The Distance

by Zoë Folbigg

  Cecilie stops abruptly and looks back down at the bar mats. She straightens the same ones again, in the same order as she did before.

  The bar area is quiet apart from the two of them, and Camilla and Espen mulling over a clipboard in the corner. Thursday’s late-afternoon arrivals won’t start filling the bar for the next hour or so and Eirik, who is working the early evening shift with Cecilie, isn’t due in until six o’clock.

  Andreas sees the flush of shyness in Cecilie and wants to put her at ease.

  ‘You live in such a beautiful town, although I never get to see it as I’m always working.’

  ‘Have you been up the Fjellheisen? The view from the ledge up there is pretty spectacular.’

  ‘No, I must have been to Tromsø twenty times and I’ve never been. I bet it’s beautiful to see the lights from up there.’

  Cecilie nods dreamily.

  ‘Not this time of year.’ She takes a cloth and pretends to look busy by drying already-dry glasses. It’s easier to make chit-chat if she’s doing something with her hands. ‘What’s Copenhagen like?’

  ‘Really cool, really colourful, my sons have a good life there – it’s just a shame I’m not at home as much as I like, I guess…’ Andreas drifts away for a second, then his eyes light up. ‘The restaurants are amazing. You’ve never been?’ he asks with surprise.

  Cecilie feels embarrassed again. ‘No, no, but I heard it’s awesome.’

  A beep goes off on Cecilie’s phone under the bar and she tries to ignore it.

  It wouldn’t look professional.

  Then another.

  Is it him?

  ‘Would you like a top-up of ice?’ Cecilie asks, under a pretext, fumbling for a scoop.

  ‘Sure, thanks.’

  She looks down, her screen is lit. It’s not Hector. The texts are from Grethe, and come in a stream of five or six.

  Hei Cecilie!

  Can you talk?

  Are you there?

  Are you at work?

  It’s happening. I can’t get hold of Abdi.

  Cecilie gasps.

  ‘Shit! Espen!’ she calls across the bar. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Andreas,’ she apologises, putting her hand to her mouth.

  ‘Is everything OK?’

  ‘My friend, I think she’s gone into labour.’ Cecilie teeters between protocol and primeval. Then she shouts across the bar again. ‘Espen!’

  He turns around, breaking away from his conversation with Camilla, and gives his sister a look.

  ‘Just a second,’ he says, raising an irked palm.

  Cecilie doesn’t wait.

  ‘It’s Grethe, I think she went into labour.’ Espen’s face softens. ‘Abdi’s out on the boat and she can’t get hold of him.’

  ‘Excuse me a second, Camilla,’ Espen says, straightening his suit jacket as he strides over. ‘Have you spoken to her?’

  ‘No, I just had a text.’

  ‘Well you must call her,’ Espen says, in a strange concoction of fire-fighting mode and inconvenience. ‘I’ll get one of the dining staff to cover the bar for a minute. Actually, Camilla, can you just cover for a second please?’

  The girl with the neat bun nods and follows Espen’s trail.

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Hansen, sorry, Andreas,’ bows Espen. ‘It’s practically a family emergency, our friend is heavily pregnant.’

  Andreas smiles.

  ‘Would you like another Yamazaki?’

  ‘No, no thanks,’ Andreas replies, as he watches Cecilie walk away to make a call. Andreas sees her for the first time from the ground up. Dr Martens boots. Black tights and a short black skirt. Crisp white shirt. Even in her uniform, she looks edgier than her twin brother.

  Cecilie walks into the function room, a room with big mesh spheres for lightshades, and closes the sliding doors behind her as she presses Grethe’s face to call her.

  ‘Hei you OK?’

  ‘Nei, I’m at the hospital. Abdi is at sea, I can’t get hold of him. It hurts so much, Cecilie. My mum is at the Iskrembar, I told her Abdi was on his way so she wouldn’t worry.’

  ‘Want me to come? I’m sure Espen won’t mind.’

  ‘Will you, I want to die…’ the line goes silent and then Cecilie hears howling, like a wolf at the moon, followed by a retching sound and the splat of liquid – vomit she assumes – hitting the floor. Cecilie knows she must go to her.

  ‘I’m coming!’ she shouts, hoping Grethe would have heard her from a phone that’s now on the floor of the delivery suite. ‘Espen, I need to get to the hospital, she’s on her own – can you cover my shift until Eirik gets here?’

