Under One Sky

Chapter 26

26

AUGUST 2018, TROMS?, NORWAY

‘Mr Hansen, please meet i-Scand Arctic’s most recent acquisition and newest member of the team… our bartender Cecilie. Erm, who also happens to be my twin sister.’

Cecilie dries a large red wine glass with a pristine white cloth and places it on the shelving above the ambient-lit bar. Her asymmetric sweep of white-blonde hair complements the white crisp shirt of her uniform perfectly. Iridescent green eyes flutter as she smiles, but she doesn’t extend a hand.

Espen pulls up two bar stools and invites his guest to sit down at one while he stands and gently leans against the other.

‘Cecilie, Mr Hansen is a regular at the hotel, commuting between here and Copenhagen.’ Mr Hansen, a dashing man with noble lips and mink-brown hair that’s greying at the temples, sits on his bar stool and smiles, looking from one twin to the other in awe. People often do that when they realise Espen and Cecilie are twins as they piece together the jigsaw puzzle of their features. ‘He’s an esteemed scientist; in fact, Mr Hansen knows more about your brain than you do.’

‘Espen, please, it’s Andreas…’ Andreas says, removing his na vy-blue suit jacket. ‘And he flatters me, Cecilie. I’m no brain surgeon, I merely import fish oil, and up here you have the best.’ Mr Hansen – Andreas – shrugs and drinks in the bare-faced beauty behind the bar.

‘Nice to meet you,’ says Cecilie, drying another large glass. Espen is always polite and effusive to guests at the i-Scand, but she can tell her brother is keen to impress this one in particular.

‘Can we get you a drink?’ Espen asks. ‘Your usual?’

‘Actually, I think I’ll need something stronger, Espen.’

Andreas widens his weary eyes and then looks at his watch. ‘As of, ooh, two hours ago, I became a single man again. I think I need to drown my sorrows.’ He lets out a wry laugh.

‘Or celebrate perhaps?’ fawns Espen, seeing an opportunity.

Espen!

Cecilie turns around to look at the offering of spirits she’s not yet familiar with, standing neatly on the glass back wall, and hides her cringing face.

‘Perhaps,’ Andreas says, flinging his suit jacket on the back of his stool like a cape.

Cecilie gives Espen a sideways glare.

‘Usually, Mr Hansen – sorry, Andreas – likes a cold pilsner, but how about a whisky today? Have a Yamazaki on us.’ Espen points his finger. ‘That one there, Cecilie. It’s twelve years old.’

Cecilie picks the bottle from the line-up, scoops ice into a square glass and pours a measure with her free hand. Espen tells Cecilie to stop pouring without uttering a word. She can hear his voice in her head telling her that this whisky is 1,500 krone a bottle.

‘I’m sorry for your turmoil,’ Cecilie says with a sympathetic smile. The ice cubes crack under liquid gold.

‘Oh, I’m not really. I am sorry Iben fleeced me for the house, the summer house, the kids and the dog… But I’m not sorry her pe rsonal trainer boyfriend is about to find out just how high-maintenance she is. I give their relationship till Christmas.’ Andreas gives a wistful shrug and rubs the end of his nose.

‘Here. Well, I’ll have a drink with you, to celebrate or commiserate. A sparkling water please, Cecilie.’ Espen never drinks on the job. In fact, he rarely drinks off the job. Many an evening Morten and Cecilie have sunk a bottle of red and Espen has barely got through a glass.

Cecilie blinks three times in an attempt to hide her fatigue as she searches the low fridge for a bottle of Voss. She’s exhausted and can’t wait to get home and put her feet up when she clocks off in three hours’ time. Cecilie was up at the library at 7.30a.m. to help Fredrik clear the basement area for a children’s writing workshop; she left the heaving basement at midday to work the lunchtime and afternoon shift with Henrik at the Hjornekafé, and now she’s at the i-Scand, looking for Espen’s favourite brand of fizz and getting ready to pour whisky – not all Yamazaki – for the evening arrivals from the capital. She catches her reflection in the fridge door.

Uff.

‘And can I have some ice in that, please?’ Espen asks, even though Cecilie already knew that’s what he was about to say.

Cecilie stands and shovels another cluster of cubes, this time into a longer glass, and pours Espen his drink. She looks at the downbeat man sipping his whisky and finds something comforting in his acquiescent face. Perhaps it’s that he looks like he’s in a daydream, because Cecilie likes to have those too.

