Chapter 24
Erik took the document wallet out of his backpack and carefully pulled out a tattered brown envelope. The spidery writing on the front had faded and was in Norwegian, so he’d never deciphered what it said. He placed it on the table between him and Ida.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. ‘I think I know what this is.’ She pushed her chair back and went into the hallway, where she rummaged through a drawer in the sideboard and brought back a torn piece of paper. ‘Is it the other side of this?’ She laid it carefully on the table.
Erik didn’t need to scrutinise it to know that it was the other half of the piece of paper in the envelope. He nodded.
‘This is why you came here? To claim this…’
‘Inheritance.’ He said it quietly, fully expecting a strong reaction from Ida. And at this point, he wouldn’t blame her for thinking the worst of him.
Ida took his envelope, extracted the contents, and placed the two pieces of paper side by side. The torn edges aligned exactly, and suddenly, the words that had been thousands of miles apart for decades were reunited. If it hadn’t been for the circumstances, it was something to celebrate.
‘Can you read it for me?’
Ida looked at him, and he could see heartbreak and betrayal in her eyes.
His own heart cracked a little seeing her like that. He was falling in love with her, and for him, this whole timber forest inheritance had nothing to do with that.
‘It says: Each man who is in possession of either part of this letter is the owner of half of the timber forest of Strandg?rden. This is the wish of both families. Then it’s dated the fourteenth of April 1951 and is signed by a Larsen and an Olsen. But you’re not an Olsen.’
‘My mother’s family are Olsens.’
‘And this is why you came here? To take half of my brother’s land and ruin his business?’
That was why he’d come here, apart from the ruining of the business. He would never want to do that. Ida’s wrath made it easier to remember how he’d felt about this before.
‘Of course not. I came to find out if the legacy really existed. It was like a quest. Something to cling to after my accident.’
‘This piece of paper is hardly likely to be legally binding after all these years.’
‘I’ve taken legal advice that suggests it is.’ He didn’t say that to throw down the gauntlet, just to let her know what the position was for both of them. ‘In Norway there’s no requirement to register land. It’s been in your family since this agreement was made so it’s simple.’
‘It’s not simple, Erik. It’s going to take everything Mats has worked for and ruin it.’
‘That isn’t what I want anymore. Maybe I wanted the legacy when I first got here, I’m not going to lie to you and say that isn’t why I came. But now, I would never take anything from Mats or you. It’s not about that anymore.’
‘I think you should leave.’
‘Ida, please.’ He couldn’t believe it had come to this so quickly. All his worst fears realised.
She stood up, and thinking she might be about to whip her half of the letter away, he took a picture on his phone.
‘I’ll take my half of the letter.’ He knew the lengths Ida would go to protect her family, and he wouldn’t put it past her to destroy the whole thing. But he immediately regretted saying that when he saw her face crumple.
‘You think I would destroy it?’
‘I don’t know, Ida. I know you love your family, so I guess I would understand if you felt like that.’
‘I knew there was something like this that would make these past two weeks too good to be true. And here it is.’ She handed him his half of the letter.
He turned and left before either of them could say anything else.
Whether there was any coming back from this with Ida, he wasn’t sure, but he knew he couldn’t give up on this.
It’s why he came here. Falling in love was a bonus, but not something he should forsake finding out the truth about his family’s legacy for.
It was more than a legacy, it was family folklore.
The tale of how his great-grandfather Olsen had come to Canada from Norway with this gift from the Larsen family in return for him saving the life of his friend, their patriarch, in the Second World War.
He travelled to Canada, always intending to return to Norway and mill the timber once it was mature enough, and life had got in the way.
The story had always fascinated Erik, so in the gruelling first weeks of his recovery, when his mother had been desperately making suggestions of things he might have to look forward to when he recovered, this had been the one thing she’d thrown into the mix that struck a chord with him.
Now, he stood outside the Larsen house, wondering how he was going to get back to the island when his kayak was on there. In the end, he decided he had no option but to take a taxi into Bergen and hope he didn’t have to wait too long for the shuttle boat to take him back to Lysg?rden.
It took around an hour before he was disembarking at the jetty on the island. Mats was there with a grim look on his face and his arms folded.
‘I think we need to talk.’
Erik followed Mats through the woods towards the hotel, then out the other side until they arrived at Mats’ and Lotta’s cabin.
‘Take a seat.’ Mats gestured to one of the chairs on the veranda. ‘Ida tells me you have the other half of whatever that letter is.’
Erik nodded, hoping he could have a frank conversation with Mats about the whole thing. Something he probably should have done in the first place. ‘It was given to my great-grandfather by yours, I guess.’
‘Do you know why?’
‘You don’t?’ It seemed odd to Erik that his family could have this tale of yore that had been passed down through generations, the torn half of the letter reverently shown occasionally, but carefully kept as the piece of treasure it was. Hadn’t it been like that for the Larsens?
‘Ida found that piece of paper when we cleared out the farmhouse last year. That was the first we knew that there might be a claim on the island.’
‘I’m not claiming the island,’ Erik said. ‘Look, I took a photo of the two halves together.’
He watched Mats scan the letter.
‘It’s the timber forest. Not the island.’ He exhaled with relief. ‘Ida said it was the farm.’
