The Northern Lights Lodge

by Julie Caplin

  ‘And you’re really good at it.’ Everyone knew the laundry ran like clockwork.

  ‘Every manager, they give me papers. It’s on the paper. You have the lists.’ She drew in a shuddery breath and put both hands up to wipe her eyes. ‘I can do my job,’ she said fiercely again, but Lucy caught the rigid set of her jaw.

  ‘Yes, you can. And now I know,’ Lucy put her hand on her hips, ‘it will work out OK.’ She was thinking of Hekla’s petta reddast.

  Eyrun lifted up a tear stained face to look at her. Lucy recognised that wary, suspicious expression only too well, she’d seen it in the mirror.

  ‘Come,’ she beckoned Eyrun into the other room. ‘I have some ideas. Perhaps we can use pictures instead of words. Photographs?’

  When she’d left the laundry, half an hour later, to her utter amazement, Eyrun had given her a big hug and patted her on the head, the latter of which was a tad embarrassing but Lucy was confident it was well-meant. She was delighted to have got to the bottom of Eyrun’s problem and got her onside. No wonder she’d been so angry and uncooperative. For the first time in ages, Lucy let herself enjoy a moment of self-congratulation. Good managers looked after their people. This morning she felt she’d made a difference.

  Chapter 21

  As she crossed the car park towards Alex’s car, Lucy tugged down her hat and tucked the scarf tighter around her neck, grateful for the gloves she’d remembered to grab as they were leaving. It was a miracle she’d remembered anything when she’d spotted him waiting for her in reception, casually propping up the desk chatting to Brynja, enthusing about the northern lights which thankfully had made an appearance last night. The film crew had been full of it at breakfast.

  When he’d unfolded himself, his mouth curving and eyes crinkling, to fall into step beside her, a warm glow had lit inside her, gentling the butterflies that had been leaping about like lunatics in her stomach since she’d woken up this morning.

  This was not a date, she reminded herself as she did up her seat belt. Fresh air and a change of scene. A day off. With a colleague. No matter how many times she reiterated this in her head, those bloody butterflies ignored her.

  ‘So where are we going?’ she asked, trying to keep her words light and nonchalant after they’d been driving for ten minutes. ‘And thank you for taking me on your day off. It’s good to get out. Get some fresh air. Change of scene.’ The sentences trotted out, clipped and sharp.

  ‘We’re headed to Sólheimajökull.’ Alex turned his face towards her as he drove, giving her a long, level look which punched straight to her chest. This morning he was clean shaven and looked more gorgeous than ever. ‘And I wanted you to come, not because I’m worried about your health and well-being but because I enjoy spending time with you.’

  The damn butterflies were all agitated again.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said and, realising it was an olive branch to her earlier churlishness, she reached for the guide book and leaflets in her daypack. ‘So, what you do you want to know about Sólheimajökull?’

  He laughed. ‘Sock it to me Tour Guide Lucy.’

  She tested her new footwear, feeling a little unsteady with the unfamiliar weight of the crampons attached to her walking boots. Now that they were well into November, there was as sub-zero chill in the bright clean air making her skin tingle and her breath came out in plumes of white steam. She hefted the ice axe in her right hand and pulled a face at it, still not sure what the hell she was supposed to do with it, despite the lengthy and rather intense safety talk.

  Alex grinned at her, having teased her nonstop in the car as she relayed numerous facts about the glacier en route.

  ‘Feels like we’re about to go into battle,’ he said, holding an axe up mirroring her move.

  ‘As long as we come back victorious,’ said Lucy, immediately relaxing and smiling back at him encouraged by his blithe confidence. He didn’t seem the least bit nervous.

  ‘You OK?’ he asked.

  ‘I was but that safety talk put the fear of God into me.’ She pulled a face, looking up at the glacier peeling down the mountainside. The guide had impressed upon them, the importance of following him and not diverting from his track as there were deep fissures and crevices in the ice. He didn’t need to worry, Lucy would be following his instructions to the letter.

  ‘That’s so you follow their instructions. They wouldn’t do this if it weren’t safe.’

