The Storm Sister

by Lucinda Riley

  ‘Were they in there?’ Pip choked out the words.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Karine replied, remembering her promise to Elle. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Oh dear Lord.’ Pip fell to his knees and started to weep, but as he did so Karine spotted a platoon of German soldiers marching down the road.

  ‘Stand up!’ she hissed. ‘Now!’

  Pip did as he was told, and both of them nodded deferentially at the soldiers as they passed by, hoping they would be seen as simply a young Norwegian couple in love.

  On the morning of what should have been the premiere of The Hero Concerto, Pip woke to find that Karine had already left the bedroom. Seeing Felix was still happily asleep in his little bed at the bottom of theirs, he went downstairs to find his wife. Walking into the kitchen, he found a note propped up on the table.

  Gone to find bread and milk. Back soon. x

  Pip went to the front door and wandered anxiously into the street to look for her, wondering what on earth had possessed her to leave the house alone. He could hear the odd pop of gunfire in the distance – there were still pockets of the Norwegian army putting up a fight to the bitter end, although no one was under any illusions as to who the victors were.

  Not seeing a soul in the deserted street whom he could ask about his wife’s whereabouts, Pip went back inside the house and went to rouse his son. Felix, who was now seventeen months old, climbed out of bed, then toddled down the stairs holding his father’s hand. There was another sudden loud burst of gunfire.

  ‘Bang bang!’ Felix said with a grin. ‘Where Mama? Hungry!’

  ‘She’ll be back soon, let’s go and see what we can find you to eat in the kitchen.’

  Pip understood immediately why Karine had gone out as he opened the food cupboard to find it was bare, then noticed the two empty milk bottles standing by the sink. Pip resorted to a scrap of bread left over from supper last night to keep Felix quiet until she returned. He sat the boy on his lap and read him a story, trying to concentrate on something other than his own fear.

  Two hours later, there was still no sign of Karine. In desperation, Pip knocked on his neighbour’s door. The woman comforted him with the fact that there were already food shortages, and that she herself had queued for over an hour yesterday to buy bread.

  ‘I’m sure she’ll be back very soon; she may have had to travel further than usual to find some provisions.’

  Pip went back home and decided he could stand it no longer. After dressing Felix, he left the house, holding his little son firmly by the hand. Billows of acrid smoke from the Luftwaffe’s bombing raid still hung across the bay, and the occasional sound of gunfire continued. The streets were mostly deserted, even though it was past eleven o’clock. He saw that their usual bakery had its shutters closed, as did the greengrocer and fishmonger further along Teatergaten. He heard the heavy footfall of a patrol, and as he turned the corner, saw them marching towards him.

  ‘Soldier!’ Felix pointed to them, oblivious to any danger they represented.

  ‘Yes, soldier,’ Pip said, racking his brains for where Karine might have headed to. Then he thought of the small parade of shops on Vaskerelven, just past the theatre. Karine would often ask him to go there on the way to or from work if there was anything they needed.

  As he approached the theatre, he looked up and saw that the front of it was completely blown away. He choked in horror at the sight. His immediate thought was that although he had the original piano music up at Froskehuset, the rest of his orchestrations had been kept under lock and key in the theatre’s main office.

  ‘My God, they’re almost certainly all gone,’ he muttered, distraught.

  Averting his gaze so as not to show his distress and fear to his son, Pip marched past the remains of the theatre, determined not to allow himself to dwell on what had been inside.

  ‘Far? Why people sleep?’ Felix pointed to the square a few yards away, and it was then that Pip saw the bodies – maybe ten or twelve – which looked as though they had been thrown to the ground like discarded rag dolls. He could see that two of them were dressed in Norwegian army uniform, and the rest were obviously civilians – men and women and a young boy too. There must have been a skirmish earlier and innocents had got caught in the crossfire.

  Pip tried to pull his son away, but Felix stayed rooted to the spot, pointing at one of the bodies.

  ‘Far, we wake Mor up now?’

  Ally

  Bergen, Norway

  September 2007

  42

  Tears were stinging my eyes as Thom, who had paced up and down while telling me his tale, finally collapsed into a chair.

