Chapter 7
The following morning, Ida was at the reception desk checking the computer for the list of jobs she had made for today.
There was everything from buying a new mattress because a guest had somehow tipped a bottle of red wine over theirs, to finalising the new area of the website that had the shuttle boat times on.
She’d hoped to run into Erik Anderson this morning but he hadn’t come down for breakfast yet.
Perhaps he was jet-lagged. Perhaps he was taking another ill-advised swim in the fjord.
Their encounter yesterday had been interesting.
Maybe a step on the road to getting to know each other better.
There had been a hint of humour behind his words, but without knowing him better, it was hard to be sure.
And now, in lieu of seeing him in person, she was back to googling him before she started on her to-do list. She started where she’d left off yesterday and quickly discovered that his career had been ended by a freak accident with a skier.
Only eight months ago. Maybe he’d come here to find himself.
It didn’t mention what he was doing now.
There was no information more recent than the accident, which had been covered extensively by the Canadian media. He really must have been a superstar.
His Instagram feed was much the same. No posts since mid-October last year. Not even a thumbs-up from his sickbed. But then, if it was a career-ending accident, it was hard to be upbeat about any part of that.
Ida felt for him. She had some experience of what it was like to have your life derailed, although for her it had been more of a choice.
Choosing to care for her parents when her mother became sick meant she’d given up a successful career in systems management, but at the time she’d thought it would be a pause rather than the end.
But time got away from her, and when she could have gone back to it, she realised her priorities had changed.
The challenge of the corporate world held no appeal.
The slower pace of life she’d adopted over the past few years was ingrained now, and she wasn’t sure she was capable of anything else.
‘Ida, they’ve missed the flour off the delivery today.’ Heidi poked her head out of the kitchen. ‘I can’t spare anyone.’
‘No problem, leave it with me.’ Most days involved something like this, and that was exactly why she loved this job. The variety of tasks and the problem-solving required were just the right amount of challenge.
She closed her browser window and called the wholesaler, who confirmed that they had indeed forgotten to load the flour and that, even though it was their fault, couldn’t do anything to help other than add it onto the next day’s delivery.
She called Mats, hoping he was still at home and could swing by and pick the flour up and bring it with him when he came over later that morning.
‘Sorry, Ida. Lotta and I have an appointment to see a house this morning. We’re there now. I won’t make it to the wholesaler before they close. Can you get the flour to the shuttle boat somehow?’
It was in the middle of this phone call that Erik appeared in front of her.
He seemed agitated, perhaps because he was being made to wait.
Ida covered the phone briefly and whispered, ‘I’m so sorry.
I won’t be a moment,’ before continuing to talk to the wholesaler about the possibility of them dropping the flour off at the quayside.
The rest of the call couldn’t have taken more than thirty seconds, by which time Erik looked cross.
‘How can I help you?’ Ida said with her best smile. Because he might look angry, but he was gorgeous, and she’d never known a smile and calm manner not to disarm someone who was about to let rip.
‘There was no hot water this morning.’
‘Because you’re on the third floor, it takes a while to run through to hot.’
He huffed and looked at the ceiling. ‘This is supposed to be a luxury hotel. I don’t know how you can sell that room, it probably shouldn’t be hired out to anyone unless they’re a… very small person.’
Ida held in a laugh. ‘I know Emilie explained that to you at the time of booking. We’re happy to move you to another room as soon as something comes free.’
‘But the water is cold in all the rooms?’
‘Well, it takes some time to run through depending on which floor.’
‘I’ll take a basement room when one comes up then,’ he said, turning on his heel and marching out of the door.
Ida was so taken aback. Most guests understood that being on an island in the middle of a fjord made it difficult to offer the same amenities that would be available on the mainland.
The water was a bit of a problem, but it did get hot.
She was indignant on behalf of the hotel, but also on behalf of Norway.
How dare he come here from Canada and criticise?
Given the same circumstances, she was sure nowhere as remote as this would have hot water coming out of the taps any quicker.
‘Did I hear a guest shouting at you?’ Heidi said, coming out of the kitchen wide-eyed.
‘Was he shouting?’
‘I could hear him in the kitchen, so yes. I would say so. Are you alright?’
‘I’m fine,’ Ida said. ‘I’m just surprised that anyone can be so upset about hot water.’
‘Give me the nod and I’ll spit in his dinner.’
Ida laughed. ‘Please don’t.’
For her own peace of mind, she headed up to room 308. Having stayed there herself, she knew it didn’t have any problem with the water getting hot, so either this was a recent problem or he was impatient, and she wanted to know which.
Even though she’d seen him leave, she knocked on the door and waited for a few seconds before tapping the lock with her keycard and letting herself in.
Housekeeping hadn’t been in yet, but he’d made the bed, which was very unusual for a hotel guest. His clothes were hanging on the rail, and when she went into the bathroom, his toiletries were neatly laid out next to the sink.
Including a bottle of aftershave. Ida reached out a hand, then stopped herself.
If she’d thought the googling was bad, this was a step towards something else. She was not a stalker.
She lifted the shower head from the holder and ran the water, holding her hand underneath it.
It took a minute, but it got hotter than her hand could bear.
So he was impatient. Before she left the room, she lifted the troll from its shelf near the door and popped it into her pocket. He didn’t deserve it.
