The Silver Thaw

He dined at a table alone too, and she was a little surprised that her father hadn’t asked him to join them. She didn’t say anything, but when her father said casually: ‘I didn’t ask van der Tolck to join us—I hear from Tom that you don’t like him,’ she went pink and shot Tom a peevish look which in the circumstances was quite unjustified.

But he was there in the morning. She had gone out before breakfast to inspect the high slender bridge which joined Stokmarknes with the neighbouring island of Langoya. It was a bit too far to walk to, she saw with regret, but perhaps she and Tom would get a chance to reach it later in the day. She had supposed that it was much nearer, but appearances were deceptive, and even though she hurried to where the houses began to peter out against the base of the mountains, the bridge seemed as far away as ever. She turned round with regret and started back to the hotel, picking her way carefully along the uneven road. She hadn’t gone a quarter of the distance when a Saab swept past her and then stopped. Doctor van der Tolck was driving and Amelia said good morning in a cool voice as she drew abreast of him. He held the door open. ‘Like a lift?’ he enquired in a voice which suggested that he couldn’t care less either way. ‘I’m going back for breakfast.’

‘Thank you.’ She got in without argument. She had vowed to avoid him, but he was exactly the kind of man to demand to know why she refused if she did. He leaned across to slam the door shut and drove on without saying a word. What a good thing, she thought sourly, that the drive was a short one, for she couldn’t think of anything to say even if he had been disposed to make conversation. She peeped at him from under her lashes. He looked inscrutable—a silly, novelish word but it did describe the expression of his profile. A rather splendid profile too; a pity she didn’t like him. If he had been friendly it would have been nice to have talked… She had Tom, she reminded herself happily, and smiled quite nicely at her companion as they stopped at the hotel and he opened the door for her.

‘Thanks for the lift,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I daresay we shall be seeing each other very shortly.’

He agreed politely, but his smile disconcerted her; it was for all the world as though he had a secret joke which amused him very much and that after she had held out the olive branch—well not exactly held it out, but… She let the thought slide away; it was a great pity that she couldn’t opt out of the day’s fishing trip.

She did indeed suggest to Tom that they should take the bus to Sortland and have a look round, and they were arguing gently about it when Doctor van der Tolck came over to their table to speak to her father and he, despite a heavy frown from his daughter, at once suggested that the two of them should join forces for the day. ‘For Amelia is dead set on going to Sortland and of course Tom will go with her. There’s a bus…’

‘A splendid idea,’ agreed the doctor, so promptly that she suspected that he would be glad to see the back of her. He turned to Tom. ‘I’ve a Saab outside—rented it for my stay—why not borrow it? The road runs alongside the fjord and is pretty good going. There’s a bridge at Sortland and you can cross over to Hinney Island and visit Harstad; it’s quite a sizeable place and a military headquarters.’ He added, glancing at Amelia, ‘A street of shops, too.’

The faintly mocking glance he gave her from under his lids instantly made her change her mind. ‘Perhaps another day,’ she said coolly, to be overruled by Tom’s:

‘That’s jolly decent of you, if the weather changes we might not get another chance, and I’ll be going back in three days’ time.’

Amelia poured herself some more coffee which she didn’t want, but it was something to do while she argued. ‘Yes, but what about you, Father?’

Her parent was of no help at all. ‘Oh, we’ll manage very well, my dear—you and Tom go off and enjoy yourselves together.’

‘Yes, but you can’t manage the boat alone,’ she persisted.

‘Who said I was going to? We’ll use mine and share a picnic lunch. If the weather holds we shan’t come back before four o’clock, so don’t hurry on our account.’

The day had not been a qualified success. Amelia, soaking herself in a hot bath that evening, mulled it over at leisure and tried to decide where it had gone wrong. They had started off well enough—indeed, the drive to Sortland had been pleasant. The road, just as the doctor had told them, had followed the fjord the whole way and Sortland, when they reached it, was charming. They had coffee there, walked around the village, and then decided to go on to Harstad, so they drove over the bridge to the neighbouring island, Hinney, and took the only road, at first following the fjord and then going inland and taking a ferry once again. It proved to be a longer journey than they had expected and when they got to Harstad it was raining. They lunched at the Viking Nordic and then walked along the main street, looking at the shops, and Amelia, determined to take back some token of their trip, spent far too long in a rather splendid bookshop where she bought a couple of paperbacks, some writing paper and a pen she didn’t really need. Tom bought nothing at all, waiting patiently while she pottered round the shelves, and it was almost three o’clock when he suggested mildly that they should think about getting back to Stokmarknes.