  ‘God, Thom, I simply don’t know what to say. How utterly awful,’ I whispered eventually.

  ‘Yes. Dreadful. It’s so hard to believe it was only two generations ago. And that it happened right here, in what you have so far thought of as our safe haven at the top of the world.’

  ‘How on earth could Pip have coped after Karine died? He must have felt completely responsible for her death.’

  ‘Ally, I . . . He didn’t. Cope, that is.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Pip brought Felix up to stay here with his grandparents after he’d found Karine shot dead in the square. He told Horst and Astrid he was going out for a walk, that he needed some time to think. When he didn’t return by nightfall, Horst went out to look for him. And found him dead in the woods just above the house. He’d taken his father’s hunting gun from the shed and killed himself.’

  I was rendered speechless, shock and horror coursing through me. ‘Oh my God, poor, poor Felix.’

  ‘Oh, he was all right,’ Thom said abruptly. ‘He was too young to understand what had happened and Horst and Astrid took him in, of course.’

  ‘But still, losing both his parents in a day . . .’ I read Thom’s expression and decided to shut up.

  ‘Sorry, Ally,’ Thom conceded, having heard the hardness in his own voice. ‘Actually, what I think is even worse was that, having never been told the truth about how his father died, some bright spark in the Bergen Philharmonic decided to impart the news one day, thinking Felix already knew.’

  ‘Ouch,’ I shuddered.

  ‘He was twenty-two and had just joined the orchestra. I’ve often wondered if that’s what made him go off the rails, lose focus and start drinking . . .’ Thom’s voice trailed off.

  ‘Perhaps,’ I answered gently, wanting to reply that yes, I was sure the revelation was enough to destabilise anyone, but refraining from it.

  Thom jumped up suddenly as he glanced at his watch. ‘Time to go, Ally, or we’ll miss your doctor’s appointment.’

  Leaving the house, we jumped into the car and Thom drove fast down the hill towards central Bergen. Arriving at the surgery, he swung the car up in front of the entrance. ‘You go in and I’ll follow you when I’ve parked.’

  ‘Really, there’s no need, Thom.’

  ‘I’ll come in anyway. Not everyone speaks English or French in Norway, you know. Good luck.’ He smiled at me and headed off to the car park.

  I was called in immediately, and even though the female doctor’s English wasn’t perfect, it was good enough to understand what I was trying to tell her. She asked me various questions, then gave me a thorough pelvic examination.

  As I sat up afterwards, she said she wanted to do some blood tests and take a sample of urine.

  ‘What do you think the problem is?’ I asked nervously.

  ‘When was your last menstrual period, Miss . . . D’Aplièse?’

  ‘I . . .’ The truth was, I couldn’t remember. ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Is there a chance you could be pregnant?’

  ‘I . . . don’t know,’ I replied, unable to compute the enormity of her question.

  ‘Well, we will take the tests for blood just to rule out anything else. But your uterus is definitely enlarged and therefore your sickness is probably due to the first few weeks of pregnancy. I’d say you
are currently about two and a half months along.’

  ‘But I’ve lost weight,’ I said. ‘It can’t be that.’

  ‘Some women do, due to the sickness. The good news is that the nausea tends to calm down after the first trimester. You should be feeling better very soon.’

  ‘Right. Er, thank you.’ I stood up, feeling suddenly breathless and faint as she gave me a sample pot to take to the bathroom and directed me to the phlebotomy nurse. Leaving her consulting room, I found the nearest loo, did what I needed to and then sat there, sweating and shaking, desperately trying to recall the last time I’d bled.

  ‘Oh my God,’ I said to the echoing walls. It had been just before I’d joined Theo and his crew on the boat to train for the Cyclades race in June . . .

  As I staggered out of the bathroom to go and give some blood, I thought darkly about how many times I’d heard a woman say she hadn’t realised that she might be pregnant. And I’d always laughed at them, wondering how any woman could miss a monthly bleed without it entering their mind. Now I was that woman. Because with everything else that had happened in the last few weeks, I just hadn’t noticed the lack of it.

