by Helle Helle
‘Is it for curtains?’ she said.
‘That’s what I was thinking. But I think I’ll wait a bit.’
‘You should get some blinds instead, they’re much easier.’
‘Maybe I should,’ I said, and nodded. I put my hands in my pockets and she moved the top rolls back into place.
‘Have a nice day out,’ she said.
I waved to her from the stairs, then went up to the cafeteria and had a piece of Othello cake and a cup of coffee, it was nearly twelve so it was lunch of a sort. I was having these cravings for sweets, I think it had to do with being tired. I ate too much rye bread with brown sugar on if I had nothing else in, even at night. It was doing me no good, the energy left me again as quickly as it came.
I sat in the armchair with my legs up underneath me. I’d stopped sweating by then. I decided to stay at home the next day and get a grip on things. Make an omelette for breakfast and squeeze some oranges. Draw up a plan for all the jobs I needed to do. Hoover and go to the library, find some self-help books. They had to have something on sleeping problems. I had a feeling I needed help in other areas as well, but I didn’t know which. When I covered my ears with my hands there was a rushing noise inside me that sounded like a whole shoreline. It wasn’t worrying in itself. But I had this little flutter under my breastbone, it felt like homesickness. Perhaps it was just acid reflux.
20.
Lars came over a few times a week after his shifts at the nursery. He wore a green anorak and combat trousers, his gardening outfit he called it. His job was transplanting seedlings and potting, thinning out the greenhouses and serving customers. He liked serving customers the best, it made the time go faster. But he enjoyed being outside in the fresh air as well, surrounded by fields with a little seedling between his fingers, and getting paid for it.
We sat on the front step with bottles of beer in our hands. Per had lit a cigarette, he didn’t smoke that much any more. Lars coughed and wafted the smoke away. He put his hand on my arm fleetingly when he stopped. I had a woolly jumper on, Ruth had given it me. She’d knitted it for herself years ago, only now it was too tight over her bum. It was blue and white, an Icelandic pattern, and really comfy. Lars got up and stood in front of us with his beer in one hand.
‘Who wants to chuck a ball about?’
‘Are you sure you’re up to it?’ said Per.
‘You’ll have to carry me off if I’m not,’ said Lars and laughed. He reached his hand out to Per, Per dropped his cigarette on the ground and crushed it under his trainer, then he took hold and Lars pulled him up. His bottle wobbled on the step, I only just managed to catch it.
The game was up against the wall in what we called the barn. I went with them, over to the sunlounger with the rest of the garden furniture at the far end. It was covered in straw. I brushed it away and sat down. They began whipping the little ball back and forth between the wall and the floor with their bare hands, whacking it hard with their open palms, leaping and lunging. I felt a bit out of place on the lounger, half lying down with my arm over my forehead to protect against any stray balls. They were soon warmed up and sweating. They stopped for a break and pulled off their jumpers, and dumped them at my feet. Per bent down and gave me a quick kiss. He tasted of cigarette.
I began to feel cold. After they’d got started again and played for a while I got up and crossed the yard. My wellies were worn thin, I could feel the cobbles under my feet. The lawn in front of the house was spongy and full of moss. Someone had draped a tennis sock over the boxwood by the patio, I went over and picked it up. I could see Hans-Jakob on the sofa, lying down reading the paper, he was home early that day. He saw me and smiled. I carried on round the back and through the bushes. At the edge of the garden a pheasant flew up with a cry, it scraped the top of a bare elderberry bush pathetically. I went for a little walk on the bumpy field. When I came back to the garden Lars was standing by the bushes smiling at me with his anorak over his arm.
‘Been for a hike?’
‘Yes, I was a bit cold. I’m warmer now, though.’
‘So now you’re taking your clothes off?’ he said, and nodded at the tennis sock. I held it up and we looked at it.
‘That’s right,’ I said, and then we laughed.
‘That jumper suits you,’ he said. ‘Did Ruth knit it?’
‘Yes, it was hers.’