  ‘You’re right. I think the footwear is freaking me out slightly. I feel like I’m wearing the equivalent of Megatron, evil Transformer, shoes.’ She held up the sharp metal-toothed crampon encasing her walking boot. ‘I’m worried I might lose control and they’ll take a chunk out of someone.’

  Alex laughed. ‘Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure Optimus Prime will be lurking nearby.’ They both looked out over the ice. It was easy to imagine they were in another world or on far distant planet. Ahead of them peaks of striated ice rose like an alpine range, the mysterious milky aqua blue tipped in some places with black ash from the not so long-ago volcanic eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, famous for bringing most of European air traffic to a standstill for several weeks in 2010. That bit had been part of Sven, the guide’s, talk.

  ‘It’s so weirdly beautiful,’ sighed Lucy. ‘I’ve never seen blue like it.’ She took in a deep breath, her nose tingling. ‘And the air is so fresh.’

  Cricking her neck, she looked up at the sky. Puffed up, white clouds scudded quickly across, playing hide and seek with the patches of blue. Difficult to believe that snow was forecast for later. A rueful smile curved her lips. One thing you learned quickly in Iceland was how changeable the weather could be. For someone who’d been such a slave to routine in Manchester, it was funny to realise that she now rather liked the fickleness of the weather. Embraced it. She liked not knowing what the conditions would be the next time she looked out of one of the big plate glass windows of the Lodge. She liked seeing the different seascapes each morning, diamond days where the sun sparkled on the skipping waves or emerald days when heavy rain filled cloud turned the rolling heavy swell a deep green. And then, there was the opposite horizon, where the difference in the light wrought a dramatic change in the appearance of the craggy outline; soft sunsets turned them into pink tipped, snow topped fairy lands while dark cloudy days revealed the brooding mountains of Mordor.

  A frisson of excitement whispered through the group as the tour guide set off. Alex knocked his axe against Lucy’s.

  ‘Here we go.’

  His boyish enthusiasm was contagious and she smiled again, lengthening her stride to keep up with him as they walked to reach the glacier.

  Tentatively she took her first step on the ice, anticipating the glass-like, slippery surface of an ice-skating rink but when the crampons bit into the ice with a satisfying crunch, she turned her feet out to walk like a penguin as they’d been instructed to do.

  ‘OK,’ she said with a sudden light-hearted laugh, ‘I’ve changed my mind, I think these might be my new best friends.’ Taking another couple of sure-footed steps, she turned out her hands in flipper-like motions as she exaggerated her penguin waddle. ‘They’re kind of cool.’

  Alex laughed at her. ‘So we’ve gone from Transformers to Happy Feet?’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ Lucy waddled a bit more, beaming at him as he shook his head in amusement.

  Following the guide in strict single file, the group walked a little way across the ice.

  ‘You look like a natural,’ said Alex from behind her.

  ‘I’m concentrating really hard,’ she said loudly, wishing he was in front of her instead of getting an eyeful of her backside in baggy black waterproofs.

  They stopped after twenty minutes to catch their breath and take in the amazing view of the ice spread before them, its surface like a huge uneven slab of marble, veined with black.

  ‘Amazing isn’t it?’ Alex crunched his way to her side, putting an easy hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Yes, it’s so quiet.�
�� There was a stillness to the air which emphasised the sensation of isolation and of being a very long way away from anywhere.

  ‘Makes you think. Other people right at this minute are standing on the Champs Elysée, or on Broadway or Oxford Street and we’re here. It’s hard to imagine cars and people, noise, traffic.’

  Lucy let out a quiet laugh of agreement. ‘Especially when it’s so peaceful. It is beautiful but also quite intimidating, which is part of the thrill. You almost feel as if nature could turn on you in a minute. That ash is a telling reminder. Those volcanoes erupt with a certain frequency.’

  ‘You’ve said it well.’ Alex gave her a long look, his mouth lifting at one side. ‘I feel like it’s a place to reset. Work out what is what. What really counts.’

  Lucy nodded, a quick ping of agreement resonating. ‘Reset is the perfect word. The size of all this puts everything into perspective. Makes you realise what’s important … or rather, what’s not important.’