And none too soon. The rain had settled down to a steady drizzle and the sky was an unrelieved grey, merging with the mountains, their snowy tops completely hidden by cloud. ‘We’ll have tea in Sortland,’ suggested Tom as they started back, but by the time they had reached it, it was dark, Tom was quietly apprehensive and Amelia becoming shorttempered. The day had been a waste. They hadn’t talked about themselves at all; her secret hopes that with time on their hands they could have got their future settled were coming to nothing. Tom was in no mood to talk about weddings—indeed, he had never been less romantic, advising her somewhat tersely to keep a sharp eye on the road, which, now that it was dark, wasn’t nearly as easy as it had been that morning.

They arrived back at the hotel at six o’clock, relieved to be there but unable to be lighthearted about it and meeting the doctor in the foyer didn’t help matters. He was sitting comfortably reading a Dutch newspaper, a drink at his elbow, but he got up as they went in, enquired kindly if they had enjoyed their day, expressed regret at the weather and invited them to have a drink. Tom, after a glance at Amelia, accepted, but she refused, declaring she wanted a cup of tea before she did anything else.

The doctor obligingly pressed the bell for her. ‘No tea?’ he asked with what she decided was quite false sympathy. ‘There’s a good hotel in Sortland.’

‘We left Harstad rather late,’ she explained stiffly, and when a waitress came asked for tea to be brought to her room, to drink it under the doctor’s amused eye was more than she could manage.

But tea and the bath soothed her, so that by the time she got downstairs she was feeling quite cheerful again. Tom was already there, so she went across the bar to him and tucked her hand into his arm. ‘Sorry if I was a bit snappy,’ she said softly. ‘It was disappointing, wasn’t it—all that rain.’

He agreed placidly and ordered her a drink, moving a little way away so that she had to take her hand away, and she frowned a little. Tom hated any form of affectionate display in public and just for the moment she had forgotten that. Amelia perched herself on a stool at the bar and began a rather banal conversation with the barman and Tom and they were presently joined by her father and Doctor van der Tolck, both with the air of men who had enjoyed every minute of their day and were now prepared to enjoy their evening just as much. And strangely enough, the evening was so pleasant that she had gone reluctantly to bed, much later than usual. Doctor van der Tolck had joined them for dinner and proved himself to be an amusing companion without attempting to hog the conversation—indeed, his aptitude for listening with interest to whatever was being said contributed to the success of the evening and even Amelia, wary of his friendly manner, found herself telling him about St Ansell’s. She only just stopped herself in time from telling him that she intended continuing to work there after she and Tom were married. She had told him too much already…

She stopped almost in mid-sentence and asked: ‘Are you married, Doctor van der Tolck?’

He had dropped his lids so that she couldn’t see his eyes. He said evenly: ‘No, I am not. Shall you be going fishing tomorrow?’

It was a palpable snub and she flushed a little, admitting to herself that she had deserved it. All the same, thinking about it afterwards, she came to the conclusion that while he had extracted quite a lot of information about her, he had said precious little about himself. Not that she was in the least interested.

She avoided him as much as possible for the next two days, although he shared their table now, to her father’s pleasure and to her own unease, but she had Tom to talk to, although not for much longer now, since he would be leaving the next day, and she wondered once or twice if it would be a good idea if she went back with him. She even suggested it, to be met with a very natural surprise on Tom’s part. ‘What on earth for?’ he wanted to know. ‘Your father would be left on his own and you know he wanted you to go with him in the first place.’

‘Yes, well—there’s Doctor van der Tolck to keep him company.’

Tom shook his head. ‘He told me that he was going further north after salmon.’

She told herself that she was delighted at the news. ‘Oh, well, then I’ll stay.’

‘You won’t be bored?’

She shook her head. ‘We’ll be out for most of the day and I’m going to buy some of that lovely embroidery to do—I should have got some in Harstad. I’ll persuade Father to take the ferry and we’ll spend a day there—a change from fishing will do him good.’ She added, trying not to sound too eager: ‘Will you miss me, Tom?’