‘Lovely people.’
‘I know. I like it here a lot.’
‘I don’t blame you.’
He put his arm under mine all of a sudden and then we crossed through the garden and out onto the cobbles, Per came towards us in his T-shirt.
‘Look, I found a sock,’ I said, and waved it about a bit too jauntily.
‘Here’s your sweetheart,’ said Lars to Per, letting go of my arm and giving me a nudge towards him.
‘So I see,’ said Per.
21.
One day I went for a bike ride while Per was having a nap. I cycled aimlessly in the direction of the nursery, it was late afternoon. The forsythias were in bloom in a few small front gardens. I was soon too hot in my jumper. I stopped to take it off, then carried on in my T-shirt. A smell of seaweed and salt water hung over the fields, they must have been out fertilising. There was a song in my head for a confirmation party. I tried to think of a rhyme for pony, but all I could come up with was stony, phony, bony. The road passed through a little wood, I felt a chill on my arms as I passed through the shade, but then I came out the other side and into the warm air again. I stopped by a solitary tree at the side of the road and folded my jumper tighter on the pannier rack. The sun was very bright. I closed my eyes and turned my face upwards, and stood there for a while. I could hear myself breathing, everything turned red behind my eyelids. The bird we called the bicycle pump chirped somewhere close by, further away I heard the noise of a tractor. I thought: Here I am with only myself. Apart from the sun and the tractor and the bicycle pump. There was a warm breeze against my skin, and my trainers fitted my feet just right, I’d never noticed before. A car approached and I let it go by, my eyes still closed. I wiggled my toes. I stretched my fingers out from the handlebars. By the time I opened my eyes all my thoughts had left me. I got on the bike again and carried slowly on, empty and content. At the nursery I turned down the gravel track, I walked the last bit and leaned the bike against some stacked-up sacks of peat. Lars was in the evergreens behind the goats, I could see his anorak. I looked at the hardy perennials, the grasses and the cactuses, and read all the names. Then I went down to join him, he turned round with a smile, pulled off his glove and gave me his warm, dry hand. He showed me a mahonia shrub, it was a different thing altogether from the tree variety. It was in bloom, with fragrant yellow flowers. We talked for a while. He walked me back to my bike and all the way up the gravel track, where we talked some more.
22.
The library didn’t have anything on sleeping problems and I couldn’t bring myself to ask if they would order something from another branch. I wandered round the shelves. The librarian was on the phone at her desk, she was having a long and convoluted discussion about storage. She scribbled on a piece of paper with a biro while she spoke. Every now and then she held the pen up in front of her eyes and rolled it between her fingers. Her legs stuck out from under the desk. I recognised the socks, they were the same ones they had in the bookshop window. I found a handbook on literature, only it turned out to be reference only. Instead, I took out a stack of women’s magazines and a book of poetry by a girl from Reersø. Then I went out again.
There was a commotion in the street. A lorry from the council had stopped in the middle of the road with its exhaust fuming, it looked like the driver had gone to the chemist’s. Behind it was a rubbish truck that couldn’t get past, two irate binmen stood in their overalls agreeing with a pedestrian that it wasn’t on. The pedestrian’s dog had seen something, it was barking madly and straining on the lead. A man in a car blew his horn rhythmically. At the bakery, the assistant s
tood watching on the step outside. I stopped at the window and looked at the eclairs and the puff pastries with cream.
‘Be right with you,’ she said, and opened the door for me. I hadn’t actually thought of buying anything.
‘What a kerfuffle,’ she said.
She was about the same age as me. It looked like she might have worked there for quite a while, the way she rearranged the teacakes and brushed away the crumbs. I decided on a pastry snail. As I put the change in my purse the door opened and a stout woman in cropped trousers came in with some difficulty. She leaned over the counter.
‘How much are your Linzer tortes?’
‘Five fifty.’
‘How much are your raspberry slices?’
‘Five fifty as well.’
‘In that case, I think I’ll have a raspberry slice.’
