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