  ‘Don’t worry about here, go go go – where’s Mamma’s car?’

  ‘It’s at home, I walked.’

  Mamma’s car is actually Cecilie’s, given Karin doesn’t drive, but she certainly pays for the family runaround.

  ‘You might struggle getting a taxi.’ Espen tries to remain cool and calm in hotel manager mode, but even he is starting to flip and the quiff of his blond hair is waning.

  ‘My driver is out front,’ says Andreas coolly. ‘He knows these roads. Take my car.’

  ‘Really?’ asks Espen. Uncomfortable about crossing an imaginary line with a hotel guest.

  ‘Yeah sure – he is only sitting there bored, waiting to see if I want to eat out tonight, which I don’t, I’m going to have a club sandwich in my room.’

  Andreas always has a club sandwich in his room on the first night.

  ‘If you’re sure…’

  Cecilie flutters to the door at the end of the bar, goes through it to grab her coat and bag and comes out looking flustered. She sweeps her fringe behind one ear. Andreas stands.

  ‘Come on, I’ll show you to my car, I’ll explain everything to Svein.’

  Andreas puts a reassuring hand a few centimetres away from the middle of Cecilie’s back, to help usher her out. She doesn’t feel it touch her, but she knows that it is there. Andreas and Cecilie guide each other out of the bar area: through the atrium-like dining room to the sleek and shiny tiled floor of the reception area and through the automatic doors onto the harbour. There is a large space where the Hurtigruten is usually docked, where Abdi will return tonight, perhaps as an unwitting father.

  ‘Here we go,’ Andreas says, opening the rear door of a sleek black Audi.

  ‘Svein, take Miss Wiig wherever she needs to go please – although I assume it’s the hospital, yes?’ He nods at Cecilie as she slides into the back and gives a grateful smile.

  ‘That’s right, the hospital please.’ She looks up at Andreas. ‘Thank you,’ Cecilie says, as she closes the car door.

  Twenty-Seven

  I delivered a baby!

  Types Cecilie, as she walks over the bridge in the chilly wind. The August sun barely set last night and Cecilie didn’t go to sleep at all. She spent most of the night clutching Grethe’s pale tense hand, navigating her through the pain and the terror of every wave, until baby Ahyana Cecilie Margot arrived into the Arctic Circle, her father still out at sea. Cecilie attaches a photo of a pink and brown newborn with swollen eyes and beautiful lips. She doesn’t expect a reply, but one comes straight away.

  Beautiful! Congratulations! Is mamá OK?

  She’s fine. She was amazing. So strong. Abdi arrived at 5 a.m. I’m already on my way to work, I only had 45 minutes at home but I was so wired, I couldn’t sleep!

  Well you’re strong too. Mi héroe. Well done you. A new career perhaps? Not sure of the word for partera…

  Midwife I think.

  Sí, midwife. You’ve found your calling, Midwife Ceci.

  Ahh, thanks. Not sure I could go through it again.

  Well done my love.

  My love?

  Cecilie is thrown.

  I thought we left that behind.

  It’s late over there. But Hector doesn’t get drunk and careless any more. In fact, since they started messaging each other again, Cecilie has loved chatting to level-headed Hector. Always sober. Always
coherent. Whether he’s stealing five minutes from the art desk at La Voz or sending pictures of himself in his uniform from Lazaro’s, Cecilie loves talking to solid, sensible Hector even more than she did before.

  Maybe it’s a querida thing.

  Yes, Hector probably calls everyone querida or mi amor. Cecilie’s not sure why, but ‘love’ still cuts through her like a knife.

  I’m tired.

  A black Audi pulls up on the other side of the arching cantilever bridge, heading the other way. Cecilie recognises Svein, the driver, his silver hair curling softly at the nape of his collar. The rear window lowers and Andreas is revealed, looking pleased to see Cecilie. The driver of the car behind him beeps his horn, but Andreas is unperturbed.

  ‘Everything OK with your friend?’ Andreas shouts across the traffic.

  ‘Yes,’ Cecilie laughs, gratefully. ‘A girl. “Ahyana”. Born at 4.21 a.m. I cut the cord!’

  Andreas looks impressed.

