Hi Adam, yes, I’ve been really busy too. It is going well though, thanks. Hope work calms down enough so you can enjoy the weekend, I’m looking forward to seeing you too. Love you xx
Thank goodness she had no time to dwell on Adam’s email. Now that the floor was finished, her mind was buzzing with the schedule, things she needed to add to her to-do list, and things to remember to flag up with Nick or the office. There were just three weeks left before opening now.
There were two guys, John and Rob, plus Nick in the build team. They had started by ripping out anything internally that wasn't staying, things like old pipe coverings, odd bits of fixings in the wall and some wall cladding which harked back to at least the 1970s. It was always a dicey moment; assessing how much work was needed to make the walls good.
The first container from the UK had arrived in Iceland and would be brought to the shop for unloading at 8 am. Because the store was in the heart of the city, container lorries couldn’t drive through in the middle of the day. It was full of the fixtures and fittings and all the other fit-out stuff so Nick, John and Rob were going to unload it, then their first job once the heating engineers had finished would be to fit the suspended ceiling which would hide all the service pipes and wires and would give Rachel and Gudrun lots of fixing points for their displays.
It was always a milestone moment when the shop could start being put together again so Rachel had sent some photos to Luisa in London to show her the blank canvas. She was keeping a close eye on how things were progressing, knowing that it was Rachel’s first time in sole charge of a project, albeit with plenty of support, and she was pleased with how everything was shaping up.
Despite the change in pace with work, Rachel had made time every evening to relax in her room with her knitting and had actually almost finished her hat. She was secretly thrilled that it would be ready to wear on her excursion with Adam at the weekend. She thought she had done a pretty good job and in a throwback to her childhood, had used bits of all the wool she had left to make a colourful oversized pom-pom for the top. Ta-dah! She took a selfie of herself wearing it and emailed it to her mum and dad.
17
FROM THE MINUTE she woke up on Friday, Rachel had butterflies in her stomach in anticipation of Adam’s arrival. They had never been apart for so long and despite her worries about addressing whatever it was Anna had seen, she was looking forward to seeing him, being close to him and, hopefully, enjoying a romantic couple of days. She had checked the weather forecast to make sure there wasn’t going to be a snowstorm or anything that would stop flights and it all looked good.
She kept busy all day to try and stop herself from constantly checking the time. Adam’s flight was at 6 pm from London City airport so he should make it to the hotel by 10.30 pm at the latest. It seemed like such a long time to have to wait and she wished she had insisted on picking him up just to give her something to do.
At 4 pm she had an email, from Adam’s work email address, which made her heart sink.
Rach, so sorry but I’m not going to make my flight. Megan has looked into changing and I can get a flight out later tonight at 10 otherwise in the morning at 8. Will do my best to make the first and will text you later. A x
It was just what she had feared and what she had forced herself not to expect. She felt sick with disappointment and so angry with Adam and with herself because she’d seen it coming but had carried on hoping for the best. He probably still really thought he’d get one of those other flights whereas Rachel knew that if it had come to this already, he wasn’t coming.
The thought of spending the weekend alone just made her feel worse. Aside from anything else, she felt robbed of the opportunity to find out from him, face-to-face, what had been going on in London while she’d been away.
After she left the shop, she sat in bed with a glass of wine, angry, silent tears coursing down her face while she went over and over all the times this type of thing had happened before. It had never mattered as much as this before. He had let her down and she had expected it. Why was she still waiting for him to be the kind of man that she wanted him to be when he had shown her so many times that he wasn’t? Was she just going to carry on hoping forever? How many times had he surprised her by coming through for her? Apart from the Icebar, which had been exceptional, she couldn’t think of a single example. The Icebar. It had been a night of extraordinary behaviour from Adam. A grand gesture before she left or, she wondered now, the result of a guilty conscience.
Throughout the evening, he texted with more apologies and the news that surprise, surprise he wasn’t going to fly out that night and probably not in the morning either. Well, if he wasn’t coming tonight, she didn’t want him to come. If he manned up enough to ring her, she didn’t want to speak to him anyway so she switched her phone off
*
When her alarm woke her at 6 am, she was emotionally drained but with a determination not to let what had happened ruin her weekend. She was still going to go on the excursion. It would take her mind off things and besides, she had been dying to see more of the country and it could be her only opportunity now that things were getting busier at the shop.
She waited in the foyer of the hotel, layered to the max in thermals, waterproof trousers, snow boots, her down jacket, souvenir gloves and best of all, her new hat. Despite having been hoping that Jonas wouldn’t be running the excursion, now that Adam wasn’t going Rachel couldn’t help hoping that it would be him.
