Page 7 of A Copenhagen Snowmance

Chapter Five

As the door stops at halfway open, most of the drama is lost. Anna figures something might have slipped or shifted when she’d closed the door, but edging her way in, she sees she’d rammed so much into the room, things stacked on other things, others wedged into tiny spaces, like some psychotic Tetris, that she must have contorted herself back out those eighteen months ago.

It’s a minor miracle there hasn’t been a landslide at some point, and that she could get in the door at all.

In stark contrast to the nook they’ve just passed, it is the exact opposite of hyggeligt.

There’s very little space in which to move within the room, and she imagines unpacking it will be a game of strategy.

A light whistle comes from behind her, where Jamie’s peering round the doorjamb, his hand gripping its edge.

“Wow,” he says.

“Don’t judge.”

“There’s more furniture in here than in the entire rest of the house.” Oh, so now he wants to talk…

“Once more for the cheap seats, no judging.”

But he isn’t letting up, his eyes scanning the spectacle of the room. “I mean, I thought Scandies inherently had this sleek minimalism thing going on, but now I see they’re as much hoarders as the rest of us. You just hid yours.”

Following his gaze, her shoulders sag as she accepts the judgement.

Somewhere in this small room, her teen room which she’d made into a dressing room when she’d moved into the main bedroom, there’s a wall of wardrobes, a bed, another sofa, a bookcase full of novels.

They’re camouflaged by boxes of more books, her research files, her writing files with old drafts, her university notes and all the extra furniture she couldn’t part with, but knew had no place in a rented home.

“Sometimes, when you’re in a rush, your choices aren’t too smart,” Anna tries.

She pushes a box aside, nearly bringing a chair down on her head, allowing the door to move enough so he can scrape himself in.

“Is there a bed under there?” he asks, bending at the waist to try to see through things to what might be supporting it all.

“Yep,” she says with dismay, looking towards where the window is but can’t really be seen. It’s dark out there and she suddenly feels bone-tired.

His sigh is reminiscent of the one he gave her when deciding to let her in. “You can sleep in the guest bedroom.”

She gapes at him.

“You think I’m the kind of guy who shoves a person out into a snowstorm? Nice.” He rubs an eye, weary. “See this light beard? It says I’m kind and decent.” Jamie looks at her, deadpan, then gives a single slow bat of his eyelashes. She doesn’t know if he is taking the piss.

“I could google ‘serial killers with beards’ and have a list in five seconds.” She holds his gaze, her attention snared by those lashes. Long, soot-black and deeply unfair. And the eyes they frame? Steely blue. With his dark brown hair, the contrast is striking.

He isn’t budging. “Look at these walls. Completely impractical for blood spatter. No serial killer would rent a house with so many white walls. The Scandi aesthetic is completely wrong for that. So, not guilty.” He looks away from her now. “Use the guest room while you get sorted.”

Anna is speechless, because the simplicity of his offer is close to making her weepy. Gahd, it’s been an exhausting day.

It seems now he’s decided she can stay, he’s willing to talk more, but she wouldn’t class it as relaxed.

“Remind me what it is you’re hoping to do in here?

” he asks. He can obviously see she’s having a little wobble and is polite enough not to make a deal of it – or simply doesn’t want her full-on sobbing again.

She points vaguely at the far corner.

“There’s some warmer clothes in there, or just, you know, dry clothes.”

“Good luck with that,” he murmurs.

Anna looks about, slightly overwhelmed by the task. She hadn’t remembered it like this at all. In her memory, she’d been far more systematic and smart with her packing. Just being back among her things is making her emotional, too.

“Look, move some of the boxes into the hall,” he says, seeing her at a loss. “That’ll be the start you need.”

Jamie grabs her mug and heads downstairs, and she finds herself wondering whether he is just stunned by the madness that’s been hiding in his home for so long, or whether he’s being tactful and allowing her a few minutes to get her head around her former life.

Because it might take more than a few minutes, to be honest, both physically and mentally.

Pulling herself together, she stacks the nearest boxes in the hall.

And then some more, freeing up more floor space inside the room.

By the time he reappears, fanfared by the squeak of the step, and with two more steaming mugs of what turns out to be a winter-blend tea, Anna’s calm enough to say, “That took you a bit. Were you having a little cry because it wasn’t a sex room in here? ”

* * *

An hour later she’s made excellent headway.