  But how? I thought as I found the nurse who’d be taking my blood and rolled up my sleeve so she could tighten the elastic strap above my elbow. I’d always been so careful, taking the Pill like clockwork. But then I thought of that night on Naxos when I’d been so ill in front of Theo and he’d looked after me so tenderly. Was it possible that it had in some way affected the contraceptive effect of the Pill? Or had I simply forgotten to take it one day in the turmoil after Pa’s death . . . ?

  Walking back to reception, I handed in my urine sample and was told the results would be back tomorrow afternoon, and that I should call the surgery to get them.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said to the receptionist and turned to see Thom at my shoulder.

  ‘Okay, Ally?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’

  ‘Good.’

  I followed Thom back to the car and sat in silence as he drove me to my hotel.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right? What did the doctor say?’

  ‘Oh, that I was . . . run down, stressed. She’s doing some tests,’ I replied casually, not prepared to divulge the details of what had been a potentially life-changing fifteen minutes until I’d come to terms with it myself.

  ‘Well, I have an orchestra call at the Grieg Hall tomorrow morning, but why don’t I pop along to your hotel and see how you are afterwards at about noon?’

  ‘Yes, that would be great. Thank you for everything, Thom.’

  ‘That’s okay. And I’m sorry if my story earlier distressed you. Call me if you need anything, won’t you?’ he said as I got out of the car and saw the look of concern on his face.

  ‘Of course I will. Bye.’

  As I watched the car disappear back up the quayside, I hovered outside the entrance to the hotel. I needed to know for certain, and the pharmacy I’d spotted as Thom and I had driven here would be about to close. I ran the few hundred metres up the hill, arriving breathless just as they were about to shut the doors. I bought what I needed, and walked at a far more sedate pace back to the hotel.

  In the bathroom, I followed the instructions and waited the two minutes they told me it would take.

  Daring to glance at the plastic stick, I saw that even after a few seconds the line was turning undeniably blue.

  That evening, I ran through a gamut of emotions. Overwhelming relief that I wasn’t really sick, only pregnant, followed by the dual fears that not only was something happening to my body over which I had no control, but that I would have to cope alone when it arrived. And then eventually, and totally unexpectedly, a slow-building joy began to bubble away inside me.

  I was having Theo’s child. Part of him lived on . . . and was currently inside me, growing and getting stronger each day. There was something so miraculous about this thought that, despite the fear, I cried tears of joy at the way life really did seem to find the means by which to replenish itself.

  Once over the initial shock, I stood up and paced the room, no longer feeling lethargic and sick and scared, but infused with a new energy. This was happening, whether I liked it or not, and now I had to think about what I would do. What kind of a home could I give my child? And where? I knew that money was luckily not an issue. And I certainly wouldn’t lack for help if I wanted it, what with Ma in Geneva and Celia in London. Not to mention the five doting aunts that my sisters would become. It wouldn’t be a conventional upbringing, but I swore to myself that I would do my best to be both mother and father to mine and Theo’s baby.

  Much later, when I settled down to try and sleep, it suddenly occurred to me that not for one second since I’d known for certain had it crossed my mind not to have it.

  ‘Hi, Ally,’ Thom said as he kissed me on both cheeks in the hotel lobby the following day. ‘You look better today. I was worried about you last night.’

  ‘I am feeling better . . . I think,’ I added, giving him a wry smile. And deciding that, in fact, I was desperate to share my news with someone. ‘Actually, it looks like I’m pregnant and that’s why I’ve been feeling so dreadful.’

  ‘I . . . Oh wow, that’s wonderful . . . isn’t it?’ he said, trying to gauge my thoughts.

  ‘Yes, I really think it is, Thom. Even if it’s a big shock. And unexpected, and there’s no father, but, I feel so . . . happy!’

  ‘Then I’m happy for you too.’

  I knew Thom was still looking at me to make sure I wasn’t simply being brave. ‘Really, I’m okay with it. In fact, I’m better than okay.’

