Page 18 of A Copenhagen Snowmance

Chapter Twelve

Eckersbergsgade, right in the middle of Kartoffelraekkerne, is a very social street.

Permanent picnic benches down the middle and a children’s playhouse make for homemade traffic calming, though there are numerous cars parked along the house fences.

The trees all house fairy lights, probably there since early November, if past years are anything to go by.

Candles glow in most windows, below hanging star- and heart-themed Christmas decorations.

In the darkness, the lights are not quite Tivoli, but are still gorgeous in their own way.

Right at the end of the road lies Sortedams S?, the jet-black lake currently reflecting the lights of ?sterbro on the other side.

Pulling into the street is a wonderful welcome back, though this might be down to Anna still being a little squiffy from all the beers.

What’s not such a wonderful sight is the figure, pacing in the street in front of her house, illuminated by the streetlight.

She’d know that silhouette anywhere. Carl.

“Fuck,” Anna sighs, keenly aware she’s trapped in her crate with an oblivious chauffeur, who blithely bypasses her ex, to park in the front yard, and then extends his hand to help her out with a “Mi’lady.

” She’d give more thought to the feel of her hand in his if she wasn’t freaking out.

Hustling herself out as quickly and tidily as possible, which isn’t much, she tells him in a low voice, “Carl is here.”

Jamie immediately tenses. “What do you want to do?”

There’s no time for that, though, as Carl is standing just inside the boundary and calls, “Anna.”

“Fuck igen,” she mumbles. She wishes she’d told Jamie to keep cycling. They could have simply completed circuits around the streets all night or until Carl gave up and left.

“I have nothing to say to you,” she says, and tries to head for the doorstep.

“That’s as may be, but I have things to say to you,” Carl snaps back. He’s cross, it’s clear. Maybe standing about in the cold for however long has done that.

Anna turns to look at him.

“What can you possibly have to say to me? Other than you’re a shithead, which I already know, and that you’re sorry, which I don’t care about.”

The security light above next door’s entrance has flicked on, Carl being within the sensor’s range.

It leaves her in the shadows, which she likes.

He’s not changed much, his hair perhaps a little longer, but still wavy from boyhood curls, and while not the white-blond he was as a boy, it’s still golden.

His shape is more basketball player than Jamie’s rugby player; taller and leaner, some might say lanky.

Carl shakes his head with a scoff. “Had you not run off, we could have talked about it.”

Anna shrugs. “What for? You did what you did. You betrayed me. With Maiken, of all people. Did you particularly want to talk about what an arsehole you are?”

“We could have discussed why it happened. Things weren’t good between us.”

This has Anna seeing red. As she recalled it, they were fine. Better than fine.

“What we had was good,” she manages through her fury.

“You weren’t looking.”

“Clearly!” she says, but it’s a bit more like a shout. “Had I been looking I would have spotted the two of you fucking about around the city. I would have seen you for the snakes you are.”

She turns again towards the door, noticing Jamie standing quietly behind her. What must he be making of this?

Carl tries another tack. “I have tried calling you, texting you, coming here, emailing you, ringing your editor to get a message to you, but none of it works.”

“I blocked you, told Katrine to ignore you, and I don’t live here anymore. For someone who was always so sure of how bright he was, you are very slow to take a hint.”

“Seeing you in the paper, though, tells me you’re back. We should talk.” He nods towards the door.

Not. A. Chance.

“As I said, there’s nothing to say. I’ve moved on and so have you and Maiken.” She hopes, as soon as she’s said it, that he doesn’t realise she must have seen them to know this.

“You threw my stuff out on the street, Anna. Valuable stuff. You changed the locks.” Yes. Yes, she had done that.

“So what? I didn’t want you in my house. Then or now. You gave up that right when you got in Maiken’s knickers. And as for your things, you should have thought about that before you trashed our life.”

“You are so unreasonable. And a chicken. We could have discussed it like adults!” His fury is rising and Anna senses Jamie step closer to her.

Finally, Carl registers him properly.

“Who’s this?”

Anna snaps, “None of your business,” just as Jamie says, “The boyfriend.” Bollocks. The entire conversation has been in rapid Danish, but Jamie can clearly pick out “Who’s this?”

Carl’s eyes widen a bit at that, but he has the sense not to ask for details. She just wants him gone and this to be over.

