Travelling Light

by Sandra Field

  He yanked off another leaf. ‘She hated the ski-meets—she thought I was going to get killed each time I left the gate. After every competition she would cry and beg me to stay home. But I couldn’t. I needed the risk and the excitement and I couldn’t understand why she was so afraid—I felt smothered by her fear. When she got pregnant she wouldn’t risk going out on the slopes to watch, and so for a while everything was all right again. But once Elisabet was born Anna wept every time I left her, and so finally I told her I’d quit at the end of the season.’

  He was looking beyond Kristine, his eyes filled with memories. ‘She came to the closing meet, in the spring, Elisabet in a carrier on her back. She was happy, because I’d promised this was the last time and she knew I wouldn’t go back on my word.’ Very carefully he ripped the leaf apart along the centre vein. ‘There was a freak avalanche—maybe you remember hearing about it—over a hundred spectators were killed. Anna and Elisabet were among them. Their bodies were recovered two days later.’

  Dropping the torn leaf so that it fluttered to the ground, he brushed his hands down his sides. ‘Edward, as you heard, blamed me. He didn’t need to—I was blaming myself enough for ten men. If I’d quit when she first asked me, they’d still be alive...but I didn’t want to quit.’ He looked up, his eyes blank. ‘End of story.’

  Kristine could have said any number of things. That he had been very young. That he had been prepared to give up something he loved for his wife’s sake. That he could scarcely be blamed for a freak accident. She said none of them. Nor did she try to touch him; she was almost sure that if she did he would strike her away as Edward had struck him. Instead she said, ‘Thank you for telling me...and I’m truly sorry.’

  The blankness in his eyes lifted briefly. ‘You are, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘You’re very different from her, Kristine. I can’t imagine Anna tackling a couple of thieves with a pair of nail scissors and a Swiss army knife.’

  ‘But when I tell you how afraid I am I remind you of her. That’s what you meant by history repeating itself.’

  Although he nodded, the blank look was back on his face again. ‘Let’s go back to the campsite,’ he said. ‘I’m going to take off in the car for the rest of the day—I’m in a foul mood and I need to be alone.’

  ‘We could leave Ulvik now if you’d like.’

  ‘No...now that I’m here, I’d rather stay.’

  Fifteen minutes later he was gone. Kristine went swimming, explored the village, bought a few groceries and made her own supper. She went to bed at ten-thirty, lay awake for an hour listening for Lars, and woke up with a jerk at three in the morning. Peering through her mosquito netting, she saw the Jaguar parked on the grass beside her battered little car. So he was back.

  She lay down and tried to sleep again, but her brain was going round in circles and she couldn’t rid her mind of all that had happened the day before. Eventually she slid out of her sleeping-bag and padded barefoot across the grass to the water’s edge, where she sat down on a rock, wrapping her short cotton nightshirt around her knees for warmth. The sky had cleared, stars twinkling above the black line of the mountains; the new moon looked as though it had been painted on the sky as an afterthought.

  Little waves were chuckling among the rocks. She listened to them, lost in thought, remembering Edward’s corrosive accusations and Lars’s plea for forgiveness, wishing there were some way she could help him, knowing there was not. She knew something else: for her to lie awake at night worrying about a man who two weeks ago had been a stranger was no longer travelling light. Whether she liked it or not, Lars had become a part of her life.

  Under the night sky the surface of the water was a liquid black, shiny like obsidian. Then a gust of wind ruffled its surface and the waves gurgled and sloshed against the shore. If she went to visit her grandfather, even less would she be travelling light...

  A hand fell on Kristine’s shoulder. With a shriek of alarm she twisted round, nearly falling off the rock, her nightshirt rucked up above her knees.

  Lars grabbed for her, his arms going hard around her body. ‘I thought you heard me coming—I said your name.’

  ‘I—I was miles away,’ she faltered. His forearm was against her breast and her knee was digging into his bare thigh; he was wearing nothing but a pair of shorts. She felt her heart begin to race, her eyes dark as the velvet sky. With a muffled groan Lars lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her.

