26

AS SOON AS the phone rang, Iris realised that helping Gudrun in the shop had been the distraction she'd needed because the feeling of dread she'd had since Siggi's text now descended on her again.

‘He's okay,' Gudrun said before continuing the conversation in Icelandic.

Iris rubbed at the smooth wooden egg she held in her hands while she waited for the call to finish.

‘What happened?' she asked when Gudrun had ended the call.

‘Jonas thinks he took the wrong road and his jeep got stuck. They don't know any more yet.'

‘But he's okay? Are they taking him home?'

‘They are going to the hospital. Jonas thinks he has broken an ankle.'

‘Oh my god.' Iris wasn't sure what to do. ‘Should we go to the hospital?'

Gudrun shrugged. ‘We can. We will have to walk, or get a taxi.'

‘I'd like to walk. Are you sure you don't mind coming with me?'

‘Of course I don't mind,' she said.

‘Do you think it's okay for me to go? I mean, I don't know how things stand between us. He might not want me there.'

‘Iris, I do not think you will be able to do anything without seeing for yourself that he is okay.'

That was true. She was desperate to see him, and she didn't think all of the Easter decorating in the world would change that.

She nodded. ‘I need to see him.'

The two of them tidied up.

‘Can we call in at the hotel on the way? I didn't bring a coat.'

Anders was behind the reception desk. ‘Is there any news?'

‘He's okay,' Iris said. She left Gudrun to fill him in on the few details they had while she ran up to her room for her coat and hat.

‘Anders has offered to drive us,' Gudrun said.

‘Thank you, that'd be great.' The idea of walking had seemed like a way to clear her head before seeing Siggi, but the offer of a lift was too good to refuse. She wanted to be there as soon as she could.

‘Call the hotel if you need a lift back,' Anders said as they climbed out of his car. ‘And give Siggi my best wishes.'

Iris had butterflies as they walked through the doors of the emergency department at the hospital. It wasn't the best time to have this big conversation about everything, when Siggi had just had an accident. Could they gloss over that for now?

‘They have said we can wait through here,' Gudrun said, taking Iris's hand.

Jonas and Olafur were both waiting in the same place. Olafur grinned when he saw Gudrun and stood up to embrace her.

‘Hey, Iris, he will be pleased to see you.' Jonas gave Iris a hug.

‘What happened?'

‘We don't know anything more than what Gudrun probably told you. But the main thing is that he is safe and will be okay.'

They sat in silence together in the waiting area. Eventually a nurse came out and spoke to them.

‘We can see him for a few minutes,' Jonas said.

Iris was torn between wanting to see him and being scared to death of what she was going to find. She held back, letting the others go into the room before her, almost peeking out from behind Olafur to get her first glimpse of Siggi. He was sat up in bed, leaning back against a lot of pillows, but he looked like himself. A tireder version, but he was smiling as everyone said hello to him. His right leg was on a pillow, sticking out from underneath the sheets that covered the rest of him, and heavily bandaged.

‘Iris,' he said, and held his hand out to her.

Olafur stepped aside, and she walked over to the bed and took Siggi's hand. He pulled her to him and kissed her, the fingers of his other hand pushed into her curls, cupping the back of her head. ‘I'm sorry,' he whispered. ‘I want you to stay.'

Iris smiled and bit her lip. ‘We don't have to talk about this now,' she said, but she was happier than she could have imagined to hear him say that.

‘But I need you to know that I did not mean what I said. I would love you to take the job and stay here.'

‘Okay,' she said, placating him with another kiss so that he would rest. ‘I hear you. We can talk about all of this, but not tonight.'

‘The nurse said you need to sleep. Our time's up,' said Jonas glancing to the door where the nurse was hovering ready to kick them out. We'll see you tomorrow. Olafur and Jonas fist-bumped Siggi, then Gudrun gave him a quick kiss.

‘ Takk fyrir ae bjarga lífi mínu,' Siggi said to them with a nod.

‘ Ekkert mál,' Olafur said, with a similarly sombre nod.

‘Siggi's saying thank you for saving him,' Gudrun explained to Iris in a low voice. ‘We'll wait outside while you take a minute.'

‘Can I see you tomorrow?' Siggi asked once they were alone.

He was still holding onto her hand and Iris didn't want to leave. The couple of minutes they'd had wasn't enough. She didn't want to do all the talking now, but she did want to be with him.