Anna has to admit, Jamie’s strength has been a boon; he’d quietly moved all the boxes to one wall and the space is no longer a Health and Safety avalanche waiting to happen.

There’s a clear path to her wardrobes and a thin space to move along them all, but the bed is still piled with things, so it’ll definitely be the guest room for her tonight.

But best of all, which actually made her whoop, is that she’s changed into dry clothes.

“OK, so it doesn’t really match,” she excuses, as she walks back from the bathroom, “but it is dry, so hurrah!”

Jamie scoffs from his slouched position on the snug’s sofa. “The standard black/grey/white/beige palette of a Copenhagener’s wardrobe means, to a normal person’s eye, everything matches.”

Anna thinks about this for all of five seconds. “I don’t think that’s true. But you’re a man, blessed with a world of clothes which miraculously all go together, or you all live in a culture that doesn’t really care.”

Still, her clothes are warm, she’s not going out and so she chooses not to care either about her mismatching. She doesn’t mention that her bra and knickers, as well as being wildly mismatched, are from an aged selection with now questionable elastic robustness. But at least they too are dry.

Looking at the wardrobes, she wonders what she’d planned to do with the clothes.

Was she intending to come back? No. She’d known that much eighteen months ago.

But she hadn’t had time to sort or sell it all and in the end it became too much, and in her teary haze and manic flurry, she’d simply slid the doors shut and parked the whole problem.

But (hurraaaah again!) her arctic coat is there and her Nordic winter boots, which just goes to show the state she was in when she left, stuffing mainly summer clothes in her case, as that was the current season.

Her weather-prepping skills had clearly gone out of the window with the shock.

Jamie has pulled himself up to upright sitting, his focus on the jigsaw pieces on the coffee table.

He’s been lightly scanning it, which Anna feels he might have been doing to give her space.

Now his hand suddenly swoops on a piece and equally swiftly has it up and clicked into place.

Anna drifts towards the table and considers the pieces.

He’s already long into it, a vista of the colourful quayside at Nyhavn.

“Where’s the box lid?” she asks. She can see it’s Nyhavn, because it’s iconic and she’s a native, but she’d still like the cover picture to work from.

Jamie tuts at her. “We don’t cheat here. No pictures allowed.”

“That makes it double as hard.”

“Double the achievement,” he says, glancing up at her, through his fringe.

“Crazy,” she says, but picks up a piece, the apex of a roof she’d recognise anywhere, and fits it.

“Tak,” he says in thanks. He obviously doesn’t mind sharing. But then he stands, picks up their empty mugs and walks to the stairs.

“Take your time, do more of the puzzle if you like. I’ll make us some dinner.”

“You don’t have to do that,” she starts, but he cuts her off.

“Don’t get too excited, I haven’t got much in. It might be fridge tapas. I’ll see what I can forage.” His manner is still frosty, but she senses he’s lowering his guard now, fractionally, given her story has proven true.

Anna watches as Jamie’s head disappears from sight.

Uncomfortable as this is, she’s been lucky; he could have been out.

He could have slammed the door in her face.

He could have been creepy. But he wasn’t and he didn’t, and he absolutely isn’t.

Frosty, yes, creepy, no. And like the light beard says, he has been kind.

And she thanks her lucky stars for that.

* * *

Feeling she should give him some space in his own home, Anna kicks around upstairs for a little while, then, when she feels she can’t hide any longer, joins him in the kitchen, to sit on a barstool overlooking his prepping.

He has a glass of Merlot on the go, and he pours her one, too. It’s good and she’s glad for it.

Assessing the materials he’s working with, she hazards a guess. “Biksemad?”

“It’s leftovers, I know, but I had the potatoes, onions and meat from yesterday, and I can make it stretch for two.”

Anna lifts her hand to still him. “I love biksemad. Especially with a fried egg on top, if you have one? But to be honest I’m grateful for anything you make me.”

He slides an egg box into view. “Runny yolk or nah?”

“Runny. Always,” she says, and can tell he’s the same.

He picks up his glass, and for a second she thinks he’ll clink with her, but, on reflection he simply says “Sk?l,” and moves to the hob.