He shivered. It wasn’t too late to get out of here. What had he been thinking? He could have cancelled the budget flights bought so long ago, and returned Jón’s money. He could be spending Christmas at home with his family and his old school friends – then again, that meant rubbing shoulders with old hook-ups he knew in town.
Running into old lovers was pretty much unavoidable back home. Hardly anybody did first dates in Reykjavík; in fact, he knew nobody who did. It was more a case of chatting online with a friend of a friend and then meeting at a club when everyone had drunk enough spirits to want to dance and to make kissing easy, and then, that was it. It was the way things had been since graduating high school.
He’d read an article about it in the Icelandair in-flight magazine on the plane over. It had said that Reykjavík was great for culture, history and shopping, but terrible for romance. He’d had to agree.
He thought of what he’d be doing tonight if he were back home. After his shift at the Vínbúðin liquor shop, he’d lock up, drink some beers at home with Jón and his friends, then after eleven, they’d head to a bar.
That had been the routine since Anna left him, and pretty much every time he went out he’d bump into her. Sometimes they’d end up back at her place for old times’ sake. Some nights he’d end up in some other person’s bed.
Yes, nightlife in Reykjavík was simple. He wasn’t sure when exactly he’d stopped enjoying it, but the thought of doing it every weekend all winter long made him feel even colder.
He’d miss dinner and the Christmas EveJólabókaflóðwith extended family, though. They’d all gather around the table with Uncle Tor asking when he’d get a real job, a job for life, like his grandfather and hispabbihad done – fishing, the aluminium smelting or working in tourism. Good steady work that the older generation exalted but just didn’t exist any more, or if jobsdidcome up, they were casual and precarious. The older members of his family always wanted to know when he’d stick at something and settle down.
No one understood how on earth he could be happy going from being a businessman to a booze seller. He wasn’t happy but, of course, he wouldn’t tell them that, not in words anyway.
Even Jón had a proper job, had done since school, writing for the local paper. He’d recently been promoted to features editor and was responsible for weekend cover stories now. He was five years Magnús’s junior.
If he stayed here in England he’d miss out on all their nit-picking, comparing and cajoling – even if it was all said with a smile, nothing too unkind. He’d also miss the exchange of beautifully wrapped gift books, all bought at someone else’s bookstore.
Here, he wouldn’t have to nod and smile as he watched fifty thousand króna worth of books being passed around, knowing in every house in town people would be doing the same thing while his dream shop stood empty.
Thinking about it, it might do him good to sit Christmas out here, alone and unbothered. Maybe he’d even play at being a bookseller like they wanted him to. He wondered what that would feel like, with no overheads and no worries. A meaningless game of putting money he didn’t even get to keep in someone else’s till?
He’d seen the prices on those books downstairs; pounds and pennies. There was no way this place could make a profit without the holiday let. A sham, not a real bookshop at all. Pretending. Playing at life. Faking bookselling. He’d done that once before.
His mood sank lower and a new preoccupation hit him. He was seriously hungry and there wasn’t a thing to eat in the tiny room downstairs at the back of the shop that was supposedly the kitchen.
After changing his clothes (he wasn’t willing to strip off and step inside that little bath with its clingy plastic curtain to stand under the dribbling shower; he’d face that torture this evening), he grabbed the shop keys.
There was a pub on the harbour wall, he knew that much, and they claimed to be a bed and breakfast. It was almost eight. He’d try there. He always felt better with a full stomach.
Only once he was outside and he saw the people hurrying down the cobbled slope towards the harbour and heard the shouting, did he realise something was wrong.
The wind blew stiffly and almost carried all other noise away but there was the distant sound of yelling and hauling from way below him. Before he knew it, he too was shuffling down the slope as fast as he could, his eyes fixed on the choppy water.
Could it be a whale in trouble? Did that happen here too? He’d never seen it himself, but the news reports of mass beachings from back home came flooding back to him now and his blood turned to cold mercury at the thought. He knew how these things usually went. What a way to begin what was supposed to be a holiday.
Turning the last corner of the row of cottages facing each other that made up Down-along, he saw it. The boat was tipped on its side in the splashing shallows on the pebbly grey beach, its brown keel aslant above the water and facing off against the turbulent sky.
There was a crowd on the harbour wall, sheltered from the high winds by the pub, passively watching. Almost all of them had suitcases. He put that fact to the back of his mind as irrelevant at that moment.
Two tall lads in waterproofs – fishermen, he reckoned – had just finished hauling the boat in, letting the rope drop. One had fallen backwards and was scrambling to his feet again; the other was making for the boat.
Magnús had read that there were two types of people in the world: those who run towards trouble thinking they should help and those who stand back out of fear they’ll make matters worse, or maybe it’s a primal terror they could endanger themselves. Magnús found out that morning he was a helper.
He bounded across the shore, stumbling awkwardly on the slippery pebbles – they were much bigger up close – the wind beating in his face, pushing against him with a force that took his breath away.
‘Anybody aboard?’ one of the lads called out. No sound came from the hull.
Making long strides, Magnús almost overtook the one that had stumbled and together they reached the prow of the cruiser just as the big black figure emerged from the cabin with a loud ‘Ugh!’
They were uninjured enough to be cross. Magnús thought that was a good sign.
‘Let us help you,’ one of the men told the figure, reaching his hands up to help lift them down.
Magnús couldn’t speak at all.
He was too busy gaping at the woman. She pushed back the black hood on her great oiled waterproof and a mass of wet, white-blonde hair billowed up in the wind. She was scowling fiercely and terribly, deathly pale.