‘Yes. I'll come first thing in the morning. How long will you need to stay?'

‘I don't know, maybe only until tomorrow. I need to see someone about my ankle tomorrow, then maybe I am good to leave.'

‘Bye.' She kissed him again, their lips pressing together as if they might never see each other again. Because they both knew that could have been the case after the last time they'd kissed.

It was on the tip of Iris's tongue to say that she loved him. It was almost overwhelming her but she didn't say it. It wasn't the right time, and however much she wanted to let herself go and take the second chance that they seemed to have been given, she was worried that it was the intensity of the situation that was driving Siggi's turnaround. Perhaps in the cold light of day he would feel differently.

Olafur drove the four of them across town.

‘Do you think Siggi is going to manage at his flat?' Iris asked the others.

‘I asked Rachel to see if he could stay at Anna and Ned's place while they are in London,' said Jonas. ‘He could stay with us, but we have stairs too and our place is out of town. At least he can get around if he is at their house.'

Iris wanted nothing more than to move in to Ned and Anna's and look after him, but they were a long way from that being a good idea. Hopefully tomorrow, they would have a chance to talk.

Iris was woken by her phone ringing. She reached for it, still half-asleep.

‘Iris! It's happening!'

‘Bjarkey?'

‘The fissure is erupting!'

Iris sat up in an attempt to rouse herself. ‘Where are you?'

‘At the office. Can you come? I'll come and pick you up?'

Iris checked the time. It was four in the morning. By the time she'd been dropped back at the hotel last night and calmed her mind enough to fall asleep, it had been around one o'clock. Only three hours sleep. She groaned, but climbed out of bed reminding herself that this was what she'd been waiting for.

She washed her face, cleaned her teeth, and pulled her hair into a ponytail to avoid having to think about making it look presentable, dressed in the usual multiple layers that she was now used to, then ran downstairs to wait outside for Bjarkey.

The street was eerily quiet. It was the first time she'd seen it with no one around and it felt like a real adventure to be pulled from her bed, and be out and about in the middle of the night.

‘Hey!' Bjarkey said, looking much livelier than Iris felt when she climbed into the car. ‘You are not going to believe this.'

They pulled around the corner and Bjarkey turned right, onto the main road that ran along the seafront.

‘Oh my god!' Iris's hands flew to her mouth. In the distance, there was a line of red fire running across the far horizon. ‘I can't believe we can see it from here!'

‘I know. It is completely unprecedented. Stunning.'

Iris nodded. It was stunning. To think that the fissures they'd been looking at yesterday morning had all of this waiting underneath, ready to put on this spectacular display.

‘Oh god,' she said again. It hit her what a close call Siggi, Jonas and Olafur had had. ‘Siggi had an accident yesterday and was stuck out on the Reykjanes peninsula somewhere. His friends went out to find him.'

‘Is he okay?' Bjarkey asked, her joy turning to concern.

‘He is, but if this had happened a few hours earlier.'

‘But it didn't.'

‘But —'

‘Iris, you will drive yourself mad thinking of things like this. If they are all okay, that is good. There is nothing to be gained from dwelling on it.'

Iris nodded, but she couldn't get the thought out of her head. It had been too close. What had Siggi been doing? He knew it was a dangerous area.

‘So is it all back on with you two?'

‘I don't know. We still haven't talked properly, and he doesn't know I've decided about the job yet. But I want to be with him.'

‘Good for you.'

‘Anyway, how is the data looking?'

‘Oh, Iris. The data is beautiful. Wait until you see what those seismometers told us.'

The monitoring room at the IMO was buzzing with more people than Iris had ever seen there before. As she and Bjarkey moved through, Bjarkey introduced her to a few people as a new colleague. It felt strange but in the best way. It was just hard to believe that her life had changed so much in the space of two weeks.

Kári was sitting at a desk with extreme bed-head hair and a smile on his face. ‘Iris! I have been transposing this data like we did yesterday.'

Iris sat down with him, marvelling at the evidence she'd been hoping for, right on the screen in front of her. ‘This is amazing. We can see the activity heighten just after midnight on the fissure outside of the town, and at the same time the activity on the seismometer in town drops. And how did the regular data look then?'

