The Northern Lights Lodge

by Julie Caplin

  ‘My pleasure,’ said Alex shooting her a warm smile that made her feel a bit antsy and edgy.

  She leaned forward and kissed his cheek as he was driving. ‘I wish we didn’t have to go straight back to work.’

  ‘Me too. Shall I pull over and we can make out in the car for five minutes.’

  ‘Don’t tempt me. But tonight’s a big deal. I need to get back.’

  ‘It’s all going to be fine. You’ve got this and it should all be straight forward. You’ve got enough tealights to fill an Ikea warehouse. Kristjan’s got a kick ass menu, Freya is word perfect and she’s got the sexy story telling siren act off pat.’

  ‘Hasn’t she just?’ said Lucy, gathering up her bag and coat as they wound round the last corner towards the lodge.

  ‘Yes, and it’s an inspired idea. I told you that before.’

  ‘You did,’ she grinned happily at him.

  ‘I’m going to start calling you Lucy Smug, if you’re not careful.’

  ‘Well, everything should go to plan as long as all the VIP guests turn up. I can’t believe the Mayor said yes at such short notice. In Manchester you had to book the Mayor’s diary six months in advance, although I guess that’s the power of TV cameras for you.’

  ‘And they leave tomorrow. Hurrah!’

  ‘Hurrah in… that’s odd. The lodge looks very dark.’

  As they drove nearer, a sense of foreboding settled on them both.

  ‘I don’t like the look of this,’ said Lucy, as Alex speeded up. As soon as he stopped the car, she threw open the door and hurried up the path to the steps to the reception doors, with Alex close behind.

  Inside there was a dull glow as a few tealights fought valiantly to light up the reception area. Hekla, Brynja, Olafur and Dagur were gathered by the desk along with a short bald man with huge handlebar moustache

  ‘Hi Lucy,’ said Hekla with a weak smile. ‘I was going to call you…’

  ‘Wait!’ Clive appeared, the area suddenly lighting up with the light on Bob’s camera and a spotlight from the grip, Tony. ‘I want to capture this.’

  Lucy shot him a filthy look but she didn’t have time to mess about. The great and the good of Hvolsvöllur would be arriving in a few hours’ time for a grand banquet. She ignored him and turned to the small crowd gathered in waiting.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘The electricity went out. I called the electrician.’ She pointed to the bald man who nodded and spoke quickly in Icelandic shaking his head and looking quite put out.

  ‘He says it’s very strange.’ Hekla had that familiar childlike expression of wonder on her face.

  ‘Please don’t tell me it’s the huldufólk again.’

  ‘Well…’ Hekla began.

  Brynja spoke up. ‘It’s strange because he can’t figure out what’s wrong.’ She shot a quelling look at Hekla who pouted a little. ‘The electricity company says there is no power cut, but Henrik has just arrived. He’s checking all the distribution boards to see if it’s a fuse somewhere.’

  ‘And is everything out or just the lights?’ asked Lucy.

  ‘Everything.’

  Of course, it was. ‘Right,’ she looked at her watch and then remembered. ‘But we have a generator on site.’

  Hekla nodded glumly as Olafur shook his head. ‘It’s not working,’ he said with a mournful droop to his mouth.

  Why didn’t that surprise her?

  She looked at Henrik. ‘Do you have any other ideas?’

  ‘I can keep looking but … without knowing the building it’s … it’s very difficult.’

  Lucy turned to Hekla. ‘Do you know if there are any drawings? Site plans with the circuits drawn on?’

  Hekla widened her eyes and shrugged. ‘I have never seen anything like that.’

  Alex added, ‘There should be some sort of plan somewhere.’

  Lucy looked at him and the familiar flash of warmth shot through her. ‘Would you mind going through the office with Hekla looking in all the files, trying to see if you can find anything like that?

  ‘Brynja, there are plenty of tealights for this evening but we’re going to get through them too quickly. Can you round up all the candles you can find? I know there’s an excellent stock of them in housekeeping. Dagur can you make sure there’s a good fire in the bar and lounge area and then if the two of you can put candles in there, we’ll invite all the guests to come to the bar for complimentary … damn no coffee. We’ll have to offer them a complimentary drink. I’ll go and see Kristjan in the kitchen and find out what the food situation is with regard to tonight.’

