeup artist finished her work, and noticed Gréta watching her closely. Maybe she was watching her being made up, but Stella felt that behind her piercing gaze was some kind of disdain. Somehow their roles had been reversed. She had a fantasy of Gréta fixed in her mind, made up of her bulky body, heavy perfume and weighty breasts. But now it seemed that for the first time Gréta saw Stella for what she really was: unremarkable scum. 246

110

For the first time in many months Marita felt she could see clearly. The mist that had clouded her mind when the whole matter had begun, and which she had hardly noticed, had now lifted. Maybe she had just needed to do all that crying to clear her mind. She needed to cry and scream. She had screamed in the living room and the kitchen. She had screamed at Kiddi, and later on she had screamed into her pillow long into the night.

She had packed for Klemmi. He had a whole suitcase of clothes that had gone with him to the Faroes, but now she had filled another case with clothes that had been on the large size for him when he had left, along with some toys and books. She had packed many of her own belongings in the two largest cases they had, as she also needed to take outdoor clothing and shoes with her. She went over to Kiddi’s door and tapped gently.

‘How’s it going?’ she asked, and he sighed. He sat hunched over the desk with a hand holding his chin and stared at a sheet of paper that looked to Marita to still be blank.