Page 9 of A Copenhagen Snowmance

Chapter Six

“God morgen,” Jamie says as she walks gingerly into her-but-not kitchen. His pronunciation is good and sounds exactly like the “G’morn” she returns.

“Is it still morning?” She’s slept like the dead and straight through, which hasn’t happened in a long, long while.

He looks at his watch. “Just.” He’s dressed in jeans and a black Henley, and working at the table. He doesn’t hide his papers away, which she takes as an advancement between them.

“Are you going into work today?” she asks.

He just points to the window. Anna doesn’t really need to look.

She understands the different light that comes with snow; part of the Nordic upbringing.

Although Anna spent much of her childhood in warmer climes, she learned about snow when visiting her grandparents and loved its arrival every year when she’d come to live with them.

Before she left, she was delighted by most aspects of the Danish winter; the crisp cold, the long nights, which encourage being at home and hygge, the ice-skating, the snowmen, the sheer prettiness of it all.

And from a distance she had thought about it in a nostalgic way or with pride when London came to a halt at a mere dusting.

Today, however, Anna has deliberately not looked out of her window, because denial is her friend right now.

“Snow day?” Danes are not put off by snow, so it must be quite extreme out there. Once snow has stopped, pavements need, by law, to be cleared by the homeowners or shopkeepers by eight a.m., allowing the city to keep functioning and safely.

“Should stop this afternoon. They’re saying to only venture out if necessary.”

“I need to call the airline.”

“According to the internet, the airport’s closed until they can clear the runways.”

Anna wishes he hadn’t said it out loud. And she’s not sure what it means that he’s checked. Is he being kind, or checking how soon she’ll leave?

“I’ll just give them a quick ring, see what they’re saying.”

He shrugs, seemingly unbothered by her not taking his word for it, and points at the coffee percolator. She’d almost glided down the stairs to the scent of the brew.

“Ja, tak.”

“Sleep?” he asks as she pours herself a cup. Hmm. He seems a little more amenable today. Perhaps he was knackered from travelling.

“Perfectly. Exhaustedly.” She’s not sure that’s a word, but he doesn’t pick her up on it.

She’d thought she’d lie awake for hours, churning over the strangeness of being back in her old home, in her old city, next to a room in which a man she doesn’t know was sleeping – a man who could be a serial killer, but claims he isn’t, and she hasn’t told anyone where she is.

And yet instead she’d been out like a light, only waking to the squeak of the third step and a whispered “Fuck”, which made her smile.

She offers him a refill.

“Other than harassing the airlines, got any plans?” he asks, lifting his mug to accept. She takes a sip of her own before she answers, relishing the taste.

“I could sort through some of the boxes and turf a load of the stuff out, and then I’ll try to combine the storage, so perhaps you could have the room back.”

His brow contracts.

“What?” she asks.

“Will you increase the rent?”

“What? No.”

“I can only afford a place like this because it has a mysterious padlocked room in it,” he says, his wariness of her returning. “A three-bed is out of my price range, and I don’t really need it, so…”

“I’m not going to up the rent, Jamie. I mean, if you ever leave and I rent to someone else, I might, but I’m not doing that for you. That’d be quite unfair, don’t you think?” She’ll also be forever grateful that he let her in.

Jamie’s expression changes to embarrassment. Not something she’s thought possible. Yesterday he’d come across as mainly bolshy. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to imply you were like that. You just don’t know with some people, and I don’t always get it right.”

“What, reading people?”

He studies her for a long beat, then nods. Anna feels Jamie is showing something of himself here, something quite raw in him and she’s touched he feels he can.

“Easily done,” she says, lightly. “Sometimes you think you have the measure of people, you trust them, give them all of you, and then they stab you in the back instead, ripping out your heart and tearing it into pieces in front of you.”

“Oh,” says Jamie, eyes widening. “Not quite my experience, but fair enough. It’s disconcerting, isn’t it?”

“It makes you question everything,” she agrees, quietly.

She hasn’t really spoken about it. She hasn’t wanted to tell anyone in London.

All they know is she’s a travel writer. “You start wondering whether you read it wrong or assumed too much, and how much is too much and how low a bar should you expect? We generally assume relationships – whether friends or lovers – are reciprocal in value, until something happens, and you realise that the balance in your head was wrong. It’s a bit soul destroying, to be honest.”