  ‘Cut,’ called Clive. Lucy glared at him.

  ‘This is dynamite. Great job, people. Go Lucy. I like this ball, busting, bossy broad.’

  Lucy rolled her eyes and gritted her teeth.

  ‘Now Lucy, if we could get a quick close up and we’ll follow you to the kitchen.’ Clive was already directing Bob and his camera towards her. Lucy glanced towards Alex and stopped.

  He looked as if a lightning bolt had hit him, his eyes filled with horror.

  ‘Alex! Darling.’ An immaculate red head, in a white down jacket and emerald green trousers which shouted expensive, designer and look at my perfect bum, appeared from nowhere and crossing the lobby in rapid strides, threw her arms around him. ‘How wonderful to see you.’

  ‘Gretchen,’ he extracted himself from her enthusiastic hug, his body so stiff it could have doubled as an ironing board. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Quentin sent me. I’m the new general manager.’

  Silence fell with the swift, efficiency of a guillotine.

  Lucy felt her heart whoosh into the bottom of her stomach as a dozen heads whipped her way.

  Clive quivered with excitement, brushing his hand through his blonde hair whipping it up in a peak, gesticulating with his other hand for Bob to pull back so that he could film the whole frozen tableau.

  There was a rushing in Lucy’s ears and leaden disappointment made her limbs heavy as she stood glued to the spot.

  ‘B-but,’ spluttered Alex, glancing with horror at Lucy and shaking his head. He looked as devastated as Lucy felt.

  ‘Quentin says to tell you The Metropole is about ready and he expects you to get your arse back to Paris by the end of this week. You lucky bugger. GM of Paris’s newest, flashiest hotel.’

  GM! Her brain took a moment to compute the facts. General Manager. Lucy thought she was going to be sick. A range of conflicting emotions rushed across Alex’s face, guilt, surprise, embarrassment before terminating in regret. She shot him a look of dismay. What the hell?

  ‘So, nice to meet you all.’ Gretchen’s words trailed lamely as she shifted on the spot finally realising that she was in hostile territory as all of the staff glared at her.

  Lucy lifted her chin, blinking hard. ‘Welcome to The Northern Lights Lodge, Gretchen,’ she ground out with a forced smile, before adding, ‘As far as I’m aware, I’m still the General Manager until Friday and I’ve got a job to do. We have a banquet to host, electricity to come up with and a thousand other things. I’m rather busy at the moment. Alex, please could you show Gretchen to the staff quarters?’ With a regal tilt to her head, she nodded towards the doorway, she was rather proud that she managed to sound so calm and level. ‘She’ll have to share with Elin and Freya for the next few days.

  ‘Dagur, the candles. Brynja, please can you keep showing Henrik round and check every nook and cranny to see if there’s a distribution board we don’t know about. Hekla see if you can find the plans. If you do, give them to Henrik. Olafur you can help Hekla, as…’ By some miracle she kept her voice even. ‘Alex will now be otherwise engaged.’ She deliberately didn’t bother looking at him. ‘I’m going to see Kristjan.’ With that, head held high, she swept out of the reception horribly aware of the camera following her every move and the pin-drop silence left in her wake before there was a collective, horrified sigh.

  Stalking along the corridor, with the
bloody film crew tracing her every move, she kept her head up and her face impassive despite a gazillion furious thoughts racing through her head. Quentin. The Metropole. And Alex a GM!

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ she burst out.

  God he must have been laughing his socks and flaming hiking boots off. The Metropole. She shook her head, scowled and groaned out loud before realising that the crew were loving this.

  There was a thumbs up from Clive trotting along behind Bob who was unfortunately keeping pace.

  With gritted teeth she ignored the camera, focusing on the end of the corridor.

  The Metropole. Only set to be smartest, chicest, everything-iest hotel in the whole of sodding, flaming, flipping Europe. And if you worked in hospitality and hadn’t heard of Quentin Oliver, then you’d been living under a rock since pre-history. Smart, influential and apparently Alex’s boss. Alex. Fuck. No. She WAS NOT going to think about Alex. Not think about that last kiss in the car. Not think about him kissing the nape of her neck, which he’d declared his favourite place. Not think about … bastard. Barman! The lying… What the hell was wrong with her? Of course, he wasn’t a barman. It was so obvious. How many times had she considered that he seemed too over qualified, too experienced? She was so bloody stupid.