Fizz, fizz, crack. The ice breaks the silence.

Espen raises his glass and snaps Andreas out of another world.

‘ Sk?l , Mr— Andreas,’ Espen says, raising his effervescent glass. ‘To pastures new. ’

Andreas smiles and nods and looks at Cecilie.

‘Cheers,’ he replies, lifting his glass but not taking his eyes off her. ‘Hey, you need a drink too. Espen, what about your sister?’

‘Oh, I’m OK.’ She smiles reassuringly.

Cecilie feels flushed and busies herself by fitting the lid of the ice bucket back on.

‘So, Espen, I didn’t realise you had a twin, how fantastic.’

‘Yes, I’ve known her all my life.’ Espen laughs, even though it’s a joke he has told a thousand times. Cecilie rolls her eyes.

Andreas studies Cecilie’s face. ‘Wow,’ he says, almost to himself.

One of the hotel receptionists approaches Espen cautiously. At twenty-nine, he is the youngest manager in any of the chain’s fifteen hotels across Scandinavia, but staff are still respectful of him; he worked his way up from bell boy to waiter to restaurant manager to hotel manager. He cares so much about customer satisfaction; he’s passionate about the i-Scand brand.

‘Can I have a word?’ asks Camilla, her dark blonde hair in a neat bun.

‘Sure,’ says Espen, putting a fist to his mouth and clearing his throat. ‘Excuse me just a second,’ he says, putting his hand on Andreas’s shoulder before walking off to a discreet corner of the room with Camilla.

Cecilie feels under pressure to make chit-chat. She loves singing lullabies to babies, or watching children in awe of authors in the library; and the Hjornekafé is a home from home. Just stepping inside it and wiping her feet on the coarse mat feels like a warm hug. But the stark and dark décor of the businessman’s current favourite Troms? hotel is less comfortable. Cecilie isn’t very good at chit-chat. It’s one of the reasons why she always felt so contented chatting to Hector online. She likes a safety barrier of screens .

‘How long are you staying for?’ Cecilie asks stiltedly. But there is something about Andreas that puts her at ease. It makes her understand that whatever it is he does with brains or fish oil, or whatever business he’s in, he’s obviously very competent.

‘Just a few days. I’m only ever here for a few days. But I like it up here. Your people are a bit mad.’

Cecilie laughs as she straightens mats on the black granite bar.

‘I can’t argue with that. It’s all this daylight followed by darkness. It sends us a bit loopy,’ she says as she crosses her eyes and sticks her tongue out to the side.

Andreas laughs, which takes him by surprise. His smile is warm and he’s bemused by an absurdity he’s never seen in Espen.

Cecilie stops abruptly and looks back down at the bar mats. She straightens the same ones again, in the same order as she did before.

The bar area is quiet apart from the two of them, and Camilla and Espen mulling over a clipboard in the corner. Thursday’s late-afternoon arrivals won’t start filling the bar for the next hour or so, and Eirik, who is working the early evening shift with Cecilie, isn’t due in until six o’clock.

Andreas sees the flush of shyness in Cecilie and wants to put her at ease.

‘You live in such a beautiful town, although I never get to see it as I’m always working.’

‘Have you been up the Fjellheisen? The view from the ledge up there is pretty spectacular.’

‘No, I must have been to Troms? twenty times and I’ve never been. I bet it’s beautiful to see the lights from up there.’

Cecilie nods dreamily.

‘Not this time of year.’ She takes a cloth and pretends to look busy by drying already-dry glasses. It’s easier to make chit-chat if she’s doing something with her hands. ‘What’s Copenhagen like?’

‘Really cool, really colourful, my sons have a good life there – it’s just a shame I’m not at home as much as I like, I guess…’ Andreas drifts away for a second, then his eyes light up. ‘The restaurants are amazing. You’ve never been?’ he asks with surprise.

Cecilie feels embarrassed again. ‘No, no, but I heard it’s awesome.’

A beep goes off on Cecilie’s phone under the bar and she tries to ignore it.

It wouldn’t look professional.

Then another.

Is it him?

‘Would you like a top-up of ice?’ Cecilie asks under a pretext, fumbling for a scoop.

‘Sure, thanks.’

She looks down. Her screen is lit. It’s not Hector. The texts are from Grethe and they come in a stream of five or six.

Hei Cecilie!

Can you talk?

