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 Hafnarfjoreur.
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 Hafnarfjoreur, 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 a second 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?’
‘I think we should go somewhere for breakfast. There’s a new place that Iris told me about. Then shall we go to the pool?’
‘Definitely,’ said Astrid. She loved the pool, and if she and Gudrun were going to spend the day talking, there was no better place than in a hot pot.
‘I’ve missed that so much. In Norway we went for saunas, but then you have to plunge into the cold water, and when it is cold outside anyway, I would much rather be getting into warm water. ’
‘See? You are still an Icelander at heart. Even if you did love Troms?.’
‘Is Olafur working today?’
Gudrun nodded. ‘He’s on the Golden Circle tours this week. I said we would meet everyone at the bar for dinner. Is that okay?’
‘Of course.’ Astrid knew that where Olafur went, his friends went most of the time too.
Over the years she’d come to know their group of friends a little, mainly from listening to Gudrun talk about them.
From what she said, they all had partners now, so there could be quite a group at the bar later.
‘I think you’ll especially like Iris. She and Siggi are together,’ said Gudrun. ‘He almost died when the lava tubes erupted near Grindavik and they realised how much they loved each other.’
‘Oh, Gudrun. I’d forgotten what an old romantic you are.’
‘I think I have magical powers because ever since I came back from Norway, every single one of Olafur’s friends, apart from Anders, has fallen in love.’
Of course, it had nothing to do with the fact that they had all reached that age when they’d naturally feel drawn to settling down rather than continue behaving like teenagers, hanging out in bars and taking crazy risks with their adventures.
They were all in their thirties now and had almost certainly realised that there was more to life than beer and adrenaline rushes.
‘Well, that’s quite some claim you’re making. Maybe there’s just something in the water,’ Astrid teased.
‘I thought you’d come back here with a Viking in tow, As.’
Astrid laughed. ‘Oh my god, no. ’
‘What is so funny about that?’
’My career is just getting started. I can’t tie myself down when I could be disappearing to the Arctic Circle on a research boat for weeks at a time.’
‘If he or she,’ Gudrun said, looking pointedly at Astrid, ‘is the right person, they won’t mind that.’
‘It’s a distraction though, isn’t it?’
‘I think it can work. You should meet Iris. She’s a volcanologist, and although she works here most of the time, she travels a lot to visit places that have volcanic activity.’
‘Isn’t Siggi the one who travelled half the year and then came back and worked for Jonas?’
Gudrun looked sheepish. ‘Okay, so maybe he goes with her most of the time, but he would wait for her if he had to.’
‘Okay. Enough talk about men. Mind if I have the first shower?’
After a breakfast of waffles and coffee, then a longer-than-usual session in the hot pots at the local pool, Astrid felt more relaxed than she had in a long time.
Being back in Iceland, in places familiar and comforting, helped her not to yearn after Norway too badly.
It was so lovely to spend time with her sister.
They’d spent the day reminiscing about all sorts of things, and that had reminded her she had belonged here once.
Four years wasn’t that long, and although she wished she could have carried on life in Troms?, she had to embrace the change.
She’d also managed to avoid the topic of men successfully since the conversation they’d had that morning.
Romance had never been at the top of her list of things to do.
She’d had the odd fling, even relationships that perhaps would have endured if she hadn’t waved goodbye and left on a boat for weeks or months at a time.
It had never felt like the right time to pursue anything, to make a commitment she wasn’t sure she could see through.
And she’d never felt strongly enough about anyone to have any sense that she was missing out on something.
They caught the bus back from the pool and after popping back to the house to freshen up and change, they set off for Islenski Barinn which had long been the favourite hangout of Olafur and his friends and still the place they gravitated to on a Friday night.
Astrid had never socialised with her sister except for the odd drink on a fleeting visit home.
The four years between them had seemed like a bigger gulf when they were younger.
When she’d left for university, opting to study in Sweden since at the time there were no marine biology courses offered in Iceland, Gudrun had been fifteen.
Then, when she moved back to Iceland to study for her master’s degree, she was in the north in Akureyri.
This was going to be the longest she had lived in Reykjavik since she was nineteen.
Gudrun led the way up the steps and into the bar.
It was busy, but then it was Friday night.
Astrid doubted they’d be lucky enough to get a table.
Then she spotted Olafur waving at them from a big table at the far end of the room underneath a piece of art with the name of the bar written in huge letters.
‘Do you want a beer?’ Gudrun asked.
‘That’d be great,’ said Astrid, pulling out her phone to pay.
‘This one’s on me. Go and sit with the others.’
Not wanting to go over to the table alone, but without a good reason to object, other than that she was nervous, which would sound ridiculous, Astrid headed over to where Olafur was.
‘ Hae ,’ she said.
Olafur stood up to let her scoot along on the bench next to him. ‘Everyone, this is Astrid.’