Anna stares into her mug, losing herself in the depth of the midnight-black liquid.

“Bad break-up?”

“The worst.” She hopes he won’t ask more and she gets her wish. Ridiculously, she feels ever so slightly put out, but then he’s perfectly within his rights to keep things aloof. And besides, she doesn’t want to bring bad juju into the space by spilling her guts about Carl.

“Look, I have some work to do. Why don’t you work on the room. Then this afternoon we can go for groceries. It’ll be good to get out.” The thought of them shopping together sounds bizarre to her, but he probably doesn’t want to leave her alone in his home.

“I don’t know if I’ll be here this afternoon, Jamie,” Anna says. “The flight?”

He gives her a tilted look, like, really?

She refuses to accept she might not be heading back by this evening, but an eye-flick to the window doesn’t bolster her hopes.

However, she knows an olive branch when she sees one.

He might be a grump, but he’s willing to spend time with her.

“I do appreciate the offer, though. If I’m still here, then yes, let’s find something to do.

” She means indoors, because she has no intention of being out and about in the city doing recreational things.

No sirree. There’s a perfectly good, unfinished jigsaw upstairs and a television.

While none of this has been part of her plan, she’s going to be staunch with her “no engaging with the city” strategy.

She doesn’t want to see it or risk seeing people she knows.

The chances are too high, even in weather like this.

As the opening to her Romancity: Copenhagen guide details, Copenhagen is a small capital city, perfect for a city break, crossable on foot and explorable in a long weekend.

But more to the point, there’s only just over six-hundred-thousand inhabitants, which makes it nearly impossible not to see people you at least recognise.

(And yet possible, as it turns out, for your partner to conduct an affair for a year with your best friend, without you stumbling across them, or on the two occasions that you do, it’s totally plausible that they’ve just bumped into each other, as they claim.

That part isn’t detailed in the guide, but fact nonetheless.)

Jamie nods and dips his head back to his paperwork.

Anna decides the first thing she’ll do is ready her bag in case the airline says to come straight away.

That could happen, right? They might want planes locked and loaded for the minute the snow stops, and the runways are cleared.

Once the bag is packed, she’ll call the airline and check others on the internet, if need be, before trying to make more headway with the room.

The idea of being gone again prompts a thought.

“I forgot to ask last night, how long are you in Denmark for?”

“Worried about the tenancy?” he asks, writing something in a moleskin notebook.

She rolls her eyes at him and his table-turning. “No. I mean it’s none of my business, but I think we have a three-year contract, no? I just wondered whether you’re here for a longer working period.”

“Actually, I’m here for the foreseeable. I like it here; I intend to stay.”

She waits and he takes the hint. “My work excites me, Denmark’s stance regarding that work lifts me, the working conditions are great. Your taxes are something to stomach, but I see the pay-off. It’s nice to go back to Scotland when I have to, but I like coming back here more.”

His speech sounds genuine to Anna, but she feels there’s something not being said. Well, she’s not elaborated on her heartbreak, so it’s fair if he doesn’t want to tell her. They clearly aren’t in a trading-personal-secrets kind of place. It’s unlikely they ever will be.

With a nod of understanding Anna stands, picking up her mug to refill and take with her. She’s going to need all the reinforcement she can get to face the cull upstairs.

“Send a search party if you hear boxes toppling, or I haven’t resurfaced by the time you finish. I’ll try to keep the noise down.”

“No worries about the noise,” he says, but doesn’t look up. She’s rooted to the spot for a moment, watching him, the glow of the wax advent candle on the table in front of his work casting a golden light across his concentrating face. Finally, she turns on her heel for the stairs.

* * *

Sometimes Anna doesn’t want honesty. She realises that now.

When speaking to the airline, she actually just wants them to say, very convincingly, that it’s all in hand, that we have a plan to get you home, Ms Lundholm, don’t worry.

Instead, they’re honest, damn them, and freely admit they have no idea when the airport will be functioning again and that there is, in fact, no plan for Ms Lundholm.

And of course, it’s Christmas, so everything is already sold out before and after for days and days.

Would she like them to put her on a waiting list… ?