Fall Hard (10 page)

I bent to pick up a stone and placed it carefully on top of one of the little cairns that dotted the reddish hillside, along with clumps of scrubby grass and bright white, yellow and purple wild flowers. Many of the rock towers seemed to defy gravity; there was one that looked, from a distance, at least, almost as tall as I was, its components as carefully chosen as the “bricks” in a Yorkshire drystone wall. Other builders had delighted in placing larger rocks on top of smaller. The cairns only added to the landscape’s eerie, magical, otherworldly aspect.

Somehow, I felt right at home. Perhaps I’d missed this place without even realising it. The wind was stronger up on the hillside, whipping at my shirt sleeves, and I wrapped my arms around myself to ward off the chill, my stick dangling awkwardly from one hand.

“Paul?”

Alex’s voice startled me, and I spun around to face him. “Yes?”

“You know, you kinda zoned out there. Are you okay?”

I blinked. “Fine. Sorry. Did I miss something?”

“Nothing important. I was just saying how bleak this place is. You want to head on down?”

I shrugged. “If you like.” I could always come back another time. “You know, I think there’s a simpler reason for Iceland’s low crime rate. Look at the place. We’re at one of the leading tourist sites, in the height of summer. And there’s no one here.”

“Weird, though, when you think about it.” Alex moved to stand closer to me. “I mean, hell, what about genetics? These guys—okay, not these guys,” he said, gesturing to the little matchstick men and women below us. “But the Icelanders, they’re all descended from rampaging Vikings.”

“Actually, their female DNA is more than sixty percent Celtic. So maybe the Viking bloodlust’s been tamed by the love of a good woman,” I added with a wry twist of my lips.

“Wouldn’t work for me.” Alex smirked. “Think it ever does?”

“Egil Skallagrimsson,” I said with confidence. “He even wrote a poem about it—how one look from Asgerdr turned him into a total wimp.”

“Wasn’t she married to someone else?” Alex asked sharply.

“Well, yes. His brother Thorolfr. But there’s no evidence there was anything between her and Egil before Thorolfr died.” Even as I said it, I wondered why I was bending the truth again. The evidence was ambiguous, true—a simple account of Egil having been “too ill” to attend his brother’s wedding—but it was there.

We wandered back down the hill, Alex moving with his usual easy grace while I winced along behind, trying to hide the way my leg protested at the gradient. As we passed two children in bright waterproofs noisily competing to build cairns of their own, Alex dropped back to take my arm.

“I’m fine,” I protested. I wasn’t sure if I was more annoyed at his presumption or my own weakness.

He smiled at me, unnervingly close. “Hey. I get you can make it down, okay? But if you’re limping worse tomorrow, Mags will set the trolls on me.”

I laughed, partly in amusement at the image but also in an attempt to break the tension I felt. “How did you get to know her?”

“We just kind of got talking in the cafeteria one day. It’s a real shame about her husband and kid.”

I blinked. “Her…what?”

Alex turned to look at me, his forehead creased in a frown. “You didn’t know? They died in a boating accident. Long time ago now.” He paused as I struggled to take it in. “I thought you knew. You guys seem pretty close.”

I felt sick. How could I have forgotten something so devastating for her? No wonder my throwaway comment about her having a family someday hadn’t gone down well. I gripped my stick so tightly my fingers ached. “God, I hate this!” I whispered it, ashamed of myself.

“Oh—oh, shit. Sorry. I’m an asshole. Shit. I just didn’t think—I’m sorry.” Alex ran a hand through his hair, fluffing it up even more than the wind had managed. “Jeez, I’m a total fuckup.”

“It’s all right,” I forced myself to say. “It’s…an unusual situation. You couldn’t be expected to…to remember.” I could feel my face screwing up, the pain ridiculously tangible as I said the last word.

“Yeah, I could.” His tone was bitter.

I risked a glance at him then, and my chest went oddly tight at the anguished look on his face. I put my free hand on his arm, gave a gentle squeeze. “You shouldn’t feel bad about it. Not your fault.” I wasn’t sure it helped. He still looked distressed. “Why don’t we go and hit that café like you suggested?” I offered, and he roused himself with an almost imperceptible shake.