  ‘You want a lift?’

  The horn beeps again, twice in quick succession. Or was it a second car joining in?

  ‘No thanks, don’t worry. You’re going the other way.’

  Andreas’s car was heading away from the town, past Mount Storsteinen to the roads that lead to the Finnish border, but he imagines Cecilie won’t fancy the biting wind of the bridge at 8 a.m., especially on so little sleep.

  ‘Jump in! It’s fine, it’ll take Svein, what, ten extra minutes? It will save you a lot more time than that.’

  Cecilie is tempted. Her bones ache. She didn’t reply to Hector’s confusing comment and she’s too tired to try to make sense of it. Besides, he’s probably about to go to bed, to spoon his bony wife, so she nods across the traffic at Andreas, who moves along the back seat to make way and winces while Cecilie dodges the cars heading into town, towards the library, the cafe, and the hotels on the harbour. She opens the car door and slides in as a succession of three SUVs behind them beep, making Cecilie feel flustered, although Andreas and his driver aren’t. The car is warm and the plush leather seats are a comfort; the smell of clean upholstery reminds her of how this night she will never forget started.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says, looking across the back seat to Andreas.

  ‘Svein, why don’t you turn around in the car park of that cathedral there and head back across the bridge?’

  The driver nods compliantly.

  ‘The i-Scand yes?’ Andreas asks.

  ‘No, the library actually. The big white building at the back of the town, with the undulating roof.’

  Svein nods again; Andreas doesn’t know Tromsø very well but he knows that impressive building.

  ‘The library? Wow. Delivering babies at 4 a.m. and studying by 8 a.m.’

  ‘No, I work there.’

  ‘At the library? As well as the hotel?’

  ‘Yes. The library in the morning, a cafe in the afternoon, and at the hotel recently, during their busier evenings.’

  ‘You are as hard-working as your brother.’

  ‘More so, I’m a midwife too now, you know,’ Cecilie winks through her sweeping fringe. The strange concoction of happiness and fatigue make her feel unusually bold.

  Andreas looks back at Cecilie, sitting in her regular clothes and not her uniform. She looks fresh, despite not having slept, and he likes how her blue jeans, frayed at the knee, and green Converse boots offset the stuffiness of the car, his driver, their suits.

  ‘So how was the birth?’

  ‘Not pretty. But I saw a miracle happen before my very eyes. Not many friends get to experience that.’

  ‘Brutal, isn’t it? I was at both my sons’ births and they were pretty gruesome. It would have put me off having kids if I were a woman.’

  Cecilie swallows the lump in her throat. Until now it hadn’t put her off, or made her feel sad, but a defensive fog rises from the pit of her stomach and the wind has been taken from her wings. In two months’ time, Cecilie will turn thirty, and she’s never even had a proper boyfriend. She has never been able to walk hand in hand with the man she loves.

  As the car turns around in the jagged shadow of the white concertina of the Arctic Cathedral, Cecilie suddenly feels a little naïve, a little intimidated. Not by Andreas himself, but by his age, his experience, by what he’s been through in his business, his life, his divorce. It’s a feeling she had before. But her tired, dreamy mind digs deep into her resilience reserves.

  Not many people can say they delivered their friend’s baby.

  ‘It didn’t put me off, it was magical,’ Cecilie says, looking up at the crisp blue sky as the car rolls back onto the bridge. Cecilie always has a knack of putting a magical spin on something, and flashes of what Grethe, Ahyana and she went through in the night tell all those uncomfortable feelings to be gone with a wriggle of her nose.

  Andreas glances across in awe and they lock eyes.

  Cecilie feels for her phone in her pocket, just to check it’s still there, as it didn’t vibrate again after Hector called her ‘my love’.

  He must have gone to sleep.

  ‘So, the cable car. I’ve not been up there.’

  ‘Yes, you said.’

  ‘Will you show me around? I leave Saturday night – shit that’s tomorrow – but I have tomorrow morning free. Is the cafe any good at the top? I could buy you lunch…’

  Cecilie’s face flushes pink, making her green eyes look as bright as her shoes. She feels flattered, if a little scared. But tomorrow is Saturday, and on Saturdays Fredrik, Pernille and Leif cover the library, and Henrik and Stine have everything in hand at the Hjornekafé. Cecilie searches her brain for an excuse.