‘She was upset. Perhaps she didn’t take it in.’
‘Tell me everything you know about this,’ Mats said calmly.
Erik told the story of their ancestors. A story he knew so well that he could imagine himself being there as it had unfolded all those years ago.
‘Wow. That is incredible. My father, if he knew, never told us about this. Our half of the letter was still in my grandparents’ house when we cleared it out.’
‘Ida said.’
‘If this is why you came here, why didn’t you tell anyone? There were so many times you could have said something to Ida or me before now.’
Erik had been thinking about this since he’d left the house in Loddefjord.
‘I honestly didn’t know whether the place existed. The timber could have been harvested years ago. Until I found it, which wasn’t right away, I didn’t want to start laying claim to anything.’
‘That’s fair. But when was that? Before today.’
He nodded. ‘It was the first week I was here. But by then I knew you guys. Hell, I’d been on a date with Ida and I knew it would be a big deal.
This has meant everything to me over the past few months, but meeting Ida and working on the cabins with you, that has given me something I never thought I’d find again.
’ He tripped over the last few words because of the emotion in his chest.
‘It’s okay,’ Mats said reassuringly, keeping his eyeline firmly on the water rather than looking at Erik.
‘I know Ida feels like I’ve betrayed her, hell, I feel like that too. I never thought I would come here and find… this.’
‘So, what do you want to do?’
‘Seriously?’
‘I think you know I wanted to keep the island to preserve my family’s heritage. This is important to you for the same reasons. I understand. And I don’t mind splitting the timber with you.’
Erik felt tears spring to his eyes. It was that easy. He could have spoken to Mats on day one. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, grateful that Mats had gone back to staring out at the water. ‘Thank you.’
‘I think my sister is going to be harder to win over. She thinks you lied to her.’
‘I don’t blame her for thinking that. But I never wanted to take anything from your family. It’s not about that. It was just to find out if it was true.’
‘You don’t want any of the prime Norwegian spruce?’ Mats looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
‘I mean, if you’re offering, I’m not going to say no.’
Mats chuckled. ‘You can have your share. We’ll work it out. I think my great-grandfather would want that. Want to grab a beer in the hotel?’
‘That’d be great.’ It was such a relief to have it all out in the open, and he was grateful to Mats for hearing him out and understanding how important it had become to him and his family to find out whether the legacy existed.
‘So you haven’t used much of the timber over the years,’ Erik said, enjoying the beer as they now sat on the veranda at the farmhouse, enjoying the last of the day’s warmth.
‘We didn’t know it was there until we started work on the island.
I don’t know whether Ida told you, but our father was estranged from his parents for most of my life, and all of Ida’s.
A lot of our family history has fallen between the cracks.
You’ve brought us a wonderful connection to the past, and that means a lot to me. ’
‘What are the chances you could put in a good word with Ida for me?’
Mats laughed and shook his head. ‘That won’t help you.
My sister will not listen to me. You’re on your own, my friend, but I wish you luck.
Until today, I haven’t seen her this happy in a long time.
’ He paused, then looked at Erik with a more serious expression on his face.
‘She’s hurt. But don’t make it right with her by compromising on what you want. That’s no good for either of you.’
Erik went to bed later that evening and immediately missed Ida.
The small bed seemed cavernous without her there, and he hadn’t realised how used he’d become to having her next to him while he slept.
The ache in his heart was worse than any he’d had in his leg, and he had no idea what he could say to make things right.
Or whether things could ever be right between them again.
The following day, he went down to breakfast and crossed the entrance hall just as Ida was coming in. She stopped and looked at him with red-rimmed eyes she’d unsuccessfully tried to cover with makeup.
‘Morning, Ida,’ he said softly. He reached out a hand, but before he could touch hers, she rushed into the kitchen so that he couldn’t follow her. He sighed. If she wouldn’t even speak to him, there was no hope.
After breakfast, there was no sign of her at the desk, so he headed over to the cabin and started work alone before Mats arrived, losing himself in planing a piece of wood by hand.
Meticulously curving and smoothing a beam that would sit over the top of the doorway between the bedroom and living areas.
He ran his hand over the wood after every few strokes of the plane, finding it soothed him in the same way it always did.
And while he worked with his hands, concentrating on getting the finish he wanted, he knew his mind would unravel all of this and try to make sense of what could come next with Ida.
After his accident, he’d been so bored and so depressed.
Unable to walk, unable to get out of the house by himself, there seemed to be nothing to do other than lie around watching TV.
But his father, a practical man, stepped in and gave him some pieces of wood, some hand tools and a wedge of sandpaper and asked him to make a pair of finials to decorate the corners of a wardrobe he was making.
Nothing fancy, he’d said. They just need to be the same as each other.
Erik, willing to do this one thing if it made his father happy, even if he already knew it wouldn’t make any difference to the fact that he would still be stuck on the sofa, took up the challenge.
Despite the cast on his arm slowing him down, having worked with his dad throughout his life, he turned out a decent finial.
But the second was another matter. It was hard to replicate the first one, but he didn’t give up.
It gave him something to focus on, and in the end, he made dozens of mismatched finials, and it had stopped him from plunging further into the depths of despair.
Once he could get out of the house, he started going to work with his dad every day.
It gave him something to get out of bed for. And it was doing the same thing now.