“Yeah. Good idea.” Strokkur erupted again, and he startled visibly. “Jeez. Doesn’t that thing ever stop?”

“Maybe they switch it off at night, after the tourists go home.” I forced myself to speak lightly, and we each dredged up a smile. “Come on, let’s get caffeinated.”

“Yeah, because what I really need is something to make me even more twitchy,” Alex muttered.

Funny, I was craving the caffeine like a drug. Anything to cut through the fog in my mind—or at least give the illusion of doing so. “Hot chocolate for you, then. Or camomile tea. With a Valium chaser.”

“Now, that’s a thought.” Alex raised an eyebrow. “Have they got you on the good drugs for that leg of yours? Feel free to slip some my way.”

“Sorry. I’m British, remember? We just stiffen our upper lips and get on with things.” He didn’t need to know about my issues with taking strong painkillers.

“Oh yeah? Just the upper lip? Because, you know, I can think of more interesting things to stiffen. And come to think of it, isn’t it nature’s pain relief?” He leaned closer as we walked, so our shoulders and hips kept touching.

Alex feeling more on balance was definitely a two-edged sword. “I think there’d be a bit of an outcry if they started offering sex on the National Health Service.”

“You could always try a little private medicine.” His face was so close to mine now his breath warmed my cheek, and I had to steel myself not to jerk away.

We’d reached the café entrance, thank God. “Coffee,” I said firmly and pushed open the door.

In the end, the savoury smell that hit us seduced us both into ordering a bowl of lamb soup. When it came, it was flavoursome, full of generous chunks of meat and vegetables and not as greasy as I’d feared. Suddenly ravenous, I ate hungrily and wished there was more bread. One tiny white roll didn’t go very far.

“Just like home cooking, huh?” Alex grinned, already more than halfway through devouring his own meal.

“Better. My sister’s vegetarian.” We shared a carnivorous grimace. “You come from a big family?”

“Kinda. Three sisters, one brother.”

“All back in America?”

“Mm-hm.” Alex finished his mouthful. “Spread around a little, though. Katie still lives with Mom and Dad, but the rest of us range from New York to LA.”

“Do you get to see each other much?”

“Well, everyone goes back for Thanksgiving, of course. My eldest sister Mary got let off one year because she was about to give birth, but that’s pretty much the only excuse Mom’ll accept.” Putting down his spoon, Alex started to wipe his bowl clean with what was left of his bread. “Your sister got any kids?”

“No. Can’t imagine it, really.”

“No? From what you’ve said about her, she seems like the nurturing kind.”

Had I really told him all that much about Gretchen? I couldn’t remember. “Well, maybe the kids, but I can’t imagine her with a husband.”

“She gay too?”

I hesitated.

Alex pounced. “What, you don’t know?”

“I’ve only ever known her to go out with men. But there haven’t been very many of them—none at all, lately—and sometimes I’ve wondered.”

“Okay, she knows you’re gay, right? And she’s cool with it?”

“Of course. To both.”

“So why would she hide it if she was too?”

I shrugged. “She’s just… I don’t know. So what’s it like being an uncle?” I asked, trying to deflect his curiosity.

He laughed. “Expensive. It’s not just the toys either—you wouldn’t believe the number of days’ work I’ve lost to running around toy stores, trying to find the latest big thing.”

“I’d have thought you’d save the shopping until the semester was over,” I said with a slight frown. Maybe things were different in America, but I couldn’t imagine requests for time off from teaching to go shopping going down particularly well with my former department in Cambridge.

“Oh—yeah, you know how it is. Birthdays—they don’t stick to vacation times. Hey, listen, I’m gonna go see what they got for dessert. You want anything?”

I shook my head, and he was gone, loping back up to the counter. I watched him grab a muffin and flirt easily with the pretty young blonde working there. Nobody seemed to care that he was holding up the queue. He came back smiling and swung himself back into his seat, already taking a bite of the muffin.

“Good?” I asked.

