Chapter 10
Erik looked down at Ida, but it seemed there was no time to linger or say hello. She strode along the path to the jetty in front of him, not stopping until they reached the edge of the woodland.
‘You look beautiful,’ he said. She took his breath away tonight in a way he hadn’t expected. Her eyes were bright, and she had a slight look of triumph as if she’d just won something. Her cheeks blushed at his words, giving her some colour and bringing out the blue of her eyes even more.
‘Thank you. You look handsome.’ Her eyes darted to the ground but he could see her smiling.
He didn’t have many options to choose from, clothing wise, but he had packed a navy blue linen shirt that his mom had insisted was a mistake because it would crease.
It had, but he thought he could get away with it, and he’d put in a pair of khaki trousers as the only alternative to jeans or the hiking clothes he’d been wearing so far.
He’d switched his boots out for a pair of sneakers, his only other shoes, and had attempted to tame his unruly hair into submission.
Erik offered her his arm. ‘May I accompany you to the boat?’ He didn’t know why he’d said that, as if he was from the olden days, but he’d never been on a date like this before.
She looked straight into his eyes, with a wider smile this time. ‘You may.’ And slipped a hand into the crook of his elbow.
He felt on top of the world in a way he hadn’t since his last tournament win. And even then, this felt different. His arm tingled at her touch, even through his shirt. She looked up at him, her blue eyes wide and his heart felt like it stopped for a second.
They strolled along the path to the jetty where the boat had docked.
A handful of guests who’d been over to the mainland for the day disembarked, followed by staff arriving for the evening shift in the restaurant.
A few people greeted Ida, and Erik noticed a few looks of surprise amongst them.
Ida’s hand was still on his arm but she didn’t seem to mind that people saw them like that, even if the speed she’d left the hotel suggested otherwise.
They sat inside the boat rather than on the deck.
Erik knew Ida would probably worry about her hair, so he didn’t suggest it, even though he’d have loved to sit up there.
Maybe on the way back. He waited for her to sit in a seat next to the window and then slid in next to her.
He stretched his leg out into the aisle since his knees were touching the back of the seat in front and laid his arm across the back of the seat behind her.
The boat moved slowly along Radfjorden, but picked up speed once it entered the larger fjord.
‘Can you see your house from here?’
‘Not quite. Our house is on the other side of the fjord.’
‘Is it like these?’ He nodded towards the houses that sat above the water’s edge with boathouses and jetties below them.
‘Yes, but not as fancy. It’s the same as it was forty years ago, I think.’
He laughed. ‘My parents’ house is the same. My room is the same.’
‘You don’t live at home, though.’
‘No, although I moved back there for a few months last year. My mom wanted to take care of me. I broke my arm and my leg, so it was hard to get around for a while.’ That was an understatement, and the last thing he’d wanted was to move back with his parents, but actually, it had been good for him to be around people instead of wallowing alone in his apartment in Banff.
‘That was the accident you had?’
He nodded. ‘It was weird going back home. Like, not for a visit. Made me realise how much I love my own place.’
‘I’ve never had my own place. Not properly. I worked away on fixed contracts so rented a couple of places, but it’s not the same as being settled somewhere.’
‘Banff’s better for snow sports otherwise I might not have left Toronto.’ He wanted to make her feel better. He heard the tinge of regret in her voice.
‘I always thought I’d leave Bergen but by the time I was ready my mother was sick and my father needed me to help.’
‘And your brother wasn’t around?’
‘He tried to be. Actually there are five of us but I was the only one living in Bergen at the time.’
‘That’s tough.’ Extra tough because he remembered her saying her father had died, which was how her brother came to have the island.
‘So where are you going to start with your family research?’
He was grateful for the subject change, although he didn’t want to be too specific about the family research yet.
‘I’ve already been to the archives in Bergen, so I know I’m on the right track.’
She didn’t ask anything else, which was good. He wasn’t ready to tell Mats or Ida what his research had thrown up. Not until he’d seen it for himself.
The restaurant Ida had chosen was a stone’s throw from where the boat docked.
It was right on the quayside with a large glass extension that sat next to the water, giving diners a great view of the harbour.
Inside was a huge fish counter where all kinds of freshly-caught fish sat on mounds of ice, waiting to be chosen.
‘Wow, this is incredible,’ he said to Ida as they walked in.
‘The fish is amazing here,’ she said. ‘I get the feeling you like the good stuff?’
He grinned at her. ‘Absolutely.’
She smiled back at him, then spoke in Norwegian to the woman who was showing people to their tables. They had a conversation which was longer than necessary for a simple table reservation, and Erik got the impression that he was being appraised the entire time.
‘You know that woman?’ He asked Ida once they were seated in what he would have said was one of the best tables in the place, right next to the window but in the corner where it was a little quieter.
‘We went to school together. Her parents own this restaurant.’
‘Ah. Were you doing some kind of deal?’
Ida laughed. ‘She wouldn’t do a deal for me. We’re not really friends. She was asking about Mats.’