  ‘Good. Then congratulations are in order.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Have you told anyone else yet?’ he asked me.

  ‘No. You’re the first.’

  ‘Then I’m honoured indeed,’ he said as we wandered out of the hotel towards his car. ‘Although, I am wondering whether what I had planned for you this afternoon is now suitable, given your delicate . . . condition.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘I was thinking we might pay a visit to Felix to see what he’s got to say for himself. But as it’s bound to be upsetting, perhaps we should leave it for now.’

  ‘No, really, I’m absolutely fine. I’m sure the fear of feeling so rotten made me even sicker. Now I know the reason for it, I can start to plan. So yes, let’s go and see him.’

  ‘As I said yesterday, the chances are that even if he does know of your existence, he’ll deny it. I was living right under his nose and he still refused to accept that I was his son.’

  ‘Thom?’ I asked him once we were seated in the car.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You seem more certain than I am that I have a family connection to you and the Halvorsens.’

  ‘Maybe I am,’ he agreed as he started the engine. ‘Fact one: you told me your father gave each of you girls a clue to your pasts, to where your stories began. And in your case it was my great-great-grandfather’s book. Fact two: you are or have been a musician, and it’s been proved scientifically that talent can be passed down in the genes. Fact three: have you looked in the mirror lately?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Ally, look at us!’

  ‘Okay.’ We put our heads together and peered into the rear-view mirror.

  ‘Yes,’ I concluded, ‘we are alike. But to be honest, it was one of the first things I thought when I came to Norway: that I looked like everybody else here.’

  ‘I agree that you have the Norwegian colouring. But see? We even have similar dimples.’ Thom marked his with his fingers, and I followed his lead, marking mine too.

  I reached over the gearstick and gave him a hug. ‘Well, even if we find out we’re not related, I think I’ve found my new best friend. Sorry if that sounded like a line from a Disney film, but I’m feeling like I’m in a movie just now, one way or the other,’ I said, laughing at the absurdity of it all.

  ‘So,’ he said as we pulled
away from the kerb, ‘tell me again that you’re really up to this? That you’re ready to visit the troll on the hillside, who might or might not be your biological father.’

  ‘I am, yes. Is that what you call him? A troll?’

  ‘That’s kind compared to what I have called him in the past, let alone the adjectives my mother used.’

  ‘Don’t you think we should warn him we’re coming?’ I asked as we set off along the harbour.

  ‘If he knows we are, he’ll almost certainly be “out”, so no.’

  ‘Well, at least tell me a little more about him before we get there.’

  ‘Apart from the fact that he’s a useless waster who’s let both his life and talent go to shit?’

  ‘Thom, come on now. From what you told me yesterday, Felix had a dreadful time as a child. He lost both his parents in the most horrific way.’

  ‘Okay, okay, Ally, I’m sorry. It’s just years of learnt resentment, which admittedly was fuelled by my mother. In a nutshell, it was Horst who taught my father to play the piano. And apparently, so legend has it, he was playing concertos by ear at the age of seven, and had composed his own by twelve. Orchestrations and all,’ Thom added as he drove. ‘He won a scholarship to study in Paris at seventeen, and having then won the Chopin competition in Warsaw, was accepted into the orchestra here immediately. He was the youngest pianist the Philharmonic has ever employed. My mother told me that things went downhill from there. He had no work ethic, turned up late for rehearsals, often hungover, and by the evening he was drunk. Everyone put up with it because he was so talented, until they couldn’t anymore.’

  ‘A little like his great-grandfather, Jens,’ I mused.

  ‘Exactly. Anyway, eventually they threw him out of the orchestra for pitching up late, or not at all, once too often. Horst and Astrid also washed their hands of him and had no choice but to turn him out of Froskehuset. I think it was a case of what therapists these days call “tough love”. Although Horst did give him the use of the cabin he and Astrid had built years ago when they wanted to spend time hunting up in the woods. It was extremely basic to say the least. He mostly lived off the women he charmed and, so my mother said, ricocheted from one to another. Even now, since he added electricity and running water, it really is little better than a glorified hut.’