Page 19 of Winter Nights at the Bay Bookshop

LARS

I thought it would be emotional checking the rooms for a final time but I felt strangely detached.

With all her belongings gone, it didn’t feel like Nanna’s house anymore.

Taking the stairs to the top floor two at a time, I checked my bedroom and office, closed the windows in both and felt that same sense of detachment, that it wasn’t my home anymore either.

So many major changes had happened in recent months, I could barely catch my breath. Work-wise, I now had a short-term plan which I was excited about but I still had no idea what the long-term one was and, unusually for me – the person who liked organisation and structure – that felt okay.

‘ Tetta reddast ,’ I said, smiling to myself.

Loosely translated as it’ll work out all right or it’ll fix itself , it was more than just an Icelandic phrase.

It was a philosophy or a mindset deeply embedded in a culture at the mercy of Mother Nature where volcanic eruptions changed the landscape and destroyed homes, and where dark days made way for round-the-clock light.

Pabbi used to say it all the time but, as Pia’s health worsened, I heard him say it less and less.

Personally, I loved the phrase and adopted that mindset where I could but there were some things that couldn’t be fixed and would never be okay.

Perhaps tetta reddast in those situations was more about a recognition that our feelings would be all right in the end even if the situation itself never could be; that gradual acceptance after something tragic.

I’d arranged to visit Nanna so, after placing the keys in an envelope with a note and dropping them through the letterbox at the estate agent’s, I drove to Bay View.

‘Thanks for doing that final clean,’ Nanna said. ‘I know some wouldn’t bother but I can’t bear the thought of passing on a messy house.’

‘I can assure you it’s dust free and sparkling.’

Over drinks, we chatted about my progress with unpacking and what Nanna had been up to over the past couple of days.

‘Freyja rang yesterday,’ she said. ‘We had a lovely chat. She mentioned she hadn’t spoken to you for a while.’

‘I missed a call from her earlier in the week and I haven’t had a chance to ring back.’

‘I did tell her you were a bit swamped with the move.’

‘Thanks. I’d hate for her to think I was ignoring her.’

Pabbi had met Freyja four years after returning to Iceland and they married three years after that.

I was eighteen at the time and had just finished my A levels so Nanna and I went to Iceland for the wedding and spent a few extra days there.

I had no issue with him meeting someone new and had always got along brilliantly with my stepmum.

It was just my pabbi with whom I had the difficult relationship.

Pabbi had initially invited me to live with him in Iceland, but Mum wouldn’t hear of it, which was rich considering she disappeared on her travels just a few months later.

I visited for a week the following summer but, after eighteen months apart, I felt like a stranger around him.

I stayed again the summer after that when I was thirteen and it was worse so, with my teenage hormones raging, I unleashed all my anger and pent-up frustration on him.

I told him I hated him for abandoning me, for not loving Mum enough to stay together, for ruining my life.

Contact had been limited since then and I suspect it would have been non-existent if it wasn’t for him meeting Freyja and her acting as mediator.

She’d pulled out all the stops to get to know me and, later, to ensure I had a relationship with my half-sister Kára, who was now fourteen, and my half-brother Ari, now twelve.

I was still thinking about Freyja when I arrived back at The Lodge an hour or so later and decided to give her a call.

‘ Halló ,’ she said, quickly answering the FaceTime call, a big smile on her face. ‘Kára, Ari, say halló to your brother…’

All three of them spoke English fluently but liked to practise it on me so our conversations were often conducted in English on their side and Icelandic on mine as it was my only chance to speak the language.

Kára took the phone first and told me about a recent school trip to Reykjavík.

She’d only just finished when Ari grabbed the phone from her to tell me he’d been picked for the handball team.

He returned the phone to Freyja who asked about my new home and what I’d been doing with myself since the business sale completed.

‘I’ve got a job in a bookshop,’ I told her. ‘I start on Monday.’

‘A bookshop? Oh, Lars, that is wonderful.’

Kára and Ari mustn’t have gone far as they reappeared behind Freyja, expressing their excitement.

A love of literature was deep-rooted in the history and culture of Iceland, with a third of the population reading books daily.

My brother and sister fired questions at me such as how big Bay Books was, how many books it had, whether I’d get a staff discount and the title of the first book I planned to buy.

‘I wanted to invite you to visit for Christmas,’ Freyja said when she had the phone back to herself, ‘but I see now that it won’t work with your bookshop job.’

‘Sorry. Being available throughout December was one of the essentials.’

‘Perhaps you will spend next Christmas with us?’

‘Yeah, perhaps.’

She raised her eyebrows at me and fixed me with a stern look, both of us knowing full well the reason for my hesitation.

‘He misses you,’ she said.

‘I wish I could believe that.’

‘It’s difficult for him.’ She gave me a weak smile. ‘Yes, I hear it. It’s difficult for you too. I will fix this one day. I promise.’

I appreciated the sentiment but it wasn’t her responsibility to fix things between Pabbi and me.

Only we could do that and I wasn’t convinced he wanted to.

Over the years, I’d tried to apologise for my teenage outburst but he’d told me to stop dwelling on the past and focus on the future.

If only he’d taken his own advice. We barely spoke and, if I visited, the atmosphere was strained.

‘The conversation has become sad,’ Freyja said, ‘and I don’t want this. We love you, Lars. We are so happy you will be working with books. Call regularly and let us know your favourites so we can read them too.’

‘I will. I love you all too. Speak soon.’

I smiled at the goodbye shouts from my siblings and the wave from Freyja. I always ended a conversation with them feeling lifted. Even though we weren’t physically close, we were emotionally. Just a shame the same couldn’t be said for Pabbi.

I’d loved how supportive they were about my job.

I’d been looking forward to starting at Bay Books but the enthusiasm from Freyja, Kára and Ari had me really fired up and I couldn’t wait for Monday to come round.

Putting my phone back in my jeans pocket, I gazed round the sparse lounge and wondered if my Icelandic family would ever visit.

I could picture Freyja, Kára and Ari here, but Pabbi not so much.

I couldn’t imagine him ever returning to the UK.

I tried to imagine what the room would look like with furniture and a Christmas tree but I was shockingly bad at visualising things like that.

It wasn’t how my mind worked. A vision of a woman sitting on a chair bouncing a baby girl on her knee suddenly appeared in my mind and my breath caught.

The dark curls, the heart-shaped face. Lily.