7

IRIS WOKE UP, groaned, and reached for the glass of water beside her bed. It was a long time since she'd drunk as much beer as that and her head was reminding her she wasn't used to it anymore. She took a few gulps and lay back on the pillows, thinking about last night.

It was no surprise to her now that Fliss had been drawn into the group so quickly. They were welcoming and great fun to be with. The men, having grown up together, had a straightforward relationship, knowing each other inside out. But for some reason, Siggi wasn't as comfortable with that as Brun, Olafur and Jonas were. He'd joined in with the gentle ribbing they gave each other, but he hadn't said much, Iris realised. Perhaps it was because he travelled so much, he missed a lot of what went on, when the others were working together, socialising together and very much part of each other's lives.

She reached for her phone and replied to a couple of messages on the family WhatsApp, then her phone pinged with a message from Siggi.

Wondered if some fresh air might help?

She laughed. Had it been that obvious?

I'm going round to Rachel's to bake cakes

I hope you are joking. But it sounds possible…

What can you offer instead?

Iris felt bold. She bit her lip waiting for his reply.

A visit to a volcano, unless you need a break from them at the weekend…

Can we have breakfast first?

Outside your place in half an hour

She sent a thumbs up emoji and immediately felt better at the thought of a carb-laden breakfast. She got up, showered, scrunch-dried her hair and then layered multiple items of clothes on, finishing with her Icelandic style wool jumper that her nan had knitted. The weather forecast, for what it was worth, was saying it would be a bright but cold day.

Half an hour later when she went downstairs, Siggi was waiting in the foyer, leaning on the reception desk, talking to Bríet.

‘Good morning, Iris,' she said with a smile. Iris was envious of how bright and non-hungover she looked.

‘Morning.'

‘Ready?' Siggi asked.

Iris nodded.

‘Have a great day!' Bríet said.

‘Thanks, you too,' said Iris.

‘Feeling rough?' Siggi asked her with a wry smile.

‘A bit. You?'

‘Not too bad, but I know how easy it is to get carried away, so I pace myself,' he said smugly.

‘Well, thanks for sharing.'

Siggi laughed. ‘We are going to have the best breakfast and lots of coffee and then you will feel back to normal.'

The breakfast place, Café Babalú, was just a couple of streets away from the hotel. It was painted in a sunny shade of orange and had a cosy and welcoming look.

‘This is on me,' Iris said. ‘No, you've done so much for me,' she said as he tried to protest. ‘Let me. Please.'

He gave in gracefully. They ordered a croissant and a breakfast crepe each at the counter, then taking their coffees, they chose a table for two in the window and sat down.

‘Your friends are great,' Iris said, grinning at the thought of the night before.

‘Yes, they are. They welcome me back every time I have been away, and we all look out for each other.'

‘I guess because you travel, you don't see them as much as they see each other?'

He nodded. ‘A few years ago, we were still all the same, all single men. And gradually they have all moved on and I haven't.' He said it simply, with no bitterness. Maybe because he wasn't interested or searching for the same lives that his friends had. ‘Do you find that too with being away from home?'

‘I suppose so. My best friend from school is married with two little girls, but I never had a group of friends like you do. It's nice to have that constancy to come back to after you've been away.'

‘You don't have that?'

‘I have my family. My brothers are brilliant. They're twins and they're older than me and always looked out for me when we were younger. We always have a big get-together when I go home.'

‘How often is that?'

‘Not often enough. Even if I'm working in the UK, my lab is a couple of hours' drive from where my parents and my one brother live, and my other brother is in London, which makes us into a triangle if you plotted it on a map. How about you? Are your parents in Reykjavik?'

Siggi shook his head. ‘No, they retired and moved to the north.'

‘Do you see them much?'

‘Not as much as I should,' he said with a rueful smile. ‘Have you ever visited anywhere else that you think could be home instead?'

‘That's a brilliant question. I went to the west coast of Canada for a conference, to Vancouver. It was so beautiful, I could definitely see myself living there.'

‘Not many volcanoes in Canada, though.'

‘There are, but there's nothing going on with them. I think the rest of the scenery might make up for the lack of volcanic activity on offer. How about you? You come back here because you know you can get regular work, I suppose?'

