Page 25 of Adrift in Iceland
‘I’m never here at the right time to see them!’
He smiled, lost in watching her looking for the first glimpse of a puffin. Once they were closer, he dropped the anchor.
‘Come on, let’s go to the bow,’ he said.
Now that the boat had stopped, the wind seemed fiercer. Leifur pulled a woollen beanie hat from his pocket and pulled it down so that his ears were covered, then shoved his hands deep into his pockets and settled in to wait for his turn with the binoculars. It might be a while, but he didn’t care. He’d seen the puffins many times, and anyway, he had come to show Astrid and was thrilled she was enjoying them.
‘It’s incredible seeing them dive into the water,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen a few with fish in their beaks.’
The cliffs were a mass of puffins, their white breasts clear to see even from this distance. It was the start of the breeding season, and this island was a temporary home to a large proportion of the world population of Atlantic puffins.
‘Here,’ Astrid said, handing the binoculars to Leifur. She glanced at his hat and reached into a pocket for her own, taking her hood down briefly and then pulling it up again over the hat.
‘Cold?’
‘No, not yet.’
Leifur could feel Astrid’s eyes on him while he had a look through the binoculars. Watching the puffins was endlessly entertaining. He’d seen them lots of times before when he’d been out on the boat but had never had time to stop and have a proper look.
‘Look! Did you see that one? It had so many fish it wasdropping them all the way back to the nest,’ Astrid said.
Leifur handed the binoculars back to her. ‘They’re incredible.’
‘Are you sure you’ve seen enough?’
‘You go for it. I’m going to sort some food out for us downstairs. Come down when you’re ready.’
‘Okay,’ she said with a grin. ‘Thank you, Leifur. This is amazing.’
It was around twenty minutes later when Astrid appeared in the galley, by which time Leifur had laid out the simple lunch of bread, cooked sliced lamb, cucumber sticks, tomatoes and skyr yogurt with fruit.
‘It’s toasty warm in here,’ she said, taking her coat off and sitting down opposite him at the small wooden table.
‘The heating runs off the engine, so it is pretty good.’ Another thing he was relieved about: finding that the heating was still in working order.
‘It’s really cosy.’ She picked up a cucumber stick and munched it while Leifur was slicing some bread off the end of the loaf. ‘Did you ever have to sleep down here?’
‘Sometimes. There’s a berth in there,’ he said, nodding to a door in the corner. ‘We usually left very early in the morning and were back very late at night. It’s not very comfortable staying on the boat, but if the weather’s bad, sometimes it’s safer to stay out at sea rather than try to get back to the port.’ He passed her a plate with two slices of bread.
‘Did you ever get stuck in scary weather?’
‘There is a lot of bad weather in Iceland, you know that. It is no different at sea. Fishing is a dangerous job in good weather or bad.’ He didn’t want to get into the details of the long night where he’d lost his father in a terrible storm. That he’d had to make the dreadful decision to turn back to port without him. And worse, explain to his mother what had happened.
‘We had a couple of terrible storms when I was on the research boat. Those were the longest nights of my life.’ She looked at him meaningfully, and he wondered whether she knew, or whether she assumed as a fisherman he would have had his fair share of close shaves. ‘This lamb is gorgeous.’
‘My mother cooked it. She sends me home with food every time I visit as if she thinks I can’t cook for myself.’
‘It’s a sign of love,’ Astrid said.
12
WHEN ASTRID HAD asked him about the storms, there was something fleeting in Leifur’s eyes that told her he’d lost something. Maybe lost someone, which would be even worse, but she didn’t think it was the right time to encourage him to share that with her. No doubt whatever it was held bad memories, and today was supposed to be a celebration of him gettingBrimfaxiback and starting a new chapter.
‘I was so carried away with the puffins, I forgot to ask you how you found the boat on the way here. Does she feel the same?’
‘Exactly the same.’ He grinned, and his face lit up in the way she loved but already realised she would rarely see. It had only happened the second time she’d seen him on the beach near his house and not at all on the boat trip or at the bar.
‘That’s great. So it was the right decision.’