Are you there?

Are you at work?

It’s happening. I can’t get hold of Abdi.

Cecilie gasps.

‘Shit! Espen!’ she calls across the bar. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Andreas,’ she says, putting her hand to her mouth.

‘Is everything OK? ’

‘My friend, I think she’s gone into labour.’ Cecilie teeters between protocol and primeval. Then she shouts across the bar again. ‘Espen!’

He turns around, breaking away from his conversation with Camilla, and gives his sister a look.

‘Just a second,’ he says, raising an irked palm. Cecilie doesn’t wait.

‘It’s Grethe, I think she went into labour.’ Espen’s face softens. ‘Abdi’s out on the boat and she can’t get hold of him.’

‘Excuse me a second, Camilla,’ Espen says, straightening his suit jacket as he strides over. ‘Have you spoken to her?’

‘No, I just had a text.’

‘Well, you must call her,’ Espen says, in a strange concoction of fire-fighting mode and inconvenience. ‘I’ll get one of the dining staff to cover the bar for a minute. Actually, Camilla, can you just cover for a second please?’

The girl with the neat bun nods and follows Espen’s trail. ‘Excuse me, Mr Hansen – sorry, Andreas,’ says Espen, bowing. ‘It’s practically a family emergency. Our friend is heavily pregnant.’

Andreas smiles.

‘Would you like another Yamazaki?’

‘No, no thanks,’ Andreas replies as he watches Cecilie walk away to make a call. Andreas sees her for the first time from the ground up. Dr Martens boots. Black tights and a short black skirt. Crisp white shirt. Even in her uniform, she looks edgier than her twin brother.

Cecilie walks into the function room, a room with big mesh spheres for lightshades, and closes the sliding doors behind her as she presses Grethe’s face to call her.

‘ Hei , you OK?’

‘ Nei , I’m at the hospital. Abdi is at sea. I can’t get hold of him. It hurts so much, Cecilie. My mum is at the Iskrembar. I told her Abdi was on his way so she wouldn’t worry.’

‘Want me to come? I’m sure Espen won’t mind.’

‘Will you, I want to die…’ The line goes silent and then Cecilie hears howling, like a wolf at the moon, followed by a retching sound and the splat of liquid – vomit, she assumes – hitting the floor. Cecilie knows she must go to her.

‘I’m coming!’ she shouts, hoping Grethe would have heard her from a phone that’s now on the floor of the delivery suite. ‘Espen, I need to get to the hospital, she’s on her own – can you cover my shift until Eirik gets here?’

‘Don’t worry about here, go go go – where’s Mamma’s car?’

‘It’s at home, I walked.’

Mamma’s car is actually Cecilie’s, given Karin doesn’t drive, but she certainly pays for the family runaround.

‘You might struggle getting a taxi.’ Espen tries to remain cool and calm in hotel manager mode, but even he is starting to flip and the quiff of his blond hair is waning.

‘My driver is out front,’ says Andreas coolly. ‘He knows these roads. Take my car.’

‘Really?’ asks Espen. He’s clearly uncomfortable about crossing an imaginary line with a hotel guest.

‘Yeah, sure – he is only sitting there bored, waiting to see if I want to eat out tonight, which I don’t. I’m going to have a club sandwich in my room.’

Andreas always has a club sandwich in his room on the first night.

‘If you’re sure…’

Cecilie flutters to the door at the end of the bar, goes through it to grab her coat and bag and comes out looking flustered. She sweeps her fringe behind one ear. Andreas stands .

‘Come on, I’ll show you to my car, I’ll explain everything to Svein.’

Andreas puts a reassuring hand a few centimetres away from the middle of Cecilie’s back to help usher her out. She doesn’t feel it touch her, but she knows it is there. Andreas and Cecilie guide each other out of the bar area: through the atrium-like dining room to the sleek and shiny tiled floor of the reception area and through the automatic doors onto the harbour. There is a large space where the Hurtigruten is usually docked, where Abdi will return tonight, perhaps as an unwitting father.

‘Here we go,’ Andreas says, opening the rear door of a sleek black Audi.

‘Svein, take Miss Wiig wherever she needs to go please – although I assume it’s the hospital, yes?’ He nods at Cecilie as she slides into the back and gives a grateful smile.

‘That’s right, the hospital please.’ She looks up at Andreas. ‘Thank you,’ Cecilie says as she closes the car door.