‘Yes, exactly. I loved Australia. I have been there a few times, and it is easy to pick up some casual work and I did that so I could stay longer, but it is not possible to live there. There are things that keep me in Iceland.'

Iris wasn't sure whether he was referring to his job again or something else. Maybe family that he didn't want to leave behind? She didn't want to pry. He'd tell her if he wanted to.

When they'd finished eating, he opened his backpack. ‘Okay, I think we should get coffee to go as well,' he said, taking out two thermal flasks. ‘Do you want a pastry for the road? There is nowhere to get food.'

‘In that case, maybe two?'

‘Good idea.'

Siggi left the table and went back to the counter while Iris munched on her last piece of croissant, thinking that this might be the best day out she'd had in a while and it hadn't even started yet.

Siggi came back to the table, put his backpack on the chair and began putting his coat on.

‘We will need to walk to the office. Jonas is letting us take the jeep.'

‘So which volcano are we visiting?' Iris asked as they made their way back along the road the way they'd come.

‘It's Fagradalsfjall.'

‘Wow, that's really exciting,' Iris said, recognising the name. ‘I think it might be the only time I've visited a volcano and it wasn't for work.'

‘That is the same for me,' Siggi said, after a thoughtful pause.

‘You don't feel like you're taking me on one of your tours?'

‘Not at all. Unless you want me to give you a running commentary on the drive. Then I would feel like I was at work.'

‘No, that's okay. I don't think I'm recovered enough to bear that.'

As it was, Siggi ended up pointing out all sorts of things to Iris. They even pulled over a couple of times so that he could show her something of interest. A waterfall, which was running but still had vast swathes of ice clinging to the rock next to where the water cascaded over the edge. There were plumes of steam emerging from the lying snow at the sides of the road as they drove through the wintery landscape and enormous boulders, seemingly dumped in the middle of nowhere, where they had been discarded by a glacier flow thousands of years ago.

‘I can't believe I've never been to Iceland before,' said Iris.

‘How is that possible? For a volcanologist, it must be the best place in the world.'

‘I'm focused on the data collection side of things more than the geology, so until a couple of years ago, I spent most of my time in the lab, monitoring and trawling through data. Now that I'm researching this new thing, I've only been out in the field for a couple of years. I have colleagues who spend a lot of time here, though.'

‘I cannot imagine being inside all the time.'

‘This is going to sound a bit weird, but when you get engrossed in the data, it's like you're seeing it happen in front of you.'

‘Wow. I also cannot imagine being so passionate about something.'

‘You don't feel passionate about what you do?'

He shrugged. ‘It doesn't feel like work, but I don't think that's the same thing.'

‘If you could do anything for a job, what would it be?'

‘I would be a pilot, ‘ he said, without missing a beat.

‘So you could see the world and get paid for it?'

‘I think the feeling of freedom would be amazing. Imagine living in an archipelago and being the pilot everyone relies on to get them from island to island. I don't know where that place is.'

‘Maybe Scotland?'

‘Maybe somewhere warmer like Indonesia?'

‘Mmm, that would be better.'

‘Here we are.' Siggi pulled off the road into a clearing that had been turned into a makeshift car park by spreading crushed-up lava, like gravel across the surface.

‘There's a car park for the volcano?'

‘They cannot stop people from coming to see it, so they make it as safe as possible. It is better to do this than have people driving too close.'

The contrast between here and other places she'd visited was stark. She had already heard from Bjarkey that the IMO had daily meetings with the civil defence agency to discuss things like road closures and other measures but she'd not imagined they'd actually manage the risk for people who wanted to visit rather than just restrict it entirely. In Hawaii, an entire area of the national park near Mount Kilauea had been closed off to the public since the last eruption.

Even from this distance, Iris could see the steam rising up around the eruption site, and a thrill coursed through her. It never ceased to amaze her that she could witness the planet adjusting itself in spectacular style. Literally getting itself comfortable. And to witness in real life what she'd spent years seeing on the screens in front of her was incredible. This was only the third live volcano she'd visited.

They made their way along the path towards the volcano. It had been erupting for a while so there was nothing spectacularly being blown up in the air, and the lava flow, once they approached it, was moving at a constant yet sluggish pace. The risk of being caught out by anything was fairly low. And although she probably knew far more about the risks involved in this kind of of situation, Siggi was a reassuring presence.