‘I’ll be up to my eyes in work,’ he told her, which wasn’t a very satisfactory answer. ‘There’s that team of Australian physicians coming over at the end of the week, it’ll be interesting to work with them. I heard that there’s a strong chance that they’ll offer jobs to any of us who are interested.’ He glanced at her, ‘How do you like the idea of Australia, Amelia?’

She shook her head. ‘Me? Not at all—so far away.’ She turned to look at him. ‘Tom, you’re not serious, are you?’

‘Why not? There are marvellous opportunities out there. We’ll discuss it when you get back.’

They were in the lounge waiting for her father and Doctor van der Tolck.

‘Why not now?’ she asked.

‘Oh, plenty of time for that,’ Tom said easily.

They almost never quarrelled, but now Amelia felt herself on the verge of it.

‘But there’s not, Tom—you’re thirty and I’m twenty-seven and we haven’t even made any plans…’

‘Oh, come on, old girl—you know I can’t make plans until I’ve got a really good job. Another year or two—that’s not long, especially as we’re both working—no time to brood.’

‘I’ll be nudging thirty,’ said Amelia in a voice which held faint despair. She would have said more, only her father came in then, rubbing his hands and declaring that it was getting decidedly chilly and how about coffee before they started out. ‘We’re going down beyond the bridge,’ he told them enthusiastically, ‘they say there’s any amount of cod there.’

They were joined a moment later by the doctor, who drank his coffee with them but hadn’t much to say for himself, and presently they all trooped out and went down to the boats. It was getting colder, thought Amelia, glad of her quilted jacket and hood, and she prayed for clear skies. Bad weather wouldn’t keep her father indoors, and although he was cheerfully impervious to wind and rain, the idea of sitting in a smallish boat for hours on end in anything less than moderately fine weather daunted her.

But they were lucky for the moment. The sun came out and the mountains, with the gold and red of the birch trees wreathed around their lower slopes, didn’t look so forbidding, and the sun turned their snowy tops to a glistening fairyland, at least from a distance. The water was calm, dark and cold, but the three men didn’t notice that. They fished with enthusiasm, accepting hot drinks and food when Amelia proffered them, although she had the strong suspicion that they had quite forgotten that she was there. But not quite, apparently; it was the early afternoon when Doctor van der Tolck put his head round the cabin door where she was washing cups in the minute sink to ask her if she was all right. ‘We’ll have to get back fairly soon,’ he told her, ‘the light’s going and it’s getting cold.’

To which moderate remark she gave polite answer. As far as she was concerned it had got cold hours ago.

As it was Tom’s last evening, dinner was something of an event. They ate some of the cod they had caught with a rich creamy soup to precede it and reindeer steaks to follow, and rounded off the meal with chocolate mousse and coffee. And the doctor insisted on a bottle of wine, which, on top of the sherry she had had before dinner, warmed her very nicely.

They went to sit round the square stove afterwards, but not for long, for the doctor had offered to drive Tom to the airport at Ardenes in the morning and they would have to make an early start.

Amelia went to bed presently with the promise that she would be down in the morning to say goodbye to Tom. She was going to miss him, but two weeks would soon pass. She bade him a rather matter-of-fact goodnight because Doctor van der Tolck was watching them and hoped that he would have the good sense to look the other way when they said goodbye.

And strangely enough, he did. They breakfasted early and she joined them for a cup of coffee. Almost at once he got to his feet with some remark about the car and went away, leaving her and Tom looking at each other.

‘Well, it’s been a lovely week,’ said Amelia.

‘I enjoyed it enormously—I had no idea that fishing could be so absorbing.’ Tom caught her eye and added hastily, ‘It was splendid having you here too.’

‘I’ll be back in two weeks—I wish I were coming with you, or that you could have stayed for the rest of the time.’

‘Well, we knew that before we started, didn’t we?’ Tom got to his feet and went to put on his jacket lying ready. ‘I’d better be off, mustn’t miss the plane.’ He looked around him and then kissed her; there was no one there and there was no need to be so brisk about it, Amelia thought unhappily. She said: ‘Oh, Tom…’ and then at the look of faint unease on his nice face: ‘All right, I’m not going to cry or anything like that.’ She managed a bright smile and saw his relief. She kept it there while he went through the door.

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