“Soup was better.” He shrugged and took another bite. I stirred the dregs of my coffee and waited for him to finish. When we left the café, the skies had darkened and a heavy drizzle had begun to fall. We hastened to the car and drove off. The green of the fields had taken on the peculiar jewel richness I most associated with Iceland, and the hilltops shrugged on shrouds of mist. Down in the valleys, low, chalet style houses huddled together like a flock of sheep in winter, giving the conflicting impressions both of insignificance and solidity.

“It gets you down a little, doesn’t it? All this rain,” Alex said, breaking the somewhat awkward silence that had reigned since the café.

“What were you expecting? Beach weather?” I drew in a sharp breath at a sudden flash of memory. I was swimming in the open air, treading water in a natural pool surrounded by green fields and mountains. The air on my exposed head and shoulders felt chilly, and steam was rising from the water. Someone said my name, and I turned to look at him.

“Paul?” It was Alex, and the spell was broken. I blinked at him. Swallowed. “Hey, are you okay? You want to pull over for a minute?”

I took a couple of deep breaths, my eyes fixed on the black road ahead. “I’m fine.”

“Sure? You looked a little freaked out for a moment there.”

“I’m sure.” But I was glad Iceland’s minor roads bore so little traffic—although when I turned back onto the busy Sudurlandsvegur, paradoxically it was easier to concentrate, because I knew I had to. The vision was fading, becoming dreamlike. Whose voice had I heard in my mind? Sven’s? I had the impression of an American twang, but maybe that was just from Alex, not from the voice in my memory.

“Does your leg bother you, driving? I should have asked before.”

“No—it’s fine.” Actually, it was aching a bit, now I thought about it, but it was a different sort of ache to the usual. “Driving’s better than walking.”

“You know, you should try the hot pools here. They’re supposed to be great for that kind of thing. Maybe we could go together sometime?”

“Maybe.” I tried to strike a balance, polite but not encouraging.

Maybe I should just tell him to back the hell off, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to be so blunt. Thankfully, he stuck to general topics of conversation for the rest of the drive, and I relaxed a little, even letting my thoughts drift off to my research.

“Busy tonight?” Alex asked as we made our way from the car to the institute building.

“Well, sort of.” I’d decided it might be a good idea to actually get a bit of work done for a change. “I need to reacquaint myself with the kennings.”

“Oh—English friends of yours, are they?”

I half laughed—then stopped in confusion at his frown. It seemed he’d been serious. “Uh, kennings?” I said cautiously. “You know, the descriptive form found in Skaldic poetry? Like ‘northern kiss’ for a cold wind, or ‘feeder of ravens’ for a warrior?” How could he be studying the sagas and not know that? “Have you actually been to any of your classes here?”

Alex froze for a moment—then recovered himself with a laugh. “Oh—
kennings
. Sorry. I guess I misheard you.”

I wasn’t convinced. Suddenly it occurred to me to wonder why, if he was in the habit of “doing his homework” on places he planned to visit, he was so bloody ignorant about Iceland, its history and literature.

Chapter Ten

That evening, I sat at home with my aching leg up on the sofa and my notes scattered around me, unread, while the television showed some home-grown drama I hadn’t been paying attention to either. Though I’d have denied it strenuously to anyone who’d asked, I was missing
EastEnders
. And
Coronation Street
.

What Alex had said was still bugging me. Getting out my laptop, I checked the history department staff list on the Boston University website. I couldn’t find Alex Winter’s name anywhere. Widening my search to the whole of the university produced no success, either. Frustrated and a little concerned, I typed “Alex Winter Boston” into my search engine. This time, I got results—far too many of them. Damn it, couldn’t his parents have had the decency to come up with a more original name? There was even a Hollywood actor with the same name, virtually ensuring I’d never find one particular needle in the haystack of hits.

Perhaps he was a fairly recent recruit, and their website hadn’t been kept up-to-date. God knew academics could be frustratingly lax about that sort of thing. I gave up and rang Gretchen’s number but got her answer-phone. I hung up without leaving a message, wondering if she was out with anyone special, and if that someone was male or female. Was it maybe someone she’d stayed away from in the months I was living with her?