Page 41 of A Copenhagen Snowmance

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“Bloody hell!”

“’S’up?” Jamie asks, setting up the new jigsaw, in what she now thinks of as the jigsaw lounge.

It’s the one she dug out for him, and it’s particularly evil; an aerial photograph of Kartoffelraekkerner, by Nicolas Cosedis.

Row upon row of similar roofs. It’ll take them days. Him. It’ll take him days.

“Did you see anyone taking pictures when we were in the playground?” It’s only been five hours since they were in the playground and already photos are up.

Also, five hours where they’ve been navigating each other carefully.

She can tell Jamie’s deliberately giving her space, but she senses him watching her and sees the flex of his hand when he holds back from touching her.

She wishes she didn’t notice, but the fact is, it simply mirrors her own instincts.

She’s aware of his presence wherever he is, and her eyes flick to him constantly.

All the while, she’s trying to behave as if nothing has changed between them, that it was just a night of passion, which has now been sated, and they can go back to how they were.

The charge in the room between them suggests otherwise however, moreover that she’s an idiot for even thinking it.

Jamie looks up from turning on the candles. “No, but I’ve got to admit I wasn’t looking at other people. My head was kind of full already.”

Fair enough. She hadn’t, either. She holds the device to his face. It’s a photo of them, mid-bounce and holding hands, above the two trampettes. With her hat on and his same coat, it’s obvious it’s them again. The photo is captioned as such.

“Cute.” He pours them each a whisky from the bottle of Torabhaig on the bookshelf, placing the glasses next to a dish of klejner.

“It doesn’t bother you?” she asks, snaffling one.

“Not really. It’s a sweet picture.” Then he looks at her properly, with a hint of something in his eye. “I like being in these shots with you. I like other people thinking they’re something. Something cute or even iconic. Who wouldn’t want that?”

Anna presumably, is who he’s suggesting.

Does she want that? She likes being cute with him, too.

But she can’t square it in her head: that it should be her in those gorgeous photos and that it should all be happening here, in this city.

She thinks to say, “but it’s not real”, but the words feel wrong on her tongue.

It was real. They were together in this very real, spontaneous moment, celebrating something good.

Jamie had been in a jubilant mood for the entire ride home from the playground (his turn to pedal, she decided), wanting to know how she’d managed it.

“My superhero-skill might be research, Jamie,” she’d said primly but secretly ecstatic he liked her gift so much. She imagined he’d felt the same when she saw the decorations in the house. “That’s how I started out at the publishing house, the travel writing was later.”

“But you literally only had her first name.” He looked baffled and supremely impressed.

Probably he’d done some research of his own and only ever got as far as her company and then her office building, which considering he’d met her at a conference, where people wore name badges, would have been a cinch.

“OK, so as I may have mentioned, maaany times, it’s a small city.

I could google using her first name within the sustainability companies in the city and eventually narrow it down to three candidates.

Then it’s onto the socials to find someone who has her face on Instagram, which she did, because she’s a mum with a super-cute kid and she’ll want her friends to see.

Her account might be private, but her profile pic isn’t.

So, then I had a confirmed full name, after which it’s super easy as the Kraks digital phone book readily hands over people’s addresses and phone numbers in Denmark. ”

He’d looked down at her in the crate seat, sceptically. “It’s true,” she insisted, “although I don’t understand how it gets around the data-protection laws, but in this case, it’s to my benefit, so. Then I just called her.” She’d deliberately sounded blasé about it, but she was glowing really.

“Oh, my God,” he breathed, like a sixteen-year-old girl. “You’re like a spy.”

She flicked his thigh. “Hardly. I just know how to search.”

“And all this info was available to me all this time?”

“Yep,” Anna had said with a grin. “Only you needed me here as the mastermind.” He’d flicked the bobble of her hat in response.

Anna looks again now at the photo of them.

It is cute. She discreetly saves it to a secret Pinterest board along with the others.

Then, leaning over him, she picks out a couple of jigsaw pieces with a flat edge.

Given their angle and the image, she places one on the top and the other to the left edge.

Jamie moves to the far end of the small sofa making room for her, plus some to give her space.

He’s back to leaving things in her court, but she can see by his eyes that it’s not his natural inclination.

She suspects his impulse would have been to catch the curve of her waist and draw her down to him.

Anna snares the wistful sigh in her mouth before it escapes.

Instead she sits at her own end of the sofa and he raises his glass in her direction, though without taking his eyes from the table and the pieces.

She clinks it with hers and they focus quietly on adding more pieces to the jigsaw frame, working in bursts, building on each other’s finds, and then sitting still in the pauses, when the obvious pieces run out, trying to ignore the buzz in the slim gulf between them.

“I’ve been thinking,” he eventually says during one of the pauses.

“Oh dear,” she interjects, sure she knows what’s coming and wanting to put it off. It earns her a brisk bump to the shoulder.

“I was thinking,” he starts again, sounding sterner, “how about we work together on something?”

OK. Not what she was expecting.

“What do you mean?”

“Not sure yet. A book or a guide. A green guide to Copenhagen, or a book of simple things people in cities can do to help the planet and offset tourism. I was thinking about the things my work has already started here in the city and how we can tell more people about them and promote their use in other cities if there’s some kind of published guide to show. Ebook, app, paperback, whatever.”