Erik walked into the hotel a few minutes after Ida had settled herself back at the desk. He looked over furtively, but made no move to come and speak to her.
Ida pushed her chair back and followed him into the dining room, where a handful of guests were enjoying a late breakfast.
‘Mr Anderson. We have checked the water in your room and although it takes a minute, it does run hot.’ She so badly wanted to add, so be more patient. Being that petty wasn’t beneath her, but she slapped her most professional smile on her face, turned and left him to it.
Her heart was racing, and she half expected him to follow her out and carry on arguing, but he didn’t, which was probably just as well.
What a shame that someone so lovely-looking could be so grumpy.
And after the hint of something more normal under that grumpy exterior yesterday.
It was just her luck that the first good-looking guy to cross paths with her in ages wouldn’t be a contender after all.
She laughed at the ridiculousness of even thinking that.
It wasn’t her style to be on the lookout for a man, but Erik Anderson had awakened a long-dormant part of Ida.
The part that used to enjoy choosing which boys at school she liked.
The part that loved flicking through celebrity magazines, imagining herself being pursued by a hot royal or a pop star.
Perhaps it was the snowboarding thing that had sent her down this road.
Well, it just went to show that good-looking people could be idiots as well as anyone else.
After she’d signed off the new page for the website, Ida went for her usual walk.
Between breakfast and lunch was the only part of the day where there was a natural lull, and she liked to take advantage of it unless it was raining too hard.
Today was dry. She took a stroll down to the jetty and sat with her legs dangling over the edge, the soles of her shoes dangerously close to the surface of the water but not quite touching.
Since she’d mentioned to Mats and Fredrik that she was ready to sell the house, she’d done a lot of thinking.
When she was in the thick of looking after her parents, she’d always thought that she’d move away from Bergen when she could.
It couldn’t have been anyone else that looked after them, and she didn’t begrudge the time it had taken from her at all.
She was grateful to have had those last few precious years with them both, when the three of them, and then her and her father, had made lasting memories together and had bonded over the toughest parts of life any of them had ever experienced.
So thinking about what might come afterwards had helped her to get through.
Knowing she could do anything she wanted.
Except she hadn’t. She’d stayed exactly where she was, and not much had changed except that her parents weren’t there anymore.
She was stuck. And she hadn’t noticed until Mats had made huge changes in his life.
Taking on this island and turning it into a hotel, giving up his life in Oslo and embarking on a new relationship with Lotta, who back then had lived in a different country, all with no hesitation, even when things had looked as if they might not work out.
At the same time, she had been dipping her toe back into the world of work by setting up a business being a virtual assistant.
She’d picked up a few clients, but she was still in the house in Loddefjord.
Stuck. It wasn’t a challenge; it wasn’t going to change her life in the way she knew something needed to, so when Mats and Lotta had started a hare-brained scheme to run a pop-up restaurant on the island in the few months before the hotel opened, she offered to take over the bookings and that was how she found herself here today.
In some ways she felt annoyed with herself that although she had made it across the fjord rather than working from home, she was working for Mats who was happy for her to do what she wanted.
It didn’t feel like work, even though sometimes the hours were long and sometimes you had to deal with idiots like Erik Anderson.
It felt like the start of something. As if she were working her way through a long tunnel and had noticed the pinpoint of light at the other end, and it was getting bigger every day.
And Ida knew she’d eventually emerge; she just didn’t know what it was going to look like when she did.
She heard Mats’ boat before she could see it, and as soon as she did, she waved, and he waved back. She stood up and, when Mats was alongside, caught the rope he tossed to her and tied it off on the mooring post.
‘I’ve got the flour. I called over to the quay in Bergen on my way.’
‘Heidi will love you for that,’ Ida grinned. ‘How did you know it was there?’
‘Marius called me.’ Marius was the guy who ran the island shuttle boat for them in between his usual tourist work. ‘Can you manage this?’ Mats handed her a bag of flour.
‘No! Take it off me!’ It was far heavier than it looked.
‘It’s only ten kilos,’ Mats said, grinning.
‘Shut up. How was the house?’
‘Not better than what we’ve already seen. Lotta wants to stick with the one we had at the top of our list.’
As they chatted, out of the corner of her eye, Ida noticed Erik Anderson come down the path towards them. He stopped short of the jetty and disappeared behind a bush, emerging with a kayak.
‘Morning!’ Mats said, raising a hand to him.
‘Don’t be nice to him,’ Ida said in a loud whisper. ‘He was rude to me this morning.’
‘Was he?’
‘Yes, he’s too impatient to wait for the water to run hot, and apparently that’s our fault.’
Mats grinned. ‘Well, brace yourself to be nice because he’s coming over here.’
Ida whipped round as Erik Anderson stepped onto the jetty.
‘Can I help you out with that?’ He nodded toward the bag of flour that Mats was still holding.
‘Thank you, that’d be great. I don’t think we’ve met. Mats Larsen.’
‘Erik Anderson. I can take another one,’ he said, accepting the flour from Mats.
Mats handed him another bag, and he turned to head to the hotel. ‘Hey,’ he said to Ida.
‘Hey,’ she found herself saying, then glared at his back as he walked away from her along the path, carrying the flour as if it were a couple of bags of feathers.
Mats climbed off the boat. ‘He seems like a nice guy. Helpful.’
Ida couldn’t think of a fitting retort, so she huffed and marched back to the hotel.