Page 51 of A Copenhagen Snowmance
Holding Jamie’s “smitten” gaze– so good and swoony, she really does have to give him props for his skills– for a long moment, she turns back to Morten as if she’s just remembered he’s there.
“Vi ses,” she says and pulls Jamie away, as if they have only seconds left to get home and into bed. She doesn’t say she’s pleased to have seen him or send her love to the family, because of course, she wouldn’t mean a word of it.
Reaching the end of the street though, still under Jamie’s “for show” arm and having checked Morten is long gone, the reality of it hits her. Not so much that this is all fake and that she hasn’t in fact moved on, but that the gossip she’d been worried about was true, the humiliation she’d felt was justified. In fact, it’s been worse than she thought, and she’s thought plenty of wild things. Anna feels her eyes begin to sting, and pulls in a sniff, but it’s too late. A tear has started its slow descent down her cheek, echoing the lowering of her mood. She swipes the tear way with her palm, but there’s already another in its place.
“Hey,” Jamie says, stopping them. “Anna?”
“I’m fine. It’s fine. Just the cold wind in my eyes,” she tries. The air is still this evening.
He doesn’t argue, though. He simply pulls her into him, like he did in the cemetery, and wraps his arms around her, holding tight. She isn’t sobbing this time, more weepy, but she feels silly for crying so much around him. He doesn’t seem to mind, though, as he sways them slightly back and forth and says, “He was a dick, Anna. I don’t even know him and I can see that. Don’t let him get to you.”
Easier said than done, she thinks, but nods into Jamie’s chest. The smell of him comforts her. Right here, right now, she feels safe and grounded. She hasn’t felt that in a long time.
“OK?” he asks after a while.
With an admittedly unattractive sniff, she pulls back and gives him a flat smile in agreement.
“Good,” says Jamie, cradling her face, and wiping the tear traces with his thumbs. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to tell me every embarrassing thing Morten has ever done in your presence, all the way home. We will annihilate him and then I’m going to make us hot chocolate.” That sounds quite good, she thinks, keen now to crawl into her bed and sleep.
It’s amazing how he knows what she needs right now, Anna notes as he leads her arm in arm down the street, which just makes it sadder that they’ve met in the wrong place at the wrong time and their planets simply can’t align.
ChapterTwenty-Three
The ringing is coming from deep inside her coat pocket, and against the hum of the traffic, it takes Anna a while to realise it’s happening. She’s spent the last hour in the Hirschsprung Collection, her favourite art museum, trying to distract herself. Much as she’d dished every morsel of dirt she had on Morten the night before, the run-inis still churning in her gut. In her mind it validates every notion she has to leave the city, having confirmed the humiliating gossiping her friends and acquaintances have been up to. Not to mention the wordthroupleis still ringing in her ears. But the museum, a collection of Danish Golden Age artworks on Stockholmsgade, has always been to Anna a place of calm and beauty. Her mother’s face appears on the screen. Ida may have been a beauty in her time, but she has never been calm.
“Hej, Mor,” she says, sounding lightly surprised. Ida doesn’t call her often. Aside from her work as a graphic designershe’s always so busy with local events and festivals. For a woman who never stays long in places, Ida is by no means a hermit. She does not keep herself to herself. On all sorts of levels.
“How’s London?” she asks. Anna hasn’t kept her abreast of the situation. Her trip was supposed to be so fleeting, Anna had deemed it inconsequential to her mother. She’s very inclined to lie, but given recent events, she’s feeling averse to lying in all its forms, even in keeping her mother’s incoming opinions at bay.
“I’m in Copenhagen, actually. Snowed in. Can’t get a ticket out yet.”
“What?!” Ida’s surprise is vastly over-dramatic, but that’s Ida for you. “You just can’t stay away!” It feels like a criticism.
“I haven’t been back for a year and half,” Anna says, annoyed that she’s sounding surly. “And it was just a short admin trip.” She decides not to mention Pølse. Her mother would think her too sentimental. Sentimentality is a poison in Ida’s book. Along with Nostalgia and Regret. She believes only in looking forward, she’s proud to say. And mainly in Pleasing Oneself, Anna might also add, but only in her head. Ida would absolutely insist she’s done a fine job of raising an independent daughter with a broad outlook and strong wanderlust. Ida has never accepted any complaints about her parenting. Anna knows to steer clear there, as she’s never even made a dent in Ida’s resolve on that. Self-reflection isn’t one of Ida’s things, either.
“How’s the house?” There’s no snark, per se, but Anna knows Ida was hurt the house wasn’t left to her. But what they all know, particularly Anna’s grandparents, is she would have sold the house immediately.
“It’s good,” Anna says lightly, not wanting to dredge it up. “The tenant is letting me stay, while I’m stuck.”
“Interesting,” her mother says.
“Stop it.”
“What?” Her mother is poor at feigning anything. You can add Subtlety to the list of Ida’s non-attributes. She lauds this proudly as being “an open book”, but Anna thinks she simply has no filters.
“What’s he like?”
“What makes you think it’s a man?” She tries a laughing scoff, but it comes out more like a guilty cough.
“You would already have said. Rather than saying ‘Stop it.’ I know you, Anna and I’m not an idiot, much as you may think so.”
Anna sighs. She won’t win. She knows she won’t. “He’s a Scot. Something big in city sustainability. Nice. Kind, obviously, having let a stranger stay.”
“In her own house,” Ida points out, like it should be a given.
“Which he’s renting and has a contract saying I can’t just turn up at.” Ida doesn’t always entertain legalities, but enough said about that.
Anna wants to ask her why she’s calling, but figures it rude. Luckily, for once some mother–daughter telepathy kicks in.
