Chapter 9
Lotta met her sisters off the train at Paddington Station on Friday evening.
She’d had time to drop her luggage at home and have a cup of tea before she’d headed out again.
The three of them headed back to her place on the Tube with a bag of food and a bottle of wine.
She loved these station reunions. The anticipation of waiting and trying to spot them in the crowd of passengers that surged from the trains was so much more fun than waiting in her flat for them to arrive.
London was finally showing signs of spring, and the forecast for the weekend looked dry, which is all anyone could hope for in April.
Joanna was the eldest of the three of them at thirty-four, and lived in Oxford with her husband Rob and their son, Freddie, who was six.
Freya was the youngest. She was twenty-eight and lived with her boyfriend, Ben.
They were still close, even though they led such different lives, and that meant a lot to all of them.
‘Are we shopping tomorrow?’ Lotta asked as she pulled a baked Camembert from the oven, followed by a loaf of sourdough studded with olives.
‘Can we go to Camden?’ Freya suggested. She was lying in the corner of the sofa, still managing to sip her wine from a horizontal position.
‘It’ll be busy, especially if it’s nice weather,’ said Lotta.
‘That’s okay. There’s a place there called Humble Crumble that only sells crumble and custard, but they br?lée the custard. It looks insane.’
‘I could eat a crumble,’ said Jo.
‘Okay, Camden it is.’ Lotta didn’t mind what they did. Freya usually had a plan before they even arrived, and it took the pressure off having to entertain them, especially when she’d had such a busy week.
‘How was your trip to Oslo?’ Jo asked, pulling off a chunk of bread and spreading the runny cheese over it.
‘Come on, Freya,’ Lotta said, calling her sister to join them at the table. ‘Or there will be no cheese left. It was great, although the work is going to be more involved than I’d thought, but that’s okay. I loved Oslo, and I met a nice guy.’
Freya came to the table with her wine. ‘Spill,’ she said.
‘His name is Mats, and we met in the airport lounge.’
‘You paid for an airport lounge?’ Jo asked.
‘No, the company paid for it.’
‘So, is he a rich businessman?’ Freya said.
‘I don’t know. He looked normal at the airport, but then I saw him in Oslo on my last night, and he was wearing a very nice suit. He’s good-looking anyway, but the suit took it to another level.’
‘Finally, Lots. You’ve found a man who might not be a loser,’ said Freya. She took the wine bottle and topped them all up.
‘Curtis wasn’t a loser.’ Lotta watched as Jo and Freya exchanged a look, as well they might. Lotta didn’t know why she cared what they thought of her ex-fiancé to the point of defending him. ‘We were in different places.’
‘He took advantage of you and manipulated you out of your job.’ Freya could be brutally honest sometimes. That was exactly what had happened, but her sisters didn’t know the whole story. It was far too shaming to share just how badly she’d allowed him to treat her in the end.
‘Mats sounds promising, but presumably he lives in Norway.’ Jo said.
‘Exactly. But it was nice to be kind of… pursued. We swapped numbers, and he’s nice to talk to, so…’ It was so much more than that. It had felt amazing, but she didn’t want to sound like she’d fallen for a man she’d met at the airport and spent a couple of hours with, even if it was true.
‘Will you have to go to Oslo again?’ Jo asked.
‘Probably.’ She told her sisters all about the Snug project and how Elin hadn’t been as helpful as everyone had hoped. ‘But I’m enjoying the research and I’ve found three makers in Oslo who I’m going to contact to see if they’re interested in working on the project.’
‘It’s an enormous job, Lots. Can you manage it by yourself alongside your other clients?’ said Jo.
‘Yes. Everything else is running well. It’s mostly scheduling posts.
’ She smiled and took a big sip of wine.
She’d have to manage. But in the end, all the extra hours would be worth it, and she’d had enough weeks with only a handful of hours’ work in the past to know it was always better to have too much work than not enough.
The talking went on late into the night. Freya was on a roll telling them hilarious stories about some of the customers that she’d had in the spa lately. She was the manager of a luxury spa in the Cotswolds, and her clients were rich and needy to say the least.
