AUTHOR: ADRIAN HARVEY

The new novel from the bestselling author of Being Someone and The Cursing Stone. 

A father and son struggle to overcome the distance between them. Each is drawn irresistibly to an unforgiving landscape, one that has been the scene of tragedy and loss.

The son’s return to the northern shore he abandoned as a young man promises the chance to heal the rift. But is it too late?

Arni left his remote corner of Iceland as soon as he could, seeking opportunities beyond winter and fishing. Married to an English woman, he builds a life as a successful scientist but can never quite escape the pull of the West Fjords and bleak landscape of his birth, nor shake the guilt he feels towards his distant father.

When Eirikur goes missing, he sets off to find him on a windswept spit of land lost in an angry ocean.

Time’s Tide is a compelling and beautifully written story of loss, belonging and the silence between fathers and sons.  

Before he reached it, behind the church, he saw the kneeling figure of his father among the graves. The twisted growth that snarled about the other rusted crosses and headstones had been stripped back from one, and the plot had a startled mien. Einar still held his knife, loose in his left hand. Eiríkur watched for a little while, at a distance, hardly daring to breathe. They had been in Hesteyri for almost six weeks, but the grave had remained untended through all those days. Only now had his father found the time, or the courage. Slowly, Eiríkur approached, tamping the sedge noisily underfoot, hoping to alert his father to the presence of another in good time.

‘You’ve been gone a long while, Eiríkur. Your mother was worried.’

Einar did not look up but instead left his gaze on the little headstone. Over his shoulder, Eiríkur read the names of his grandfather and his brother, along with some others that he did not know: five names in all. The ground around the plot had been cleared meticulously, and a clutch of yellow poppies lay across at the centre of it.

‘Today is your brother’s birthday. I thought I should, well, tidy things for him. Seeing as it’s his birthday. You missed your dinner.’

Only now did Einar turn to look at Eiríkur. The trace of tears clung to his eyes in a pink rawness, but he smiled warmly at his boy.  His right hand searched through his pockets, finally reappearing with a large piece of dried fish.

‘You must be famished.’

Eiríkur accepted the fish gratefully.  While he chewed, he extended his other hand to help his father to his feet.

‘I went to the north shore today. To the beach in Aðalvík. I’d been there before. Not since I was very young. I remember playing there. With Ólafur. I remembered him clearly. More clearly than I think I ever have. Perhaps he came to play with me again. For his birthday.’

Eiríkur punctuated his words with swallows of fish, eager both to eat and to share these thoughts with his father. Einar watched as he spoke, his face flickering between joy and sorrow. His arm encircled the boy’s shoulders and he led him down towards the shore, where the gentle waters of the fjord slopped against boulders rubbed smooth by generations of storms. As they passed, Jóna watched from the steps, silent, curious.

‘Your brother was a fine lad. Much like you. But he never had the cares you’ve had. Never lost his brother, nor lived with parents that had lost their son. What do you remember of him? What would you like me to tell you?’

Einar emptied the ash from his pipe, tapped its bowl into his palm three times, then pushed in a fresh wad of tobacco. Before he had retrieved his own matches, Eiríkur brought to light in his cupped hands to the pipe and watched while his father sucked down the flame. Einar looked on with amused fascination, which grew deeper as Eiríkur pulled a bent cigarette from a battered carton and lit it. The boy drew clumsily on the smoke, but while it provoked a gagging cough, it was clear that this was not Eiríkur’s first cigarette.

‘You’ve become a man under my very nose, Eiríkur. If I still sometimes treat you like a boy, I am sorry.’

The low sun dipped behind the hills and the bay darkened into grimy dusk. It was past midnight now, but neither father nor son wanted to leave for their beds, even if the birds had settled into silence. Eiríkur had never asked, at least not out loud, about his brother’s death, and neither his father nor his mother had ever spoken of it. Eiríkur remembered only that his brother had fallen ill and been sent to bed. He had not seen him again, alive or dead; the fever had taken him in the depths of winter and his burial, under the snow and ice, had been conducted without ornament. Eiríkur had been too young to venture out into the wind to witness the interment. The frozen ground had swallowed Ólafur along with his brother’s memories of him, memories that only now had begun to find their way back into the light.