  Raw physical hunger streaked through her veins. This was what she had been craving ever since he had kissed her on the beach at Mandal. Except this time she would not run away.

  He kissed her until she could scarcely breathe, and then his lips slid down her throat, finding the hollow at its base where the pulse throbbed under her skin. She said, torn between passion and reality, laughter warming her voice, ‘Lars, I don’t want you to stop kissing me, but if we don’t move very soon this rock is going to permanently cripple me.’

  ‘A minor detail,’ he murmured, taking her weight and edging her from the rock to the grass, then pushing the neckline of her shirt aside to smooth the long curve where her neck became her shoulder. As she ran her fingers through his hair, his hand closed over the swell of her breast.

  The bitter-sweet ache spread through her whole body. He had raised his head, and it was as though she saw straight into his soul, his eyes as black and depthless as the waters of the fjord. ‘I want to make love to you—I’m not afraid any more,’ she whispered, simple words that carried a weight of meaning.

  Each of them knew that under the thin nightshirt she was naked; and each of them was surrounded and held by the soft, seductive blackness of a summer night. Lars’s arms tightened around her. Kristine waited for whatever he might do next, knowing she would make love with him on the damp grass under the stars and that nothing she had ever done in her twenty-three years could feel more right than that.

  Then he loosened his hold and pulled her to her feet, keeping her hands clasped in his. He said, both his crooked smile and his accent very much in evidence, ‘We agreed we’d make that decision when we weren’t in the same room, let alone in each other’s arms. And there are too many memories for me here in Ulvik, Kris...I don’t want to be with you for the first time in this place. Not here. Not yet.’

  ‘But soon.’

  He ran one finger along the curve of her cheek, down her throat to the tip of her breast, all the while keeping his eyes trained on the yearning in her face. ‘Yes. Very soon.’

  With attempted lightness she said, ‘I was having trouble sleeping—that’s why I got up. I don’t think you’ve helped matters at all.’

  He chuckled. ‘I’m not going to offer to hold your hand while you fall asleep—because we both know where that will lead.’

  Kristine had never made love before, so she was not at all sure where it would lead; she did know she wanted very badly to find out, and that for now she would have to wait. ‘Goodnight, then, Lars,’ she said. Resting her palms flat on his bare chest, feeling the roughness of hair and the heat of his skin, she reached up and kissed him on the mouth.

  His response was to pull her hard against him, his hands roaming her body as if there were no tomorrow and no yesterday, only the present moment in all its passionate urgency. He was putting his mark on her, she thought dazedly, claiming her for his own, and wished fervently that they were anywhere but in Ulvik. Anywhere else, and she was almost sure Lars would not be thrusting her away as he now was.

  His chest heaving, he said hoarsely, ‘So much for good intentions.’

  ‘We won’t always be in Ulvik,’ Kristine said.

  ‘I’ve never wanted a woman as I want you, I swear it.’

  Because she was beginning to suspect he had known as much loneliness in his life as she had in hers, her eyes unexpectedly filled with tears. Giving him a tiny smile, afraid to touch him again, she hurried across the grass to her tent and crawled in. A few moments later she heard him go to his. The waves chattered among the rock
s, and the wind stirred the trees, and she couldn’t sleep for wanting the man who was lying only a few feet away from her.

  Night gave way to the rosy light of dawn. The birds began to sing, first one, then a whole chorus chirping away as though they had never experienced sunrise before. Kristine pulled her sleeping-bag around her ears and shut her eyes for what felt like the fiftieth time. When she finally fell asleep, she dreamed that the ferry was sinking in the fjord and she along with it, and woke with a start. One of the other campers was gunning his motorbike, an uncouth roar that brought her fully awake.

  She yanked on her swimsuit. She felt tired and out of sorts and sexually frustrated, she decided grumpily, unzipping her mosquito net and climbing out of her tent. Her frustration sharpened dramatically when she saw Lars walking back from the shore, water coating his body and dripping from his hair. He gave her a cheerful grin. ‘The water’s great.’

  ‘I just hope it’s good and cold,’ she said and walked past him with her gaze averted from his bare chest.

  He called after her, ‘My brother has a cottage in Vetlefjord, and he’s in Denmark for two weeks.’

