The Storm Sister (The Seven Sisters #2) (64 page)

‘I am sad not to stay until the end of term,’ Pip had said as he’d shaken Walther Davisson’s hand.

‘I think you are sensible to leave now. Who knows? Soon it may not be so easy,’ he had sighed sadly. ‘God speed, my boy. Write to me when you arrive.’

Pip turned to his friends, who were staring wearily at the line of candy-coloured wooden houses on the harbour front, trying to adjust to their surroundings. Bo could hardly walk. His face was
bruised from where he’d fallen to the ground after he’d jumped out of the window and Pip suspected that he’d fractured his elbow. Elle had secured his right arm to his chest with
her scarf, and he had uttered not one word of complaint during the long journey, despite the barely disguised agony on his face.

Spotting Horst, his father, standing on the dock, Pip walked towards him with a broad smile. ‘Far!’ he said, as his father placed his arms around his son’s shoulders and they
embraced. ‘How are you?’

‘I am very well indeed, thank you. And your mother is in good health too,’ said Horst, smiling warmly at all of them. ‘Now, introduce me to your friends.’

Pip did so and each of them shook his father’s hand gratefully.

‘Welcome to Norway,’ Horst said. ‘We are happy to have you here with us.’

‘Far,’ Pip reminded him, ‘remember, none of my friends can speak Norwegian.’

‘Of course! My apologies. German? French?’

‘French is our mother tongue,’ said Karine, ‘but we speak German too.’

‘Then French it shall be!’ Horst clapped his hands together like an excited child. ‘I never get a chance to show off my excellent accent,’ he said with a grin, and
proceeded to chatter away to them in the language as they walked towards his car.

The conversation continued all the way up the winding road into the hills beyond the town of Bergen to Froskehuset, their home, with Pip now feeling like the odd one out, as he knew very little
French. Sitting in the front passenger seat, he glanced across at his father; his receding fair hair was swept back and his features were lined by years of his constantly happy demeanour –
Pip could hardly remember him without a smile on his face. Horst had grown a small goatee beard, and together with his moustache, he now reminded Pip of pictures he’d seen of French
impressionist painters. As predicted, Horst had seemed delighted to meet his friends, and he’d never loved his father more for his generous welcome.

Up at the house, his mother, Astrid – looking as pretty as ever – opened the door and extended the same warm welcome, albeit in Norwegian. Her glance immediately fell on Bo, who by
now was so exhausted and in pain that he was hanging onto Elle for support.

Astrid clapped a hand to her mouth. ‘What happened to him?’

‘He jumped out of a window when his lodging house was set on fire,’ Pip explained.

‘The poor darling! Horst, you and Pip take our other guests through to the drawing room. And Bo,’ she said, gesturing to a chair that stood by the telephone in the hallway,
‘sit down and I will take a look at your injuries.’

‘My mother is a trained nurse,’ Pip explained under his breath to Karine as they followed Horst and Elle along the corridor. ‘No doubt at some point you will hear the story of
how she fell in love with my father while caring for him after an appendix operation.’

‘She looks a lot younger than him.’

‘She is, by fifteen years. My father always said he got himself a child bride. She was only eighteen when she got pregnant with me. They adore each other really.’

‘Pip . . .’

He felt Karine’s slim, sensitive fingers on his arm. ‘Yes?’

‘Thank you, from all of us.’

That evening, after the doctor had been called to dress Bo’s wounds and an appointment made at the hospital to check whether his elbow was fractured, Bo was helped
upstairs by Elle and Astrid and put to bed in Pip’s room.

‘Poor boy,’ said Astrid as she came back down to prepare dinner and Pip followed her into the kitchen. ‘He is simply exhausted. Your father has told me a little of what is
happening in Leipzig. Can you pass me the potato scraper?’

‘Yes.’ Pip did so.

‘They are all refugees rather than three friends coming to visit Norway?’

‘They are both, I suppose.’

‘And how long will they be staying?’

‘The truth is, Mor, I don’t know.’

‘They are all Jewish?’

‘Karine and Elle, yes. Bo, I’m not sure about.’

‘I admit, it is difficult to believe what is happening in Germany. But believe it I must. The world is a very cruel place,’ Astrid sighed. ‘And Karine? She is the girl you have
told us so much about?’

‘Yes.’ Pip watched his mother continue to peel the potatoes as he waited for her to comment further.

‘She seems full of life, and very bright. I’d imagine she’s quite a handful on occasion,’ she added.

‘She does challenge me, certainly. I’ve learnt a lot about the world,’ Pip said, a hint of defensiveness in his voice.

