‘That’s good news. I was calling to see if you have time to come into the office this week. I thought it might be good to get started on some of the planning while we wait forBrimfaxi.’
It did Leifur’s heart good to hear Jonas refer to the boat by her name. It told him that Jonas understood how muchBrimfaximeant to him.
‘How about tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow’s great. Shall we say eleven?’
‘Should I bring anything with me?’
‘Bring the business plan, but no, nothing else.’
Another kindness for Jonas to refer to the sheaf of paper he’d presented a couple of weeks ago as a business plan.
The prospect of having something to do tomorrow spurred him into action. He’d spent long enough lying around feeling sorry for himself. He was a ball of nervous, excited energy at the prospect of the planning meeting, and he wanted to turn up with something that showed he was all in.
For starters, there was no way he was presenting the same sheaf of paper he’d shown Jonas onBrimfaxias the business plan. He’d also thought it might be useful to have some idea of what their closest competitors were doing in terms of timings and what they were offering. He rummaged amongst the cluttered mess on top of the sideboard and found the laptop he rarely used now that he didn’t have to keep on top of weather forecasts and fishing quotas. Unsurprisingly, the battery was dead, and it look another few minutes to track down the power supply. But then, he absorbed himself in typing up his notes into a decent plan for the first season, or astarting point at least, adding in information from some of the tour companies who offered sea-based tours.
By the time he’d finished, he was peckish, although it was only mid-afternoon. He stood in the small kitchen and looked around him. His house was messy, dusty and, now that he took a proper look, disgusting. When he was fishing, he spent more time on the boat than he did in the small cottage he owned that overlooked the sea. He either wasn’t there enough to make the place dirty, and now that he was, he was having quite an impact, or it had always been like this and he’d never noticed it before.
After eating a hastily-made sandwich, he opened all the windows, letting the gusty wind fill the house with fresh air. Then he tidied up before starting a seriously deep clean. It took the rest of the afternoon, but by the time he finished, it felt as if he’d wiped the slate clean. He was starting a new life, and now he was ready. And absolutely starving.
There were a couple of meals in the freezer that his mother had made for him. Not being organised enough to write on them what they were at the time, he had to guess. He chose one, hoping that it would be the meaty casserole that it looked like, and tipped it into a lidded cast-iron pot, which he put in the oven along with a large potato. Then he pulled a beer out of the fridge, popped the cap, grabbed a square of tarpaulin that he kept by the door and went outside to sit by the water’s edge.
The bank that sloped towards the sea from his house was soft and mossy, and still had patches of lying snow that hadn’t quite melted yet. The moss had covered the lava from an old eruption, so the ground was uneven and impossible to set a chair on. Leifur laid the tarpaulin out, careful not to let go of it until he was sitting down in case the wind caught it, and leant back on the bank to enjoy his beer, feeling for the first time in a long time that he’d done a good day’s work.
He stared out at the sea. If he were still fishing, he’d be in the midst of the prime fishing season now, and he couldn’t deny he was missing it. But he’d not allowed himself to look at the statistics. If he found out that the capelin had been good this season, it would mean he’d made the wrong choice, yet he didn’t want to delight in other people’s misery if the hauls had been bad, even if that validated his decision. It was better not to know.
Something caught his eye. A small wooden boat with a motor was rounding the head of the sheltered bay where Leifur’s cottage sat with a few others. It was a lovely spot, but not somewhere anyone came past in a boat by themselves, unless they lived there. He raised a hand to his brow to shade his eyes from the rapidly setting sun and to get a better look. There was a woman on the boat, sitting at the back with one hand on the tiller, her eyes focused on something. From what he could see, she was wearing very practical outdoor wear and a life vest. Smart woman. She obviously knew what she was doing. He saw her turn to face him and raised an arm to wave. She paused before she waved back, a grin that he could see from here lighting up her face. He laughed and waved again. Still smiling, she turned the boat and headed back out into the fjord.
Leifur sat there, wishing that she’d ventured closer to the shore. He’d love to ask her what she was doing out there. Ridiculously, seeing her out there alone, he felt as if she might be a kindred spirit. Someone else who had an affinity for the sea like him, and he felt sorry that he would never see her again. He laughed softly to himself, shaking his head. What was wrong with him?
Relationships of that kind had been difficult to navigate with his old job. Partly because of the unsocial hours but partly because once he’d seen how his father’s death had devastated his family, and how terrified his mother had beento see her sons continue to risk their lives every day, it wasn’t something he felt able to ask someone to do for him.
He stayed outside until the sun had set, feeling the cold seep into him, his layers finally giving in against the chill of the night. He picked up his tarpaulin and empty beer bottle and headed towards the welcoming glow of his cottage, feeling ready for the beginning of his new life.
5
AFTER A COUPLE of days left to her own devices, Astrid began to feel more settled. While Gudrun and Olafur had been out at work, she’d started off by feeling a low-level anxiety that there was something she ought to be doing. Eventually, she switched doom-scrolling on Gudrun’s sofa for walking down by the sea. It helped. She felt connected again, and she even hired a small motorboat for half a day to sail around the peninsula towards Hafnarfjörður. She knew she was unlikely to see any whales and dolphins so close to the land, but the feeling of the wind in her face, and the water underneath her was so uplifting, she didn’t mind. It was wonderful anyway.
What was also wonderful was that a man who was sitting on the shore of a small bay around the headland from Hafnarfjörður, waved at her. He was big, she could see that from here. She reminded him of a Viking, not unlike Sofie’s boyfriend, Aksel, but this man had a friendlier face. She could tell he was smiling even though his beard hid his mouth. Aside from Gudrun and Olafur, he was the first person she’d interacted with since she got back, and it gave her hope that she would eventually feel as if she belonged here again. She could feel his eyes on her as she continued around the headland, and it gave her a thrill. She rarely gave men asecond thought, but this man was exactly the kind of guy she’d go for.
She laughed and shook her head as she carried on further out of the fjord towards the sea. As if she could tell anything from a quick wave from a stranger. For goodness’ sake.
Gudrun had the following day off, and she had decreed that she and Astrid would spend the day together, catching up with everything. While Astrid had been in Norway, they had kept in touch mainly through the family WhatsApp group rather than directly with each other, and their mother kept each of them supplied with information about the other.
Astrid was lying in bed, thinking about getting up when there was a gentle knock at the door and Gudrun peeped her head around. ‘Morning, brought you a coffee.’
Gudrun was holding two big mugs. She handed one to Astrid and then walked around the side of the bed and climbed in.
‘It’s a long time since we’ve done this,’ Astrid said, laughing and shifting across to make more room for her sister.
‘Olafur is always up and out. I like lazing in bed and waking up slowly.’
‘Me too.’
‘You are such a liar,’ Gudrun said with feeling. ‘You have always been a morning person. I can’t believe you’ve changed.’
‘Okay, so most of the time I am still a morning person, but I’m on holiday so I’m happy to have a slow start to the day. What’s the plan?’