They stuck to the well-trodden path that would lead them closer to the volcano. The smell of sulphur hung in the air, but somehow the crisp coldness helped to mitigate the assault on your senses.

‘This is incredible,' said Iris, unable to take her eyes off the volcano.

‘Let's head this way,' Siggi said, grabbing her hand and veering away from the path, almost heading around the back of the cone.

Iris took a deep breath, finding it difficult to assess the merits of following Siggi away from the beaten track and into an uncertain terrain, because all she could think about was his hand holding hers. All she could think was that she wished it wasn't so cold that they both had gloves on, because she'd like nothing more than to feel the actual warmth of him.

Holding hands proved to be practical, as well as something that was giving Iris butterflies. They had to hike over very uneven ground, negotiating rocks and loose stones as they went. Iris found that she was having to look at the ground all the time so that she didn't twist an ankle. But eventually, Siggi said, ‘Look.'

They were overlooking the lava flow. It glowed red and orange, and even from this distance, they could see molten rock spurting into the air.

‘This is incredible,' Iris said again.

‘I know, it is amazing,' he said, looking at Iris. He had a look of satisfaction that was purely because of her reaction to where they were. This was why his job didn't feel like work to him; because he got so much out of seeing people's reactions to the places he took them. Or was this look for her? Did anyone else get this version of Siggi on a tour?

Iris dropped his hand. She'd caught sight of a rock strata and took her glove off, compelled to run her hand over it. ‘You see this? It's a colonnade structure.' The rock had vertical ridges in it, fairly uniformly spaced, making it look almost stripy.

‘Are you auditioning for my job?'

She tried to look affronted, but he had taken his own glove off and was running his hand over the rock now as if he was trying to feel the same way about it that she did.

‘Feel how that part is so smooth, and this is more granular,' she said. ‘You can hardly see by looking at it because it's such a similar colour, but you can feel it.'

‘I can,' Siggi said. ‘We learned about some of this stuff at school and we went on a couple of trips, but we didn't see any cool stuff like this.'

‘Well, cool might be stretching it.'

They grinned at each other.

‘Come on, put your glove back on before your hand freezes.' He put his own glove on, then took Iris's hand again. This time, he looked her in the eye as he did so. It was a look that told her it meant something. Her heart gave a small leap, and she had to swallow a gasp of surprise as he turned away. Was it surprise or was it pleasure that a closely guarded hope was coming to life?

They gave the lava flow a wide berth as they skirted around the base towards the area not visible from the direction they'd come.

‘Oh my god!' Iris exclaimed when she saw what Siggi wanted to show her. ‘It's a pahoehoe lava flow!' Again, she dropped Siggi's hand and went to take a closer look. Now that they were further around the volcano, they also had a better view of the current, very active lava stream that was regularly spewing fire about a metre into the air. The pahoehoe lava behaved differently to the main flow and was breaking away from it. ‘I've never been so close to this kind of lava when it's been moving before. I saw it from a distance in Hawaii, but we couldn't get this close because the crater had collapsed.'

Siggi asked her why it was so interesting. ‘I just thought you would like to get closer to the flow. I did not know it was anything special.'

‘I guess to most people, it's just lava. I don't want to bore you with the science,' Iris said, wary that she didn't want to break the spell and would rather stroll around holding Siggi's hand again than get involved in a geology lesson.

‘You won't bore me, Iris.'

What was happening? A man who wanted to hold her hand and wanted to know about pahoehoe lava. It seemed so unlikely.

She gave him the briefest explanation that she could, checking every sentence or so for signs of fatigue in his face. But all she saw were his eyes, bright, watching her, interested. And it was overwhelming.

They carried on talking, discussing the volcano, as they walked back the way they'd come, periodically turning to admire the lava firing into the air.

‘Thanks for bringing me here, Siggi.'

‘It has been my pleasure,' he said, squeezing her hand. ‘I am ready for a coffee and a cinnamon bun.'

‘Me too.'

Iris walked back to the jeep in a haze of emotions. Seeing this volcano close up, in all its glory, was one of the most amazing experiences of her career. Of her life. And this man understood what she wanted. More than anyone else ever had. What was she supposed to think about that?