Page 10 of A Copenhagen Snowmance
“God morgen,” Jamie says as she walks gingerly into her-but-not kitchen. His pronunciation is good and sounds exactly like the “G’morn” she returns.
“Is it still morning?” She’s slept like the dead and straight through, which hasn’t happened in a long, long while.
He looks at his watch. “Just.” He’s dressed in jeans and a black Henley, and working at the table. He doesn’t hide his papers away, which she takes as an advancement between them.
“Are you going into work today?” she asks. He just points to the window. Anna doesn’t really need to look. She understands the different light that comes with snow; part of the Nordic upbringing. Although Anna spent much of her childhood in warmer climes, she learned about snow when visiting her grandparents and loved its arrival every year when she’d come to live with them. Before she left, she was delighted by most aspects of the Danish winter; the crisp cold, the long nights, which encourage being at home andhygge, the ice-skating, the snowmen, the sheer prettiness of it all. And from a distance she had thought about it in a nostalgic way or with pride when London came to a halt at a mere dusting. Today, however, Anna has deliberately not looked out of her window, because denial is her friend right now.
“Snow day?” Danes are not put off by snow, so it must be quite extreme out there. Once snow has stopped, pavements need, by law, to be cleared by the homeowners or shopkeepers by eight a.m., allowing the city to keep functioning and safely.
“Should stop this afternoon. They’re saying to only venture out if necessary.”
“I need to call the airline.”
“According to the internet, the airport’s closed until they can clear the runways.”
Anna wishes he hadn’t said it out loud. And she’s not sure what it means that he’s checked. Is he being kind, or checking how soon she’ll leave?
“I’ll just give them a quick ring, see what they’re saying.”
He shrugs, seemingly unbothered by her not taking his word for it, and points at the coffee percolator. She’d almost glided down the stairs to the scent of the brew.
“Ja, tak.”
“Sleep?” he asks as she pours herself a cup. Hmm. He seems a little more amenable today. Perhaps he was knackered from travelling.
“Perfectly. Exhaustedly.” She’s not sure that’s a word, but he doesn’t pick her up on it.
She’d thought she’d lie awake for hours, churning over the strangeness of being back in her old home, in her old city, next to a room in which a man she doesn’t know was sleeping– a man who could be a serial killer, but claims he isn’t, and she hasn’t told anyone where she is. And yet instead she’d been out like a light, only waking to the squeak of the third step and a whispered “Fuck”, which made her smile.
She offers him a refill.
“Other than harassing the airlines, got any plans?” he asks, lifting his mug to accept. She takes a sip of her own before she answers, relishing the taste.
“I could sort through some of the boxes and turf a load of the stuff out, and then I’ll try to combine the storage, so perhaps you could have the room back.”
His brow contracts.
“What?” she asks.
“Will you increase the rent?”
“What? No.”
“I can only afford a place like this because it has a mysterious padlocked room in it,” he says, his wariness of her returning. “A three-bed is out of my price range, and I don’t really need it, so…”
“I’m not going to up the rent, Jamie. I mean, if you ever leave and I rent to someone else, I might, but I’m not doing that for you. That’d be quite unfair, don’t you think?” She’ll also be forever grateful that he let her in.
Jamie’s expression changes to embarrassment. Not something she’s thought possible. Yesterday he’d come across as mainly bolshy. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to imply you were like that. You just don’t know with some people, and I don’t always get it right.”
“What, reading people?”
He studies her for a long beat, then nods. Anna feels Jamie is showing something of himself here, something quite raw in him and she’s touched he feels he can.
“Easily done,” she says, lightly. “Sometimes you think you have the measure of people, you trust them, give them all of you, and then they stab you in the back instead, ripping out your heart and tearing it into pieces in front of you.”
“Oh,” says Jamie, eyes widening. “Not quite my experience, but fair enough. It’s disconcerting, isn’t it?”
“It makes you question everything,” she agrees, quietly. She hasn’t really spoken about it. She hasn’t wanted to tell anyone in London. All they know is she’s a travel writer. “You start wondering whether you read it wrong or assumed too much, and how much is too much and how low a bar should you expect? We generally assume relationships– whether friends or lovers– are reciprocal in value, until something happens, and you realise that the balance in your head was wrong. It’s a bit soul destroying, to be honest.”