She and Kári spent the next few hours poring over the data, building up a picture of what had happened, with the focus now on the progress of the eruption. She had more than enough information to finish her report, something she was determined to do as soon as possible to put an end to any involvement she needed to have with Jay.

When they came up for air, Iris realised that she had completely lost track of time and had probably missed the first-thing-in-the-morning slot she'd promised Siggi. She pulled out her phone and texted him but there was no response and she could see the message hadn't been read. Why hadn't she got Gudrun's number?

‘Bjarkey, could you do me a favour? Would you mind calling the hospital and seeing whether Siggi has been discharged?'

Iris gave Bjarkey all the details she could. It turned out that Siggi had been discharged. Iris felt guilty, but then it wasn't as if she could have picked him up herself. He had good friends, and she wasn't part of his support network. She had to remember that. As much as she hoped he might want her to be, she was in a kind of limbo situation until they'd talked, and that didn't mean she had anything to feel guilty about.

She thanked Bjarkey and called the Icelandic Adventures office. Rachel answered the phone and Iris explained what had happened.

‘We thought it would have been the eruption that kept you away,' she said, which made Iris feel better. ‘He's fine. Jonas dropped him off at Anna and Ned's.'

‘Do you think it would be alright if I went round?'

‘I think he'd love that.' Rachel explained where the house was. ‘It used to be mine and Jonas's place,' she said wistfully.

The directions didn't fill Iris with confidence that she'd find the house, but she'd noted them down diligently; take the road off Laugevegur as if you are heading to the church, then opposite a particular shop — she'd written the name of that phonetically — go up the cobbled path and it's the red house with the trolls in the garden.

‘I'm leaving now if you want a lift,' Bjarkey said.

'That'd be great, thank you. I'll be in tomorrow morning to see how things are going.'

‘Hey, Iris.' Bjarkey put a hand on her arm. ‘Why don't you take some time out now that the eruption has started? Slow down, get your report finished. All of this is a big change and you need to give yourself time to adjust. Let things settle.'

‘There's still data to analyse,' she said, unsure of how she felt about what Bjarkey had suggested.

‘There is always data to analyse, but now it is not going to save anyone's life. You have already done that.'

The thought of having some down time was suddenly appealing. She could get stuck into writing the report because she wanted to do the best possible job of that so that she could leave her old employer with dignity and to show Jay the level of professionalism he could never show her. Perhaps she would go home. Maybe finish the last of her days at British Geology Labs actually in the lab itself. Deliver the report in person and say a proper goodbye, because not all of her colleagues were people she'd be happy to leave behind. She wanted to leave with her head held high, not disappear into the night as if she'd done something wrong.

‘You're right. I should concentrate on finishing off the job I have before I start my new one.' Iris said as she climbed into the car.

Bjarkey grinned. ‘And maybe spend some time with that man of yours.'

‘We don't know he's my man.'

‘I have my fingers crossed for you.'

‘It just isn't possible to be in love with someone so quickly.' Iris didn't phrase it as a question, but she looked at Bjarkey. She valued her opinion and she needed someone who could see things more clearly.

‘People fall in love all the time. For some people it is an instant, for others it grows over years. It is different for everyone. If you are in love with him, it's not wrong to feel like that. You are a scientist, Iris. In your professional life you do not jump to conclusions without evidence to back them up. I expect your personal life is no different. You make calculated projections. Is being in love any different?'

‘I feel as if I'm listening too hard to my heart instead of my head. It's as if my feelings are drowning out any reason that tries to make itself heard in my head.'

‘Oh, Iris. If this man doesn't already know you are in love with him, he is an idiot and he is an even bigger idiot if he is not in love with you too.'

Iris laughed. ‘Thanks Bjarkey. That sounded like good advice but I'm none the wiser. Can I jump out here?'

Bjarkey pulled over and Iris got out and thanked her. She beeped the horn as she drove away. It felt like encouragement for what was about to happen next, and Iris loved her for it.

She took a deep breath and began following Rachel's directions through the town to Anna and Ned's house. As she went past Te & Kaffi, she called in for coffee and pastries, buying a selection so that Siggi could pick his favourite.

It only took a few minutes more for her to find the cobbled path to the little house. There were indeed trolls in the garden, similar to gnomes, but less friendly looking. There was a tiny veranda with a couple of chairs on it and there were fairy lights twisted along the railing and along the the tops of the garden fences. It was idyllic. And Siggi was just on the other side of the door.