Page 53 of A Copenhagen Snowmance
Ida has clearly had enough of this line of enquiry and turns the conversation to tell Anna about the comings and goings at the commune, which further supports Anna’s feeling that Ida will be moving on again soon. It’s like the wind changing at the beginning ofMary Poppins; change is afoot. Anna can feel it in her bones now, having grown up with it.
Eventually the conversation has run its course. They wish each otherGlædelig Jul, as Ida will be incommunicado on the day, and hang up.
It takes Anna a while to look away from the phone in her hand, the chill being the thing to prompt her on her way. And as she walks, she is heartened to think that while it would be sad for Jamie if Lajla doesn’t let him into their lives, Nikoline doesn’t have to have a dad in her life, if she has others around her that love her. Perhaps that’s what she needs to get across to Jamie, because as far as she can see, this really is out of his hands.
* * *
She could probably walk the route between her house and Maiken’s apartment on the other side of Sortedams Sø, with her eyes shut, or cycle it, rather, which would be more hazardous given traffic, but still. Easy-peasy. The two of them lived in each other’s pockets through their final school years. After a couple of years in casual jobs, they’d both gone to Aarhus University, and journalist college after that, which meant sharing a tiny flat in Denmark’s second city.
Returning to Copenhagen, they shared another tiny apartment, until Maiken met Christoffer, whom she thought was The One, but turned out to be less, and Anna inherited Mads and Vivi’s house.
The Østerbro apartment lies to the eastern end of the lake, in a pretty block, with a turret to its front. Maiken’s apartment incorporates the turret, giving her a circular space to have her tiny dining table, as well as an exquisite view of the water and the city rooftops.
Right now, Anna is skulking behind a snow-covered van, in front of the wood-and-glass double doors, decorated with Christmassy glass stickers, to the front of the building. She’s beginning to think coming during the early hours would have been the smarter plan. If she could walk here with her eyes closed, then the darkness would be the same. But the locket has been burning a hole in her pocket, and she wants it gone. Her plan is sketchy at best; get into the building using the key code Maiken never changed, drop the locket in Maiken’s letterbox in the entrance hall, and then get the hell out of there. Yes, given her known presence in the city, it would be obvious Anna was the one who had dropped it back, or else a minor miracle that the locket should make its own way back to its owner’s letterbox in a city of letterboxes, but having wracked her– and Jamie’s– brain, she can’t think of an anonymous way to do it. She doesn’t think the police would be amused by her handing it in with detailed instructions of its owner’s name and address. That had been Jamie’s idea, and she pointed out it would be more likely to get her arrested on suspected burglary. She also said she hoped he was a better ideas man at work. Because that was half-arsed.
She glances up at the turret room. The lights aren’t on. Good. Maiken might be at her mother’s for the Christmas days. Her mother had moved up to a lovely modern summerhouse in Dronningmølle some years ago, a stone’s throw from the beach. Anna and Maiken had spent plenty of weekends up there, swimming and picnicking at the beach, and partying with friends. Just a short trip by train, it was a welcome respite from the bustle and summer heat of the city.
An ache in her stomach hits as she feels a sudden yearning for those days. The relaxed nature of their friendship, the fun they’d had and how they’d understood each other– or so she’d thought. They’d just seemed to flow together at the same rhythm. Carl had joked early on that being with Anna meant accepting Maiken was part of the deal. How they’d laughed at that! Now, it leaves a bad taste in Anna’s mouth, given he’d apparently meant it.Throupledrifts across her mind and she crossly bats it away. Bloody Morten.
She will never understand how Maiken could have done it to her. The absolute betrayal, not just to pick up with a man she knew was living with someone else, but also not being hindered by that someone being her best friend. Hurting Anna had not stopped her. Either of them in fact. But the hurt felt more coming from Maiken. Carl’s betrayal was like her heart had been smashed, but Maiken’s was thatplusa stab to the lungs, which made her breathing painful to boot. She didn’t know if she’d ever breathe properly again. She certainly can’t imagine sitting in a turret room, finishing another bottle of wine, laughing in the wee hours, looking out over the city’s lights, before eventually keeling over next to each other on the double bed, to share hangovers the following morning, with a friend like that again. Now she’ll always be guarded around female friends.
As a child she’d been fast to make friends each time Ida moved them on, but constantly saying goodbye– or not even, in a couple of cases– meant she’d come to believe there was little point investing in the friendships. It only made it harder when she left. A couple of times emails had been exchanged, and chat groups established afterwards, but they all waned in time as everyone moved into new phases of schooling and the points of reference were lost. Moving in with Vivi and Mads had given her the chance to make friends she could invest in, nurture and manage for herself. She’d sat next to Maiken on the first day and it was almost as if the “click” could be heard across the babble of the classroom. Simple as that.
