Page 32 of A Copenhagen Snowmance
Ah, yes.
Anna removes the tube from her pocket, having clutched it all the way, and has a quick check around them.
“Worried about incoming funerals?”
It makes her laugh. “No. I checked this time.”
“Then why the worry?”
“I’m not sure you’re supposed to scatter pet ashes on graves.”
“I’d be surprised if there were written rules anywhere.” He most likely has a point. From some of the graves they’ve passed, it looks like people are free to decorate as they see fit. “I’m sure we can make a case for Pølse being some sort of sustainable glitter or something.”
Again, with the “we” there. Something about that…
Satisfied there’s a defence plan, Anna brushes the snow aside with her boot, near the headstone, before pulling the top off the tube and letting the ash fall on the gravel beneath. Then she pushes the snow back. It feels like she’s accomplished something, finished a job. OK, so she still hasn’t made it back to the UK, but doing right by her cat had been the objective, so.
“Going to say something?” Jamie asks.
“Oh, right. Yes.Farvel og Tak, kære Pølse,” she says solemnly. Farewell and thank you, dear Pølse. Then she can’t help but add, “You were a grumpy old thing, but we loved you and I know you loved us really.”
Something suddenly catches in the space between the back of her mouth and nose. It makes her eyes start to sting and in the shock of it, Anna doesn’t quite know what to do. Before she knows it tears have welled in her eyes and one spills over, to roll down her cheek.
“Anna?” Jamie asks from her side, but stunned at her own body, she cannot look at him or answer him. Instead, her head fills with images of herself and Mads and Vivi and Pølse in their house and memories of them together, the good times they had. How she misses them, so very much. How there are times when she simply cannot understand that they do not exist anymore, when they had had such a presence in her life. How there are times when she’ll catch a white-haired glimpse of someone and think it’s one of them, or even a cat laying on a wall in London and she’ll think of her own lazy boy. And now they lie here, in another land, slowly fading in her memories. She feels herself shudder at the concept of forgetting them completely, now she’s away from them, and at that a fully-blown sob escapes her.
It opens a dam and before she knows it she’s holding onto her sides, bent almost double, wracked with sobs, so deep and out of control they make her shake. This is all too much, being here is too much. Not the grave as such, but the city with all its memories and emotions. She’d known this was a poor decision coming, but what choice did she have?
Gradually, she becomes aware of him, as he moves behind her and, wrapping his arms around her, raises her back up from her stoop. The sobs slowly morph to weeping, but they continue as he turns her to hold her properly, tight and safe, and simply lets her cry herself out. He doesn’t say a word, or make any sounds, refusing to lull her or soothe her, knowing these are things she needs to do for herself, as he gives her the space she needs to mourn them all.
Whether they stand for minutes or hours, she has little idea, but eventually, Anna finds herself able to staunch the flow of the tears. She chooses to stay right where she is, though, tucked under his chin, wrapped in his woody-leathery scent, hidden from the world. And it seems Jamie is in no hurry to move, waiting for her to make hers first. She swears if anyone takes a photo of this, she’ll hunt them down, with a bat.
“Got a tissue?” she finally asks, her voice rather claggy from the tears and the rasping of the sobbing. Her face feels sticky and hot, and no doubt she’ll look blotchy and rough. Pulling away just a little, she sees her face has left a mess on his coat. Ah, crap. In an effort to disguise it, she wipes her hand over it, but makes it worse. The dry cleaning is definitely going to be on her.
Slowly he moves them apart, and having checked she’s steady on her feet, he delves in his backpack for a pack of tissues.
“Sorry. I should have had these ready in my pocket,” he says, his voice unexpectedly gruff. Rising, he pulls a tissue out of a packet, and after a beat where she thinks he’ll hand it to her, instead chucks her chin and gently wipes her eyes, without a word. Then he hands it to her and with a small thank you, Anna blows her nose, which, of course, is as loud as a clown horn. Doesn’t matter, though; it’s not as if she has any dignity left anyway.
“What’s in there?” she asks, pointing at the bag, seeking some distraction. She doesn’t look at him, though, fearing that seeing any pity will set her off again.
“I brought a libation,” he says simply. “I don’t know if you want to?—”
“Yes.” She needs something else to focus on, while she pulls it together.
Jamie pulls out two plastic cups then a can of Tuborg Julebryg, the Christmas beer.
She holds the cups as he pours, and hands him his. “Pølse,” Jamie says, sounding duly morose, “I never knew you, much to my loss I’m sure, but I wish you well in your onward journey.” Anna emits a sniff, but has control now.
Jamie pours some of the beer onto the grave. It makes her smile. A small smile, but a welcome one.
“Godspeed, Pølse,” she says, and does the same, feeling joyously ridiculous. Then she turns to him, to clink their plastics, toasting the grumpy cat, and they drink. She can’t help smiling at him, a sad, watery smile.
“Better?” he asks gently.
And she nods, because as much as she feels exhausted and fragile, she also feels like this was cathartic. It was so unexpected. Would this have also happened, she wonders, if she hadn’t been interrupted the other day? Would she have broken here, alone in the snowstorm? What she does know, with absolute certainty, is that she’s glad Jamie was here to hold her up.
ChapterFourteen
Jamie has further plans to stay out. Much as she’s inclined to go home, curl up and sleep as one does after a big cry, the house suddenly feels too raw a place to be. She’ll be seeing Pølse’s beloved sunspots and imagining Vivi and Mads’ voices telling him what a lovely creature he is, to his purring agreement. Plus, she’s feeling too fragile to protest. There’s an element of self-preservation in simply letting Jamie make the decisions today. It leaves her free to focus on herself a little, and bring herself back from her graveside breakdown. A weight’s definitely been lifted from her there though, or else it’s the rest of the 5.6 per cent beer that they’ve finished off as they walked through Holmens.
