Page 64 of A Copenhagen Snowmance
“Definitely not. We need best behaviour for this.”
“Are we meeting royalty?”
“Close. Next best thing.”
He looks properly confused and it delights her. Turns out doing secret things is pleasing. Edit that: doingnicesecret things is pleasing. Carl’s and Maiken’s secret thing had not been pleasing. Not to Anna. She bats that thought out of her head, not wanting those memories to spoil her afternoon.
After much stifled groaning and less stifled panting, Anna pulls into a park, and then on to a play area.
“I might be a bit big for the swings,” he says, with a laugh, but it stills in his throat as his eyes come to rest on a little girl jumping on a sunken trampette, and the woman behind her on the bench.
“Shit.”
“Don’t panic,” Anna urges. “She knows we’re coming. She agreed to be here. I’ll play with Nikoline and you two can try to talk.”
He looks at her, and she sees worry in his eyes.
“Play it cool, Jamie. Just be you. You’ve got this.” Keeping it a surprise was the right way to go.
“Nothing to lose, I suppose.”
Anna cups his face with her gloved hands, telling herself it’s for Lajla’s benefit. “Exactly.” Purportedly their entwined hands are also “fake mode”, as they walk across to where Lajla is sitting, her own hands clenched between her legs. She’s as nervous as he is.
* * *
Anna takes the lead and crouches to introduce herself to Nikoline. The little girl is shy at first, but when Anna offers to push her on the swings, and Lajla gives her the nod, she’s on board. Once placed within the swing seat frame, Anna deliberately swings Nikoline face-on. In her head she tells herself it’s a safety thing, or even familiarising Nikoline with her face, but both are lies. Really, she’s watching for all the little signs that she’s Jamie’s kid. Her smile is his, the way she pulls her brows together is his and her pout is definitely his. This must be weird for Lajla to see, day in day out. The wisps of fringe that peek out from the little girl’s balaclava are light brown now, but Anna would bet they’ll be more Jamie’s colour by Nikoline’s teens.
The toddler is charming. She’s quick to laugh and not particularly shy around Anna, but then she supposes Nikoline has a dedicated servant here now, pushing the swing faster at her command, so what’s not to like?
The downside about this positioning is that she can’t watch Jamie and Lajla. She can hear the murmurs of their talking, but nothing distinct, which is frustrating of course. In the meantime, she takes a lack of shouting as a good sign. After a while she convinces Nikoline to try the wobbly horse, a wooden seat on a big spring, where Nikoline can hold onto the horse’s head and wobble forwards and backwards, side to side. Once she’s settled on that, Anna sits on its neighbour and wobbles herself, much to Nikoline’s amusement, mainly to get a view of the couple on the bench. Couple. The thought of it makes something in Anna’s stomach twist. If these peace talks are successful, then perhaps Lajla might let Jamie play a role in Nikoline’s life, and maybe they might take it further. Anna looks harder at them. Lajla has her arms crossed over her chest, but to be honest that might just be down to the cold. It’s minus-five out here, and she’s been sitting still for a while. Jamie on the other hand is sitting safely apart from her but turned to face her. His hands are in his pockets, his posture open towards her. It’s a very peaceful, non-threatening pose, absolutely the right way to come at this, Anna thinks.
Nikoline tires of the horse quickly, dragging them over to the parallel trampettes she was on when they arrived. This requires minimum effort from Anna as she bounces up and down next to her new buddy and can assess how it’s going over on the bench. Lajla is looking more relaxed, Jamie is upholding his same stance. His nose is redder, as are his ears, and Anna thinks he’ll be regretting not wearing his hat with earflaps. Amateur. She’s properly wrapped up with her hat and her thick scarf wound multiple times around her neck, as is Lajla. The woman isn’t looking as pained as when they arrived. Her eyes still skitter back and forth to Nikoline, but not as much. Anna wants to punch the air as Lajla pulls out her phone and types in something Jamie’s telling her. His number. Or his address. Either would make sense. Either would be an enormous step forward.
Nikoline has had enough of playing with the unknown lady and scuttles back to her mother. Lajla scoops her up onto her knee and wraps her arms possessively around her. Fair enough. Jamie doesn’t move an inch. It must be taking every ounce of his resolve not to hold a hand out to touch his daughter. Anna doesn’t quite know what to do with herself. Join them or wait by the bike, but the latter might bring their discussion to a premature end. So, in her befuddlement she ends up bouncing on the trampette far longer than is normal and it takes Jamie looking to find her, and then to cock his head at her like she’s being weird, for her to step off it, which she does with such momentum, she stumbles her dismount. Her face is scarlet as she joins him on the end of the bench.
Lajla whispers something to Nikoline, who looks up at Jamie.
“Hej,” she says to him.
“Hej, med dig,” he says back. Hi, you. His first proper words to his child. It makes Anna’s eyes sting a bit. His hands are still in his pockets, and she’d bet it’s that or sitting on them. Instinctively, she tucks her hand into his elbow, to let him know she’s there with him, but it dawns on her it might look possessive. From her end of the bench behind him, she sees the three of them together. Like they could be a family. It makes her bite her lip and slowly, trying not to make anything of it, she withdraws the hand again.
Lajla tells Nikoline it’s time to go home and Nikoline suddenly looks like she’s about to kick off. Lajla must be used to it, as she fishes a box of raisins out of her pocket and negotiates that Nikoline can have them when she’s in the bike seat. The toddler races for the bike. She doesn’t hear Jamie call, “Bye Nikoline!” but then she’s two and raisins are infinitely more interesting than adults. Lajla stands and looks pensively at Jamie, who looks up at her with as plain a face as Anna’s ever seen on him. There’s no pressure being applied here.
“I’ll think about it,” she says.
“That’s all I’m asking,” he replies quietly. His body is tense. Nothing like the lithe and limber Jamie Anna’s experienced in the last twenty-four hours. She thought this was a good thing to arrange, but perhaps she was wrong.
“God Jul,” Lajla says and turns towards her bike. There is no “vi ses” because she isn’t promising anything about seeing each other again.
As she walks away, Jamie slowly exhales, and his body deflates with it.
They silently watch Lajla load Nikoline into the bike seat and strap her in, after which the raisins are duly given to her to hold, although Nikoline hasn’t been savvy enough to remember her mittens won’t allow her to scoff them. For now, though, just holding the little box is enough, and she grasps them like a trophy. Lajla says something to her, and she turns to look at Jamie. Then she smiles his own smile back at him, and gives a mittened wave.
When they are finally out of sight Jamie stops staring after them to look at Anna. He looks… she cannot tell.
“Was that OK?” she asks carefully, worried she might have overstepped. And she watches in wonder as he releases his facial muscles from the mask he’s been holding, to let his smile spread across his face.
“That was very OK, Anna.”