The girl grabbed the one at the front with the tongs and put it in a paper bag. She held the bag open, the woman was still looking.
‘How much are your Napoleon hats?’
‘Six kroner.’
‘Six exactly?’
‘Yes.’
‘In that case, I think I’ll have a Napoleon hat as well.’
‘Is it all right in the same bag?’
‘Is what all right?’
‘The bag. Is it all right in the same bag?’
‘I should think so. I don’t see why not,’ the woman said, and began searching for the right change. I went out with my carrier bag from the library and my pastry snail. The man from the council got into his lorry outside the chemist’s, tooted his horn and pulled away with the rubbish truck and the rest of the traffic, a pickup and a pensioner on a moped, following on behind. The procession moved slowly down Østergade. I walked home thinking about the girl at the baker’s and what kind of life she had, that and the word kerfuffle. When I came round the corner opposite the station my mum was getting out of the car in front of my house. I turned back quickly towards the pub and stood behind the fence at the back entrance. There was a voice in the kitchen talking about potato salad, the window was wide open. A man came out with an overfilled bin bag. He nodded politely. I walked over to the supermarket car park, then took the short cut round the side of the station. The car was still outside the house, but my mum was nowhere to be seen. I stood behind a tree for a bit, then scurried round the back of the station all the way to the end of the platform. I stepped behind the bushes. It was half past one. The trees on the other side had turned yellow and red, every little gust of wind sent leaves fluttering onto the tracks. I waited a quarter of an hour before going back. The car was gone by then. My mum had pushed a note through the letter box and left a pack of coffee in the shed.
I couldn’t enjoy that pastry snail. I sat in bed and nibbled at it while flicking through the magazines from the library. One of them had an article about lethargy entitled ‘slugs and snails’. I tried to remember the rest of the rhyme but couldn’t, all I could think about was the coincidence of snails. I made coffee out of my mum’s coffee. I’d run out of milk so I had to sweeten it more than usual.
In the evening I hung a big bath towel and a sheet up in front of the windows in the front room and tried on all my clothes. I carried the mirror in from the hall. I painted my nails and decided I needed a new look and a new way of thinking and walking. I even thought I might put a piece together for a newspaper, I just didn’t know what about. There was nothing in particular I was good at, except perhaps writing lyrics for party songs, but I didn’t even do that any more. Instead, I wrote a list of things I ought to see and do in Copenhagen. I was full of good ideas. For once, I fell asleep straight away, but then woke up again far too early. The front room looked like an explosion in a second-hand shop, and I’d got nail varnish on the lamp. I tidied up and got dressed. I was ready before six. I caught the five-past-nine.
23.
Instead of going on to Copenhagen I got off at Ringsted and walked up to the smørrebrød shop. Dorte was standing on the step round the back having a fag. A smell of roast meat was coming from inside. She threw out her arms when she saw me.
‘Hello, love, what a nice surprise. What brings you here?’
She gave me a hug, holding the cigarette at arm’s length, and kissed me on the cheek.
‘We haven’t got lectures today,’ I said.
‘How come?’
‘We just don’t have them every day.’
‘Well then, come in. It’s lovely to see you. Are you in the dumps?’
‘Not really.’
‘Yes, you are. I can tell.’
‘No, I’m just tired, that’s all.’
‘I can see that. Your eyes are all wrong.’
‘I’m not sleeping very well.’
‘Is it the trains?’
‘No, I quite like the trains.’
‘You like the house all right, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Well, you look gorgeous no matter how tired you are,’ she said and kissed me again, then we went into the kitchen, she got a cup out for me and poured me a coffee from the Thermos on the table.
‘Do you fancy a cheese sandwich?’ she said.
‘No, thanks.’
‘Are you slimming?’
‘Sort of.’
‘What do you think of this, by the way?’ she said, extending her fingers towards me. Her nails were coral-coloured, they looked nice against her hands.
‘It looks nice against your hands,’ I said.