“Go home, Carl. You’ve said you’re unhappy about me throwing your stuff out. Noted. Don’t expect an apology.”

She really hopes he’ll go. This is excruciating. She’s praying none of the neighbours have caught wind of what’s going on.

Jamie lays his hand on her shoulder, which she takes as a show of strength to Carl.

Carl’s lips are pursed in anger, his eyes blazing, though she doesn’t know what he was expecting to achieve. Unless it was to make her feel uncomfortable, and she must give him that. Bullseye, there.

“Maiken wants her locket back,” he suddenly says to her, staunchly ignoring Jamie.

“What?”

Carl looks less assured, like he’s been tasked with an unwanted job. He switches to English. It’s a tactical move to pressure her. “You took her necklace, and she wants it back. The big locket. The one she always wore. Her mother’s.”

“I am aware of her locket, Carl,” Anna says indignantly. “I don’t have it, and I don’t know why you’d think I do. So, you can take your accusations and … and … stuff them up your bum.” OK, so that didn’t come out as eviscerating as she’d hoped.

Anna shoves her hand in her pocket to dig out her keys. “You should go. There’s nothing to say here,” she reiterates and heads up the stairs, not looking back, to wrestle with the key for much longer than helps her badass stance, until Jamie’s hand settles on hers and takes over.

* * *

“Tell me about Carl,” Jamie says, the two of them having resumed normal housemates-mode the moment the front door closed behind them.

He hands her a mug of tea and places a bowl of brunkager on the coffee table, before taking a seat in the chair opposite the sofa, giving her space.

She’s not sure she wants it. The space, that is.

The tea is welcome. She’s still shaking.

Anna sinks back in the sofa, pulls up her feet and wraps the throw around her, with a sigh. Where to start?

“I really thought it was The Big Love, you know? We met at twenty-four and we were sure it was forever. We were just in tune with each other, or so I thought. I thought…” Anna feels ridiculous saying this now, and keeps her eyes squarely on the flickers of the trio of candles on the coffee table.

“I thought we were a team; invincible. That there was nothing we couldn’t overcome or withstand.

Because we talked about things, discussed them and knew each other.

” A bitter laugh bursts out of her now. “I was so na?ve! Turns out we only talked about some things and actually were far from untouchable, and were felled by the most common, tawdry of events. We weren’t special at all.

He slept with someone else. Turns out it wasn’t something I could withstand or overcome.

Or forgive. So, I threw out his things and it was over. ”

“And you ran?”

Putting it like that makes her wince.

“I removed myself from all that was painful. Being here in the house was agonising. And the whole city felt tainted; everywhere we’d been, they’d probably been. I couldn’t, can’t believe that people we know, friends, hadn’t seen them out, too, and knew. The humiliation was savage. Still is.”

“OK,” he ventures carefully, “and having ‘removed’ yourself, did the pain go away?”

Anna scowls at him. Is he making a point?

“I’m just hypothesising that perhaps, the pain is in you, and travels, too,” he says, “and that removing yourself from somewhere you love, hasn’t made that better.”

She takes a breath to interject but he leans forward and offers her a brunkage, to cut her off.

“You love this city, Anna, and the country. The things you crave when you get here, the food, the sights, the memories – and from how you’ve described your new place, you’ve made a little shrine to your homeland.

You might not see it, but it’s obvious to me.

You’re homesick and at some point, that might be worth recognising.

“But back to my hypothesising about your pain. It isn’t going to go away, no matter where you remove yourself to, it needs dealing with. At the source. You need to say what you need to say, to the people who hurt you. And they need a chance to explain themselves.”

Well, that’s not a thing. “I have zero interest in hearing a single word either of them has to say. I don’t want to see them or hear their lies.

I don’t want the conflict of the arguing, like just now,” she gives a shudder at the thought of what just happened in the street, “and I don’t need more humiliation on top of what I’ve already had. Can you hypothesise on that?”

She’s getting defensive and she can hear her voice becoming shriller.

Conflict and drama are something she avoids as much as possible.

Having grown up with Ida, drama usually heralded her life was about to go sideways.

Her experience with Carl, showed her she was right.

All she really wants is calm and a simple life of respect and trust. Is that too much to ask?