  She wrenched open the door leading down to the kitchen, letting it slam between her and the crew.

  And as for super svelte Gretchen swanning in, she could sodding well wait in the wings. Lucy was not giving up this job until the absolute last minute of her contract and today she had a banquet to rescue.

  ‘Hold up, Lucy.’ Clive called as they came through the door, grinning from ear to ear. ‘This is dynamite. Can we catch that again? Film you from this side, barrelling through the door.’

  ‘What!’ She whirled round, her eyes narrowed to vicious points.

  At the expression on her face, he and Bob backed up a step.

  ‘Maybe Lucy would like some peace,’ said Bob, his face sober. ‘A bit of space.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Clive, ‘This is action woman, kicking ass. We want to see this.’ He mimed a kung fu kick. Clive’s sound man rolled his eyes.

  Hmph. With a snarl she turned around and marched into the kitchen.

  Damn it. The camera had caught everything and now Clive was proverbially rubbing his hands in glee. This was exactly the sort of story he’d been looking for. She could almost hear the voice over, ‘With the clock ticking will Lucy, the manager, be able to save the day. Will the banquet go ahead? Will the hotel guests go hungry? Will the Icelandic banquet in Hvolsvöllur go down as the biggest non-event in the town’s history? And what will she do now she has no job and no home to go to? She grimaced, imagining thousands of people waiting through the ad break to find out if she’d gone down with the sinking ship or managed to emerge victorious from a potential disaster.

  Kristjan was loping backwards and forwards in the dimly lit kitchen, like a hungry lion. A camping lamp was suspended from the rack above one of the counters where there was a chopping board full of diced onions and a discarded knife. As soon as she walked in, he threw up his head and his hands.

  ‘Lucy. We have no electricity.’

  She glanced at the gas burners on the big ranges as Kristjan shook his head. ‘The ovens won’t work without the fans or the ignition, which are all electric.’

  Bob carrying the camera let out a little snigger. Lucy shot him a quelling glare.

  ‘I know.’ The poor boy looked ready to cry. She patted him on the arm. ‘But the electrician is here and I’m sure he’ll find the problem. We’ve got some time.’

  Kristjan’s eyes widened. ‘But what if the electricity doesn’t come back?’

  ‘Then we’ll come up with plan B.’

  ‘You have a plan B?’

  Lucy gave him a grim determined smile. ‘Always,’ she said, lying through her teeth. ‘So, tell me what still needs to be done and the critical timings. When is the absolute last minute you need to have the electricity back?’

  Kristjan frowned in thought and picked a knife, poking at the pile of onions. ‘I’ve done most of the preparation, the fish is filleted, the smoked hogget is browned but I can’t heat anything and keep it hot or cook the starters. The night will be a ruin. My food.’

  He’d put so much effort into devising the menu; langoustine risotto with fennel salad or a caramelised potato salad to start with followed by Icelandic smoked hogget or baked Icelandic cod accompanied by a choice of vegetables including diced potatoes with rosemary and garlic, slow baked carrots and kale. Lucy couldn’t count the hours he’d spent perfecting the beloved brownie recipe he’d come up with for the dessert and had in his enthusiasm, even added a second option of lemon Skyr cheesecake.

  Lucy ignored the twist in her stomach. She had to remain calm. ‘Now Kristjan, you are a brilliant chef. I’m sure we can come up with a solution. Let’s not get carried away. We still have plenty of time. First of all, what’s the absolute latest you can start cooking?’

  He studied her face and brightened a little. ‘Another half hour would be the best. The lamb needs to cook for at least two and half hours, but I’ve just started preparing it. Maybe I could do it in an hour and half but the meat might be a little tough. Then the fish doesn’t need to go in the oven until half an hour before service. The risotto I would do an hour before. The potatoes, I was going to boil first, before they are caramelised and they were going to be served warm. But I could do them in an hour. So,’ he screwed up his face, ‘the latest I could start cooking would be in another hour.’