Saturday was bright and sunny, but the wind was chilly, so being at Camden in the labyrinth of the markets was perfect.
Freya insisted on the crumble and custard for brunch, and even late morning when you’d think no one would be after a pudding, they had to queue for a few minutes to place their order.
But it was worth it, and it tasted as good as it looked; the br?lée cracking into shards of caramelised sugar as they dug in.
Lotta’s phone buzzed with a message.
Mats: What are you up to today?
Lotta: Shopping with my sisters. How about you?
Mats: Taking a boat trip to an island.
Lotta: That sounds like more fun!
Full to the brim with food and wine, they got back to Lotta’s at around eight o’clock and changed into their pyjamas. The three of them sat side-by-side on the sofa with mugs of tea and watched old episodes of Sex and the City while they continued to chat.
Lotta’s phone buzzed with another message from Mats.
They’d been texting back and forth all day.
Just one-liners about nothing in particular.
She knew it was drizzling where he was, that he was going out for dinner that night, that he needed a favour from his sister, and that she was going to be cross with him.
Every single message warmed Lotta’s heart, but none more than this one.
He was suggesting a call. Face to face. Tonight.
She felt nervous, made worse because her sisters were staying with her. She’d love it if she were at home by herself, but having spent the entire day distracted, waiting for the next message from him to land, she wanted more.
‘I’m just going on a call for a bit,’ she said, hoping they were too engrossed in watching the TV to take much notice.
‘On a Saturday night? Who with?’ Freya asked lazily.
She could have lied and said it was a work call, but she’d told them about Mats. Not in any great detail, but she knew that as soon as they realised it had turned from the odd text message exchange into having an actual call, they’d be interested.
‘That guy I met in Oslo.’
‘Oh my god, did he suggest it?’ Jo asked, sitting up straighter. ‘That means he’s keen.’
‘It’s probably not that. It’s just a lot of typing to keep on messaging,’ she said weakly.
‘Ever heard of a voice note?’ Freya said, not taking her eyes off the television.
She wasn’t about to get into an argument about voice notes.
She hated them, whereas Freya loved them, and she didn’t want to be distracted when Mats would hopefully call in the next couple of minutes.
‘I won’t be long.’ She pushed her bedroom door closed and stepped over the blow-up mattress on the floor where Jo was sleeping, to her bed.
She’d straightened her hair that morning, and she still had enough makeup on to look presentable.
He’d said eleven o’clock her time, and she sat cross-legged on the bed, staring at her phone screen.
If he called at exactly eleven, or even a minute before, that meant he was keen, she told herself.
If it was more than a couple of minutes afterwards, he wasn’t.
These ridiculous thoughts were running through her mind, and she almost dropped her phone when it actually rang at one minute to.
She waited while the call connected properly and made sure she looked alright in the small window where she could see herself.
Mats came onto the screen and she grinned.
He looked more like the man she’d met in the airport than the one she’d seen dressed for work.
His dark blonde hair was tousled, and he had the shadow of a beard.
He was wearing a hoodie that straight away made him look cosy and relaxed.
‘Lotta.’ The way he said her name gave her goosebumps.
‘Mats. You look very relaxed. Where are you?’
‘At my parents’ place in Bergen. How about you?’
‘At home. My sisters are in the next room.’
‘Good to know.’
‘Is that a Coldplay poster behind you?’
He dropped his head. ‘I was eighteen. I need to redecorate.’
Lotta laughed. ‘Your room is the same as when you were eighteen?’
‘Yes. Isn’t yours?’ He pretended to peer into the camera.
‘I’ve taken down my One Direction poster for the duration of this call.’
He laughed. ‘Noted. So you’ve been hanging out with your sisters today?’
‘Yes, but you went to an island.’ She’d been dying to know what that was about.
‘I inherited a farm. The farmhouse is on an island in a fjord near Bergen, and I’m going to turn it into a hotel.’
‘That’s what the chandelier’s for?’