  She turned, glaring at him. ‘How many hundreds of miles away is Vetlefjord?’

  ‘We could probably get there tonight if the ferries co-operate.’

  ‘I got exactly four and a half hours’ sleep last night—it’s time we did something.’

  ‘It’s a very nice cottage. With beds.’

  ‘One bed will do. And don’t tell me I’m behaving like a spoilt brat—I know I am.’

  ‘Your eyes look green as a cat’s when you’re angry,’ Lars said.

  He was openly laughing at her. Kristine said a couple of very pithy words that Andreas had taught her, and went for a swim. The water was cold, but not cold enough.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  AFTER a leisurely breakfast Kristine and Lars packed up and left the campsite, and Kristine for one was not sorry to see the last of Ulvik.

  The road was narrow and steep, winding through dense woods, and the Fiat’s engine appeared to be overheating. Kristine kept a nervous eye on the gauge. The needle flickered back into the safe zone once she reached the top of the incline. This was not the place to have car trouble, she thought. If her car gave out, she’d be wholly dependent on Lars.

  Not ready for that yet, Kristine?

  No, I’m not, she answered herself, drew up behind the Jaguar and put on her right-hand indicator to join the main road. They were delayed several times because of military manoeuvres involving heavy trucks and large numbers of uniformed young men, so by the time they arrived at the Gudvangen ferry a long queue was ahead of them. The ferry docked. The line inched forward. Five cars ahead of the Jaguar, the ferry pulled up its ramp and drew away from the dock. Lars walked back to talk to her. ‘A two-hour wait for the next one,’ he said. ‘Want to go for a walk?’

  The sun was high in the sky, its heat trapped by the gorge, and Kristine was feeling the effects of her disturbed night. ‘I think I’ll try and catch up on my sleep,’ she yawned. ‘See you later.’

  ‘We may not make it to the cottage at this rate,’ he said tersely.

  The decision to spend the night at the cottage had definitely not been made with her head, Kristine thought, and was not sure whether she was glad or sorry that they might not get there tonight. As Lars watched the changing expressions on her face, he added in a voice rough with emotion, ‘If I’ve never wanted a woman as I want you, I’ve also never felt as uncertain of a woman as I do of you.’

  Not knowing what to say to this, Kristine said nothing. He gave an impatient exclamation and disappeared through the ranks of parked cars. She folded her jacket into a pillow, leaned her head against the door-frame, and went to sleep.

  An hour later she woke with a headache from the sun, which was blazing on the roof of her car. She climbed out, stretching the stiffness from her neck. The fjord shimmered in the heat, waterfalls plunging from the crest of the gorge in curtains of diaphanous white. But most of the day the gorge would be in deep shadow, she realised, and felt a premonition of the cold of winter shiver along her nerves.

  From behind her a voice said, ‘Kristine...c’est toi?’

  She recognised the voice immediately, for she had travelled with its owner for nearly five months. Her premonition dissipated itself and a smile was already on her face as she turned. ‘Philippe! You said you were coming to Norway, but I never expected to bump into you—’

  He picked her up, whirled her around, put her down and kissed her on both cheeks. Laughing, he said, ‘Fate intended it to happen.’

  He still had his arms around her, and she had forgotten how handsome he was with his cherubic brown eyes and his long dark lashes. Logically she should feel the same tumult of longing that such an embrace with Lars would have awoken. In actuality she felt nothing but the pleasure of seeing an old friend. ‘Where are you going?’ she asked. ‘Are you alone?’

  But he was looking at her in puzzlement. ‘Something has changed,’ he said slowly. ‘You are not the same.’

  It was not the opportune time for her to see, over Philippe’s quite muscular shoulder, that Lars was watching them. A Lars who looked, to put it mildly, displeased. She gabbled, ‘Well, I’m travelling with someone, you see; he’s over there and his name is Lars—maybe that’s why.’

  Philippe had accepted with reasonably good grace Kristine’s insistence that he and she could be travelling companions but not lovers; but he was clearly not thrilled to think that another man might have succeeded where he had not. ‘A Norwegian?’ he said, giving Lars an unfriendly look. ‘They’re cold, Kristine—cold and cautious; they are too much in the snow and the ice. You don’t want a Norwegian.’

