‘It’s your birthday soon,’ her mother said, and Stella felt her heart leap with delight. Her mother would sometimes forget Christmas and Easter, and normally she didn’t know what day of the week it was, but she always remembered Stella’s birthday – always, without fail. 86

‘Yes,’ Stella said. ‘Soon. I’ll be twenty.’

‘And then your grandmother will come flying to us,’ her mother said, and it was as if the drugged mist parted for a moment; she sat upright in her chair and leaned towards Stella. ‘She’ll come flying all that way on a broomstick to visit you on your birthday.’

Joy made Stella’s heart beat faster as she looked into her mother’s eyes; they were now alive and the mysterious smirk had spread across her face into a real, clear and shining smile. It was the way her mother had smiled at her when she was little.

‘Yes,’ she said, gently stroking the back of her mother’s hand. ‘Grandmother will come soon.’

‘Flying on her broomstick,’ her mother said.

‘Yes,’ Stella said, and sniffed. This was a rare genuine conversation, which for a while banished her loneliness.

‘Your grandmother the flying witch.’

‘Yes.’

‘Please give her my regards.’

‘I’ll do that, Mama,’ Stella promised and laughed as her mother giggled quietly.

‘You’ll have to tell me about everything she does and says when she visits you on your birthday.’

‘Of course.’

It went without saying that Stella would tell her mother the news after her birthday. But she knew, as always, that there was no guarantee her mother would be in any condition to listen to her then.

‘Remember to tell her that I sent her my regards,’ her mother repeated, and smiled as the joy glittered in her eyes. ‘Remember to tell her that her daughter sends her regards. Tell her that, when she comes flying to you on her broomstick, your grandmother the witch. La bruja.’ 87

35

The phone call had left Marita exhausted. Jónatan had been drunk and in tears, which she found even harder to cope with than the rage over all this that burst out of him when he was sober.

‘Maybe I deserve this,’ he said, and she shushed him.

There was no point starting to think like that. He just mustn’t think or talk along those lines. If he were to say anything like this to anyone else, it could be misunderstood and seen as an admission of guilt. So she repeatedly shushed him and told him to go to bed and sleep it off. Tomorrow everything would look better. But that was just something she said, as tomorrow things would be no better. If anything, it would all be half as bad again.

Tomorrow the interview with Rósa, Katrín Eva’s mother, would be published, undoubtedly a gut-wrenching, tearful interview full of the crap that the girl had fed her. And tomorrow Jónatan would call again and either yell or whine, and again she would have to calm him down and comfort him. She did feel sympathy for him, but it was painful.