  She turned at the same moment he did, her eyes zeroing in on the flat indent of his lower lip, before they flicked up to his brown eyes. Her heart stalled at the expression in them, the dancing amusement replaced by a steady warm gaze, serious and full of intent. She heard the crackle of his coat as he manoeuvred closer and felt the quick hot stamp of warmth as he cupped the icy skin on her jaw to lift her face before lowering his mouth to kiss her.

  Cold lips, hot breath, icy noses, warm air, the rustle of waterproofs, the thudding of her heart and the slow slide of skin on skin as his mouth moulded over hers in a gentle, leisurely exploration. She wasn’t sure who pulled back first, possibly her, because she needed to catch her breath but his was coming in little steamy puffs on the air too. As if reluctant to sever the contact, his hand came up to stroke her face. The kiss had lasted mere seconds but energy and excitement buzzed low in her belly.

  ‘We shouldn’t…’ she whispered, giving into the little nugget of anxiety that had niggled its way into her head. None of the other tourists seemed to even be looking their way or remotely interested in them. He touched the furrowed line on her face.

  ‘You’re thinking too hard.’

  Huffing out a sigh, she gave him a careful, direct look.

  ‘I’m your boss. We shouldn’t…’

  ‘Or,’ he paused, his hand sliding to cup her jaw, a finger skimming across her lip, ‘we could forget about the lodge. Just be Lucy and Alex? For today? Enjoy all this.’ With a wave of his arm he encompassed the vast landscape with its raw nature. ‘A reset?’

  ‘OK,’ she said and suddenly life seemed so simple.

  Alex’s mouth quirked and that elusive dimple appeared.

  ‘Selfie,’ asked Alex holding up his phone.

  ‘Go on then,’ she said. He looped his arm around her shoulder pulling her close, the soft cold skin of his cheek touching hers, as he held the mobile up. ‘Smile.’

  Together they stood looking up at the little round eye, Alex squeezing her as he pressed the button on the side of his phone with a long elegant finger which made her think of the times he’d touched her.

  ‘You have to airdrop that selfie to me.’ Lucy tried her best to sound normal to get them back on to safe territory but her words came out breathy and sultry which made Alex smile and drop another quick kiss on the corner of her mouth.

  ‘Sure. I–’ He was interrupted by Sven who began to talk about the glacier, which apparently was the spur of a much larger glacier, one of the biggest in Europe. He spoke with that engaging confidence that tourist guides so often had.

  They walked, climbing upwards for another twenty minutes until Sven stopped on a smooth topped plateau which stretched as far as the eye could see up towards the snow-covered peaks on the horizon.

  ‘And now I will show you one of the crevasses. Two at a time. The rest of you stay here. Do not wander off. If you want to take photos, I will guide you to safe places.’

  Lucy listened to the multi-lingual chatter around them, the quiet respectful tones of a group of quite elderly Japanese people, whose age certainly didn’t hold them up, the brash loudness of a rather unpleasant man who dominated his group of four, the guttural consonants of four enthusiastic German photographers who were keen to go first and the slower drawl of some mid-twenty something Canadians.

  When it was their turn, Sven led them to the edge of the metre-wide crevasse, like a sharp cut in ice with sheer sides of deep aqua blue.

  ‘I will hold you, if you want to look or take pictures,’ he said, grasping Alex’s coat to let him edge forward and peer over the side.

  ‘Wow,’ Alex said impressed, ‘how deep is it?’

  ‘It is difficult to tell, the glacier is in a constant state of flux. It is moving every day, a tiny amount but new cracks can open up. That is why it is important to have a guide.’

  Then it was Lucy’s turn. She peeped over the edge to see the incredible blue of ancient ice almost glowing. It was both terrifying and mesmerising. Pulling back, Lucy gave a little shiver.

  Alex smiled at her. ‘Makes you think doesn’t it.’

  ‘It does. I can’t believe people would be crazy enough to come out here on their own and try and walk without a guide.’ Hekla had told them about the lengthy search and subsequent discovery of a body after a young tourist had gone missing on the glacier a few years previously.

