The babysitter was late.
The couple hardly ever went out in the evening, so they had been careful to check her availability well in advance. She had babysat for them a few times before and lived in the next street, but apart from that they didn’t know much about her. Or her family either, though they knew her mother to speak to when they ran into her in the neighbourhood. Their seven-year-old daughter looked up to the girl, who was twenty-one and seemed very grown up and glamorous to her. She was always talking about what fun she was, what pretty clothes she wore, what exciting bedtime stories she told, and so on. Their daughter’s eagerness to have her round to babysit made the couple feel less guilty about accepting the invitation; they felt reassured that their little girl would not only be in good hands but would enjoy herself, too. They had arranged for the girl to babysit from six until midnight, but it was already past six, getting on for half past in fact, and the dinner was due to start at seven. The husband wanted to ring and ask what had happened to her, but his wife was reluctant to make a fuss: she’d turn up.
It was a Saturday evening in March and the atmosphere had been one of happy anticipation until the babysitter failed to turn up on time. The couple were looking forward to an entertaining evening with the wife’s colleagues from the ministry and their daughter was excited about spending the evening watching films with the babysitter. They didn’t own a VCR, but, as it was a special occasion, father and daughter had gone down to the local video store and rented a machine and three tapes, and the little girl had permission to stay up as late as she liked, until she ran out of steam.
It was just after half six when the doorbell finally rang. The family lived on the second floor of a small block of flats in Kópavogur, the town immediately to the south of Reykjavík. The mother picked up the entryphone. It was the babysitter at last. She appeared at their door a few moments later, soaked to the skin, and explained that she’d walked over. It was raining so hard it was like having a bucket emptied over your head. She apologized, embarrassed, for being so late.
The couple waved away her apologies, determined not to let the delay spoil their evening. They thanked her for standing in for them, reminded her of the main house rules and asked if she knew how to work a video recorder, at which point their daughter broke in to say she didn’t need any help. Clearly, she could hardly wait to bundle her parents out of the door so the video fest could begin, though the family invariably spent their Saturday evenings glued to the television as it was.
In spite of the taxi waiting outside, the couple couldn’t tear themselves away. They just weren’t used to leaving their daughter. ‘Don’t worry,’ the babysitter said at last, ‘I’ll take good care of her.’ She looked comfortingly reliable as she said this, and as she’d always done a good job of looking after their daughter in the past, it was in a fairly cheerful frame of mind that they finally headed out into the downpour.
The evening went well, but as it wore on, the mother began to feel increasingly anxious about their daughter.
‘Don’t be silly,’ said her husband. ‘I bet she’s having a whale of a time.’ Glancing at his watch, he added, ‘She’ll be on her second or third film by now, and they’ll have polished off all the ice cream.’
‘Do you think they’d let me use the phone at the front desk?’ asked his wife.
‘It’s a bit late to ring them now, isn’t it? She may have dropped off in front of the TV.’
In the end, they set off home a little earlier than planned, just after eleven. The three-course dinner was over by then, and to be honest it had been a bit underwhelming. The main course, which was lamb, had been bland at best. After dinner, people had piled on to the dance floor. To begin with, the DJ had played popular oldies, but then he moved on to more recent chart hits, which weren’t really the couple’s sort of thing, although they still liked to think of themselves as young; after all, they weren’t middle-aged yet.
They rode home in silence, the rain streaming down the taxi’s windows. The truth was they weren’t really party people; they were too fond of their creature comforts at home, and the evening had tired them out, though they hadn’t drunk much, just a glass of red wine with dinner.
As they got out of the taxi, the wife remarked that she hoped their daughter was asleep so they could both crawl straight into bed.
They climbed the stairs unhurriedly and opened the door instead of ringing the bell, for fear of disturbing the child.
But she wasn’t asleep, as it turned out. She came running to greet them, threw her arms around them and hugged them unusually tightly. To their surprise, she seemed wide awake; they’d have expected her to be nodding off by now.
‘You’re full of beans,’ said her father, smiling at her.
‘I’m so glad you’re home,’ said the little girl. There was an odd look in her eye; something was wrong, though it was hard to define what it was.
The babysitter emerged from the sitting room and smiled sweetly at them.
‘How did it go?’ asked the mother.
‘Really well,’ the babysitter replied, ‘Your daughter’s such a good girl. We watched two videos.’
‘Thanks so much for coming; I don’t know what we’d have done without you.’
The father took his wallet from his jacket, counted out some notes and handed them to her. ‘Is that right?’
She counted the money herself, then nodded. ‘Yes, perfect.’
After she’d left, the father turned to their daughter.
‘Aren’t you tired, sweetheart?’
‘Yes, maybe a little. But could we watch just a bit more?’
Her father shook his head, saying kindly, ‘Sorry, it’s awfully late.’
‘Oh, please. I don’t want to go to bed yet,’ said the little girl, sounding on the verge of tears.
‘OK, OK.’ He ushered her into the sitting room. The TV schedule was over for the evening, but he turned on the video machine and inserted a new cassette.
Then he joined her on the sofa and they waited for the film to begin.
‘Didn’t you have a nice time together?’ he asked, warily.
‘Yes … yes, it was fine,’ she said, not very convincingly.
‘She was … kind to you, wasn’t she?’
‘Yes,’ answered the child. ‘Yes, they were both kind.’
Her father was wrong-footed. ‘What do you mean both?’ he asked.
‘There were two of them.’
Turning round to look at her, he asked again, gently: ‘What do you mean by them?’
‘There were two of them.’
‘Did one of her friends come round?’
There was a brief pause before the girl answered. Seeing the fear in her eyes, he gave an involuntary shiver.
‘No. But it was kind of weird, Daddy …’