Page 26 of A Copenhagen Snowmance

Chapter Nineteen

There’s a note from Jamie on the table when Anna makes it inside house, saying he’ll be back before dinner. She’s touched he’s inclined to let her know, but gutted she can’t tease him immediately.

She tidies the living room and then the kitchen, filling the time. Finally, taking a leaf out of Anne-Grete’s book, she makes herself a coffee, grabs a blanket and sits outside on the bench in her front yard, enjoying the afternoon sun on her face and the sounds of the city.

The coffee aroma wends its way up around her nose and she’s grateful for it.

This, the crisp Copenhagen air, coffee and a warm coat and warm feet, this is what she sees when she envisages her birth city in winter.

And she has envisaged it. Much as she’s decided to relegate the city to her past, shun it for new, Carl-and-Maiken-free pastures, it’s impossible to always keep her mind on track.

Her heart has some say, too, and every so often an image will appear in her mind’s eye of something she’s once loved.

Or she’ll see something Copenhagen-based in her Instagram feed, even though she’d been on an unfollowing spree for all those accounts once she moved.

Or someone will tell her they’re off to Copenhagen for a long weekend or on business and every instinct will fire to tell them where to visit and what to see, while revelling in her memories of doing exactly what she describes.

Now, she has a Word document she offers to email them, to divert the conversation elsewhere.

She closes her eyes and lets the afternoon light drape her face, her chin resting on one hand.

She’s not meditating, she’s never had the patience or self-discipline for that, but she is trying to calm her thoughts, to just be here, in the moment, in her front yard, alone save for a robin who is busying himself around the snow piles.

Every so often she’ll sip the coffee, but it’s an automatic motion, as she focuses on the sounds around her; the chirp of the robin, the hum of a car passing at the end of the street and the scent of snowy air. It brings a light smile to her face.

Her pocket buzzes and Anna pulls out her phone to see a notification from an airline, for their incoming New Year sale.

It makes her growl. They should be concentrating on their backlog, by which she means her, not teeing up customers for next year’s travel.

Prompted, though, she swipes through the site and some others, now on autopilot, after several days of scouring them.

And there, on the last site she tries, is a ticket.

They must have had a cancellation. For Christmas Eve.

The price is eye-watering, and it is still days off, but it’s the only ticket she’s seen given the backlog.

The cursor blinks impatiently at her. She could forgo food for a couple of days to afford it, she supposes.

And turn her heating off, too. The thought of it makes her shudder.

It wouldn’t be so bad in the summer, but over Christmas, that’s a nightmare.

But she needs to get home, and she’s been checking every day for exactly this, so agreeing with herself she can spend the days huddled under her duvet, living off cheap popcorn, she’ll make the sacrifice.

She fills in her credit card details and hits confirm.

The dial spins in front of her. On and on, nothing happening.

She waits and eventually her patience runs out. She hits refresh and tries again. Only now the ticket is gone, and the plane is sold out.

Anna lets out a yowl of indignation and frustration at having lost out on the ticket she really couldn’t afford.

“How is this happening?!” she whines to the robin. But she knows full well. It’s Christmas. People are travelling home and back, and there’s a backlog from the cancellations and she appears simply to be at the back of the queue.

The last of her coffee has grown cold and she stretches to tip it out into an old plant pot behind her in a corner, half-filled with soil, old autumn leaves and now snow.

She gives it a hard look, wondering why she’d left it like that.

Searching back through her memory she has some inkling of repotting something indoors the weekend before things went sideways, perhaps Mormor’s Swiss cheese plant in the living room?

The pot must be its own little biosphere by now, and a sodden mush under the layer of snow on it, save for the small brown hole from the coffee dregs.

Gazing at it, an odd feeling creeps over her, as some memories connect, something about the day things had gone shitwards, something Anna had done in the haze of it all.

The smile slips off her face as she pieces it together and hopes that it isn’t, in fact, true.

A quick check of her forehead is disappointing; no fever there to be giving her hallucinations.

Bugger. Reluctantly, she finds a stick and starts having a drag around in the pot and pulling it up every so often until she finds what she’s hoping she won’t.

“Fuck,” she sighs. “Anna, you idiot.”

Full-on recollections pop into her head now and she feels shame fill the rest of her body.

She takes a quick squiz out towards the street and the houses that overlook the yard, in case anyone’s watching.

Satisfied she’s unobserved, but feeling very shifty, she lifts the item from the end of the stick.

Grubby and wet with coffee, meltwater and eighteen months of plant decay and insect excretions, it’s a long chain, attached to a large golden locket.

* * *

Mondays were always busy days for Anna and Carl.

They tended to front-load the week, so things could wind down towards the weekend, where they could spend time together around the house or away with friends.

Anna carefully closed the front door this Monday morning, having spent her Sunday painting it cherry red.

The oil-based paint had required her full attention, which was perfect as she needed something to take her mind off missing P?lse.

It had been a week since she’d taken him to the vet for the last time and his absence in the house was palpable, which was impressive for a grumpy cat who saw it as his sole purpose in life to lie in a sunspot.

Her Monday job list consisted of a smear test, shopping and picking up P?lse’s ashes, before spending the rest of the day at her keyboard, working.

Conversely, Carl had virtual meetings all morning, and further live meetings around the city in the afternoon, leaving her peace and quiet to work in.

Just one of the many ways they dovetailed beautifully.

He saw her off, kissing her at the door, in just his boxers.

They were nearing their six-year anniversary, and she had a surprise for him.

Tonight, she thought, I’ll tell him tonight.

Three streets away, she realised she’d forgotten her purse on the kitchen counter. She needed her health insurance card for the smear test. If she got a wiggle on, she’d have just enough time to double back.

Turning into Eckersbergsgade, she saw a figure walking into her front yard.

At first, she thought she’d judged it wrong, but no, there were a couple of planters outside the fence and the figure definitely walked between them.

Anna paused, instinct telling her to hang back.

Something was odd about this. Unless she was very much mistaken, the figure had been Maiken.

Anna knew that dress, long, billowy and apple-green, and Maiken’s red hair was striking.

But Maiken knew she wasn’t home this morning.

They’d literally just been texting about the joys of smear tests.

Wracking her brain as to why her best friend would be dropping in and not at work herself, Anna walked slowly to the house and her shiny front door.

Sliding the key in the lock and opening the front door was conducted with cat-like stealth, for reasons she couldn’t, or wouldn’t put a name to.

Same for the uncharacteristic light-footedness she had crossing the hall to the bottom of the stairs. She didn’t go further. No need.

Maiken’s dress, pooled on the second step, her underwear on the fifth and ninth, and his boxers at the top were an initial indicator of what was afoot.

The moans from the bedroom were a confirmation.

She could hear them groaning each other’s names, so that nixed any chance it was random strangers who’d broken in for a shag. She had almost hoped.

What was the etiquette for such a situation?

Anna stood immobile, trying to fathom it out.

Walk in on them? No. There were things in life you could never unsee, and she knew in her gut this was one to swerve.

And besides, she didn’t think her legs would agree to go up the stairs. They were barely holding her up.

Another shout of Maiken’s name from above snapped her stunned brain into something more like consciousness.

Her best friend. Had anyone suggested it, Anna would have laughed in their face.

And Carl. She trusted him, with everything.

Anger started welling in her, starting in her belly and surging up through her like magma.

She wasn’t going to burst in and cause a scene – after the initial “Gotcha!” she couldn’t imagine anyone, by which right now she exclusively meant herself, coming out of it with any salvageable dignity.

She needed time to work out how to approach this properly.

She’d do her chores and when she came back, she’d have more of a clue what to do.