The Old Man in the Forest, by Matt Haig

A chance encounter with a stranger changes a widower’s life forever

CHRISTMAS EVE. I had been walking all day, through the dense Finnish forest. I had come here – to the pine and spruce populated hills on the western shore of Lake Pielisjärvi, known officially as Koli National Park – on something of a whim. A sad whim, if truth be told, and one conjured while looking at a painting.

Autumn Landscape of Lake Pielisjärvi by the Finnish painter Eero Järnefelt (1899). The painting was in an exhibition of Scandinavian landscape art at the Royal Academy in London and while staring at the painting I had felt a moment of calm for the first time in fifteen months. Since the death of Laura, my wife, from a brain tumour. I had wandered the streets of London, as a friend (who had also known grief ) had told me to get out of the house and walk.

Laura had never been to Finland as she had no interest in forests. Maybe that explained it. There was nothing about Finland that reminded me of her. Mainly, though, I had wanted to get away for Christmas. It was an avoidance strategy. Last year, I had been trapped. Trapped by Christmas, weighted down by the heaviness of grief, and feeling unable to leave the house. All those bay windows and Christmas trees and happy families.

It wasn’t working. Even here, in the Finnish wilderness, I couldn’t escape the absence of hope. You could wrap yourself up to fend off the cold, but not pain, I realised.

And then I saw him.