“You want to work together?”

“Aye.” He turns his face to look at her for the first time in ages, and her heartbeat increases in welcoming it.

She loses herself in his eyes, but hauls herself back.

His eyes drop to her lips, but he doesn’t move any closer.

“I have ideas and established initiatives, you have the words and are, of course, the ‘research mastermind’.” He does the finger quotes and she lightly slaps them down for his lack of due respect.

“And you’d want it to be based on Copenhagen?”

“Initially. It’s an ideal place to start, given everything that’s already going on.

I know you’ve been away for a while, and obviously it’s winter so everyone is hibernating, but come spring there are lots more projects to see.

Tourist things. The green kayaks with the litter bins on the back the tourists fill in exchange for free rental?

Like that. Meanwhile, we could work on the proposal, maybe talk to your editor to see what she thinks. ”

There are lots of things about this that have happy bells pealing in her head, but even so, there’s a death-knell which overrides them.

“I won’t be here, though. I mean we could work on it online, but it’s not the same as being on the ground. And I won’t be coming back.”

She’s been feeling the need to say it. For clarity. Her hiatus in calling the airlines will come to an end and she will get a ticket, and she will resume her life in London.

Jamie turns his eyes back to the jigsaw, and it feels like shade on her face. “You wouldn’t want to give this a go?” he asks lightly.

“The guide?” she checks.

“Us,” he clarifies, and takes a swig of his whisky.

“Move back?” The thought is alien to her.

She’s finished with the city. In all the years she lived with her mother, they never moved back to anywhere.

“Always forward,” Ida would say. Holidays back to Copenhagen were always just that, holidays.

Now that it got elongated, Anna is sort of seeing this trip as that.

“Maybe.” He places another jigsaw piece, now working within the frame.

Her face is not hiding her feelings very well.

“There’s the long-distance thing,” he suggests, turning back and giving her an easy look. She feels his hand gently stroke her calf. It is non-pressuring and calming, but at the same time heart rate increasing, which confuses her body.

It feels cruel to give him a flat no, though her instincts tell her it’s what’s needed.

Ida would tell her so. Ida would already be packed and halfway out of the door, she corrects herself.

But Jamie values talking things out, so Anna tilts her head at him and says, “That wouldn’t be very good for the environment, would it?

Flying back and forth regularly. Not sure it would look good on your profile. ”

“There’s the train.” He’s back to the jigsaw, keeping things chill.

“Ha! You’d be returning as soon as you arrived. Weekends aren’t long enough for that.”

“You’ve thought about it?” he asks, eyebrow raised. It looks like hope.

“No, not really, Jamie,” she says, trying to be gentle. “This was just supposed to be…” She closes her eyes, trying to find the words that won’t be too brutal, but sees there’s no way around this. “It was just Once-and-Done. Like I said. And it was mind-blowing, unforgettable, but it’s done.”

His hand stills and she sees the hurt in his eyes, immediately wanting to soothe it.

“I don’t mean that in a bad way. This, with you, has been a wonderful thing in what was a bit of a nightmare for me.

But look at it from my point of view; I live in London, and I don’t want to move back.

And you live here, have a great job here and a daughter who you want to be around for.

Long-distance wouldn’t be great in the long run.

It’s too hard; never having the hard discussions in case you spoil the short moments you’ve got, the missing each other in between, not being near when times are tough.

I’ve seen it.” Well, she’s seen it on TV.

Her lived experience never got to that, as Ida always left when things got tricky.

His gaze softens, and his hand resumes stroking her leg. She isn’t sure he’s aware he’s doing it. “You really can’t see yourself coming back here?”

“Really not,” she says softly. “I’ve moved on.” She pushes away the thought of her apartment and how, now he’s brought her attention to it, Danish it is. The furniture, the style, the trinkets, the single duvets on the double bed.

“The city really holds such bad memories for you?”

“They were awful times, Jamie.” She rests her head on the back of the sofa. “Some scars don’t heal, but that’s OK. They can give you the courage to change your life and move.”

The look he gives her, his wry smile, tells her he still doesn’t agree with her framing. But she doesn’t need him to.

“What is it you’re so scared of, Anna?” he asks. He’s being gentle with her now, his hand stilling, cupping her calf, and the turning of the tables makes her skin prickle.

“Scared? I’m not scared,” she says, raising her head back up. “I’m just facing the future.”

“But there could be a future here. With me.” His face is open and guileless and oh-so-handsome, but that prickling has become a bristle. Anna slides her calf out of his hand, noticing the cooling that immediately settles there. She pulls the throw over her legs, for warmth as well as defence.

It’s an offer. Honest and clear. And for many it would a good one, fantastic in fact. He’s a catch. But there is no way she can see to make this work. It’s a practical thing, it’s protecting him, it’s certainly not fear.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t see it,” is all she can say.

Jamie studies her face, then gives her a small nod with a flat smile, before pouring them both another measure, and raising the glass in toast. “To happy futures.” The separate nature of the futures isn’t lost on her.

Anna repeats it, but the words feel empty in her mouth.