Erik raised an eyebrow. This was another thing he’d missed out on being an only child. ‘She wants you to set her up with him?’
‘Probably, but it’s too late for that. He has a girlfriend now, Lotta. She’s really nice.’
‘Does that kind of thing happen a lot?’
‘All the time. Mats was a banker. He used to live in Oslo and was pretty well off until he started on the hotel. Now he’s not. Women used to like the idea of him.’
‘Rich and successful?’
She shrugged. ‘Yes, but he was still just Mats. My older brother, who used to think my friends were annoying.’ Her eyes darted to the woman who had shown them to the table. ‘Women like her were only after his money.’
That seemed harsh, but he guessed Ida felt protective of her brother.
Erik knew a little of what it was like to be wanted for the success you had rather than who you really were.
When he was winning, he’d built up a good amount of prize money, most of which he still had.
It had taken the edge off having to worry about earning a living for a while, but it had also attracted women who were more interested in that than in him.
‘When I was boarding, there were women who were interested once I started winning. It’s not a great feeling.’
‘Mats found it hard to date when he was in Oslo because of that. Did you date much?’
Erik swallowed. ‘Um. I guess. It took me a while to realise that’s what was happening. That these women wanted to be with the champion snowboarder more than they wanted to be with me. Before I realised, I dated quite a lot.’
‘It’s flattering,’ Ida said. ‘That’s hard to ignore.’
‘Pretty hard for a twenty-two-year-old who was never that lucky with girls in high school.’
Ida grinned. ‘I was never that lucky in high school either. Or since, actually.’
He sensed the self-deprecation was a defence mechanism, and he wanted to soothe that part of her.
‘Everyone has their time. Maybe that time is now.’ He reached across the table for her hand.
She slowly reached hers to meet it but then snatched it away when the waiter arrived to take their order.
They’d been too busy talking to look at the menu, and Erik was lost when it came to fish, anyway.
‘What are you having?’ he asked Ida.
‘I think we should have the catch of the day. It’s always the freshest.’ She asked the waiter what the fish was, and he announced, Kveite. Halibut.
Erik had no idea if he would like halibut, but he trusted Ida, so happily went along with it as well as her suggestion of which wine would be a good choice.
‘You know your wine,’ he said, impressed.
‘My father loved choosing a wine to go with the food. I try to do that when I cook at home, but most of the time it’s wasted on the rest of the family. Apart from Mats, they’re happy to guzzle anything.’
‘You’re lucky to be so close with your siblings.’
She nodded. ‘I’m really lucky. And I have a wonderful nephew, Emil. He is seven and very entertaining.’
The wine arrived and the waiter poured for them.
‘Cheers, Ida,’ Erik said, holding his glass out. ‘Thanks for coming out with me.’
‘Sk?l. Here is to successful researching. Of family and spruce.’
‘Sk?l.’
The food was nothing short of the best fish Erik had ever tasted.
Ida looked thrilled when he rolled his eyes in delight at the first mouthful.
He couldn’t get it in his mouth fast enough, whereas Ida was delicately dissecting her own fish with a lot more care, savouring it in a way Erik never did with any kind of food.
Food was fuel for him, and it was rare he ate anything that he wished he’d taken more time to appreciate. This was one of those times.
After dinner, after he had to wrestle with Ida to pay the bill for them both, they strolled along the harbour side. It was a beautiful evening, slightly cloudy but not raining. They had an hour to kill before the last boat back to the island.
As they left the restaurant, Ida had automatically hooked her hand into the crook of his arm. He loved it. It felt like a step towards something, as if they’d grown together somehow since leaving the island earlier that evening.
‘What would you like to do?’ she asked him.
‘I read somewhere that there’s a train you can take up the mountain. Is it too late to do that?’
‘No, we have enough time, and it stays open later in the summer.’
She led them up a street lined with shops, their fronts shaded by an avenue of leafy trees. The road was paved with cobblestones and at the top was a white stuccoed building with Fl?ibanen in bold capital letters over a wide archway.
‘This looks exciting.’
‘It’s pretty cool,’ she said with a smile. ‘It’s a long time since I’ve been up here. We used to come a lot when we were kids. There’s a play park at the top.’
Ida bought tickets for them from the machine and they sat to wait for the next train in the cave-like waiting area at the bottom of the funicular tracks.
‘What do you do nowadays for fun?’
‘There’s not much time between work and family things to take care of. The hotel manager job is probably bigger than I thought it would be and I know it’s because it’s a new business but it’s been strange working this much after a few years of working part-time.’
‘I get that. A change of pace either way is tricky. I find myself with far too much time on my hands now. I know I need to move on, find a new vibe, but I don’t really know what that is yet.’
The look on Ida’s face told him she understood exactly how he felt. She didn’t need to say anything for him to know that she had just started a similar search for her place in the world.
‘That must be hard.’
A lump appeared in his throat from nowhere. He nodded and reached for her hand. It was the same as when her hand had touched his arm earlier that evening. Electricity.