  Sven shook his head, the dancing light in his blue eyes snuffing out with sudden seriousness. ‘It can be very dangerous up here. I’ve studied hard and done lots of training to be safe up here. We don’t want any other fatalities. If the weather gets worse, we will go back. The risks are too great.’

  Sven rounded everyone up and they set off again, leaning into the wind which had picked up, making the going a bit harder. Puffs of steam punctuated Lucy’s heavier breathing.

  They stopped a couple of times more, for which she was thankful for as she caught her breath and rubbed at her aching thighs while one of the little Japanese ladies, twice her age, beamed sympathetically at her.

  That changeable weather caught up with them, thick clouds closing in bringing the promise of snow and Lucy caught Sven the guide checking his watch a couple of times and speaking to the ground crew back in the car park. Rounding the corner of a wall of ice, he signalled for everyone to stop. The sudden change in the landscape from open wide space to enclosed ice caves and tunnels, made Lucy imagine she was in a computer game and had reached new level. They were in a small enclosed area with a large wall of ice ahead of them, sloping away to the right with a small ice shelf off to the left which dropped less than six feet to a lower level below, the edge of which Sven urged them stay away from.

  ‘This is where we will do some ice climbing. We will not have much time because the weather is moving in. Who would like to try?’

  There were several enthusiastic yeses, including Alex, and Lucy was about to say no when it occurred to her that that word had become her automatic default.

  When had she stopped trying new things? That first year in Manchester, she’d travelled the city, walking, cycling, exploring. Then she’d met Chris and he, she acknowledged with a regretful downturn of her mouth, hadn’t been one for stepping out of his comfort zone. More of a pub or a night in with Netflix man.

  Sven gave them good, clear instructions, handing out helmets and ropes and they crowded round watching as he demonstrated, hefting his axe with an impressive sweeping he-man strike into the ice before grinning back at his eager audience.

  Alex caught her eye and winked. He was the first to climb, moving up the wall of ice with an easy natural gait, placing his feet quickly and confidently and striking hard at the ice with the axe as Sven had shown them all. The Canadians all looked like pros too, one of the German photographers was enthusiastic but clumsy, the others hopelessly uncoordinated, which Lucy suspected she would be too.

  And then it was her turn. Sven was very thorough, checking her helmet, tugging at the strap and lacing her into a harness. From the bottom of the sheer wall
of ice, climbing up looked like an impossible task but when she nervously looked over her shoulder, Alex gave her a warm smile and the thumbs up.

  Swinging the axe to get purchase was much harder than it looked but the crampons were her new best friends and slowly she inched her way up, enjoying the sense of satisfaction of stretched muscles and hard work with every piece of ice covered.

  By the time she reached the top she was breathing hard but she waved her axe in the air down at Alex. Abseiling down was, she decided, a lot more fun. Lucy was unhooking her harness when Sven said, ‘Sorry folks, this will be the last one of the day, we need to turn back and cut short the tour.’

  ‘What I’m not going to get my ice climb?’ protested Brad, a strapping six-foot four man. From his slight European accent tinged with strong American overtones it was difficult to determine his nationality, but one thing was for sure, he was certainly full of himself. For most of the trip, his loud carrying voice had provided a non-stop commentary on his brilliance as a sports coach and how to manage a sports team. Knowledge that Lucy could quite happily lived without.

  ‘But that’s why I came on this tour. And we’re here now. Come on man, give us another couple of lousy minutes.’

  ‘I’m very sorry, but the weather is closing in earlier than was forecast. We must turn back.’

  The man looked at the sky. ‘Looks OK to me. Those clouds are miles away.’

  Sven gave him a tight-lipped polite smile. ‘We must leave now. Base has said the weather is moving fast. The winds are picking up and bringing snow with them.’

  Folding his arms, Brad shook his head. ‘I’m not budging. I paid for a tour and an ice climb. I’m an experienced climber.’ He looked around at the rest of the tour group.

  Lucy sighed, wrestling with the chin strap of her helmet, trying to undo the plastic clip.

  ‘Don’t be crazy man,’ said a Finnish girl, while a Canadian muttered ‘Asshole,’ and the four photographers lapsed into German, but it was obvious from their body language they were saying, ‘Who is this dickhead?’