  ‘Well I’m not working until the evening shift at the hotel, but Grethe’s mother Mette might want some help at the Iskrembar…’ Andreas’s gracious smile wanes. ‘But that’s OK, I’m sure Mette will be OK with Oliver,’ she adds, feeling guilty. Grethe had ordered Cecilie not to work at the Iskrembar while she was on maternity leave, not when she had three other jobs and barely any time off as it was. Plus, Cecilie hasn’t been up the Fjellheisen herself in months, it would be nice to show off the view to a tourist.

  ‘So…?’ asks Andreas with an eyebrow raised playfully.

  ‘Sure,’ Cecilie says to her surprise. ‘That would be wonderful.’

  As Svein navigates through the morning traffic to the library, Cecilie and Andreas sit in comfortable silence. A flash of a smile appears in the corners of their mouths as they look out of their respective windows.

  ‘This is it,’ she says, pulling her bag across her body as Svein pulls up. Cecilie opens the sleek silver handle and edges out. ‘Thanks for the lift. Again!’ Her nose creases up nervously as she looks at Andreas. Cecilie breaks the tension by turning to Svein. ‘Thanks so much.’

  Svein nods.

  ‘See you at the Fjellheisen. Say 10 a.m.?’

  ‘Ten is good.’

  ‘Shall we pick you up?’

  ‘No, it’s fine, I live right near it. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, at the ticket office at the bottom.’

  On no sleep, tomorrow morning seems so far away that it takes the edge off Cecilie’s nerves, and she walks down the side of the library to the staff door, without looking back at the smitten businessman in the black Audi.

  Twenty-Eight

  August 2018, Suffolk, England

  ‘So lovely of you to invite us into your stunning home, Antonia, it’s just superb out here.’ Kate drinks in a little too much from her flute, and perfectly chilled pink champagne runs into her doughy bosom, dampening the V of her swallow-print dress. She thought the white bird silhouettes on navy cotton was rather natty when she picked it up in M&Co when she was getting Jack a gilet last autumn. The dress had become a bit snug by spring, but since Kate decided to snap out of her rut, to stop being suspicious and needy, and to get back to Weight Watchers, she’s actually felt better. And the dress fits her again, so she decided to wear it to Antonia and Archibald Barrie’s annual cheese and wine party.
In fact, Kate’s honoured to be invited this year. Last August, she and George didn’t cut the mustard, which was a bit of an outrage given all the hard work Kate had put into the WI summer jamboree, but they were on holiday in Lake Annercy so they couldn’t have made it anyway, as Kate kept telling herself.

  This summer, the Wheelers have arrived, and Kate is standing on the terrace under a pagoda trimmed with fairy lights, admiring the sweeping view of the Suffolk countryside alongside WI, PTA and NCT chums. Even George has come willingly – he’s been much more compliant lately, which is great for Kate as she hates turning up to drink parties alone – although he is skulking around in the kitchen, talking hedge funds with Nigel Pickover who runs the cricket club.

  It’s not quite dark, so Kate surveys the pink sunset that’s peppered by the silhouette of a church steeple, as she sips champagne with Antonia Barrie, lady of the manor, who is regaling Kate with her plans to have a set of stables and a paddock installed at the far end of the field. It was when Antonia told Kate that she’d fallen for a sixteen-hand grey Hanoverian that Kate choked on her drink. She had no idea what any of it meant.

  Antonia gives Kate a smile to veil her pity – she saw the champagne trickle into that inelegant cleavage of hers but decided to carry on talking about her architect’s plans for the stables and horses to fill them with.

  ‘It’ll be so wonderful for the children – all of them. Alistair and Bertie really ought to be riding by now,’ she says, but can’t hide her disdain any longer. ‘Chen!’ she calls, to a woman topping up glasses. ‘Napkin please, we’ve had a little accident…’

  We. How thoughtful.

  Kate blushes and apologises, fumbling to take the crisp white linen from an obliging servant.

  ‘Sorry, Antonia, I got a bit carried away! Big gulp. I’m just so pleased to be here, it’s such a beautiful evening.’ Kate presses the linen into her cleavage to absorb the moisture. ‘So, how many horses will the stables house?’ Kate asks, not interested in horses in the slightest, but doing her best to pretend she is.