Frozen Assets

‘In the old days, if someone’s father wasn’t known, if he’d run away, or refused to admit a child was his, or was a foreigner or something, then the mother’s name would be used instead.’

‘Sounds reasonable.’

‘Yeah, but it was very unusual, didn’t happen often that someone’s dad was just completely unknown. But in the last couple of years it’s become a lot more common. Y’know, people splitting up all the time and hating each other afterwards. So a lot of women got fed up with having their kids carrying around the name of some deadbeat guy they’d rather forget and used their own names instead.’

‘OK, I get it. Ditch the husband and his name as well, understandable.’

Erna stretched and inched herself forward as Hardy’s fingertips grazed her hip and wandered along her thigh. ‘What was I saying? Yeah. Well, it got a bit sort of, y’know, fashionable as well. There are women who fell out with their dads who took their mothers’ names instead. It’s all very feminist and a bit smart to carry your mother’s name now.’

‘So is that why Sigurjóna is Huldudóttir? Did she have a disagreement with your father?’

‘No, not really. They’ve never got on all that well, but they haven’t fallen out either. I think she saw it as a career move more than anything else, looks good with all that cultural mafia crowd she hangs out with. Do you know what, Mr Hardy? You’re quite a nice man really. We should go away together. Get to know each other properly.’

She heard Hardy’s chuckle again deep in his chest.

‘You really think so? Where?’

‘I do. Spain, maybe. Or Morocco. While the kids are off my hands.’

‘Can you do that?’

‘Yeah. The girls can run the salon easily enough. They don’t even need me there a lot of the time. Can you get away from your work for a few days?’

‘I should think so, if it’s something important.’

‘I think it could be something important, don’t you, Mr Hardy or whatever your real name is?’

‘I’d have to talk to Sigurjóna, make sure she doesn’t need me for anything at the Lagoon.’

Erna stretched like a well-fed cat and readjusted her legs, putting his hand in hers to lift and place it in just the right spot. Hardy listened for a moment.

‘Is that a phone ringing?’ he asked.

‘Don’t know. Don’t care,’ Erna hissed. ‘Want me to have a word with your boss? But right now, keep doing that and I’ll see what I can do.’

27-09-2008 1551

Skandalblogger writes:

Oh, people! 0 tempora, 0 mores, as the poet said and as a very few of Skandalblogger’s classically educated readers will recognize. The rest of you, just google for it.

Sigurjóna, what were you thinking with that post-awards bash in someone else’s suite at Hotel Gullfoss? And there was us thinking that white powder was going out of fashion. Which high-ranking Ministry official, which well-known media guru and which fashionable designer were photographed enthusiastically partaking of Sigurjóna’s largesse with the cheese grater?

Click here* for the photos — a few details obscured to protect the guilty. Or here* for the video clip of Sigurjóna dropping and smashing the exclusive and ludicrously expensive award statue, an individually handcrafted glass artwork by Hanna Kugga.

And where’s the old man? Gallivanting overseas again at the taxpayers’ expense? But, hell and damnation, that’s what we pay our politicians for, to get the hell out of the country for as long and as often as possible so the staff can get on with running the show without interference.

Still, who knows? He’s supposed to be there for the full week, but Skandalblogger hears on the grapevine that there might well be a good reason to come scuttling home early from the conference in Berlin where he’s holed up in the Bristol Hotel, definitely a step up from the Gruesome Gullfoss and its Latvian hookers. At least at the Bristol there’s a bit more variety to choose from.

Well, Bjarni Jón. . See you on. . Wednesday? Maybe Thursday?

The call icon winked on the screen of Bjarni Jón Bjarnason’s laptop. Birna raised a questioning eyebrow and he nodded to her. She silently stood up from her side of the vast dining table scattered with papers.

Bjarni Jón clicked on the accept call button and Sigurjóna’s voice erupted through the speaker at the same time as an imperfect image of her appeared in a box below the internet phone’s control panel. He could see that she was dressed smartly, as if for the office.

‘Hi, darling. How are you? Everything OK at home?’

‘Of course,’ Sigurjóna snapped back. ‘Are you alone? Why can’t I see you on-screen?’

Bjarni Jón sighed. Birna looked at him inquiringly from the sofa on the far side of the suite where she had retreated with a pile of paperwork. The inquiring look asked if she should leave them to speak privately.

‘Birna’s here. We’re preparing for the meeting with Horst. You can’t see me because I don’t have a camera on this computer.’

‘All right. Listen.’

Bjarni Jón could make out his wife’s pinched features. ‘What is it, love? How did the awards go? I take it they gave you something?’