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into the darkness and wondering how he could make things right. How he could be a father to Mette, and love Flora as well. He’d come to no conclusion.
Last night’s fire wasn’t the issue. But it had shaken him and dredged up feelings that he’d struggled to bury. Lisle’s lies. His guilt over not having been there for Mette. And when Flora had spoken of coming to Norway to visit...
He knew what she’d been doing. She’d been trying to patch things up and convince them both that nothing was the matter. Flora always tried to mend what was broken, and he loved her for it. But she deserved someone better than him. Now that he was responsible for Mette, could he ever be the man that Flora could trust?
The question hammered at him, almost driving him to his knees. He’d travelled a long way, and it had seemed that he’d finally found the thing that he hadn’t even known he’d been looking for. Did he really have to turn his back on Flora? Aksel couldn’t bear it, but if it had to be done, then it was better for it to be done now.
He took a gulp of his coffee, tipping the rest into the sink and clearing up the kitchen. Then he signalled to Kari to follow him out into the cold, crisp morning air. As Aksel shut Flora’s front door behind him, he knew only two things for sure. That this hurt far more than anything he’d experienced before. And that now he had to go on the most important journey of his life. One that he’d told himself he’d never make, and which might just change everything.
* * *
Anger had propelled Flora through the morning. But anger was hard to sustain, particularly where Aksel was concerned. When she couldn’t help thinking about his touch, the honesty in his clear blue eyes, and the way he gave himself to her...
But now he’d taken it all away. As the day wore on, each minute heavy on her hands, the sharp cutting edge of her fury gave way to a dull ache of pain. She hurried home after work, trying not to notice that his cottage was quiet and dark, no lights showing from the windows.
Flora spent a sleepless night, thinking what might have been, and wondering if a miracle might happen to somehow bring it all back again. The feeble light of morning brought her answer. It had been good between them, and Aksel was the man she’d always wanted. But he couldn’t handle the guilt of feeling himself torn in two directions, and Flora couldn’t handle trusting him and then having him push her away.
She’d decided that she must go and see Mette, because it wouldn’t be fair to just desert the little girl. Making sure that Aksel wasn’t at the clinic that morning, she spent an hour with Mette, putting on a happy face even though she was dying inside, and then went back to her treatment room, locking the door so that she could cry bitter tears.
It seemed that Aksel had got the message. He knew that she didn’t want to see him, and he was avoiding her too. He was perceptive enough to know that things weren’t going to work out between them, and it was better to break things off now. He might even be happy about that. Flora was a claim on his time and attention that he didn’t need right now.
The second time she passed his cottage, on the way to her own front door, was no easier than the first. It looked as empty as it had last night, and Flora wondered whether he’d found somewhere else to stay.
But then she’d gone to the window to close the curtains and seen the light flickering at the top of the hill, partly obscured by the ruins of the old keep. Flora knew exactly where Aksel was now. This was his signal fire, and it was meant for her.
He might have just phoned... If Aksel had called her then she could have dismissed the call, and that would have been an end to it. But the fire at the top of the hill burned on, seeming to imprint itself on her retinas even when she wasn’t staring out of the window at it.
She needed something to take her mind off it. Her Christmas card list was always a good bet, and she fetched it, along with the boxes of cards that she’d bought, sitting down purposefully in front of the fire with a pen and a cup of tea. But her hand shook as she wrote. Wishing friends and family a happy Christmas always made her smile but, knowing that this year she’d be spending hers without Aksel, the Christmas greetings only emphasised her own hollow loneliness.
She gathered the cards up, deciding to leave them for another day. Drawing the curtains apart, she saw the light of the fire still twinkling out in the gloom...
* * *
Aksel had built the fire knowing that Flora would see it. And knowing that he’d stay here all night if he had to, and then the following night, and each night until she came. However long it took, he’d be here when Flora finally decided to climb the hill.
Maybe it wouldn’t be tonight. It was getting late, and the lights of her cottage had been flicking on and off, tracing what seemed to be an irregular and undecided progress from room to room. Soon the on and off of the lights upstairs would signal that Flora had gone to bed, which left little chance that she’d come to him tonight.
All the same, he’d be here. Wrapped in his sleeping bag, until the first rays of dawn told him that he had to move now, work the cold stiffness from his limbs, and get on with another day.
His fire was burning low, and he went to fetch more fuel from the pile of branches that he’d stacked up nearby. The blaze began to climb through the dry twigs, brightening as it went, and he missed the one thing he had been waiting and watching for. When he looked down toward the village again, Flora’s porch light was on.
He cursed his own inattentiveness, reaching for his backpack. His trembling fingers fumbled with the small binoculars, and he almost dropped them on the ground. Focussing them down towards Flora’s cottage, he saw her standing in her porch, wearing her walking boots and thick, waterproof jacket, and looking up in his direction. Aksel almost recoiled, even though he knew that she couldn’t see him. And then she went back inside the cottage again.
He bit back his disappointment. It had been too much to expect from this first night. But then she reappeared, pulling a hat onto her head, and as she started to walk away from the cottage a small thread of light issued from her hand. He smiled, glad that she’d remembered to bring a torch with her.
Aksel tried to calm himself by wondering which route she’d take. The most direct was the steepest, and it would be an easier walk to circle around the bottom of the hill before climbing it. She crossed the bridge that led from the village to the estate and disappeared for a moment behind a clump of bushes. And then he saw her again, climbing the steep, stony ground and making straight for him.
He waited, his eyes fixed on the small form labouring up the hill. When she fell, and the torch rolled skittishly back a few feet down the slope, he sprang to his feet, cursing himself for bringing her out here in the dark. But before he could run towards her, she was on her feet again, retrieving the torch.
Aksel forced himself to sit back down on the stony bench he’d made beside the fire. He had to wait, even though it was agony to watch Flora struggle like this. He had to trust that she’d come to him, and she had to know that she would too, however hard the journey.
His heart beat like a battering ram, and he suddenly found it difficult to breathe. The fire crackled and spat, flames flaring up into the night. The moment he’d longed for so desperately would be here soon, and despite working through every possible thing she might say to him, and what he might say in reply, he was completely unprepared.
When she finally made it to the top of the hill, she seemed rather too out of breath to say anything. Flora switched off her torch, putting her hands on her hips in a stance that indicated she wasn’t going to take any nonsense from him.
‘It’s warmer by the fire...’ He ventured the words and she frowned.
‘This had better be good, Aksel. If you think I came up here in the middle of the night to hear something you might have said anywhere...’
