Pets by Bragi Ólafsson Page B

That uncomfortable fact is made more blatant when he opens a beer can—if it isn’t out of his plastic bag then it is the fourth from my pack—and walks into the living room.
    I hear him going through the CDs on the table and after a few minutes the first tones of “Mysterious Traveller” by Weather Report can be heard. Though I am far from being in the mood for jokes, I find it really amusing that he should pick this track—it is so very appropriate.
    â€œWhat is this!” he exclaims in pleasure, and it’s quite clear that on this occasion he is referring to the music. He gets a kick out of hearing something that is strange; he feels that he is more normal and has more freedom to follow his own whims.
    He is obviously interested in the things that I brought home, I listen to him reading out the titles of the videos and piling up the CDs like a stock of cards. I shiver with anxiety at the thought of the scratches that this treatment will inflict.
    â€œWhere can this guy be?” he says. “One doesn’t start heating water and then run straight out to a bar! No, Emil, one doesn’t behave like that.”
    I really wish that I could answer him but I’m not thinking of coming out. I didn’t come home to meet Havard Knutsson!
    3
    We had only known each other for about a month when we went off to London together. And it was by complete chance that Havard, whom I didn’t really know at all, accompanied me. I had just started working in a hardware store when a friend of my father, a former professional footballer and joint-owner of a soap factory in England, invited me to stay in the flat he owned in London for six weeks and take care of some animals that lived there: a cat, a rabbit, a guinea pig, and an ancient iguana that had been given to him by a Mexican colleague from the world of football. His daughter lived in the house, which was situated in Stoke Newington in North London, but she was going away on a trip to Europe, so she needed someone to look after the flat and the animals. The daughter, Margret Osk—who was always called Osk—had spent several years in London learning to play the violin, and I had even seen her play with a string quintet a few years back in Reykjavik. I met her father Orn at a party my parents held several weeks before Havard and I left for London. My father insisted that I talk to Orn because we shared an interest in books on waterskiing, mountaineering, and exploring, however strange it may sound. We got on well, and when Orn found out that I wasn’t doing anything special at the time his daughter would be away, he invited me to use his house. He even offered to pay me pocket money, as he called it—more as a joke I think—while I stayed there. He told me that I could take someone with me if I wanted to, he would pay for another person as well.
    I didn’t take long to think over that tempting offer, and I remember phoning Orn the following day to see if it was still open. In the beginning I intended to go alone, but Havard was very interested when I mentioned the trip to my workmates, not least because I had blurted out that I could take someone with me. In the short period that I had worked in the shop I had gotten to know Havard a little, and although we didn’t have much in common, which I was quite happy about, I thought that he was interesting to talk to, especially about music and taste in music—a subject which, of course, one cannot discuss in any depth. Besides I was much more receptive to odd and even dubious characters at that time, and I can’t deny that Havard aroused my curiosity in this respect.
    I don’t remember if I agreed straight away or if I took some time to think it over, but the outcome was that he accompanied me to London. Originally, he only intended to stay three weeks, but when a month had passed I saw no other option than to kick him out.
    It became apparent that the Havard