‘Yes, I think so too. That’s nice, though,’ she said, indicating my own fingers with their short, plum-coloured nails.
‘I’ve got fat fingers,’ I said, and fluttered them about.
‘You have not.’
‘I have too.’
‘Your hair suits you when you put it up like that,’ she said.
‘Above the ears, you mean?’
‘A bit piled up, with stray strands. I like that. How come you aren’t sleeping?’
I shrugged.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Can you keep up with your studies?’
‘Mm.’
‘Do you like the course? Are you getting on all right with it?’
‘Yes, fine.’
‘Fine means not fine at all.’
‘No, it doesn’t. Fine’s fine,’ I said and gulped a mouthful of coffee. She did likewise, then wiped the outline of her lipstick with her finger.
‘Well, I’m pleased.’
‘Mm.’
‘Do you remember the time I lay awake in Lübeck?’ she said. I remembered it well and nodded. She’d been on a coach trip with a new man. He was tall and ruddy, she fitted under his arm when they walked along the street. She’d never had one as tall as him before, but fortunately he had a paunch as well. I can’t be doing with a man with no belly, she always said. The coach left from in front of the train station in Næstved, it turned out she knew some of the people who were going. They all stood with their luggage, chattering in the early-morning light. She had her cobalt-blue trouser suit on and a scarf that billowed nicely about her neck in the wind. They all seemed so happy and excited. Every time she said hello to someone new, her laughter increased. She threw her hands in the air and laughed and laughed at her own excitement. They’d booked a room with a balcony, she thought they might sit out with a bottle of prosecco and some Twiglets. She got the window seat on the coach, there was a little carton of juice in the pocket in front of every seat, she could hardly sit still.
‘Oh, look at this! There’s juice,’ she said. And then shortly afterwards:
‘Look at the roundabout there! Look at that girl!’
And the next moment as they left the town:
‘Look at all those birds. I’ve never seen so many!’
‘They’re called seagulls,’ said the woman in the seat behind, and some people began to laugh. Dorte laughed even louder then and twisted round in her seat half standing up. She put her hand on top of the woman’s on the headrest.
&nbs
p; ‘Are they really seagulls? I think I’m dyslexic with birds.’
After she sat down again and had been quiet for a second with a smile still on her face, her boyfriend leaned over and said:
‘I think you should settle down now, don’t you?’
It was as if all the life drained away from her. She couldn’t say how it happened. The corners of her mouth drooped. Her arms went limp. She turned her head away and looked out at the fresh green fields and trees and the roe deer as they ran. Nothing had ever seemed so sad to her. And they hadn’t even got as far as Mogenstrup. Her hands lay dead in her lap on top of her cobalt-blue trousers. She thought: I’m nothing but an empty frame. After Bårse, her boyfriend looked at her with a smile.
‘Aren’t you going to have your juice, Dorte?’
She couldn’t answer. All she could do was shake her head, the slightest of movements.
‘Eh?’
‘I can’t,’ she whispered, and turned very slowly away, stared out at the blue sky, the white trails left by the planes, the life that wasn’t going to be hers after all, woods all to no use. On the ferry crossing from Rødby to Puttgarden she cheered up briefly when she bought a lipstick and the girl in the shop complimented her on her choice.
‘Such a lovely colour, that.’
‘Yes, it’s nice,’ she managed to say with a little smile.
But the three days they were in Lübeck she hardly said a word. She poked at her schnitzels, and raised her glass without drinking whenever anyone said cheers. Both nights she lay stretched out on her back with her eyes wide open, it was like they wouldn’t close. She hadn’t a thought in her head, only emptiness. She didn’t fall asleep until they were on the bus home, they were on the outskirts of Oldenburg and it was only for fifteen minutes, but when she woke up she wanted a cup of coffee. A big one, and black. Preferably her own at home, followed by a good film and a foot bath. All by herself in her own cosy flat, and as soon as she found time she was going to change all the furniture around. When the thought came to her that the sofa would go better by the window, she realised she was starting to perk up again.