Page 27 of A Copenhagen Snowmance
ChapterTwelve
Eckersbergsgade, right in the middle of Kartoffelrækkerne, 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 Sø, the jet-black lake currently reflecting the lights of Østerbro 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 herex, to park in the front yard, and then extends his handto 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.”
“Fuckigen,” 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.