Anna drags her eyes away from the turret and its Juliet balcony. They’d loved opening that in the summer, to let in the breeze. (Loved as inhad to, as the apartment was stiflingly hot.) Nostalgia isn’t of any use to her now. She just needs to do the thing and get out, before anyone sees her. Especially not Maiken. Nor Carl, if he’s visiting.
Checking the street, she speedwalks across to the door and is about to press the code pad when she realises it isn’t there. No punch-key numbers at all. Just a square, which she recognises from her building in London, one which requires a fob pressed against it. A fob she does not have. There are individual doorbells to press, but there’s no way that’s happening. Anna considers pressing someone else’s bell and trying to bluff her way in, but discards the thought, knowing there are many elderly residents who would be spooked by it being a “scammer”. Also, she’s used to people doing this to her in London and it’s bloody annoying.
Digging her hands into her pockets in frustration, her fingers wrap around the locket. She’s cleaned it a bit, well, sort of just brushed it off. She may or may not have used spit, too. But no more than that. She certainly wasn’t going to polish it. That might be construed as an apology of sorts, and she isn’t offering one. No way.
As she ponders what to do, the door suddenly opens from behind her and Anna almost shits herself at the immediate expectation of it being Maiken. It turns out to be a young mother and her buggy, its snowsuited, duvet-covered occupant screaming blue murder as the mother negotiates the vehicle out of the door.
“Here, let me help,” Anna says, reaching out to hold the door open. The harried mother thanks her, drops the wheels onto the cobbles outside and is on her way. She doesn’t stop to see the door closed safely behind her, nor whether the helpful stranger slides inside, like they do in the movies, and as Anna now does.
A row of letterboxes is mounted on one wall of the entrance hall. Anna’s dastardly grin covers her entire face. One flip of a letter flap and she’ll be divested of her painful cargo and Maiken can make what she wants of it. Not Anna’s problem.
The locket is already in her hand and she’s just about to pop it into Maiken’s letterbox when her eyes skirt across the name on it.Anne-Sofie og Frederik Axelsen.Not Maiken Holm-Olsen. She checks again, in case she hasn’t been looking at the “4th-floor flat to the left” letterbox, but the numbers are right. Panicking, she scans the others around it, but no, there’s no mention of Maiken at all.
She doesn’t live there anymore.
Another couple is enjoying the turret view, and the summer evenings with the bottle of wine and the view of the city. It makes Anna sad all over again, which is ridiculous, as it wouldn’t have included her anyway.
The sound of the ancient elevator being activated from one of the floors above shifts her into action. She beelines for the door, not wanting to get caught, or questioned as to why she’s staring at the letterboxes like a deranged person. Reaching the slushy street, she can only think of two things; that Maiken has moved on with her life in more ways than just with Carl, and that Anna still has the bloody locket, with even less of a clue how to get rid of the f’ing thing.
ChapterTwenty-Four
Anna eyes the Christiania bike in her yard from the window. The cover across the box on the front is layered with snow, and there are ice crystals across the handlebars. Against the snowy cobbles, it is rather Instagram-worthy. She has her Christmas-lunch date with Katrine and the rest of the team in just over an hour, and as the sky is cloudless, she’s feeling the pull of the cycle lanes.
She hears Jamie come into the room and just as she’s about to ask him if he’d consider lending it to her, she realises he’s on a call, earbuds in. It doesn’t take her long torealise it’s his dad again. As Jamie said, they seem to be going around in circles on his moving back to Skye. Or not moving back, as Jamie is steadfastly telling him.
Anna sees the problem. His father must be bewildered that his son is turning down the gift of a generational livelihood and land, but having known Jamie for only a short while, he’s clearly his own man who chooses his own path, has his own interests and is good at what he does. And of course there are the other ties to Copenhagen…
“Have you told him about Nikoline?” she asks, when he hangs up. “Perhaps that would help. He wants his son with him, but knowing you want to be with your daughter is something he would understand.”
Jamie grimaces and scratches his cheek. “I can’t tell him about that. It’s all a mess, from start to finish. I doubt sperm-fishing is a thing on Skye.” He gives her a small smile now, making light of it, and she sees the subject is closed.
“I’m off out,” he says. “Need anything from the outside world?” She dwells on the hunter-gatherer vibe for a second, but shakes her head.
“Going on your bike?” she asks as if it’s a standard question, not a loaded one, which she will leap on if the answer is no.