The minibus pulled up and the driver hopped out to greet her and open the door to the back of the bus. He explained that they had one more pick up to make and then they’d be on their way. It wasn’t Jonas but Rachel reasoned that in the circumstances perhaps she was better off with her own company.
As the bus made its way through the narrow streets of the town centre in the dark of the morning, a worry began to niggle at her. Her phone was still off, although she had brought it with her in the breast pocket of her coat purely for taking photos. Despite being determined not to care anymore about whether Adam was going to turn up or not, she couldn’t help but worry that maybe he had decided to get the morning flight. He’d arrive and she wouldn’t be there. He knew she had planned the excursion today, she had emailed him the details, but she was sure he wouldn’t expect that she had decided to go alone. But then why did it matter? The fact was, she had no idea either way and that was down to him. He could sort himself out.
The bus stopped at a hotel on the outskirts of town to pick up two more people, a couple clearly in the throes of a romantic weekend themselves, which only made Rachel feel angry with Adam again, so she left her phone where it was and soon forgot to worry about what Adam was doing when the driver and tour guide, Einar, introduced himself over the minibus tannoy and began to tell them a potted history of Iceland as they made their way to the first stop of the day, Thingvellir National Park.
Einar turned off the main road and followed a narrow track to a car park which had a couple of low wooden buildings to the left. He informed them that they were the information centre and the toilets. Everyone piled out of the minibus and wandered over to look at the information boards on the other side of the car park.
Rachel was standing at what felt like the top of a cliff, looking out over a snow-covered plateau where there was a small cluster of white clapboard buildings. Looking to the left, according to the information board, what Rachel was looking at was the bottom of the rift between the tectonic plates of America and Europe. It was very easy to make out and completely amazing to see. She carried on along the path and downwards, between the rift, just fascinated to think that she was walking along the gap between two continents.
She had to succumb and turn her phone on so that she could use the camera to capture the spectacular scenery. Unsurprisingly, there was no mobile signal in the middle of nowhere which was an immense relief as she still wasn’t sure what she was going to say to Adam and if there had been a text from him, she’d have felt compelled to reply. As it was, she enjoyed taking endless pictures of the dramatic scenery, able to keep ignoring what she knew she was going to have to face sooner or later. Later was better.
The rest of the day was one endless photo opportunity, visiting one spectacular natural phenomenon after another. The highlight for Rachel was visiting the Great Geysir although it didn’t erupt regularly anymore, it was a smaller geyser, Strokkur, which erupted every twenty minutes or so and was the main attraction these days. It was mesmerising to watch and after a couple of eruptions, you knew to look for the way the water swelled which signalled an eruption so Rachel managed to get a decent photo of it in action.
It was so much colder out in the countryside than it was in Reykjavik that Rachel was glad of her new hat to keep her toasty even if it did make her forehead itch like mad. The snow was deeper too and she would not have wanted to be Einar, driving on barely visible roads, the edges marked by yellow sticks because you couldn’t tell where they were otherwise. Scary. She tried not to look out at the road ahead while they were driving along because it gave her the heebie-jeebies.
At the last stop, an amazing waterfall called Gullfoss, Einar took her aside to let her know the arrangements for the rest of the day. Rachel was the only person booked for the dinner and Northern Lights excursion so the minibus would drop her off at the restaurant and then the Northern Lights tour would pick her up later on. She was in half a mind to say forget it because she didn’t want to eat dinner alone, but Einar said that there was a very good chance that the aurora would show that evening and that was the deciding factor for her.
On the way to the restaurant, the dusk and the hum of the engine lulled Rachel to sleep and only the minibus door sliding open when they arrived woke her.
From the outside, the restaurant reminded her of a lake-side house or ski-lodge. It was built like a log cabin with a wrap-around veranda which was strung with fairy lights and there were floor-to-ceiling glass windows which showed the inviting looking interior. It may have been near a lake but in the dark, it was impossible to tell and it appeared that yet again, Rachel was in the middle of nowhere with nothing else to be seen apart from a coach in the car park.
If Adam had been with her and they had been expecting a romantic dinner for two at this restaurant they would have been disappointed, but for Rachel, it was completely perfect. In the centre of the room was a huge circular fire pit, built upon a stone surround underneath an enormous canopied chimney flue. It was surrounded by two circles of tables and benches and there were small wooden stools placed closer to the fire where it appeared that people were barbecuing meat on sticks.
