The Tarantula’s hand with its cigarette hung poised there for a moment, then made a hesitant salvo. The Faroes weren’t part of the EU, that was clear, it wasn’t Europe in that sense. But purely geographically? If you looked at the atlas?

The woman smiled. I knew that smile from my mother. It’s a freebie women get to claim once most of their life is lived. The circle smiled too, variations on a theme, the women gentle, the men somewhat embarrassed.

‘No,’ she said. ‘You may be right about lots of things, but there you’re mistaken.’

With her Prince 100 she sketched it all in a soft circle: the mountains, the deep fjords, the dark tunnels.

‘This isn’t Europe. This is the Faroe Islands.’

‘Hette er Føroyar,’ repeated a man in a woolly jumper. A mild åhja hummed around the circle.

The Tarantula inhaled. Slowly. I took a little step to the side and aimed my heel at his foot.

We found our suitcases, the rented car. This visit was my mother’s idea. She was longing to go home after all the funerals, she said. All those goodbyes. We could have a holiday together. See the family. She knew quite well that 12the longing was mine. I’d said so. ‘I can’t even pronounce my own name.’ And so she planned the trip.

The moment the wheels hit the landing strip, everybody on the islands knows that you’ve arrived. It’s impossible to say how. Maybe all you do is ring the aunt you’re staying with, or you land incognito and spend the night at a hotel, but knock unannounced at your grandfather’s brother’s house, or your half-uncle’s, on a completely different island, and you get: ‘Well, well. So there you are.’ Though that’s not necessarily true of all families.

Ma had rung Aunt Ása. We were travelling onward to Suðuroy.

Later, in the car, the Tarantula kept giggling.

‘It’s not something you can just decide!’

He said other things, too. Something about big ideas in small communities, something about mountain hobbits. It was affectionate enough, but it was precisely the fondness in his way of joking that made me angry. I felt like kicking the front seat, but didn’t. Instead I muttered. ‘Home isn’t necessarily a question of geography. Not even if you’re looking at an atlas.’

The first tunnel on the way to the ferry slurped us up. My mother leant forward over the wheel. Tightly narrowed. Into the stony darkness.

13

DEPARTURE

The boat to Denmark sails from Tórshavn.

While the cargo crates are carried on board, Marita senses the town behind her, its proportions. The sod-roofed houses at the top of the cliff, the narrow alleyways, the chicken shit. Parts of the capital are squeezed together into a sooty nervous system, others are green, tufted, farm-like. Many things smell like childhood, including burning peat. Including rotten fish.