  She was not about to tell him that she wanted this particular Norwegian very much. ‘Keep your voice down,’ she scolded. ‘He and I are friends, that’s all.’

  ‘Why then does he look as if he wants to cut me in little pieces and feed me to the fishes?’

  An unanswerable question. Kristine tugged at his sleeve. ‘Come on and I’ll introduce you.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Philippe, a martial light in his eye. ‘I ‘ave to see if this Norwegian is good enough for you.’

  Philippe’s accent, like Lars’s, deteriorated under stress. If she had not had a headache, and if she were indeed Lars’s lover, as Philippe obviously thought she was, this scene might not have been so farcical. Kristine marched Philippe up to Lars, smiled at Lars determinedly, and said, ‘Lars, you’ve heard me speak of Philippe—he’s the one who taught me the trick with the nail scissors. Philippe Aubin, Lars Bronstad.’

  Philippe bowed stiffly from the waist. His brown hair curled to the neckline of his T-shirt, and the toes were out of his trainers. He said pugnaciously, ‘Kristine and I ‘ave travel many months together. She is a very fine person.’

  Lars said smoothly, ‘I couldn’t agree more.’

  ‘How then did you meet her?’ Philippe asked suspiciously.

  Kristine poured out the story of the two clowns in the park. Philippe’s response was, she supposed, predictable. ‘Because of what I have teach you, you do not need the rescue,’ he said.

  There was a diabolical gleam of amusement in Lars’s eyes. In a gesture that openly laid claim to Kristine, he put his arm around her shoulders and said, ‘I was very glad she knew how to defend herself—you taught her well.’

  Philippe was quite astute enough to discern the tremor of pleasure Kristine felt from Lars’s embrace. He drew himself to his full height. ‘She is my friend,’ he announced.

  ‘As she is mine,’ Lars responded, an edge to his voice.

  This was ludicrous, thought Kristine. Philippe could have been a knight of old flinging his gauntlet in his rival’s face, a gauntlet Lars looked quite prepared to pick up. ‘I’m really glad to see you again, Philippe,’ she said sincerely. ‘I hope you and Lars can be friends.’

  Philippe stopped scowling at Lars and gave her his most charming smile.
‘We ‘ave many memories to talk about,’ he said. ‘I am with Daniel and Suzette—remember them? Tonight we camp at Kaupanger, the other end of this ferry trip, and we ‘ave steak we buy from a farmer for supper—you will both join us, please?’ His eyes flicked a challenge at Lars, sharp as a sword’s parry.

  If they ate supper with Philippe, who somehow always managed to travel with more than his share of wine and beer, she and Lars would never make it to the cottage. She said quickly, ‘That would be fun—wouldn’t it, Lars?’

  ‘Bien,’ said Philippe, not waiting for her companion’s response. ‘We meet you there...’ere comes the ferry.’

  As the ferry gave a blast on its whistle, the noise echoed down the gorge. Kristine jumped, Philippe gave Lars a self-satisfied smile and walked towards the back of the queue, and Lars said ferociously, ‘Do you or do you not want to go to bed with me, Kristine Kleiven?’

  ‘I never went to bed with Philippe,’ she said obliquely.

  ‘Not because he didn’t want to!’

  ‘I didn’t want to.’

  ‘So why am I different?’

  ‘That’s the sixty-four-dollar question,’ she retorted in exasperation. ‘But you said yourself we should make up our minds when we’re not together, and whenever that happens I get cold feet.’

  ‘Tomorrow night we’re going to my brother’s cottage,’ Lars grated. ‘There are two bedrooms and a hammock, and you can decide when we get there where you and your cold feet want to sleep—because I’m damned if I’m taking anyone into my bed who doesn’t want to be there.’

  The gauntlet had been thrown in her face. She said mutinously, ‘If we stand here arguing we’re going to miss the ferry.’

  ‘We can’t risk that—we’d miss this wonderful dinner with Philippe.’