‘ Hae , Astrid,’ Jonas said, smiling. ‘I think we met a couple of years ago at Christmas. It’s good to see you.
This is my wife, Rachel.’ He said the last part in English.
‘Rachel is getting the hang of Icelandic. Finally,’ he said, earning a shove and a grin from his wife.
‘But we speak English a lot of the time to give her a break.’
‘And I’m Fliss. Also English. Nice to meet you,’ she said with a smile. ‘And I am terrible at speaking Icelandic.’
‘Great to meet you,’ Astrid said, laughing and feeling less nervous with every introduction.
‘And this is Brun, Siggi and Iris,’ Olafur said, gesturing to the last three people who were sitting opposite.
‘Also English,’ said Iris with a small wave. ‘So you were living in Norway?’
Astrid nodded. ‘For the past four years.’
‘I love Norway,’ Iris said. ‘Siggi and I went there for a week in the autumn. The scenery is incredible.’
‘Where did you go?’
‘We stayed in ?lesund and did lots of hiking around there.’
‘Yes, it’s beautiful. I bet the views were amazing.’
‘Amazing,’ said Siggi, putting his arm around Iris and gazing at her adoringly.
‘They are quite besotted. It is still new,’ Olafur explained in a low voice.
Astrid nodded, bemused. She was sure Siggi was the one who used to be away, travelling, more than he was here. Gudrun told tales of him leaving broken hearts behind him every time he left town. But this man was in love. Perhaps Gudrun was onto something when she said she had magical powers.
‘Here,’ Gudrun said, sliding Astrid’s beer across to her and squeezing herself onto the end of the bench on the other side of Olafur. Olafur put his arm around her waist and pulled her into him, and Astrid tried not to think about the fact that she was the only single person at the table.
After they’d eaten, and another round of beers had been collected from the bar, Jonas pulled up an empty chair from a table behind them.
‘Hey, Astrid, come and sit over here,’ he said.
She climbed over the bench, pressing herself against the wall behind to avoid having to make either Olafur and Gudrun or Brun move out of the way. Now that she’d had a couple of drinks, and spent the past hour or so dipping in and out of conversations on either side of her, she felt more at ease.
‘I have a business proposition for you,’ Jonas said in Icelandic.
‘You can’t talk about that tonight,’ Rachel said to him. ‘I know what you said.’
‘She doesn’t know,’ he said to Astrid. ‘She’s just guessing because she knows how excited I am about this.’
‘It’s okay,’ said Astrid. ‘I’m keen to hear it now.’
Rachel smiled and rolled her eyes. ‘It is exciting,’ she said. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’ She patted Jonas’s shoulder as she stood up, taking a seat at the end of the bench next to Brun and chatting to Fliss.
‘We’re starting a new venture with Iceland Adventures,’ Jonas began. ‘We’re going to start running boat tours. I’ve started a partnership with a friend who has a boat, but I need someone else to run it with him.’
‘Whale-watching trips?’ Astrid asked.
Jonas bobbed his head from side to side, seemingly reluctant to answer.
‘There’s a lot of competition if we go down that route.
We need to offer something unique, and that’s where I think you could really help us out.
The guy I’m working with comes from a fishing background.
He knows these waters inside out, and he has some knowledge of where to find whales.
But with your expertise, could we go further?
Could we focus on other marine species that are just as wonderful? ’
‘There are dolphins and seals as well, but they’re not as impressive as whales and can be harder to find. In Faxaflói Bay you’re most likely to see humpbacks and minkes. I don’t have any special insight into anything else you could reliably look for.’
Jonas looked dejected. ‘I hope I haven’t sunk a lot of money into this only to do the same as everyone else.’
‘What made you decide to do it in the first place?’
‘The guy who owns the boat, Leifur, came to me with a business proposition. His fishing business is basically bankrupt, and all he has left is his boat. A lot of fishermen are switching into tourism, but he can’t afford to set up on his own.
I like the idea of a new income stream, and he’s a good guy. I want to help him out.’
‘Let me do some research for you. See what I can find out.’ She wasn’t sure what she could do, but she had access to some useful data.
‘That’d be amazing,’ Jonas said, his face lighting up. ‘Once we’re up and running, there’s a job for you on the boat if you want it? We’ll need someone with knowledge to share with the guests about what they’re seeing.’
‘Thank you for the offer, but I’m hoping to find a new research position. I don’t want to say yes and then let you down if I need to leave.’
‘Well, how about we agree on something temporary? Any time you can give us will be valuable, and we can get someone else onto the boat with you that you could train.’
‘Can I think about it?’
‘Of course. Thank you, Astrid.’
She smiled and noticed Gudrun watching them with a raised eyebrow. She was desperate to know what they’d been talking about. Astrid grinned at her sister and tapped her nose.
Olafur roared with laughter. ‘Oh, Astrid, it is going to be fun having you around,’ he said while Gudrun tried to look furious with him but ended up laughing too.