‘Just what you need – a strong woman. What your father would have done without me, the Lord only knows,’ Astrid said with a laugh. ‘And I am proud of you for what you
have done to help your friends. Your father and I will do what we can to support them. Although . . .’

‘What, Mor?’

‘Your generosity has relegated you to the sofa in the drawing room until Bo is recovered.’

After dinner on the terrace, overlooking the glorious fjord beneath them, Elle went upstairs to check on Bo, who had been taken supper on a tray earlier, then she retired to
bed. Horst and Astrid announced that they too were turning in for the night and Pip heard their quiet laughter as they mounted the stairs. As he’d watched the tension slip away from his
friends’ faces over dinner, he had never felt prouder of his parents or more thankful to be in Norway.

‘I should go up too,’ said Karine. ‘I’m exhausted, but it is just too magical a view to waste. See? It is almost eleven at night and there is still light here.’

‘And the sun will be up long before you tomorrow. I told you it was beautiful here,’ Pip said as she stood up from the table and walked across the terrace to lean over the wooden
railing, which formed a barrier between the house and the endless pine trees tumbling down the hills towards the water.

‘It’s more than beautiful . . . it’s breathtaking. And not just the scenery. Your parents’ welcome, their kindness . . . I feel overcome by it.’

Pip took her in his arms as she cried quiet tears of relief on his shoulder. She looked up at him, her eyes searching his face.

‘Tell me I never have to leave.’

And he did.

Horst drove Bo and Elle to the local hospital the following morning. Bo was diagnosed with a dislocated elbow and compound fracture and remained there to have an operation to
reset it. Elle spent the next few days at the hospital with him, which left Pip free to show Karine the delights of Bergen.

He took her up to Troldhaugen, Grieg’s house, which was only a short walk from his own and had become a museum. And he watched her delight as they visited the hut perched on the side of
the fjord where the maestro had written some of his compositions.

‘Will you have one of these too when you are famous?’ she asked him. ‘I can bring you sweetmeats and wine at lunchtime and we can make love on the floor.’

‘Ah, then I may have to lock myself in. A composer must not be distracted whilst he is working,’ he teased her.

‘Then I may have to take a lover to while away the lonely hours,’ she shot back with a wicked smile, then turned to walk away.

Laughing, Pip caught up with her and wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, halting her progress. His lips sought out the tender curve of her neck. ‘Never,’ he whispered.
‘No one but me.’

They took the train down into the town, strolling through the narrow cobbled streets and stopping at a café for lunch so that Karine could have her first taste of aquavit.

They both giggled as her eyes watered and she pronounced it ‘stronger than absinthe’ before promptly asking for another. After lunch, he took her to see the Nationale Scene Theatre,
where Ibsen had once been the artistic director and where Grieg had conducted the orchestra.

‘Now they play at their very own venue, the Konsert-palæet, where my father spends a large part of his life as first cellist in the orchestra,’ he added.

‘Do you think he could get us both employment, Pip?’

‘I’m sure he could put in a good word for us, yes,’ he said, not wishing to dampen Karine’s enthusiasm by telling her there wasn’t – and never had been
– a female member of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra.

Another day they took the Fløibanen – the tiny funicular railway – up to the top of Fløyen Mountain, one of the seven imposing peaks that surrounded Bergen. From the
viewing platform there was a spectacular vista of the city beneath them and the sparkling fjord beyond. Karine sighed in pleasure as she gazed out over the railings.

‘There surely cannot be a more beautiful sight in the world,’ she breathed.

Pip loved Karine’s genuine enthusiasm for Bergen, given that her dreams had always hitherto focused on the far larger goal of America. She asked Pip to start teaching her some basic
Norwegian, frustrated that she couldn’t communicate with his mother without a translator present.

‘She has been so kind to me,
chérie
, I wish to tell her how I appreciate it in her own language.’

Bo returned to the house, his right arm strapped tightly, and the evenings were spent outside on the terrace having dinner, after which an impromptu concert would ensue. Pip
would seat himself at the grand piano in the drawing room, with the doors onto the terrace thrown wide open. Depending on the piece, Elle would play her viola or flute, Karine her oboe, and Horst
his cello. They played everything from simple Norwegian folk songs that Horst patiently taught them, to pieces by the old masters such as Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, to more modern compositions from
the likes of Bartók and Prokofiev – although Horst firmly drew the line at Stravinsky. The wonderful music sang down the hills to the fjord. Pip’s life became a harmonic
conjoining of all he loved and needed and he was glad that fate had brought his friends to Norway.