A silent stand-off ensues. Anna snaffles another brunkage, unrelenting.

“Can I ask you something? Something else. Something personal?” he asks, finally giving up.

“Sure.” She figures she can always lie if needs be.

“Upstairs, on your bedside table, there’s a tube labelled, P?lse. Sausage, right? What’s that about?”

“Oh! Right. Yeah, that must look weird. It’s why I came back.”

“For a tube of sausage?” It must be testament to how deranged everything about her has been in the last few days that Jamie doesn’t look more alarmed.

“P?lse was my cat,” she starts, and realising that that doesn’t clear things up much, adds, “He died. His ashes are in the tube. The vet was shutting, and I had to collect them. One of the few things that can’t be done digitally or through an embassy, as it turns out.

Weddings, funerals and cat-ashes collection. That’s it.”

Jamie’s mouth lifts at one side. “Who knew?”

“Who knew, indeed.”

“What’s the plan for them now?”

Anna explains her thwarted plan to scatter them with her grandparents.

“We’ll go tomorrow,” he says, looking at her over the top of his mug. “Weather should be better tomorrow.”

Something about that “we” pleases her immensely.

She tells herself it’s simply that two people will make it more of a ceremony, as opposed to the “scatter and dash” event it would have been the last time she tried.

He’s a thoughtful guy. She has to give him that – reserved and guarded, perhaps, or maybe just towards her – but under that she’s seeing kindness and consideration.

After what happened with Carl, she gets a glimmer of hope that some men can be trusted.

“Can I ask you something?” she echoes back at him.

“Sure.” Now Jamie has seen the source of her odd behaviour, knows she isn’t a stalker, perhaps he’ll be more open with her.

“What’s the story with the woman we’re faking for?”

Jamie’s eyes settle on the faux flame of the candle.

Finally, he says, “We had a misunderstanding. By which I mean, I got things wrong, and now she’d like me to not be here, but I want to stay.

” Anna is stunned to see him blush. Blushing isn’t something she’d expect on a face like his. He’s generally so assured.

“And you think if she believes you have a girlfriend,” Anna points at herself and pulls a face to lighten his mood, “that she’ll think she’s safe from you?”

His mood doesn’t lighten, though.

“She’s completely safe from me,” he snaps, his tone rough, but he takes a breath and goes on. “I hate that she thinks I’m any kind of threat to her, because I’m not. I’d just like to be on speaking terms. Just two regular people, you know?”

Anna’s not so sure about this. “You know, you can’t be friends with everyone, Jamie. Not all friendships are meant to last.”

The look on his face says he disagrees.

She presses her point. “We can’t possibly know everyone we ever interact with for always.

I don’t think there’s capacity for that.

” She’s dipped in and out of lives all through her childhood, she couldn’t possibly have retained all those friendships.

“Not enough head-space or heart-space, to be honest, and in many cases it’s not healthy.

I’ve jettisoned Carl for my own health and self-respect, because he didn’t treat me well.

Maybe, you just aren’t supposed to keep knowing this woman? ”

She can see he’s thinking about this, but the thinking is very deep and Anna sees it’s deeper than he’ll let her in.

“Do you think people really think like that?” he asks.

“Well, I clearly do. And my mum does. She’s walked away from every relationship she’s ever had as soon as it doesn’t serve her any longer. She thinks life’s too short to tie yourself to what makes you unhappy.”

All he says is “Hmmm,” and then he finishes his tea. She hasn’t convinced him, but she thinks she’s given him food for thought.

He stands, which makes her want to protest. She’s been enjoying the discussion, and simply having company.

“I’m exhausted from the hot tub and the cycling.

I’m turning in.” Fair enough, he was transporting her across town at a fair clip.

He calls for her to “Sov godt” as he reaches the stairs.

She’s sure she will sleep well. The hot tub and the fresh air have been soporific.

Or maybe it’s the stress of seeing Carl again.

That was exactly what she’d wanted to avoid. Thank God it’s over.

“Tak for idag,” Anna says, thanking him for today in typical Danish fashion, but she isn’t sure he hears her.

She sits for a while, watching the glow of the candle in front of her.

It’s the first time she’s seen Jamie properly uncomfortable, and there’s clearly lots more going on there.

It dawns on her that maybe she shouldn’t be in a rush to be trusting again.