  ‘OK. We’ll go with the hope that the electrician can get the power back on. But in the event he can’t, where’s the nearest commercial kitchen? Could we see if we can cook the food there and transport it here?’

  ‘Too far away, we couldn’t get there, make the food and come back or keep the food warm enough.’

  ‘OK. So, the menu. What could we do cold? With the ingredients we have. Talk me through what we can do.’

  ‘I could make a langoustine salad instead, the ingredients will be fine as long as we keep the fridge doors closed.’

  Lucy worried at her lip. ‘Any other ideas for cold dishes that you have enough ingredients to serve sixty?’

  Kristjan frowned and took down a notepad. ‘Possibly I can make a big prawn salad. I have frozen cooked prawns. And I could make a ceviche with the cod. But I would need to start soon, it takes time.’ Crossing his fingers, he looked up at the clock on the kitchen wall.

  ‘That’s fresh raw fish picked in lemon juice, right?’ Didn’t sound a best seller to her but she wasn’t a big fish fan.

  ‘Yes, the acid cooks the fish but … I’ll need some help chopping the fish to get it done in time. Anna, the kitchen helper is coming in an hour. I could ask her to come earlier.’

  ‘OK, that’s a start. Keep thinking. See if you can come up with a menu and I’ll come back in half an hour. If we can make it work, we will.’ She looked at her watch again, even though she knew exactly what the time was. ‘If not, we’ll have to cancel.’ And that would happen over her dead body.

  ‘Cut,’ yelled Clive. ‘This is bloody great.’

  ‘I’m glad you think so,’ said Lucy. ‘Now if you don’t mind I have a lot to do.’

  ‘No problem. We’ll do a piece in here with Kristjan.’ Clive turned to the young chef. ‘Now you keep pacing and maybe you could throw a pan in the sink. You know, show us your frustration at the situation.’

  Lucy rolled her eyes and walked out of the kitchen.

  She passed Brynja and Henrik in the corridor, peering into a cupboard with a large flashlight. It was one of many that she’d walked past a dozen times and never even opened. The place was full of them.

  ‘Any luck?’

  Henrik shook his head, his mouth pursed tight. ‘It is most odd.’

  She and Brynja exchanged a quick look. Lucy checked over her shoulder. There was no one else around. ‘Hypothetically. If you wanted to sw
itch the electricity off deliberately, what would you do?’

  For the confused look on his Henrik clearly didn’t understand, so Brynja translated quickly.

  He responded in Icelandic which she then relayed to Lucy.

  ‘He says he would take out a fuse in the main fuse box. But here because the building has been changed so many times, there is more than one box. He is worried that even if we do find the right box, the fuse could be very old and then he will have to send away for a replacement, which might take some days. He says we should look at getting another generator.’

  Lucy nodded. ‘And get the current one fixed. I’ll add it to the list.’ Although it wouldn’t be her list for very much longer.

  ‘Keep looking,’ she looked at her watch.

  ‘Are you going to cancel?’

  ‘Not if I can help it.’

  Back in the office, Hekla was standing on a chair methodically taking down the ring binder files from the very top of the shelves that lined the back wall. With an armful, piled high, she looked down at the desk below her.

  ‘Wait, let me,’ said Lucy, with visions of the whole lot going flying as Hekla tried to jump down.

  ‘Thank you.’ Even as she handed over the files, they started to slip and slide. Lucy managed to grab them and dump them in an unruly pile which then spread itself across the desk.

  ‘When this is all over, we need to do some archiving and some throwing away,’ she said looked at the battered files, some of which were falling apart with yellowed handwritten pages escaping. ‘We need a better…’ her voice trailed away.

  Hekla turned and gave her a sympathetic look.

  ‘Except when this over, I won’t be here.’

  ‘That’s so unfair, Lucy.’

  Lucy shrugged. ‘Looks like the sale went through and looks like the new owner is Quentin Oliver and you have a new general manager’

  ‘And Alex?’ asked Hekla unhappily.

  ‘It seems he works for the new owner, Quentin Oliver.’ The bastard. He’d been lying to her all this time.

  Hekla frowned.

  ‘He’s not a barman?’