‘Yes,’ he said, smiling. ‘I wanted to tell you. It’s important that you know this is who I am, not the guy in a suit in Oslo.’
She could hear the words he didn’t say as well. The ones telling her that if she wants the guy in the suit, he’s not the man for her.
‘I like the guy I met in the airport.’
He smiled again, and she felt as if they’d both made a choice in that moment.
‘So what did you do on the island?’
‘I met with a builder who can start next month, so suddenly it’s really happening.’
‘So you won’t be living in Oslo for much longer?’
‘I hope not. It’s a stressful job, not great if you want to do other things with your life aside from work.’
‘That sounds so exciting. A proper life-changing thing.’
‘And how about you? Will you need to come back to Oslo? I’d love to see you again.’
Lotta’s stomach flipped. She’d be on a plane to Oslo somehow, even if it wasn’t for Snug.
‘Yes, I think I’ll be there the week after next.
Will you?’ Her heart was going nineteen to the dozen, partly because he’d been brave enough to say he wanted to see her again and partly because she hoped so hard that he would be in Oslo too.
‘I’ll make sure of it. It’s only right that we go on a proper date.’
‘Good. This bumping into each other approach isn’t working for me,’ she said.
He threw his head back and laughed. ‘Leave it with me. I’ll come up with a plan.’
By the time they hung up, Lotta was completely smitten. If she hadn’t realised before just how much she liked Mats, she did now and she couldn’t wait for their date when she got to Oslo.
She waited a couple of minutes until she’d stopped smiling and hugging her phone to her chest as if it were a miniature Mats, then went back into the living room. Her sisters both turned to look at her.
‘So how was it?’ Freya asked, putting the television on mute.
‘Great. We’re meeting up next time I go to Oslo.’
‘That’s exciting,’ Jo said. ‘But is that going to work in the end? Dating someone who lives in a different country? I know you might be back and forth to Oslo at the moment, but that’s not going to be the case for very long, is it?’
‘I don’t care.’ There was no point trying to construct an argument that would make any sense at all, because there wasn’t one.
Mats lived in Norway; she lived in London.
‘He’s the first person I’ve met for… maybe ever, who is a normal, nice guy.
Yes, it’s unfortunate that he doesn’t live in London, but frankly, I’d rather date a gorgeous guy who lives in Norway and likes me enough to call when he says he will than someone from around the corner who doesn’t. ’
‘Good for you,’ said Jo.
‘How gorgeous is he?’ Freya asked.
‘Nine or ten.’
‘Show us,’ Jo said, picking up her phone. ‘What’s his name?’
‘Mats. I don’t know his surname.’
‘That’s okay. The first name might do. Where does he work?’
‘I don’t know, but he’s opening a hotel in Bergen.’
‘You’re so bad at stalking people, Lots. You need to get this basic information right from the off. He could be anyone,’ said Freya.
‘I’ve found a woman on Instagram who is working on a hotel near Bergen. Oh, wait, no. It’s on an island. Not actually in Bergen,’ said Jo.
‘It is on an island. That sounds like the one.’ Lotta went to sit next to her sister and looked over her shoulder. ‘Wow, if that’s the place, it’s beautiful.’
Jo ignored her, intent on her mission. ‘She’s tagged another account here.’
Lotta watched as her sister went down various rabbit holes that eventually led to a mention of Mats.
‘Mats Larsen!’ Jo said triumphantly, typing his name into Google. ‘Oh my god, is that him?’
‘Yes.’
Freya moved to sit on the arm of the sofa next to Jo, all three of them huddled around the phone.
‘He’s a banker.’
‘Oh my god, Lots, he’s basically one of the main people at this bank. He must be really well-off.’
‘He’s leaving his job, I think, to do this hotel instead.’ She didn’t care at all about whether he was well-off. If he was, she already knew it didn’t define him.
Her sisters stared at her with looks of approval that she’d never seen before in the context of boyfriends and it meant a lot to her that even based on this scant information, they finally approved of someone she thought was nice.
‘It’s fate,’ Jo said. ‘Simple as that.’